j6 HISTORY OF THE [BOOK i. 



but the calamities of daily occurrence, the various 

 appearances of physical and moral evil w 7 hich hourly 

 imbitter life, he dared not ascribe to an all-perfect 

 and merciful being. To his limited conception, such 

 a conclusion was derogatory from divine justice, 

 and irreconcileable with infinite wisdom. To what 

 then would he impute these terrifying and inexplica- 

 ble phenomena, but to the malignant influence of 

 impure spirits and aerial demons? The profanations 

 built on such notions certainly throw a light on the 

 Christian religion, if they serve not as a collateral 

 evidence of its divine origin. 



A minute detail of the rites and ceremonies to 

 which these, and other religious tenets, gave birth 

 among the Charaibes, most of them unamiable, many 

 of them cruel, together with an illustration of their 

 conformity to the superstitions of the Pagan theology, 

 would lead me too far; nor is such a disquisition ne- 

 cessary. It is sufficient for me to have shewn, that 

 the foundations of true religion, the belief of a deity, 

 and the expectation of a future state, (to borrow the 

 expression of an eloquent prelate), " are no less con- 

 " formable to the first natural apprehensions of the 



untutored mind, than to the soundest principles of 



philosophy/'J 



' ee 

 K 



I have thus selected and combined, from a mass of 

 discordant materials, a few striking particulars in the 

 character, manners an'd customs of the ancient inhabi- 



> 



J Bishop of Chester's Sermons. 



