chaotic period of social transition that we learn the moral value of the
so much derided forms and ceremonies, and that without them the marriage
tie becomes so loose that it is practically abandoned by many. Gradually
it came to be recognized that the payment of the dowry constituted the
marriage. For there must be something to differentiate marriage from
unlawful relations. This served, though poorly, until the enlightened
Christian conscience pronounced against the dowry, and the best people
voluntarily refused to accept it and abandoned the custom. Since that
time there is no distinct ceremony among the Christian natives at Gaboon,
which is deplorable.
In lieu of a ceremony a useful custom has been introduced into the
church, namely, that shortly after marriage the man and woman shall
rise in their places in the weekly prayer-meeting, voluntarily, and
without the minister saying a word shall announce their marriage, the
man saying that he has taken this woman to be his wife and promising to
be faithful to her; likewise the woman. Well do I remember one night in
the Mpongwe Church when Barro and Anuroguli came to the prayer-meeting
which I was conducting, expecting to announce their recent marriage.
Barro rose at the end of the service and without the least embarrassment
announced his marriage and made his vows in most appropriate words. But
Anuroguli, sitting on the other side of the house, was seized with panic
and sat motionless with her finger in her mouth. Barro stood waiting
for her response while the women near her motioned to her, pulled her
dress, punched her in the ribs, until gradually the whole congregation
was remonstrating in loud whispers, which only increased the poor
little woman’s embarrassment, until, seeing that it would be a physical
impossibility for her to make her announcement, I took the risk of
the law, and rose and said: “Anuroguli wishes to announce,” etc.; and
having made her announcement for her, I closed the meeting. But, while
all recognize the propriety of this custom, it does not constitute the
marriage; for it takes place after marriage, sometimes long afterwards,
and it is not possible unless both parties are Christians.
Bojedi’s argument therefore was not without plausibility, and all these
facts that I have related he marshalled to his defense very ably and
with intense feeling, as we sat there in the dark schoolhouse. It was
plain that he had thought of all this before, and that before entering
on this relationship he had argued long with his conscience as he now
argued with me. But it was also plain that he argued in his defense and
not his justification, and that he had allowed his reason to coerce his
conscience. I replied that where there was nothing outward except a
public announcement to distinguish marriage from an illicit relation,
then the announcement became a duty binding on the conscience quite as
much as a ceremony; and that if marriage be not so distinguished we have
a society of “free love.” And again, as to the inwardness of the marriage
relation, upon which he dwelt, that it implied always, whether with or
without a ceremony, a sincere intention of _permanency_. I added: “From
the regard that you have expressed for Antyandi you would probably desire
that your present relation be permanent. But desire is not sufficient
without expectation also; and you know as well as I do that when you
leave Gaboon to return to your own people Antyandi will never go with
you, and even if she should remain here she would not be true to you.
You have therefore, with full knowledge, entered into a temporary
relationship; which is no marriage in any sense that a Christian can
admit.”
As repentance is the chief act of man, so it is also the hardest. To make
the admission of wrong to me was not so hard as to admit it to himself,
with all its consequences. But at last the admission came: a moment later
he was on his knees, in tears and sobs. He said: “It is not that I cannot
give up Antyandi; it will be hard enough, but I’ll do it. But it is the
wrong I have already done and the loss to myself that I feel. These two
years while I have been teaching your school I have lived differently
from all the other years of my life. Many things that I used to do I had
stopped doing. I was happy because my heart was clean, and because the
schoolboys all loved me and believed in me. And now all that I have built
up in these two years is pulled down. And what will the boys think of me?”
It would be cruel to repeat all that was said in that conversation. He
wept until I felt that tears could do no more, and then I tried to quiet
and comfort him. It was midnight when I left him.
Next day he sent a brief letter to Antyandi telling her that he had done
wrong, that he was very much ashamed, and that she must not expect him
ever to enter her house again. He fully realized that there was a hard
fight ahead of him and he thought best not to see her at all. She made
many attempts and plied her arts to get him again in her power. She wrote
him letters in which she professed to be dying for love of him. I went
to her and ordered her not to set her foot on the mission premises. She
regarded the order by day, but she came at night. She came to his window
waking him suddenly out of his sleep. She tried his door. She came at all
hours of the night. One night he found that he could not lock his door.
She had probably tampered with it; but he did not think of that, for
she had not been there for several nights. That night at midnight she
came. He broke loose from her and ran straight for my room, where I was
in bed asleep. He knocked and entered; then told me what had happened and
begged me to protect him. I told him he must stay in my room the rest of
that night; which he did, and slept on the floor. I kept him there every
night for a week; for more than once he had wavered though he had not
fallen. Thus she continued to do for two months; but the subject is not
a pleasant one, and we need not follow the course of events during that
period.
After two months we heard that she was in Libreville, the mistress of a
dignitary of the government, and Bojedi supposed that that would be the
last of her; but it was not. A month later the white man suddenly left
Libreville or died—I have forgotten which—and Antyandi returned home. A
few days afterwards, returning from the beach one morning, I observed
that in my absence some one had closed the door of my study which I had
left open; the windows also were closed and the blinds down. I hurried
in with a vague apprehension of something wrong. There sat Bojedi in the
darkened room, his face buried in his hands and sobbing as if his heart
would break. I knew instantly what had happened.
“How can I tell you!”
“There is no need to tell me,” I replied; “go to your own house, Bojedi,
and I shall follow you in a little while.”
I went to his house and he told me the whole story of his temptation and
fall, a story that I cannot repeat here. He told it with a broken voice
and crying all the time. The school had been closed two weeks before, the
boys were all gone and nobody around. Bojedi was waiting for the English
steamer, on which he was going home. This complete idleness after his
responsible and constant work was perhaps the devil’s opportunity. Still
crying he rose at length and opening a box took out all sorts of native
riches, presents from Antyandi, native robes which must have been paid
for by white men, a fancy bed-quilt and embroidered pillow-covers.
Without saying a word, but still sobbing, he made a pile of these things
just outside his door, while I looked on not knowing what he was going
to do, until he struck a match and set fire to them. Then he remarked:
“I should have done that long ago;” which I fully admitted; or else he
should have returned them, which would have been better. The next day he
left for home.
I felt that this moral fall was peculiarly serious, much more so than
some sin of sudden impulse. It was no doubt the very crisis of his life,
a long deliberate battle in which all his moral resources were called
out and all his moral energy engaged. Victory in such a fight transforms
temptation into a purifying alembic; but to fall in such a fight means
usually to be maimed for life.
Very soon after this I left Africa. Bojedi remained at home the following
year. He was married during the year. The last letter that I received
from him was dated at Brazzaville, in the very heart of Africa, on the
Upper Congo, where he had a good position with the _Commissaire Général_.
He says: “Your letter dated at Lebanon, Indiana, August 21, 1906, was
received March 20, 1907,” after which he tells me that just before he
left his home in Benito a son was born to him, whom he has named Robert
Milligan! May his tribe increase!
XV
A LITTLE SCHOLAR
The following letter, with some slight omissions and alterations, was
written on board the English steamer _Volta_ to a little circle of
friends in America:
_S. S. “Volta,” Aug. 7, 1900._
It is three months since I left Gaboon for a health-change on the sea,
and I am just now returning. I had supposed that I would be away only a
few weeks; but the time was prolonged by the sickness and death of an
African boy whom I called my little scholar, of whom it is the purpose of
this letter to give you some account.
Since the regretted resignation of Mr. Boppell on account of ill-health,
I have had charge of the Gaboon Church at Baraka, with the work among
the Mpongwe, besides my work among the Fang. You will remember that the
Mpongwe is a coast tribe, among whom our church has had a mission-work
for many years, while the Fang is the interior tribe (now, however,
extending to the coast), among whom the work is quite new. The strain of
so much additional work in such a climate greatly overtaxed me, and after
four months it became necessary either to take a furlough home, or a
health-change on the sea. The furlough was out of the question, for there
was no one to take my place. Accordingly on the 16th of May I left Gaboon
on this steamer expecting to go north as far as Fernando Po and return on
the next south-bound steamer, which would give me a vacation of a month.
Being in miserable health, I took along with me one of my Fang
schoolboys, Ndong Mba, the smallest and brightest of his class. I thought
I needed him to wait on me. And besides I intended to improve the idle
hours in talking Fang with him. But a week after we had left Gaboon Ndong
Mba was the patient and I was the nurse. The weeks and months that have
intervened, instead of being a period of rest and pleasure, have been the
most trying in all my African experience.
Ndong Mba was born in a town not far from Angom. While he was yet a
mere baby his father and mother died leaving him to the care of their
relations. However willing such relations may be to assume parental
authority over a child, they are not so willing to assume responsibility
for his care, for the parental love is absent. Moreover, Ndong was
very frail; and such a child is not attractive to the African woman,
except his own mother. He was therefore heartlessly neglected, until
my predecessor, Rev. Arthur W. Marling, finding him hungry and crying,
and knowing his miserable plight, took pity on him and carried him in
his arms to the mission. Ndong often told me about the kindness of the
missionaries. But there was a long interval when Mr. Marling was away
on furlough; and then he was dependent upon distant relations who made
him thoroughly acquainted with hunger and hard work. He continued frail
and was very small, appearing, when I afterwards knew him, several years
younger than he was really was.
He attended the school at Angom which was well kept and well taught
under Mr. Marling’s administration; and at an age when most children do
not know their letters he could read. I, who did not know him until the
beginning of this present year, have regarded him as an intellectual
prodigy. His knowledge of the Scripture and his understanding of it was
astonishing in one so young. The whole Gospel of Matthew, the only one
which has been translated into the Fang, he knew almost by heart, besides
a considerable acquaintance with the other Scriptures through the Mpongwe
translations; for he knew Mpongwe almost as well as Fang. He was baptized
and received into the church at a younger age perhaps than any other
child has ever been received in our mission; and through the years that
have since passed, amidst degrading surroundings of which you in the
homeland can scarcely conceive, this little boy kept the faith which he
then professed, and grew up pure, truthful, unselfish and affectionate.
Mr. Marling died in the fall of 1896, Ndong Mba being then, probably,
seven or eight years old. Long before this, however, the people of his
town had moved far away, leaving him behind, and were quite lost sight
of. He was now without friends, white or black, at the age of eight. In
a distant bush-town there was a woman who had formerly lived in Ndong’s
town: he made his way to her and begged her to take him in. There, in a
town remote from missionary influence, in which there was not one person
related to him, the poor little stranger lived for three years, during
which no missionary either saw him or heard of him. His position in the
town was not much better than that of everybody’s slave. His frailty,
instead of insuring greater kindness, only made him contemptible.
Whenever he spoke of those three years it was always of his sufferings
there, and his back was injured by the heavy loads that had been put upon
him. He was the only Christian in the town; but there is no doubt that
through those hard and lonely years the little Christian was constant and
faithful in profession and practice;—as strange, upon its human side, as
that a lighted candle should withstand a winter’s storm.
At the end of this time a long-wished-for opportunity came; he joined
a company of travellers and again reached Angom, hoping to find a
missionary there. There was no missionary there at the time and he found
the station closed; but, in a town close by, a woman was visiting who
years before had lived in Ndong’s town. She was probably a Christian
woman, for she was compassionate. Her heart was touched and she took him
with her to her home near the coast. It was only a few weeks after this
that I met him, at the beginning of this year.
I was gathering a class of Fang boys who had already received a primary
education in the school at Angom, hoping that with time and training they
might become teachers, and later on, in the providence of God, perhaps
preachers. I heard of this boy, and immediately I visited the town where
he was staying. The name of the town was typical, _Ebol Nzok_: _Rotten
Elephant_. It seems that when the people of this town still lived in
the interior bush they sent a delegation down the river to choose a
site for a new town near the coast. The delegation selected a beautiful
site, where the river broadens out into the great estuary. They returned
and reported their success, and the whole large town at once prepared
to move. As they approached the chosen site, and while they were still
at a distance, they found the atmosphere of the new country pervaded
with a most disagreeable smell which grew worse and worse,—a horrible
stench which made them hold their noses, a breath from Gehenna, almost
palpable. They forced a passage through it and went on until they reached
the middle of the chosen site, where they found the huge carcass of an
elephant in an acute stage of decomposition. They thought it proper to
commemorate this historical incident in the name of their town, which
they called _Rotten Elephant_: _Ebol Nzok_.
When I visited Ebol Nzok and asked for Ndong Mba they told me he was
away in the distant gardens at work; so I left word that I would like to
see him at Baraka as soon as he could come. One morning, not long after,
a tiny little boy came into my study and stood before me, his body thin
and frail, but unusually clean, and with extraordinary eyes, dark and
sparkling beneath long black lashes. Looking up eagerly into my face and
very much excited, he said: “I’m Ndong Mba; I’ve come; and I’m so glad
you sent for me. I have not seen a missionary since Mr. Marling died; and
I’ve not been to church, and I’ve not been to school, and I thought the
missionaries had thrown me away. And there were no Christians where I
live. I was alone; and I prayed and prayed all the time to come back to
the mission; and now I’m here; and I’m so glad; and I will do anything
you ask if you let me stay here; for I can work, and you won’t be sorry
if you let me be your boy.” Thus he went on with his pathetic appeal. And
this was really Ndong Mba, of whom I had so often heard!
The unusual intelligence of the eyes that looked into mine, eyes in which
the tears were now quivering, the faded rag—but very clean—which was the
sum of his clothing, and other marks of neglect and suffering, moved me
deeply. Drawing the poor little waif close to me I said: “I am glad to
see you, Ndong Mba,” which he accepted as a sufficient answer.
I took him into my class and also assigned him certain work for which I
said I would pay him, so that he could buy the little clothing and other
things that he needed. He replied: “Little boys don’t need money; I only
want a father to take care of me, and I’ll work for him all the time.” I
thought best, however, to insist upon paying him, but at the same time I
told him that I would take care of him as long as we were together. All
that day, throughout its duties and its noise, those wonderful appealing
eyes seemed still to be looking up into mine. I felt that God had given
into my charge one of His little ones, that I might help to fit him for a
great service to his people in years to come. Through all the weeks and
months that followed, during which he was continually with me, he fully
justified my first impression of him.
This is the little boy that I took with me from Gaboon in May. The second
day he had what seemed to be a light attack of malarial fever. The ship’s
doctor said that he had only caught cold, and assured me that he would
be better next day. But the next day he was worse, and the next still
worse. One of our missionary physicians came on board at Batanga, going
home on furlough. He found Ndong Mba very sick indeed. He had pneumonia—a
very severe attack—and pleurisy with it, causing him great pain; this,
together with a hard fever. The situation was distressing. I was sick
myself and scarcely able to be out of bed, and had brought Ndong along to
wait on me. But now he was worse than myself and I was waiting on him.
When we reached Fernando Po, where I had expected to land and to wait for
the south-bound steamer, there was scarcely a hope that he would live;
and whatever small hope there was would have been cut off by moving him
and taking him away from the doctor’s care. I had therefore no choice
but to remain on board; and I went on to Teneriffe, where I waited three
weeks, until the return of this same steamer from England. Indeed, on my
own account it would not have been advisible to land at Fernando Po. For
I had been attending Ndong almost day and night, and my health-change
had thus far been only a change for the worse. Others on board, fellow
missionaries, had been kind in trying to relieve me; but as Ndong
suffered more, and the fever raged, they could not control him; and after
a few minutes they would be obliged to call me. But they remarked that
when I came I had only to speak his name, and he was quiet; and the brave
little man even tried not to let me see how sick he was.
I greatly regretted the necessity of going on to Teneriffe; for I had
expected to be away from my work only one month and had arranged it
accordingly, and this extension of my trip would keep me away three
months and the consequences to the work distressed me. I no more enjoyed
the trip than if I had been a prisoner in irons. Besides, there was
difficulty in regard to my accommodations on board, a difficulty that
was increasing at each port as we took on more passengers. I had engaged
only a deck-passage for Ndong; but Captain Button whose kindness I
can never forget, had told me to take him into my cabin. Thus far I
had occupied the cabin alone, but I could not expect that favour to
continue longer, as other passengers were coming onboard, and already
there were two persons in each of the other cabins. The full price of
the cabin for myself and Ndong to Teneriffe and return would have been
about five hundred dollars. It was therefore a considerable favour that
I was accepting from the captain, and it was now at the cost of possible
discomfort to others. But this difficulty, I thought, would not last
long, for it did not seem that Ndong would live more than a few days.
The captain told me not to think of the matter of accommodations at all;
that he would leave me that cabin as long as he possibly could, and if it
should become impossible, he actually said that I should bring Ndong up
to his own cabin and occupy it. One would need to have been on the coast
to have any just appreciation of such extraordinary kindness towards a
little black boy. Moreover, almost every morning the captain came to my
cabin door and asked for the boy.
Again the unexpected happened. Ndong, one might almost say, neither died
nor lived. He simply lingered, and lingered on, through weary weeks.
After a while the worst of his suffering was past, but in his extreme
weakness he required almost as much attention as ever. He was quite
unable to walk and could only leave his bed as some one carried him, but
it was no difficult matter to carry him for he had rapidly wasted away
until he was no heavier than a baby. I need not relate the history of
those weeks; there were few incidents to recount; but I wish that you
might have witnessed the patience of the poor little sufferer.
He had his moments of doubt too. One day when he was talking to me, as I
lay in the adjoining berth, I told him that we must try to sleep because
that we both were sick. “You sick?” he asked. “You sick, too?”
He partly rose in his bed, and leaning his head on his hand, looked long
and wistfully at me. After a while I asked him what he was thinking of.
“I am wondering,” he replied slowly, “why we two should be sick. We are
both Christians and you are a minister, and there are so many on board
who do not try to do right. I hear them cursing God all the time as they
pass up and down the gangway. And they are all well. I have often thought
of it; but I do not understand.” A little boy from the depths of the
African jungle struggles with the same question which sorely tried an
ancient sufferer, and to which his friends gave but vain answers.
There was among the deck-passengers a woman whose language Ndong knew,
although it was not his own. Before his sickness reached the worst I
sometimes asked this woman to sit with him while I sat on deck. One day
he said to me: “Mr. Milligan, we must pray for that woman. She is in
great darkness. She talked about things she ought not to mention; and I
told her about Jesus.”
We called at many ports along the way; but I did not leave the ship. On
the fourth Sunday we reached Sierra Leone, usually the last African port
for these ships of the southwest coast. In this splendid and beautiful
harbour with its amphitheatre of hills, there were more vessels together
than I had seen in years. But the most interesting of all was a British
man-of-war. I heard the singing at the “divine service” which is held
every Sunday morning on all British war-ships. All the passengers
excepting myself had gone ashore, and I was alone on the deck, and not
only alone, but lonely and tired. Ndong was sleeping in a chair beside
me. It was then that the first hymn from the war-ship rang clear across
the still water, sung in perfect time by that large chorus of strong
men’s voices, the harbour forming a perfect acoustic chamber. The tune
was the old classic, “St. Anne.” The words were those usually sung to
this tune in our own churches, “Our God, our help in the ages past!”
I have never heard anything more beautiful and impressive; and after
my long exile in the jungle my mind was susceptive to the influence of
its power and beauty. The hymn, both words and music, had always been a
favourite, answering, as it seemed to me, to something fundamental in
our nature; but from this time it became _the_ favourite. And since that
time, whenever I ask choirs and congregations to sing it I am always
hearing within and beyond their voices, the music of that chorus of men
in the far off African harbour. I cannot forbear to quote the words.
“Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come;
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home!