edge 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.

I endeavoured to clear up this