MISSIONARIES. 285 
have been exposed to very imminent dan¬ 
ger*. 
The Indians,, who yet remain ignorant of 
divine revelation, seem almost universally to 
believe in the existence of one supreme, bene¬ 
ficent, all-wise, and all-powerful spirit, and 
likewise in the existence of subordinate spirits, 
both good and bad. The former having the 
good of mankind at heart, they think it need¬ 
less to pay homage to them, and it is only to 
the evil ones, of whom they have an innate 
dread, that they pay their devotions, in order to 
* The great difficulty of converting the Indians to Chris¬ 
tianity does not rise from their attachment to their own reli¬ 
gion, where they have any, so much as from certain habits 
which they seem to have imbibed with the very milk of their 
mothers. 
A French missionary relates, that he was once endeavouring 
to convert an Indian, by describing to him the rewards th,at 
would attend the good, a»d the dreadful punishment which 
must inevitably await the wicked, in a future world, when 
the Indian, who had some time before lost his dearest friend, 
suddenly interrupted him, by asking him whether he thought 
his departed friend was gone to heaven or to hell. I sin¬ 
cerely trust, answered the missionary, that he is in heaven. 
Then I will do as you bid me, added the Indian, and lead a 
sober life, for I should like to go to the place where my friend 
is. Had he, on the contrary, been told that his friend was 
in hell, all that the reverend father could have said to him of 
lire and brimstone would have been of little avail in persua¬ 
ding him to have led any other than the most dissolute life, 
in hopes of meeting with his friend to sympathise with him 
under his sufferings. 
