one way in the morning, the other in the afternoon. This I understood to be no more than the sets of the tide,
as going out or coming in; but I afterwards understood it was occasioned by the great draft and reflux of the
mighty river Orinoco, in the mouth or gulf of which river, as I found afterwards, our island lay; and that this
land, which I perceived to be W. and NW., was the great island Trinidad, on the north point of the mouth of
the river. I asked Friday a thousand questions about the country, the inhabitants, the sea, the coast, and what
nations were near; he told me all he knew with the greatest openness imaginable. I asked him the names of
the several nations of his sort of people, but could get no other name than Caribs; from whence I easily
understood that these were the Caribbees, which our maps place on the part of America which reaches from
the mouth of the river Orinoco to Guiana, and onwards to St. Martha. He told me that up a great way beyond
the moon, that was beyond the setting of the moon, which must be west from their country, there dwelt white
bearded men, like me, and pointed to my great whiskers, which I mentioned before; and that they had killed
much mans, that was his word: by all which I understood he meant the Spaniards, whose cruelties in America
had been spread over the whole country, and were remembered by all the nations from father to son.
I inquired if he could tell me how I might go from this island, and get among those white men. He told me,
"Yes, yes, you may go in two canoe." I could not understand what he meant, or make him describe to me
what he meant by two canoe, till at last, with great difficulty, I found he meant it must be in a large boat, as
big as two canoes. This part of Friday's discourse I began to relish very well; and from this time I entertained
some hopes that, one time or other, I might find an opportunity to make my escape from this place, and that
this poor savage might be a means to help me.
During the long time that Friday had now been with me, and that he began to speak to me, and understand
me, I was not wanting to lay a foundation of religious knowledge in his mind; particularly I asked him one
time, who made him. The creature did not understand me at all, but thought I had asked who was his father .
but I took it up by another handle, and asked him who made the sea, the ground we walked on, and the hills
and woods. He told me, "It was one Benamuckee, that lived beyond all;" he could describe nothing of this
great person, but that he was very old, "much older," he said, "than the sea or land, than the moon or the
stars." I asked him then, if this old person had made all things, why did not all things worship him? He looked
very grave, and, with a perfect look of innocence, said, "All things say O to him." I asked him if the people
who die in his country went away anywhere? He said, "Yes; they all went to Benamuckee." Then I asked him
whether those they eat up went thither too. He said, "Yes."
From these things, I began to instruct him in the knowledge of the true God; I told him that the great Maker
of all things lived up there, pointing up towards heaven; that He governed the world by the same power and
providence by which He made it; that He was omnipotent, and could do everything for us, give everything to
us, take everything from us; and thus, by degrees, I opened his eyes. He listened with great attention, and
received with pleasure the notion of Jesus Christ being sent to redeem us; and of the manner of making our
prayers to God, and His being able to hear us, even in heaven. He told me one day, that if our God could hear
us, up beyond the sun, he must needs be a greater God than their Benamuckee, who lived but a little way off,
and yet could not hear till they went up to the great mountains where he dwelt to speak to them. I asked him
if ever he went thither to speak to him. He said, "No; they never went that were young men; none went thither
but the old men," whom he called their Oowokakee; that is, as I made him explain to me, their religious, or
clergy; and that they went to say O (so he called saying prayers), and then came back and told them what
Benamuckee said. By this I observed, that there is priestcraft even among the most blinded, ignorant pagans
in the world; and the policy of making a secret of religion, in order to preserve the veneration of the people to
the clergy, not only to be found in the Roman, but, perhaps, among all religions in the world, even among the
most brutish and barbarous savages.
CHAPTER XV . FRIDAY'S EDUCATION
Robinson Crusoe
I endeavoured to clear up this fraud to my man Friday; and told him that the pretence of their old men going
up to the mountains to say O to their god Benamuckee was a cheat; and their bringing word from thence what
he said was much more so; that if they met with any answer, or spake with any one there, it must be with an
evil spirit; and then I entered into a long discourse with him about the devil, the origin of him, his rebellion
against God, his enmity to man, the reason of it, his setting himself up in the dark parts of the world to be
worshipped instead of God, and as God, and the many stratagems he made use of to delude mankind to their
ruin; how he had a secret access to our passions and to our affections, and to adapt his snares to our
inclinations, so as to cause us even to be our own tempters, and run upon our destruction by our own choice.
I found it was not so easy to imprint right notions in his mind about the devil as it was about the being of a
God. Nature assisted all my arguments to evidence to him even the necessity of a great First Cause, an
overruling, governing Power, a secret directing Providence, and of the equity and justice of paying homage to
Him that made us, and the like; but there appeared nothing of this kind in the notion of an evil spirit, of his
origin, his being, his nature, and above all, of his inclination to do evil, and to draw us in to do so too; and the
poor creature puzzled me once in such a manner, by a question merely natural and innocent, that I scarce
knew what to say to him. I had been talking a great deal to him of the power of God, His omnipotence, His
aversion to sin, His being a consuming fire to the workers of iniquity; how, as He had made us all, He could
destroy us and all the world in a moment; and he listened with great seriousness to me all the while. After this
I had been telling him how the devil was God's enemy in the hearts of men, and used all his malice and skill
to defeat the good designs of Providence, and to ruin the kingdom of Christ in the world, and the like. "Well,"
says Friday, "but you say God is so strong, so great; is He not much strong, much might as the devil?" "Yes,
yes," says I, "Friday; God is stronger than the devil . God is above the devil, and therefore we pray to God to
tread him down under our feet, and enable us to resist his temptations and quench his fiery darts." "But," says
he again, "if God much stronger, much might as the wicked devil, why God no kill the devil, so make him no
more do wicked?" I was strangely surprised at this question; and, after all, though I was now an old man, yet I
was but a young doctor, and ill qualified for a casuist or a solver of difficulties; and at first I could not tell
what to say; so I pretended not to hear him, and asked him what he said; but he was too earnest for an answer
to forget his question, so that he repeated it in the very same broken words as above. By this time I had
recovered myself a little, and I said, "God will at last punish him severely; he is reserved for the judgment,
and is to be cast into the bottomless pit, to dwell with everlasting fire." This did not satisfy Friday; but he
returns upon me, repeating my words, "'RESERVE AT LAST!' me no understand . but why not kill the devil
now; not kill great ago?" "You may as well ask me," said I, "why God does not kill you or me, when we do
wicked things here that offend Him . we are preserved to repent and be pardoned." He mused some time on
this. "Well, well," says he, mighty affectionately, "that well . so you, I, devil, all wicked, all preserve, repent,
God pardon all." Here I was run down again by him to the last degree; and it was a testimony to me, how the
mere notions of nature, though they will guide reasonable creatures to the knowledge of a God, and of a
worship or homage due to the supreme being of God, as the consequence of our nature, yet nothing but divine
revelation can form the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and of redemption purchased for us; of a Mediator of the
new covenant, and of an Intercessor at the footstool of God's throne; I say, nothing but a revelation from
Heaven can form these in the soul; and that, therefore, the gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, I
mean the Word of God, and the Spirit of God, promised for the guide and sanctifier of His people, are the
absolutely necessary instructors of the souls of men in the saving knowledge of God and the means of
salvation.
I therefore diverted the present discourse between me and my man, rising up hastily, as upon some sudden
occasion of going out; then sending him for something a good way off, I seriously prayed to God that He
would enable me to instruct savingly this poor savage; assisting, by His Spirit, the heart of the poor ignorant
creature to receive the light of the knowledge of God in Christ, reconciling him to Himself, and would guide
me so to speak to him from the Word of God that his conscience might be convinced, his eyes opened, and
his soul saved. When he came again to me, I entered into a long discourse with him upon the subject of the
redemption of man by the Saviour of the world, and of the doctrine of the gospel preached from Heaven, viz.
CHAPTER XV . FRIDAY'S EDUCATION
Robinson Crusoe
of repentance towards God, and faith in our blessed Lord Jesus. I then explained to him as well as I could
why our blessed Redeemer took not on Him the nature of angels but the seed of Abraham; and how, for that
reason, the fallen angels had no share in the redemption; that He came only to the lost sheep of the house of
Israel, and the like.
I had, God knows, more sincerity than knowledge in all the methods I took for this poor creature's instruction,
and must acknowledge, what I believe all that act upon the same principle will find, that in laying things open
to him, I really informed and instructed myself in many things that either I did not know or had not fully
considered before, but which occurred naturally to my mind upon searching into them, for the information of
this poor savage; and I had more affection in my inquiry after things upon this occasion than ever I felt
before: so that, whether this poor wild wretch was better for me or no, I had great reason to be thankful that
ever he came to me; my grief sat lighter, upon me; my habitation grew comfortable to me beyond measure:
and when I reflected that in this solitary life which I have been confined to, I had not only been moved to
look up to heaven myself, and to seek the Hand that had brought me here, but was now to be made an
instrument, under Providence, to save the life, and, for aught I knew, the soul of a poor savage, and bring him
to the true knowledge of religion and of the Christian doctrine, that he might know Christ Jesus, in whom is
life eternal; I say, when I reflected upon all these things, a secret joy ran through every part of My soul, and I
frequently rejoiced that ever I was brought to this place, which I had so often thought the most dreadful of all
afflictions that could possibly have befallen me.
I continued in this thankful frame all the remainder of my time; and the conversation which employed the
hours between Friday and me was such as made the three years which we lived there together perfectly and
completely happy, if any such thing as complete happiness can be formed in a sublunary state. This savage
was now a good Christian, a much better than I; though I have reason to hope, and bless God for it, that we
were equally penitent, and comforted, restored penitents. We had here the Word of God to read, and no
farther off from His Spirit to instruct than if we had been in England. I always applied myself, in reading the
Scripture, to let him know, as well as I could, the meaning of what I read; and he again, by his serious
inquiries and questionings, made me, as I said before, a much better scholar in the Scripture knowledge than I
should ever have been by my own mere private reading. Another thing I cannot refrain from observing here
also, from experience in this retired part of my life, viz. how infinite and inexpressible a blessing it is that the
knowledge of God, and of the doctrine of salvation by Christ Jesus, is so plainly laid down in the Word of
God, so easy to be received and understood, that, as the bare reading the Scripture made me capable of
understanding enough of my duty to carry me directly on to the great work of sincere repentance for my sins,
and laying hold of a Saviour for life and salvation, to a stated reformation in practice, and obedience to all
God's commands, and this without any teacher or instructor, I mean human; so the same plain instruction
sufficiently served to the enlightening this savage creature, and bringing him to be such a Christian as I have
known few equal to him in my life.
As to all the disputes, wrangling, strife, and contention which have happened in the world about religion,
whether niceties in doctrines or schemes of church government, they were all perfectly useless to us, and, for
aught I can yet see, they have been so to the rest of the world. We had the sure guide to heaven, viz. the Word
of God; and we had, blessed be God, comfortable views of the Spirit of God teaching and instructing by His
word, leading us into all truth, and making us both willing and obedient to the instruction of His word. And I
cannot see the least use that the greatest knowledge of the disputed points of religion, which have made such
confusion in the world, would have been to us, if we could have obtained it. But I must go on with the
