242 A CRAVING AFTER SOCIETY.

condition; and that of two ships’ companies who were now cast
away upon this part of the world, not one life should be spared
but mine. I learned here again to observe that it is very rare
that the providence of God casts us into any condition of life so
low, or any misery so great, but we may see something or other
to be thankful for, and may see others in worse circumstances than
our own.

Such certainly was the case of these men, of whom I could not
s0 much as see room to suppose any of them were saved. Nothing
could make it rational, so much as to wish or expect that they did
not all perish there, except the possibility only of their being taken
up by another ship in company ; and this was but mere possibility
indeed, for I saw not the least signal or appearance of any such thing.

I cannot explain by any possible energy of words what a strange
longing or hankering of desires I felt in my soul upon this sight,
breaking out sometimes thus: “ Oh that there had been but one or
two—nay, or but one soul saved out of this ship, to have escaped
to me; that I might but have had one companion, one fellow-
creature to have spoken to me, and to have conversed with.” In
all the time of my solitary life I never felt so earnest, so strong a
desire after the society of my fellow-creatures, or so deep a regret
at the want of it.

There are some secret moving springs in the affections, which,
when they are set agoing by some object in view, or be it some
object, though not in view, yet rendered present to the mind by
the power of imagination, that motion carries out the soul by its
impetuosity to such violent eager embracings of the object, that
the absence of it is unsupportable.

Such were these earnest wishings that but one man had been
saved! ‘Qh, that it had been but one!” I believe I repeated
the words, “Oh, that it had been but one!” a thousand times; and
the desires were so moved by it, that when I spoke the words my
hands would clinch together, and my fingers press the palms of my
hands, that if I had had any soft thing in my hand, it would have
crushed it involuntarily; and my teeth in my head would strike
together, and set against one another so strong, that for some time
I could not part them again.