_W.A._ Yes, yes, my dear; he is infinitely good, and infinitely great, and able to punish too; and some times, to shew his justice and vengeance, he lets fly his anger to destroy sinners and make examples; many are cut off in their sins.

_Wife._ But no makee kill you yet; then he tell you, may be, that he no makee you kill, so you make de bargain with him, you do bad ting, he no be angry at you, when he be angry at other mans?

_W.A._ No, indeed, my sins are all presumptions upon his goodness; and he would be infinitely just if he destroyed me as he has done other men.

_Wife._ Well, and yet no kill, no makee you dead! What you say to him for that? You no tell him tankee for all that too!

_W.A._ I am an unthankful, ungrateful dog, that is true.

_Wife._ Why he no makee you much good better? You say he makee you.

_W.A._. He made me as he made all the world; 'tis I have deformed myself, and abused his goodness, and have made myself an abominable wretch.

_Wife._ I wish you makee G.o.d know me; I no makee him angry; I no do bad wicked ting.

[Here Will Atkins said his heart sunk within him, to hear a poor, untaught creature desire to be taught to know G.o.d, and he such a wicked wretch that he could not say one word to her about G.o.d, but what the reproach of his own carriage would make most irrational to her to believe; nay, that already she could not believe in G.o.d, because he that was so wicked was not destroyed.]

_W.A._ My dear, you mean you wish I could teach you to know G.o.d, not G.o.d to know you, for he knows you already, and every thought in your heart.

_Wife._ Why then he know what I say to you now; he know me wish to know him; how shall me know who makee me?

_W.A._ Poor creature, he must teach thee, I cannot teach thee; I'll pray to him to teach thee to know him; and to forgive me that I am unworthy to teach thee.

[The poor fellow was in such an agony at her desiring him to make her know G.o.d, and her wishing to know him, that he said he fell down on his knees before her, and prayed to G.o.d to enlighten her mind with the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, and to pardon his sins, and accept of his being the unworthy instrument of instructing her in the principles of religion; after which he sat down by her again, and their dialogue went on.]

N.B. This was the time when we saw him kneel down and lift up his hands.

_Wife._ What you put down the knee for? What you hold up the hand for?

What you say? Who you speak to? What is that?

_W.A._ My dear, I bow my knees in token of my submission to Him that made me: I said O to him, as you call it, and as you say your old men do to their idol Benamuckee; that is, I prayed to him.

_Wife._ What you say O to him for?

_W.A._ I prayed to him to open your eyes and your understanding, that you may know him, and be accepted by him.

_Wife._ Can he do that too?

_W.A._ Yes, he can; he can do all things.

_Wife._ But he no hear what you say?

_W.A._ Yes, he has bid us pray to him; and promised to hear us.

_Wife._ Bid you pray? When he bid you? How he bid you? What you hear him speak?

_W.A._ No, we do not hear him speak; but he has revealed himself many ways to us.

[Here he was at a great loss to make her understand that G.o.d had revealed himself to us by his word; and what his word was; but at last he told it her thus:]

_W.A._ G.o.d has spoken to some good men in former days, even from heaven, by plain words; and G.o.d has inspired good men by his Spirit; and they have written all his laws down in a book.

_Wife._ Me no understand that: where is book?

_W.A._. Alas! my poor creature, I have not this book; but I hope I shall, one time or other, get it for you to read it.

[Here he embraced her with great affection; but with inexpressible grief, that he had not a Bible.]

_Wife._ But how you makee me know that G.o.d teachee them to write that book?

_W.A._ By the same rule that we know him to be G.o.d.

_Wife._ What rule? what way you know?

_W.A._ Because he teaches and commands nothing but what is good, righteous, and holy, and tends to make us perfectly good, as well as perfectly happy; and because he forbids, and commands us to avoid, all that is wicked, that is evil in itself, or evil in its consequences.

_Wife._ That me would understand, that me fain see; if he reward all good thing, punish all wicked thing, he teachee all good thing, forbid all wicked thing, he makee all thing, he give all thing; he hear me when I say O to him, as you go to do just now; he makee me good if I wish be good; he spare me, no makee kill me when I no be good; all this you say he do: yes, he be great G.o.d; me take, think, believe him be great G.o.d; me say O to him too with you, my dear.

Here the poor man said he could forbear no longer; but, raising her up, made her kneel by him; and he prayed to G.o.d aloud to instruct her in the knowledge of himself by his Spirit; and that by some good providence, if possible, she might some time or other come to have a Bible, that she might read the word of G.o.d, and be taught by him to know him.

[This was the time that we saw him lift her up by the hand, and saw him kneel down by her, as above.]

They had several other discourses, it seems, after this, too long to set down here; and particularly she made him promise, that, since he confessed his own life had been a wicked, abominable course of provocation against G.o.d, he would reform it, and not make G.o.d angry any more, lest he should make him dead, as she called it, and then she should be left alone, and never be taught to know this G.o.d better; and lest he should be miserable, as he told her wicked men should be after death.

This was a strange account, and very affecting to us both, but particularly the young clergyman; he was indeed wonderfully surprised with it; but under the greatest affliction imaginable that he could not talk to her; that he could not speak English to make her understand him; and as she spoke but very broken English he could not understand her.

However, he turned himself to me, and told me, that he believed there must be more to do with this woman than to marry her. I did not understand him at first, but at length he explained himself, viz. that she ought to be baptized.

I agreed with him in that part readily, and was for going about it presently: "No, no; hold, Sir," said he; "though I would have her baptized by all means, yet I must observe, that Will Atkins, her husband, has indeed brought her, in a wonderful manner, to be willing to embrace a religious life; and has given her just ideas of the being of a G.o.d, of his power, justice, and mercy; yet I desire to know of him, if he has said any thing to her of Jesus Christ, and of the salvation of sinners; of the nature of faith in him, and the redemption by him; of the Holy Spirit, the Resurrection, the last judgment, and a future state."

I called Will Atkins again, and asked him; but the poor fellow fell immediately into tears, and told us he had said something to her of all those things, but that he was himself so wicked a creature, and his own conscience so reproached him with his horrid, unG.o.dly life, that he trembled at the apprehensions, that her knowledge of him should lessen the attention she should give to those things, and make her rather contemn religion than receive it: but he was a.s.sured, he said, that her mind was so disposed to receive due impressions of all those things, that, if I would but discourse with her, she would make it appear to my satisfaction that my labour would not be lost upon her.

Accordingly I called her in, and placing myself as interpreter between my religious priest and the woman, I entreated him to begin with her.

But sure such a sermon was never preached by a popish priest in these latter ages of the world: and, as I told him, I thought he had all the zeal, all the knowledge, all the sincerity of a Christian, without the errors of a Roman Catholic; and that I took him to be such a clergyman as the Roman bishops were before the church of Rome a.s.sumed spiritual sovereignty over the consciences of men.

In a word, he brought the poor woman to embrace the knowledge of Christ, and of redemption by him, not with wonder and astonishment only, as she did the first notions of a G.o.d, but with joy and faith, with an affection, and a surprising degree of understanding, scarce to be imagined, much less to be expressed; and at her own request she was baptized.

When he was preparing to baptize her, I entreated him that he would perform that office with some caution, that the man might not perceive he was of the Roman church, if possible; because of other ill consequences which might attend a difference among us in that very religion which we were instructing the other in. He told me, that as he had no consecrated chapel, nor proper things for the office, I should see he would do it in a manner that I should not know by it that he was a Roman Catholic himself it I had not known it before, and so he did; for saying only some words over to himself in Latin, which I could not understand, he poured a whole dishfull of water upon the woman's head, p.r.o.nouncing in French very loud _Mary_ (which was the name her husband desired me to give her, for I was her G.o.dfather,) _I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost_; so that none could know any thing by it what religion he was of: he gave the benediction afterwards in Latin; but either Will Atkins did not know but it was in French, or else did not take notice of it at that time.

As soon as this was over, he married them; and after the marriage was over, he turned himself to Will Atkins, and in a very affectionate manner exhorted him not only to persevere in that good disposition he was in, but to support the convictions that were upon him by a resolution to reform his life; told him it was in vain to say he repented if he did not forsake his crimes; represented to him, how G.o.d had honoured him with being the instrument of bringing his wife to the knowledge of the Christian religion; and that he should be careful he did not dishonour the grace of G.o.d; and that if he did, he would see the heathen a better Christian than himself; the savage converted, and the instrument cast away!

He said a great many good things to them both, and then recommended them, in a few words, to G.o.d's goodness; gave them the benediction again, I repeating every thing to them in English: and thus ended the ceremony. I think it was the most pleasant, agreeable day to me that ever I pa.s.sed in my whole life.

But my clergyman had not done yet; his thoughts hung continually upon the conversion of the thirty-seven savages, and fain he would have staid upon the island to have undertaken it; but I convinced him, first, that his undertaking was impracticable in itself; and secondly, that, perhaps, I could put it into a way of being done, in his absence, to his satisfaction; of which by and by.

Having thus brought the affair of the island to a narrow compa.s.s, I was preparing to go on board the ship when the young man, whom I had taken out of the famished ship's company, came to me, and told me, he understood I had a clergyman with me, and that I had caused the Englishmen to be married to the savages whom they called wives; that he had a match too, which he desired might be finished before I went, between two Christians, which he hoped would not be disagreeable to me.

I knew this must be the young woman who was his mother's servant, for there was no other Christian woman on the island. So I began to persuade him not to do any thing of that kind rashly, or because he found himself in this solitary circ.u.mstance. I represented that he had some considerable substance in the world, and good friends, as I understood by himself, and by his maid also; that the maid was not only poor, and a servant, but was unequal to him, she being twenty-six or twenty-seven years old, and he not above seventeen or eighteen; that he might very probably, with my a.s.sistance, make a remove from this wilderness, and come into his own country again, and that then it would be a thousand to one but he would repent his choice, and the dislike of that circ.u.mstance might be disadvantageous to both. I was going to say more, but he interrupted me, smiling; and told me, with a great deal of modesty, that I mistook in my guesses; that he had nothing of that kind in his thoughts, his present circ.u.mstances being melancholy and disconsolate enough; and he was very glad to hear that I had some thoughts of putting them in a way to see their own country again; and that nothing should have set him upon staying there, but that the voyage I was going was so exceeding long and hazardous, and would carry him quite out of the reach of all his friends; that he had nothing to desire of me, but that I would settle him in some little property of the island where he was; give him a servant or two, and some few necessaries, and he would settle himself here like a planter, waiting the good time when, if ever I returned to England, I would redeem him, and hoped I would not be unmindful of him when I came to England; that he would give me some letters to his friends in London, to let them know how good I had been to him, and what part of the world, and what circ.u.mstances I had left him in; and he promised me, that whenever I redeemed him, the plantation, and all the improvements he had made upon it, let the value be what it would, should be wholly mine.

His discourse was very prettily delivered, considering his youth, and was the more agreeable to me, because he told me positively the match was not for himself. I gave him all possible a.s.surances, that, if I lived to come safe to England, I would deliver his letters, and do his business effectually, and that he might depend I would never forget the circ.u.mstances I left him in. But still I was impatient to know who was the person to be married; upon which he told me it was my Jack of all Trades and his maid Susan.