The Testimony of a Pagan
“Most admirable was the reasoning of a wild Greenlander, which he declared to a missionary to be the reasoning of his mind before his conversion; “It is true,” said he to him, “we were ignorant heathens, and knew nothing of God, or a Saviour; and, indeed, who should tell us of him till you come? but thou must not imagine that no Greenlander thinks about these things.
“I myself have often thought: a kajak (a boat) with all its tackle and implements, does not grow into existence of itself; but must be made by the labour and ingenuity of man; and one that does not understand it would directly spoil it. Now the meanest bird has far more skill displayed in its structure, than the best kajak; and no man can make a bird: but there is still a far greater art shewn in the formation of a man, than of any other creature. Who was it that made him? I bethought me that he proceeded from his parents, and they from their parents; but some must have been the first parents; whence did they come? common report informs me, they grew out of the earth: but if so, why does it not still happen that men grow out of the earth? and from whence did this same earth itself, the sea, the sun, the moon, and stars, arise into existence?
“Certainly there must be some Being who made all these things; a Being that always was, and can never cease to be. He must be inexpressibly more mighty, knowing, and wise, than the wisest man. He must be very good too, because that everything that he has made is good, useful, and necessary for us.
“Ah, did I but know him, how would I love him and honour him! But who has seen him? who has ever conversed with him? None of us poor men. Yet there may be men too that know something of him. O that I could but speak with such! therefore,” said he, “as soon as ever I heard you speak of this great Being, I believed it directly, with all my heart; because I had so long desire to hear it.”
-Quoted by John Gill in A Body of Doctrinal and Practical Divinity, Book I, Chapter I. Quoted from Crantz’s History of Greenland.
