Accidents > Life and most surprising adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, mariner, who lived eight and twenty years in an uninhabited island on the coast of America, near the mouth of the great river Oroonoque

i34 ROBINSON CRUSOE.
we had the comfortable views of his Spirit leading
us into the truth, and making us both willing and
obedient to the inftrudtion of his word. And as the
knowledge and practice of this are the principal
means of falvation, I cannot fee what it avails any
Chriftian church or man in the world, to amufe
themfelves with every indifferent fpeculation and opi¬
nion, except thofe who have a mind to difplay their
particular vanity and affedfation.
You may well fuppofe that, by the frequent dif-
courfes we had together, my man and I became mod:
intimately acquainted, and that there was but very
little that I could fay, but Friday underftood,fpeaking
very fluently, tho’ indeed it was but broken Englifh.
And really I now took a particular pleafure in relating
all my adventures, efpecially thofe that occurred fince
my being call: on this ifland. I made him underffand
that wonderful myftery, as he conceived, of gunpow¬
der and bullet, and taught him how to fhoot: I alfo
prefented him a knife, whichpleafedhimexceedingly;
making him a belt with a frog hanging thereto, like
thofe in which we wear hangers in England ; and in-
ftead of a hanger to put in that frog, I gave him a
hatchet, which was not only as good, but even a bet¬
ter weapon upon any occafion. In a word, my man
thus accoutred, looked upon himfelf as great as Don
ghiixote, when that celebrated champion went to
combat the wind-mill.
After all this, I gave him a very particular defcrip-
tion of the territories of Europe, and in a particular
manner of Old England, the place of my nativity. I
laid before him the manner of our worfhiping God,
our behaviour to one another, and how we traded in
fhips to every part of the univerfe. I then told him
my misfortunes in being fliipwrecked, Browing him,
as near as I could, the place where the fhip lay, which
had been long gone before. I brought him to the
ruins of my boat, which before my whole ftrength
could