340 ROBINSON CRUSOE.

concern himself for us; and begged he would explain the
articulars of wnat he had observed, that like Joshua, to take
his own parable, I might put away the accursed thing from us.
“Why, then, sir,” says he, “I will take the liberty you give
me. and there are three things, which, if I am right, must stand
in the way of God’s blessing upon your endeavors here, and
which I should rejoice, for your sake and their own, to see re-
moved. And, sir, I promise myself that you will fully agree
with me in them all, as soon as I name them ; especially,
because I shall convince you that every one of them may, with
great ease and very much to your satisfaction, be remedied.
First, sir,” says he, “‘you have here four Englishmen, who have
fetched women from among the savages, and have taken them
as their wives, and have had many children by them all, and
yet are not married to them after any stated legal manner, as
the laws of God and man require ; and therefore are yet, in the
sense of both, no less than tornicators, if not living in adultery.
To this, sir, I know you will object that there was no clergyman
or priest of any kind, or any profession, to perform the cere-
mony ; nor any pen and ink, or paper, to write down acontract
ef marriage, and have it signed between them, And I know
also, sir, what the Spaniard governor has told you ; I mean, of
the agreement that he obliged them to make when they took
those women, viz. : that they should choose them out by consent,
and keep separately to them ; which, by the way, is nothing of
a marriage, no agreement with the women, as wives, but only
an agreement among themselves, to keep them from quarrelling.
But, sir, the essence of the sacrament of matrimony (so he
called it, being a Roman) consists not only in the mutual con-
sent of the parties to take one another as man and wife, but in
the formal and legal obligation that there is in the contract, to
compel the man and woman, at all times, to own and acknowl-
edge each other; obliging the man to abstain from all other
women, to engage in no other contract while these subsist ; and,
on all occasions, as ability allows, to provide honestly for them
and their children; and to oblige the women to the same or
like conditions, mutatis mutandis, on their side. Now, sir,” says
he, ‘these men may, when they please, or when occasion pre-
sents, abandon these women, disown their children, leave them
to perish, and take other women, and marry them while these
are living ;” and here he added, with some warmth, “ How, sir,
is God honored in this unlawful liberty? And how shall a
blessing succeed your endeavors in this place, however good in
themselves, and however sincere in your design, while these