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Today we'll be continuing the Life and.

Adventures of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe.

Chapter six ill and conscience stricken.

When I came down to the ship, I found it strangely removed.

The forecastle which lay before buried in sand, was heaved up at least 6ft, and the stern, which was broken pieces, and parted from the rest by the.

Force of the sea.

Soon after I'd left Rummaging, her was tossed, as it were, up and cast on one side.

And the sand was thrown so high on that side next to her stern.

That whereas there was a great place.

Of water before so that I could not come within a quarter of a mile of the wreck without swimming.

I could now walk quite up to her when the tide was out.

I was surprised with this at first, but soon concluded it must be done by the earthquake and as by this violence, the ship was more broke open than formerly.

So many things came daily on shore, which the sea had loosened, and which the winds and water rolled by degrees to the land.

This wholly diverted my thoughts from the design of removing my habitation, and I busied myself mightily that day, especially in searching whether I could make any way into the ship.

But I found nothing was to be expected of that kind, for all the inside of the ship was choked up with sand.

However, as I had learned not to despair of anything, I resolved to pull everything to pieces that I could of the ship, concluding that everything I could get from her would be of some use or other to me.

May 3 I began with my saw and cut a piece of beam through which I thought held some of the upper part or quarter deck together, and when I had cut it through, I cleared away the sand as well as I could from the side which lay highest.

But the tide coming in, I was obliged to give over for that time.

May 4 I went to fishing, but caught not one fish that I durst eat of till I was weary of my sport.

When just going to leave off, I caught a young dolphin.

I had made me a long line of some rope yarn, but I had no hooks yet I frequently caught fish enough, as much as I cared to eat all which I dried in the sun and ate them dry.

May 5 worked on the wreck, cut another beam of thunder, and brought three great fur planks off from the decks, which I tied together and made to float on shore when the tide of flood came on.

May 6 worked on the wreck, got several iron bolts out of her, and other pieces of iron work.

Worked very hard and came home very much tired and had thoughts of giving it over.

May 7 went to the wreck again, not with an intent to work but found the weight of the wreck had broke itself down the beams being cut that several pieces of the ship seemed to lie loose.

And the inside of the hold lay so open that I could see into it.

But it was almost full of water and sand.

May 8 Went to the rack and carried an iron crow to wrench up the deck, which lay now quite clear of the water or sand.

I wrenched open two planks and brought them on shore also with the tide.

I left the iron crow in the wreck for the next day.

May 9 went to the wreck and with a crow made way into the body of the wreck, and felt several casks, and loosened them with the crow, but could not break them up.

I felt also a roll of English lead and could stir it, but it.

Was too heavy to remove.

May 10 to 14th went every day to the wreck and got a great many pieces of timber and boards or plank, and two or 300 weight of iron.

May 15 I carried two hatchets to try if I could not cut a piece off the roll of lead by placing the edge of one hatchet and driving it with the other.

But as it lay about a foot and a half in the water, I could not make any blow to drive the hatchet.

May 16 it had blown hard in the night and the wreck appeared more broken by the force of the water.

But I stayed so long in the woods to get pigeons for food that the tide prevented me going to the wreck that day.

May 17 I saw some pieces of the wreck blown on shore at a great distance near 2 miles off me but resolved to see what they were and found.

It was a piece of the head.

But too heavy for me to bring away.

May 24.

Every day to this day I worked on the wreck and with hard labor I loosened some things.

So much with the crow that the first flowing tide several casks floated out and two of the seamen's chests but the wind blowing from the shore, nothing came to land that day but pieces of timber and the hog's head, which had some Brazil pork in it but the salt water in the sand had spoiled it.

I continued this work every day to the 15 June except the time necessary to get food which I always appointed during this part of my employment to be when the tide was up that I might be ready when it was ebbed out.

And by this time I had got timber and plank and ironwork enough to have built a good boat if I had known how.

And also I got it several times and in several pieces near 100 weight of the sheet lead.

June 16.

Going down to the seaside, I found a large tortoise or turtle.

This was the first I had seen which it seems was only my misfortune not any defect of the place or scarcity for had I happened to be on the other side of the island I might have had hundreds of them every day, as I found afterwards but perhaps had paid dear enough for them.

June 17 I spent in cooking the turtle.

I found in her threescore eggs and her flesh was to me at that time the most savory and pleasant that ever I tasted in my life having had no flesh but of goats and fowls since I landed in this horrid place.

June 18.

Rained all day, and I stayed within.

I thought at this time the rain felt cold and I was something chilly which I knew was not usual in that latitude.

June 19 very ill and shivering, as if the weather had been cold.

June 20 no rest all night.

Violent pains in my head and feverish.

June 21 very ill.

Frightened almost to death with the apprehensions of my sad condition to be sick and no help.

Prayed to God for the first time since the storm.

Off whole, but scarce knew what I said or why, my thoughts being all confused.

June 22 a little better, but under dreadful apprehensions of sickness.

June 23 very bad.

Again cold and shivering and then a violent headache.

June 24 much better.

June 25.

An egg, very violent.

The fit held me 7 hours, cold, fit and hot, with faint sweats after it.

June 26.

Better and having no victuals to eat, took my gun, but found myself very weak.

However, I killed a she goat and with much difficulty got it home and broiled some of it and ate.

I would fain if stewed it and made some broth, but had no pot.

June 27.

The egg again so violent that I lay a bed all day and neither ate nor drank.

I was ready to perish for thirst, but so weak I had not strength to stand up or to get myself any water to drink.

Prayed to God again, but was lightheaded, and when I was not, I was so ignorant that I knew not what to say, only I laid and cried, lord, look upon me.

Lord, pity me.

Lord, have mercy upon me.

I suppose I did nothing else for two or 3 hours till the fit wearing off.

I fell asleep and did not wake till far in the night.

When I awoke I found myself much refreshed, but weak and exceeding thirsty.

However, as I had no water in my habitation, I was forced to lie till morning and went to sleep again.

In the second sleep I had this terrible dream.

I thought that I was sitting on the ground on the outside of my wall, where I sat when the storm blew after the earthquake, and that I saw a man descend from a great black cloud in a bright flame of fire and light upon the ground.

He was all over, as bright as a flame, so that I could but just bear to look towards him.

His countenance was most inexpressibly dreadful impossible for words to describe.

When he stepped upon the ground with its feet, I thought the earth trembled just as it had done before in the earthquake, and all the air looked to my apprehension as if it had been filled with flashes of fire.

He was no sooner landed upon the earth, but he moved forward towards me with a long spear or weapon in his hand to kill me.

And when he came to a rising ground at some distance, he spoke to me, for I heard a voice so terrible that it is impossible to express the terror of it.

All that I can say I understood was this seeing all these things have not brought thee to repentance, now thou shalt die.

At which words I thought he lifted up the spear that was in his hands to kill me.

No one that shall ever read this account will expect that I should be able to describe the horrors of my soul at this terrible vision.

I mean that even while it was a dream, I even dreamed of those whores.

Nor is it any more possible to describe the impression that remained upon my mind when I awaked and found it was but a dream I had.

Alas, no divine knowledge.

What I had received by the good.

Instruction of my father was then worn out by an uninterrupted series for eight years of seafaring wickedness and a constant conversation with none but such as were, like myself, wicked and profane to the last degree.

I do not remember that I had in all that time one thought that so much as tended either to look upwards towards God, or inwards towards a reflection upon my own ways.

But a certain stupidity of soul, without desire of good or conscience of evil, had entirely overwhelmed me.

And I was all that the most hardened, unthinking, wicked creature among our common sailors can be supposed to be, not having the least sense either of fear of God in danger, or of thankfulness to God in deliverance.

In the relating what has already passed of my story.

This will be the more easily believed when I shall add that through all the variety of miseries that had to this day befallen me, I never had so much as one thought of it being the hand of God.

Or that it was a just punishment for my sin, my rebellious behavior against my father, or my present sins, which were great.

Or so much as a punishment for the general course of my wicked life.

When I was on the desperate expedition on the desert shores of Africa, I never had so much as one thought of what would become of me, or one wish to God to direct me, whether I should go, or to keep me from the danger which apparently surrounded me, as well as from voracious creatures as cruel savages.

But I was merely thoughtless of a god or a providence acted like a mere brute from the principles of nature and by the dictates of common sense only and indeed hardly that.

When I was delivered and taken up at sea by the Portugal captain well used and dealt justly and honorably with as well as charitably I had not the least thankfulness in my thoughts.

When again I was shipwrecked ruined and in danger of drowning on this island, I was as far from remorse or looking on it as judgment, only said to myself often that I was an unfortunate dog, and born to be always miserable.

It is true, when I got on shore first here, and found all my ship's crew drowned in myself spared, I was surprised with a kind of ecstasy in some transports of soul which, had the grace of God assisted, might have come up to true thankfulness.

But it ended where it began in a mere common flight of joy, or, as I may say, being glad I was alive without the least reflection upon the distinguished goodness of the hand which had preserved me and had singled me out to be preserved when all the rests were destroyed, or an inquiry.

Why providence had been thus merciful unto me even just the same common sort of joy which seamen generally have after they are got safe ashore from a shipwreck which they drown all in the next bowl of punch and forget almost as soon as it is over.

And all the rest of my life was like it, even when I was afterwards, on due consideration made sensible of my condition.

How I was cast on this dreadful place, out of the reach of humankind.

Out of all hope of relief or.

Prospect of redemption, as soon as I saw but a prospect of living and that I should not starve and perish for hunger, all the sense of my affliction wore off.

And I began to be very easy applied myself to the works proper for my preservation and supply, and was far enough from being afflicted at my condition as a judgment from heaven, or as the hand of God against me.

These were thoughts which very seldom entered my head.

The growing up of the corn, as is hinted in my journal, had at first some little influence upon me and began to affect me with seriousness, as long as I thought it had something miraculous in it.

But as soon as ever that part of the thought was removed, all the impression that was raised from it wore off also, as I have noted already, even the earthquake, though nothing could be more terrible in its nature or more immediately directing to the invisible power which alone directs such things.

Yet no sooner was the first fright over, but the impression it had made went off also.

I had no more sense of God or his judgments, much less of the present affliction of my circumstances being from his hand, than if I had been in the most prosperous condition of life.

But now when I began to be.

Sick and a leisurely view of the.

Miseries of death came to place itself before me when my spirits began to sink under the burden of a strong distemper and nature was exhausted.

With the violence of the fever conscience that had slept so long began to awake and I began to reproach myself with my past life in which I had so evidently, by uncommon wickedness provoked the justice of God to lay me under uncommon strokes and to deal with me in so vindictive a manner.

These reflections oppressed me for the second or third day of my distemper and in the violence, as well as of the fever, as of the dreadful reproaches of my conscience, extorted some words from.

Me like praying to God, though I.

Cannot say they were either a prayer attended with desires or with hopes.

It was rather the voice of mere fright and distress.

My thoughts were confused, the convictions grayed upon my mind, and the horror of dying in such a miserable condition raised vapors into my head with the mere apprehensions.

And in these hurries of my soul, I knew not what my tongue might express but it was rather exclamation such as, Lord, what a miserable creature am I.

If I should be sick, I shall certainly die for want of help and what will become of me.

Then the tears burst out of my eyes, and I could say no more.

For a good while.

In this interval, the good advice of my father came to my mind and presently his prediction, which I mentioned at the beginning of the story, that if I did take this foolish step, god would not bless me, and I would have leisure hereafter to reflect upon having neglected his counsel when there might be none to assist in my recovery.

Now, said I aloud, my dear father's words are come to pass.

God's justice has overtaken me, and I have none to help or hear me.

I rejected the voice of Providence, which had mercifully put me in a posture or station of life wherein I might have been happy and easy but I would neither see it myself nor learn to know the blessing of it from my parents.

I left them to mourn over my.

Folly, and now I am left to.

Mourn under the consequences of it.

I abused their help and assistance, who would have lifted me in the world and would have made everything easy to me.

And now I have difficulties to struggle.

With, too great for even nature itself to support, and no assistance, no help.

No comfort, no advice.

Then I cried out, Lord be my help, for I am in great distress.

This was the first prayer, if I.

May call it so, that I had made for many years but to return to my journal.

June 28 having been somewhat refreshed with.

The sleep I had had and the fit being entirely off, I got up.

And though the fright and terror of.

My dream was very great, yet I considered that the fit of the egg.

Would return again the next day.

And now was my time to get.

Something to refresh and support myself when I should be ill.

And the first thing I did, I filled a large.

Square case bottle with water and set.

It upon my table in reach of my bed.

And to take off the chill or eguish disposition of the water, I put about a quarter of a pint of rum into it, and mixed them together.

Then I got me a piece of the goat's flesh, and broiled it on the coals, but could eat very little.

I walked about, but was very weak and withall very sad and heavy hearted, under a sense of my miserable condition, dreading the return of my distemper the next day.

At night I made my supper of three of the turtle's eggs which I roasted in the ashes and ate, as we call it, in the shell.

And this was the first bit of.

Meat I had ever asked God's blessing to that I could remember in my whole life.

After I had eaten, I tried to walk but found myself so weak that I could hardly carry a gun.

For I never went out without that.

So I went but a little way and sat down upon the ground looking out upon the sea which was just before me and very calm and smooth as I sat here.

Some such thoughts as these occurred to.

Me what is this earth and sea of which I have seen so much?

Whence is it produced and what am I, and all the other creatures wild and tame, human and brutal?

Whence are we sure we are all made by some secret power who formed the earth and sea, the air and sky?

And who is that and followed most naturally?

It is God that has made all well.

But then it came on strangely.

If God has made all these things he guides and governs them all and all things that concern them.

For the power that could make all things must certainly have power to guide and direct them.

If so, nothing can happen in the great circuit of his works either without his knowledge or appointment.

And if nothing happens without his knowledge he knows that I am here and am in this dreadful condition.

And if nothing happens without his appointment he has appointed all this to befall me.

Nothing occurred to my thought to contradict any of these conclusions and therefore it rested upon me with a greater force that it must needs be that God had appointed all this to befall me that I was brought into this miserable circumstance by his direction.

He having the sole power not of me only, but of everything that happened in the world.

Immediately it followed.

Why has God done this to me?

What have I done to be thus used?

My conscience presently checked me in that inquiry as if I had been blasphemed and method.

It spoke to me like a voice wretched.

DOST thou ask what thou hast done?

Look back upon a dreadful misspent life and ask thyself what thou hast not done.

Ask why it is that thou weret not long ago destroyed.

Why weret thou not drowned in Yarmouth roads killed in a fight when the ship was taken by the sally man of war devoured by the wild beasts on the coast of Africa or drowned here when all the crew perished?

But thyself DOST thou ask what have I done?

I was struck dumb with these reflections as one astonished and had not a word to say no, not to answer to myself but rose up pensive and sad, walked back to my retreat and went over my wall as if I had been going to bed.

But my thoughts were sadly disturbed and I had no inclination to sleep.

So I sat down in my chair and lighted my lamp for it began to be dark now, as the apprehension of the return of my distemper terrified me very much it occurred to my thought that the Brazilians take no physics but their tobacco for almost all distempers.

And I had a piece of a roll of tobacco in one of the chests, which was quite cured and some also that was green and not quite cured.

I went, directed by heaven, no doubt.

For in this chest I found a cure both for soul and body.

I opened the chest, and found what I looked for the tobacco and as.

The few books I had saved lay.

There too, I took out one of the Bibles which I mentioned before and which to this time I had not found leisure or inclination to look into.

I say I took it out and brought both that and the tobacco with me to the table.

What used to make of the tobacco I knew not in my distemper, or whether it was good for it or no but I tried several experiments with it, as if I was resolved it should hit one way or other.

I first took a piece of leaf and chewed it in my mouth, which indeed at first almost stupefied my brain, the tobacco being green and strong and that I had not been much used to.

Then I took some, and steeped it an hour or two, and some rum, and resolved to take a dose of it when I lay down.

And lastly I burnt some upon a pan of coals and held my nose close over the smoke of it as long as I could bear it, as well for the heat as almost for suffocation.

In the interval of this operation I took up the Bible and began to read.

But my head was too much disturbed with the tobacco to bear reading, at least at that time, only having opened the book casually, the first words that occurred to me were these call on me in the day of trouble and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.

These words were very apt to my case, and made some impression upon my thoughts at the time of reading them, though not so much as they did afterwards.

For as for being delivered, the word had no sound, as I may say.

To me.

The thing was so remote, so impossible in my apprehension of things that I began to say, as the children of Israel did when they were promised flesh to eat.

Can God spread a table in the wilderness?

So I began to say, can God himself deliver me from this place?

And as it was not for many years that any hopes appeared, this prevailed very often upon my thoughts.

But, however, the words made a great impression upon me, and I mused upon them very often.

It grew now late, and the tobacco had, as I said, dozed my head so much that I inclined to sleep.

So I left my lamp burning in the cave, lest I should want anything in the night, and went to bed.

But before I laid down, I did what I never had done in all my life.

I kneeled down and prayed to God to fulfill the promise to me that if I called upon him in the day of trouble, he would deliver me.

After my broken and imperfect prayer was over, I drank the rum in which I had steeped the tobacco, which was so strong in rank of the tobacco that I could scarcely get it down.

Immediately upon this I went to bed.

I found presently it flew up into.

My head violently, but I fell into a sound sleep, and wake to no more, till by the sun it must necessarily be near 03:00 in the afternoon the next day.

Nay, to this hour I am partly of the opinion that I slept all the next day and night until almost three the day after for otherwise I know not how I should lose a day out of my reckoning in the days of the week as it appeared some years after I had done.

For if I had lost it by.

Crossing and recrossing the line, I should have lost more than one day but certainly I lost a day in my account, and never knew which way be that, however, one way or the other, when I awaked I found myself exceedingly refreshed, and my spirits lively and cheerful.

When I got up, I was stronger than I was the day before, and my stomach better, for I was hungry, and in short, I had no fit the next day, but continued much alerted for the better.

This was the 29th.

The 30th was my well day, of course, and I went abroad with my gun, but did not care to travel too far.

I killed a sea fowler too, something like a brand goose, and brought them home, but was not very forward to eat them.

So I ate some more of the turtle's eggs, which were very good.

This evening I renewed the medicine, which I had supposed did me good the day before, the tobacco steeped in rum, only I did not take so much.

As before, nor did I chew any.

Of the leaf, or hold my head over the smoke.

However, I was not so well the next day, which was the 1 July, as I hoped I should have been, for I had a little spice of the cold fit, but it was not much.

July 2 I renewed the medicine, all the three waves, and dosed myself with it as at first, and doubled the quantity which I drank.

July 3 I missed the fit for good, and all though I did not recover my full strength for some weeks after.

While I was thus gathering strength, my thoughts ran exceedingly upon this scripture I will deliver thee, and the impossibility of my deliverance lay much upon my mind, in bar of my ever expecting it.

But as I was discouraging myself with such thoughts, it occurred to my mind.

That I poured so much upon my deliverance from the main affliction that I disregarded the deliverance I had received.

And I was, as it were, made to ask myself such questions as these have I not been delivered?

And wonderfully too, from sickness, from the most distressed condition that could be?

And that was so frightful to me.

In what notice had I taken of it?

Had I done my part?

God had delivered me, but I had not glorified him.

That is to say, I had not owned and been thankful for that as a deliverance, and how could I expect greater deliverance?

This touched my heart very much, and immediately I knelt down and gave God thanks aloud for my recovery from my sickness.

July 4.

In the morning I took the Bible, and beginning at the New Testament, I began seriously to read it and imposed upon myself to read a while every morning and every night, not tying myself to the number of chapters, but long as my thought should engage me.

It was not long after I set seriously to this work till I found my heart more deeply and sincerely affected with the wickedness of my past life, the impression of my dream revived, and the words, all these things have not brought thee to repentance ran seriously through my thoughts.

I was earnestly begging of God to give me repentance when it happened.

Providentially the very day that, reading the Scripture, I came to these words he is exalted a prince and a savior to give repentance and to give remission.

I threw down the Book and with my heart as well as my hands lifted up to heaven in a kind of ecstasy of joy, I cried out aloud, jesus, thou Son of David, jesus, thou exalted prince and Savior, give me repentance.

This was the first time I could say in the true sense of the words that I prayed in all my life.

For now I prayed with a sense of my condition and a true Scripture view of hope founded on the encouragement of the Word of God.

And from this time I may say I began to hope that God would hear me.

Now I began to construe the words mentioned above call on me, and I will deliver thee in a different sense from what I had ever done before.

For then I had no notion of anything being called deliverance but my being delivered from the captivity I was in.

For though I was indeed at large in the place, yet the island was certainly a prison to me, and not in the worst sense in the world.

But now I learned to take it in another sense.

Now I looked back upon my past life with such horror, and my sins.

Appeared so dreadful that my soul sought.

Nothing of God but deliverance from the load of guilt that bore down all my comfort.

As for my solitary life, it was nothing I did not so much as pray to be delivered from it, or think of it.

It was all of no consideration in comparison to this.

And I add this part here to hint to whoever shall read it, that whenever they come to a true sense of things, they will find deliverance from a sin much greater blessing than deliverance from affliction.

But leaving this part, I returned to my journal.

My condition began now to be, though not less miserable as to my way of living, yet much easier to my mind and my thoughts.

Being directed by a constant reading the Scripture, and praying to God to things of a higher nature, I had a great deal of comfort, within which till now I knew nothing of.

Also my health and strength returned.

I bestowed myself to furnish myself with everything that I wanted, and make my way of living as regular as I could.

From the 4 July to the 14th, I was chiefly employed in walking about with my gun in my hand a little and a little at a time as a man that was gathering up his strength after a fit of sickness.

For it is hardly to be imagined how low I was and to what weakness I was reduced.

The application which I made use of was perfectly new, and perhaps had never cured an egg you before.

Neither can I recommend it to any practice by this experiment.

And though it did carry off the fit, yet it rather contributed to weakening me, for I had frequent convulsions in my nerves and limbs for some time.

I learned from it also this in particular that being abroad in the rainy season was the most pernicious thing to my health that could be, especially in those rains which came attended with storms and hurricanes of wind.

For as the rain which came in the dry season was almost always accompanied with such storms, so I found that rain was much more dangerous than the rain which fell in September and October.

Thank you for joining Bite at a Time Books today while we read a bite of one of your favorite classics.

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