AND ITS TWO INHABITANTS, 276

life and salvation, to a stated reformation in practice and obedience
to all God’s commands, and this without any teacher or instructor
(I mean human), so the same plain instruction sufficiently served
to the enlightening this savage creature, and bringing him to be
such a Christian as I have known few equal to him in my life.

As to all the disputes, wranglings, strife and contention which
has happened in the world about religion, whether niceties in
doctrines or schemes of church government, they were all perfectly
useless to us, as, for aught I can yet see, they have been to all the
rest in the world. We had the sure guide to heaven—namely, thé
Word of God; and we had, blessed be God, comfortable views of
the Spirit of God, teaching and instructing us by his Word,
leading us into all truth, and making us both willing and obedient
to the instruction of his Word; and I cannot see the least use that
the greatest knowledge of the disputed points in religion, which
have made such confusions in the world, would have been to us if
we could have obtained it. But I must go on with the historical
part of things, and take every part in its order.

After Friday and I became more intimately acquainted, and
that he could understand almost all I said to him, and speak
fluently, though in broken English, to me, I acquainted him with
my own story, or at least so much of it as related to my coming
into the place, how I had lived there, and how long. I let him
into the mystery, for such it was to him, of gunpowder and bullet,
and taught him how to shoot. I gave him a knife, which he was
wonderfully delighted with; and I made him a belt, with a frog
hanging to it, such as in England we wear hangers in; and in the
frog, instead of a hanger, I gave him a hatchet, which was not
only as good a weapon in some cases, but much more useful upon
other occasions.

I described to him the country of Kurope, and particularly
England, which I came from; how we lived, how we worshipped
God, how we behaved to one another, and how we traded in ships
to all parts of the world. I gave him an account of the wreck
which J had been on board of, and showed him as near as I could
the place where she lay; but she was all beaten in pieccs before,
and gone.