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

ROBINSON CRUSOE. 247
like a caflbc with a fafh round it, much refembling
a minifter, and I was his interpreter. But the fe-
rioufnefs of his behaviour, and the fcruples he made
of marrying the women, who were not baptized
gave them an exceeding reverence for his perfon :
Nor indeed would he marry them at all, till he ob¬
tained my liberty to diicourfe both with the men and
women, and then he told them, That in the fight
of all indifferent men, and in the fenfe of the laws
of fociety, they had lived in open adultery, which
nothing now but their confent to marry, or final re¬
paration, could put an end to ; and even here was
a difficulty with refpect to the laws of Chriftian ma¬
trimony, in marrying a profeffied Chriftian to a hea¬
then idolater, unbaptized ; but yet there was time
enough to make them profefs the name of Chrift,
without which nothing could be done : That, be-
fides, he believed themfelves very indifferent Chri-
ftians ; and confequently had not difcourfed with
their wives upon that fubjedt; and that unlefs they
promifed him to do fo, he could not marry them,
as being exprefsly forbidden by the laws of God.
All this they heard attentively, and owned readily.
But, Lord, Sir ! faid Will Atkins to me, koiu Jhould
•we teach them religion, •who know nothing of it onr-
felves P How can we talk to our wives of God, Jefus
Chrift, heaven and hell ? why, they would only laugh
at us, who never yet have praclifed religion, but on the
contrary, all manner of wickednefs. Will Atkins, faid
I, cannot you tell your wife, fhe is in the wrong,
and that her gods are idols, which can neither hear,
fpeak, nor underhand ; but that our God, who has
made, can deftroy all things ; that he rewards the
good, and punilhes the wicked ; and at laft will bring
us to judgment ? Cannot you tell her thefe things ?
That’s true, faid Atkins, but then fhe’ll tell met it
is utterly falfe, fince I am not punifhed and fent to
the devil, who hath been fuch a wicked creature.
Thefe