In this thankful frame I continued 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 found in a sublunary state. The 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 to reading the Scripture, and to let him know now as well as I could the meaning of what I read; and he again, by his serious inquiries and questions, made me, as I said before, a much better scholar in the Scripture knowledge, than I should ever have been by my own private reading. Another thing I cannot refrain from observing here also from experience, in this retired part of my life; namely, 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 of practice, and obedience to all God’s commands, and this without any teacher or instructor (I mean human); so the 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 the disputes, wranglings, 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, as, for aught I can yet see, they have been to all the rest in the world. We had the sure guide to heaven, namely, the Word of God; and we had, blessed be God! comfortable views of the Spirit of God, teaching and instructing us 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 in religion, which have made such confusions in the world, would have been to us, if we could have obtained it. But I must go on with the historical part of things, and take every part in its order.
After Friday and I became more intimately acquainted, and when he could understand almost all I said to him, and speak fluently, though in broken English, to me, I acquainted him with my own story, or at least so much of it as related to my coming into the place, how I had lived there, and how long; I let him into the mystery (for such it was to him) of gunpowder and bullets, and taught him how to shoot: I gave him a knife, which he was wonderfully delighted with; and I made him a belt with a frog hanging to it, such as in England we wear hangers in; and in the frog, instead of a hanger, I gave him a hatchet, which was not only as good a weapon in some cases, but much more useful upon many occasions.
I described to him the countries of Europe, and particularly England, which I came from; how we lived, how we worshipped God, how we behaved to one another, and how we traded in ships to all the parts of the world. I gave him an account of the wreck which I had been on board of, and showed him, as near as I could, the place where she lay; but she was all beaten in pieces long before, and quite gone.
I showed him the ruins of our boat, which we lost when we escaped, and which I could not stir with my whole strength then, but was now fallen almost all to pieces. Upon seeing this boat, Friday stood musing a great while, and said nothing; I asked him what it was he studied upon? At last, says he, “Me see such boat like come to place at my nation.”