Nyangandi lived in west Africa, near the Ogowe River. She was going away
from the missionary's house one afternoon, where she had been to sell
bunches of plantains to the missionary, when his wife said:--
"Now, you must not forget that you have promised to come tomorrow to
church."
"Yes," the girl replied, "I will surely come if I am alive."
The next morning she found that somebody had stolen her canoe, and no one
would lend her one to go to church in. But she had promised to go, and she
felt that she must. She swam all the way! The current was swift, the water
deep, and the river fully a third of a mile wide, but by swimming
diagonally she succeeded in crossing the river.
Remember this little heathen girl in west Africa when you feel tempted to
stay away from the house of God for some trivial reason.--_Selected_.