The common people there, as in other countries, run into the
absurdities of superstition; but sensible men pay adoration to a
Supreme Being, who created and sustains the universe.' 'O! what
pity (exclaimed the pious Tabby), that some holy man has not been
inspired to go and convert these poor heathens!'
The lieutenant told her, that while he resided among them, two
French missionaries arrived, in order to convert them to the
catholic religion; but when they talked of mysteries and
revelations, which they could neither explain nor authenticate,
and called in the evidence of miracles which they believed upon
hearsay; when they taught that the Supreme Creator of Heaven and
Earth had allowed his only Son, his own equal in power and glory,
to enter the bowels of a woman, to be born as a human creature,
to be insulted, flagellated, and even executed as a malefactor;
when they pretended to create God himself, to swallow, digest,
revive, and multiply him ad infinitum, by the help of a little
flour and water, the Indians were shocked at the impiety of their
presumption. -- They were examined by the assembly of the sachems
who desired them to prove the divinity of their mission by some
miracle.
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