270 THERE IS BUT ONE GOD.

till at last, with great difficulty, I found he meant it must be in a
large, great boat, as big as two canoes.

This part of Friday’s discourse began to relish with me very
well, and from this time I entertained some hopes that, one time
or other, I might find an opportunity to make my escape from
this place, and that this poor savage might be a means to help me
to do it.

During the long time that Friday has now been with me, and that
he began to speak to me, and understand me, I was not wanting to
lay a foundation of religious knowledge in his mind. Particularly,
T asked him one time, ““ Who made him?” The poor creature did
not understand me at all, but thought I had asked who was his
father? But I took it by another handle, and asked him who made
the sea, the ground we walked on, and the hills and woods? He
told me it was one old Benamuckee, that lived beyond all. He
could describe nothing of this great person, but that he was very
old; much older, he said, than the sea or the land, than the moon
or the stars. I asked him then, “If this old person had made all
things, why did not all things worship him?” He looked very
grave, and with a perfect look of innocence said, “‘ All things do
say O to him.” I asked him if the people who die in his country
went away anywhere? He said, “Yes; they all went to Bena-
muckee.” Then I asked him whether those they ate up went
thither too? He said, “ Yes.”

From these things I began to instruct him in the knowledge of
the true God. I told him that the great Maker of all things lived
up there, pointing up towards heaven; that he governs the world
by the same power and providence by which he had made it; that
he was omnipotent—could do everything for us, give everything to
us, take everything from us: and thus, by degrees, I opened his
eyes. He listened with great attention, and received with pleasure
the notion of Jesus Christ being sent to redeem us; and of the
manner of making our prayers to God, and his being able to hear
us, even into heaven. He told me one day that if our God could
hear us up beyond the sun, he must needs be a greater God than
their Benamuckee, who lived but a little way off, and yet could
not’ hear, until they went up to the great mountains where he