ROBINSON CRUSOE. 115

my mind with hopes ; and this was comparing my present sit-
uation with what I had deserved, and had therefore reason to
expect from the hand of Providence. I had lived a dreadful
life, perfectly destitute of the knowledge and fear of God. I
had been well instructed by father and mother; neither had
they been wanting to me, in their early endeavors to infuse a
religious awe of God into my mind, a sense of my duty, and
what the nature and end of my being required of me. But
alas! falling early into the seafaring life, which, of all lives,
is the most destitute of the fear of God, though his terrors are
always before them ; I say, falling early into the seafaring life,
and into seafaring company, all that little sense of religion
which I had entertained was laughed out of me by my mess-
mates ; by a hardened despising of dangers, and the views of
death, which grew habitual to me; by my long absence from
all manner of opportunities to converse with anything but what
was like myself, or to hear anything that was good, or tended
towards it.

So void was I of everything that was good, or the least
sense of what I was, or was to be, that in the greatest deliver-
ances I enjoyed—such as my escape from Sallee; my being
taken up by the Portuguese master of the ship; my being
planted so well in the Brazils; my receiving the cargo from
England, and the like—I never had once the words, “Thank
God,” so much as on my mind, or in my mouth; nor in the
greatest distress had I so much as a thought to pray to him, or
so much as to say, “ Lord, have mercy upon me!” no, nor to
mention the name of God, unless it was to swear by and blas-
pheme it.

I had terrible reflections upon my mind for many months,
as I have already observed, on account of my wicked and hard-
ened life past ; and when I looked about me, and considered
what particular providences had attended me since my coming
into this place, and how God had dealt bountifully with me,—
had not only punished me less than my iniquity had deserved,
but had so plentifully provided for me, this gave me great hopes
that my repentance was accepted, and that God had yet mercy
in store for me.

With these reflections, I worked my mind up, not only to a
resignation to the will of God in the present disposition of my
circumstances, but even to a sincere thankfulness for my condi-
tion ; and that I, who was yet a living man, ought not to com-
plain, seeing I had not the due punishment of my sins; that I
enjoyed so many mercies which I had no reason to have ex-