AN ACCOUNT OF 
m 
THEIR RELIGION. 
There are few people, I believe, among the race of men, 
whom navigation hath brought to our knowledge, who 
have not (hewn, in fome inftance or other, a fenfe of fome- 
thing like religion, however it might be mixed with idola¬ 
try or fuperftition; and yet our people, during their con¬ 
tinuance with the natives of Pelew, never faw any parti¬ 
cular ceremonies, or obferved any thing that had the ap¬ 
pearance of public worfhip.—Indeed, circumftanced as the 
Engli/h were, they had not enough of the language to enter 
on topics of this nature; and it might alfo have been 
indifcreet to have done it, as fuch enquiries might have 
been mifconceived or mifconftrued by the natives. Added 
to this, their thoughts were naturally all bent on getting 
away, and preferving, whilft they remained there, the happy 
intercourfe that fubfifled between them. 
Though there was not found, on any of the iflands they 
vifited, any place appropriated for religious rites, it would 
perhaps be going too far to declare, that the people of Pe¬ 
lew had abfolutely no idea of religion.—Independant of 
external ceremony, there may be fuch a thing as the reli¬ 
gion of the heart, by which the mind may, in awful filence, 
be turned to contemplate the God of Nature ; and though 
inibleffed by thofe lights which have pointed to the Chrif- 
tian 
