212 CRUSOE FINDS COMFORT ;

he was able to deliver me; that if he did not think fit to do it,
it was my unquestioned duty to resign myself absolutely and
entirely to his will; and, on the other hand, it was my duty also
to hope in him, pray to him, and quietly to attend the dictates and
directions of his daily providence.

These thoughts took me up many hours, days, nay, I may say,
weeks and months; and one particular effect of my cogitations on
this occasion I cannot omit—namely, one morning early, lying in
my bed, and filled with thought about my danger from the appear-
ance of savages, I found it discomposed me very much; upon
which those words of the Scripture came into my thoughts, “ Call
upon me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver, and thou shalt
glorify me.”

Upon this, rising cheerfully out of my bed, my heart was not
only comforted, but I was guided and encouraged to pray earnestly
to God for deliverance. When I had done praying I took up my
Bible, and opening it to read, the first words that presented to me
were, “ Wait on the Lord, and be of good cheer, and he shall
strengthen thy heart; wait, I say, on the Lord.” It is impossible
to express the comfort this gave me. In answer, I thankfully
laid down the book, and was no more sad—at least, not on that
occasion.

In the middle of these cogitations, apprehensions, and reflections,
it came into my thought one day that all this might be a mere
chimera of my own; and that this foot might be the print of my
own foot when I came on shore from my boat. This cheered me
up a little, too, and I began to persuade myself it was all a de-
lusion; that it was nothing else but my own foot; and why might
not I come that way from the boat as well as I was going that way
to the boat. Again, I considered also that I could by no means tell
for certain where I had trod and where I had not; and that if at
last this was only the print of my own foot, I had played the part
of those fools who strive to make stories of spectres and apparitions,
and then are frighted at them more than anybody.

Now I began to take courage, and to peep abroad again; for I
had not stirred out of my castle for three days and nights, so that
I began to starve for provision; for I had little or nothing within