Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/463

Rh case, that they were the natural bond-subjects of Satan in life and in death, and being generally treated by the English in conformity with this teaching, should be especially interested in learning all they could about their dark, spiritual adversary. So most of their questions had reference to him and his unseen realm. They asked, “If there might not be something, if only a little, gained by praying to him?” “Whether the Devil or man was made first?” “Why does not God, having full power, kill the Devil, that makes all men so bad?” “Why do Englishmen so eagerly kill all snakes?” “If God made Hell in one of the six days, why did he make Hell before Adam had sinned?” “If all the world be burned up, where shall Hell be then?” “If all the Indians already dead were in Hell, and only a few now in the way of getting to Heaven?” Some of their queries showed no slight skill in casuistry. Eliot, insisting that his disciples should have but one wife, was asked, “If an Indian have two wives, the first without, the second with children, which of them shall he put away? If he renounces the first, then he wrongs the one who has the strongest claim upon him. If he discards the second, then he breaks a living tie, and makes his children bastards.” “If one man sins knowingly and another ignorantly, will God punish both alike?” “If God loves those who turn to him, why does he ever afflict them after they have turned to him?” “Why did not God give all men good hearts, that they might be good?” “When Christ arose, whence came his soul?” When Eliot answered “from Heaven,” it was replied, “How then was Christ punished in our stead, afore death, or after?” “Whither their little children go when they die, seeing they have not sinned?” Eliot says, “This gave occasion to teach them more fully original sin, and the damned state of all men. I could give them no further comfort than that when God elects the parents, he elects their seed also.” “If a man should be inclosed in iron a foot thick, and thrown into the fire, what would