鲁宾孙飘流记 英文版 Robinson Crusoe
丹尼尔.笛福 Daniel Defoe
CHAPTER VI - ILL AND CONSCIENCE-STRICKEN Page 2
I went, directed by Heaven no doubt; for in this chest I found acure both for soul and body. I opened the chest, and found what Ilooked for, the tobacco; and as the few books I had saved lay theretoo, I took out one of the Bibles which I mentioned before, andwhich to this time I had not found leisure or inclination to lookinto. I say, I took it out, and brought both that and the tobaccowith me to the table. What use to make of the tobacco I knew not,in my distemper, or whether it was good for it or no: but I triedseveral experiments with it, as if I was resolved it should hit oneway or other. I first took a piece of leaf, and chewed it in mymouth, which, indeed, at first almost stupefied my brain, thetobacco being green and strong, and that I had not been much usedto. Then I took some and steeped it an hour or two in some rum,and resolved to take a dose of it when I lay down; and lastly., Iburnt some upon a pan of coals, and held my nose close over thesmoke of it as long as I could bear it, as well for the heat asalmost for suffocation. In the interval of this operation I tookup the Bible and began to read; but my head was too much disturbedwith the tobacco to bear reading, at least at that time; only,having opened the book casually, the first words that occurred tome were these, "Call on Me in the day of trouble, and I willdeliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me." These words were veryapt to my case, and made some impression upon my thoughts at thetime 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 ofthings, that I began to say, as the children of Israel did whenthey were promised flesh to eat, "Can God spread a table in thewilderness?" so I began to say, "Can God Himself deliver me fromthis place?" And as it was not for many years that any hopesappeared, this prevailed very often upon my thoughts; but, however,the words made a great impression upon me, and I mused upon themvery 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 lampburning in the cave, lest I should want anything in the night, andwent to bed. But before I lay down, I did what I never had done inall my life - I kneeled down, and prayed to God to fulfil thepromise to me, that if I called upon Him in the day of trouble, Hewould deliver me. After my broken and imperfect prayer was over, Idrank the rum in which I had steeped the tobacco, which was sostrong and rank of the tobacco that I could scarcely get it down;immediately upon this I went to bed. I found presently it flew upinto my head violently; but I fell into a sound sleep, and waked nomore till, by the sun, it must necessarily be near three o'clock inthe afternoon the next day - nay, to this hour I am partly ofopinion that I slept all the next day and night, and till almostthree the day after; for otherwise I know not how I should lose aday out of my reckoning in the days of the week, as it appearedsome years after I had done; for if I had lost it by crossing andrecrossing the line, I should have lost more than one day; butcertainly I lost a day in my account, and never knew which way. Bethat, however, one way or the other, when I awaked I found myselfexceedingly refreshed, and my spirits lively and cheerful; when Igot up I was stronger than I was the day before, and my stomachbetter, for I was hungry; and, in short, I had no fit the next day,but continued much altered 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-fowl or two,something like a brandgoose, and brought them home, but was notvery 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 Ihad supposed did me good the day before - the tobacco steeped inrum; only I did not take so much as before, nor did I chew any ofthe leaf, or hold my head over the smoke; however, I was not sowell the next day, which was the first of July, as I hoped I shouldhave been; for I had a little spice of the cold fit, but it was notmuch.
JULY 2. - I renewed the medicine all the three ways; and dosedmyself 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 notrecover my full strength for some weeks after. While I was thusgathering strength, my thoughts ran exceedingly upon thisScripture, "I will deliver thee"; and the impossibility of mydeliverance lay much upon my mind, in bar of my ever expecting it;but as I was discouraging myself with such thoughts, it occurred tomy mind that I pored so much upon my deliverance from the mainaffliction, that I disregarded the deliverance I had received, andI was as it were made to ask myself such questions as these - viz.Have I not been delivered, and wonderfully too, from sickness -from the most distressed condition that could be, and that was sofrightful to me? and what notice had I taken of it? Had I done mypart? God had delivered me, but I had not glorified Him - that isto say, I had not owned and been thankful for that as adeliverance; and how could I expect greater deliverance? Thistouched my heart very much; and immediately I knelt down and gaveGod thanks aloud for my recovery from my sickness.
JULY 4. - In the morning I took the Bible; and beginning at the NewTestament, I began seriously to read it, and imposed upon myself toread a while every morning and every night; not tying myself to thenumber of chapters, but long as my thoughts should engage me. Itwas not long after I set seriously to this work till I found myheart more deeply and sincerely affected with the wickedness of mypast life. The impression of my dream revived; and the words, "Allthese things have not brought thee to repentance," ran seriouslythrough my thoughts. I was earnestly begging of God to give merepentance, when it happened providentially, the very day, that,reading the Scripture, I came to these words: "He is exalted aPrince and a Saviour, to give repentance and to give remission." Ithrew down the book; and with my heart as well as my hands liftedup to heaven, in a kind of ecstasy of joy, I cried out aloud,"Jesus, thou son of David! Jesus, thou exalted Prince and Saviour!give me repentance!" This was the first time I could say, in thetrue sense of the words, that I prayed in all my life; for now Iprayed with a sense of my condition, and a true Scripture view ofhope, founded on the encouragement of the Word of God; and fromthis 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, andI will deliver thee," in a different sense from what I had everdone before; for then I had no notion of anything being calledDELIVERANCE, but my being delivered from the captivity I was in;for though I was indeed at large in the place, yet the island wascertainly a prison to me, and that in the worse sense in the world.But now I learned to take it in another sense: now I looked backupon my past life with such horror, and my sins appeared sodreadful, that my soul sought nothing of God but deliverance fromthe load of guilt that bore down all my comfort. As for mysolitary life, it was nothing. I did not so much as pray to bedelivered from it or think of it; it was all of no consideration incomparison to this. And I add this part here, to hint to whoevershall read it, that whenever they come to a true sense of things,they will find deliverance from sin a much greater blessing thandeliverance from affliction.
But, leaving this part, I return to my Journal.
My condition began now to be, though not less miserable as to myway of living, yet much easier to my mind: and my thoughts beingdirected, 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 strengthreturned, I bestirred myself to furnish myself with everything thatI wanted, and make my way of living as regular as I could.
From the 4th of July to the 14th I was chiefly employed in walkingabout with my gun in my hand, a little and a little at a time, as aman that was gathering up his strength after a fit of sickness; forit is hardly to be imagined how low I was, and to what weakness Iwas reduced. The application which I made use of was perfectlynew, and perhaps which had never cured an ague before; neither canI recommend it to any to practise, by this experiment: and thoughit did carry off the fit, yet it rather contributed to weakeningme; for I had frequent convulsions in my nerves and limbs for sometime. I learned from it also this, in particular, that beingabroad in the rainy season was the most pernicious thing to myhealth that could be, especially in those rains which came attendedwith storms and hurricanes of wind; for as the rain which came inthe dry season was almost always accompanied with such storms, so Ifound that rain was much more dangerous than the rain which fell inSeptember and October.