remarks. I was once preaching in a town where the white man had only been
seen a few times, and was still an object of as much curiosity as would
be an inhabitant of Mars, if he should make his advent among us, when a
woman in the audience tried to attract my attention by repeating, “I say,
white man! I say! I say!”
At last I asked her what she wanted. She said: “I want to ask you a
question.” I told her to wait until I had finished talking. But she could
not wait, and she kept on interrupting me, until at length I said: “What
is your question?” She said: “I want to know if your feet are as white as
your hands and face?”
O shade of Saint Paul, who commanded that women keep silence in the
churches, and if they wanted to know anything to ask their husbands at
home, how well I now understand that injunction!
I answered: “Yes, my feet are as white as my hands and face,” and I tried
to proceed with the sermon. I had on black socks, and it seems that some
of the women, observing them, declared that the white man was not all
white; that only his hands and face were white, and that the rest of him
was as black as themselves. My answer, therefore, did not satisfy them
all. Some said, “You lie, white man. We have eyes; you lie.” I was well
used to this inartistic form of contradiction, and I did not object.
They kept on disputing about the socks. But again the same woman said:
“Well, white man, we want to see for ourselves.”
I could not lose the opportunity of a service merely for the sake of my
dignity; so I slipped off a shoe and a sock and showed the audience a
white man’s foot, and they all agreed that it was beautiful.
Was I speaking of dignity? Ah me! Dignity fades away to a vague
impalpability, and finally becomes a cherished memory.
I have already said that the Gospel at first hearing is scarcely
intelligible, and time alone brings moral results. I distinctly recall
the first religious service that I attended among the Bulu. To them also
it was the first service. It was conducted by Dr. Good. Before he got to
the sermon he asked me to offer a prayer. After a word of explanation,
through an interpreter, about the nature of prayer, I requested the
people to close their eyes, and I proceeded to pray in English. Now, this
closing of the eyes had very uncanny associations in their minds. I have
already told of the Ngi (gorilla) Society, the head of which assumes the
form and disposition of a gorilla. He approaches the town roaring like
a gorilla, and women and children shut their eyes until he passes; for
if they see him they will die. When I asked the people to close their
eyes it at once suggested to them some demon spell like that of Ngi,
but probably more terrible. All of them, men and women, snapped their
eyes shut, and kept them closed tight. And the terrified women, grabbing
the babies from their backs (every Bulu woman has a baby on her back),
held their hands over the babies’ eyes, and with such pressure that the
poor babies simultaneously raised a howl of remonstrance, which in turn
frightened the dogs (who made a considerable part of the audience) and
they began to bark. A panic ensued, in which the people, keeping their
eyes tight closed, tumbled pell-mell out of all sides of the house. I was
struggling with a horrid and profane impulse to laugh; but I was a little
afraid of Dr. Good; for I had not known him long, and he was my senior.
When I turned, however, I saw him fairly doubled with laughter, and I
experienced a delightful sense of freedom, and let nature take its course.
On one occasion I preached to a large audience a sermon that seemed to
me quite practical, telling them that their chief troubles were within,
or “inside,” as I said it in Fang. “Your chief trouble,” I said, “is not
the French government, against which you are always complaining; nor is
it these other tribes with whom you are always at war; but your chief
trouble is inside of you, in your own hearts.”
When I had finished, a leading man arose, and with a grand air took up
the theme. “The white man is right,” he said; “our worst suffering is
inside of us. It is not war—nor witchcraft—nor itch—nor flies—but worms
inside.” He thought I had preached a very helpful sermon, and invited me
to come back again.
At this distance of time I can smile; but such a response is a great
trial of faith to a new missionary, especially if he has been led to
expect startling results and many conversions attending the very first
preaching of the Gospel. At first I was disheartened at the carnality and
ignorance depicted in the faces of such audiences. Yet, after a few years
of persistent work and patient waiting, I saw scores and scores of just
such people spiritually and morally transformed; and more marvellous was
the result from such a beginning.
A certain old chief responded to a sermon on future punishment by saying
that he would send one of his wives to hell in his place, and when
I suggested that such an arrangement might be attended with serious
difficulties he said he would send two of them. Then, when I told him
that judging by the history he gave of his wives they would probably be
going there on their own account, he said he supposed he would have to
give God a couple of ivories for his ransom.
One day I went to a new Fang town, Yengal, about two miles along the
beach from Baraka. The tide was rising, and I had to wade through water
for some distance; at one place it was to my waist. I preached in those
dripping clothes. On the way to the town I overtook the chief and his
head wife. He was very much pleased when he found I was going to his
town, and he walked ahead of me, wading into the deeper streams to see
whether or not they were too deep for me to wade; for they were rising
fast with the tide. If I had not been already wet, he would have carried
me over the streams, and all the deeper places. By the time we reached
the town we were good friends. He called the people together, and they
all came and gave me their attention during the service. I told them of a
way that leads to eternal life, and a way that leads to destruction.
When I had finished speaking, this chief said to me in a most earnest
manner: “Now tell me plainly, white man, which road to take when I die?
If you will tell me whether to take the road on the right, or the one on
the left, I shall remember.”
That he had been kind and courteous to me on the way, made me feel but
the greater compassion that his mind was an abyss of darkness.
I have sometimes found a town in a state of preparation and eager
inquiry through their casual meeting with native Christians. One day I
sailed with the _Evangeline_ to a town fifteen miles away, called _Elen
Akidia_—_Dawn of the Morning_; for it is built upon a hill that rises
above the surrounding bush so that they can see the first light of
day. I stayed in the town over night. In the evening a large audience
gathered in the palaver-house, which was lighted by a tiny lamp. It
had no chimney, to be sure, but still it was the boast of the town.
They had been learning for several years of the Christian religion from
ill-instructed natives, but I do not know that any Protestant missionary
had ever preached there. They listened so attentively and earnestly that
I talked to them for more than an hour. Then, being tired, I went out
and sat near by in the dark, but they remained, gravely discussing what
they had heard. The chief in closing said: “We have done all these things
that God hates. We have beaten our wives and made them work like slaves.
We have been cruel to children, and we have neglected the sick. But I
think God will forgive us when we tell Him we did not know. We have lived
in great darkness; but now the light has come; we must change our ways.
And you women, you need not be puffed up because the white man took your
part; for you are the cause of most of our troubles. We must all change
our ways. I hope the white man will come back soon and help us; for we
need help.”
The grave tone and serious manner of the speaker, with the dark and
silent night surrounding, all deepened the impression of his words, which
seemed the most pathetic I had heard from heathen lips; and often again I
went to Elen Akidia—Dawn of the Morning.
I once visited a town where there was a sick woman, close to death and in
great agony. She had become ill suddenly, and the people, not knowing
the cause, concluded she was a witch, or rather that she had a witch.
The witch in her had turned on her, and was eating her. For the woman
had convulsions, and that was a sign that the witch was eating her. They
were now able to account for the death of several children in the town;
this woman had, without doubt, bewitched them. Her spirit, being “loose
from her body,” had gone out in the night, and while the children were
sleeping, had eaten them. Next morning the children appeared to be well,
but they immediately began to fail, and after a while they sickened and
died.
I found the woman lying on a bed, consisting of nothing but poles laid
upon the ground, although the town was near the coast, and they were
long accustomed to better beds. The town was built in a mangrove swamp,
and the mosquitoes were so thick that to be exposed to them was torture
that one could not long endure. But this woman’s bed had no mosquito
net, although all the other beds in town were thus furnished. Every
little while her body was convulsed, and her features distorted with
pain. I gave her some medicine, although I had no idea what was the
matter with her; for I had only been in Africa a short time. I was sure
that the medicine did her no harm, however, and that is the principal
consideration. But it served to teach a moral lesson. I told my boys
to make a fire in her house, and I tried to make her comfortable. Her
friends refused to help me.
“The woman is a witch,” they said, “and the sooner she dies, the better.”
When I had made her more comfortable I began to talk to her about God
and her need of pardon. At first she seemed destitute of any spiritual
instinct. The chief regret that she had about dying was that she did not
want to leave her goods. Her goods! a brass bracelet and leg ring; a
few yards of calico, perhaps; a little oil for the body, and what else
but mosquitoes? But there are crises in which the mind is not subject to
the ordinary limitations of time, but in a few hours lives through the
experience of years. The woman gradually grasped the idea of God’s love
and the possibilities of the future. A great and mysterious change came
over her, and she said: “I have been a wicked woman. What shall I do?” I
told her of the cross of Christ. And, like the penitent thief, in agony
and pain, she too ceased cursing and began to pray. That night, as I lay
in a house near by, I heard her repeating in broken sentences: “Me ne ye
mam abé. Me ne ye mam abé. Atat, kwege me ngongol, Atat. M’abune Jésu.
M’abune Jésu.”—I am sinful. I am sinful. Father, have mercy on me. I
believe in Jesus. I believe in Jesus.
I left the town before morning, and two days later she died, still
saying: “Atat, kwege me ngongol. M’abune Jésu.”
Even the sincerest converts have need of the most patient instruction in
the morals of Christianity. Many white men seem to make a business of
scoffing at the moral attempts of the native, when God, who looks upon
the heart, probably approves. The first earnest inquirer among the Bulu
at Efulen was a man named Zanga, whom Dr. Good was daily instructing.
One Sunday, when Dr. Good was in Zanga’s town, he found him working, and
he told him the law of the Sabbath day. Zanga had already learned of it,
but he did not think that the work he was doing was forbidden, because
Dr. Good had not mentioned that particular work. He at once stopped, and
promised that henceforth he would keep the Sabbath in all reverence. The
next Sunday Dr. Good found him again at work, putting a thatch roof on a
house, and he again corrected him.
Zanga replied: “Why, you don’t call this work, do you?” But he stopped
it, as before.
The next Sunday Dr. Good again entered Zanga’s town. Zanga saluted him,
exclaiming enthusiastically: “Ah, Ngoot, I am keeping the Sabbath fine
to-day. I have hired two men to make the roof, and I am just sitting here
giving them orders.” He was doing as well as he knew; and most of us know
far more than we do. God knows our thoughts and intentions.
At the beginning of my third year among the Fang, I began to feel
that the time of harvest was drawing near. People from towns far and
near began to bring their fetishes to me, laying them at my feet, and
renouncing them; and the surrender of their fetishes was a better
confession than could have been made in words. I especially required
the surrender of the father’s skull, the most sacred fetish of the men.
I soon had so many of these uncanny things that the question what I
should do with them became urgent. When I was leaving Africa, a Christian
native, who had heard that I was taking some of these skulls with me,
came to me in great anxiety and asked me whether I had considered the
confusion that might take place at the resurrection if those skulls were
on the other side of the sea. Sure enough, I had never thought of that.
I scarcely realized the degradation of their beliefs until men and women
brought their fetishes to me, and explained them fully as they renounced
them.
One day I visited a town in which twenty-two persons, five men and
seventeen women, stood up in a line in the street, and delivering up
all their fetishes, renounced them, and said that they would follow
Christ and worship only the true God. This was the first large group of
Christians in one town, and when a church was afterwards organized I gave
it the name of that town, _Ayol_, which is still the name of the Fang
church. The Ayol Church belongs to Corisco Presbytery, and to the Synod
of New Jersey. In a few months there were a hundred Christians, and at
the end of a year, two hundred, scattered over the large Fang field in
groups of six, eight, or ten persons in a town. They had all discarded
their fetishes, and they were meeting together every evening to sing and
pray in the hearing of all the people.
The fact that those Christians were not in a single community, but
scattered over extensive territory and in widely separated towns,
greatly enlarged the outlook for the future. In a single community, it
sometimes happens that when a few persons of influence and decision
become Christians they make Christianity popular, and the thoughtless
crowd follow their lead, but never exhibit a strong type of Christian
character. And this suggests another objection to the small, undermanned
station. Its work is usually restricted to the vicinity of its location,
where the tremendous prestige of the white man makes Christianity
dangerously popular, and where the Christians are near enough to the
missionary to lean upon him for spiritual support, and perhaps for
worldly support also if they are very poor. But these small groups
of Fang Christians, scattered in towns far apart, were leaders, not
followers, of others. They became Christians when Christianity was not
popular, and had no artificial prestige. They were far enough away
from the mission for wholesome independence, and near enough for the
help which they really needed. They also had a field of opportunity
immediately around them, and the whole number brought into contact with
the Gospel was very great.
These Christians in saluting each other invariably use the term,
“Brother,” though they may belong to hostile and warring clans, and
before they became Christians might not have been able to pass each
other without fighting. And, strange enough, I did not teach them this
salutation; for I never used it myself until they established it. Flesh
and blood did not reveal it to them, but the Spirit of God; for where
Christ is, there is the instinct of brotherhood.
The number of Christians gives no idea whatever of the whole effect of
Christian influence. Between African heathenism and Christian faith
there is an immense interval; and multitudes, while not professing
to be Christians, were yet far removed from their former heathenism.
Old beliefs were all unfixed, with a corresponding change in morals.
Cannibalism almost ceases at the first sound of the Gospel, and wars
become less frequent.
One day two men called upon me, who were not to be suspected of any
inclination to Christianity. They told me that the sea had been
dreadfully rough during the whole night in which they were on their way
to Gaboon. They thought they would all be lost. One of these two men
said to the others: “We have been sinning against God, for we have been
travelling to the market all this Sabbath day, and we know that it is
wrong.” Then they all prayed to God, as the Christians pray, asking that
He would forgive them and save them. I asked him why he did not trust his
fetishes in the hour of need; for he had enough of them on him.
“Fetishes are nothing,” he replied; “it was only an angry God that we
feared.” There was a great deal of ignorance in all this; but it showed
that they were far removed from their former faith in fetishes; for in
the crisis they forsook the fetishes, and turned to God.
The care of all these new converts, or catechumens, added an entirely
new department to my work, and already the departments were numerous. A
convert is baptized and received into the church only after he has been
two years on probation; and during those two years he is supposed to
receive a regular course of instruction. These Christians were now asking
for such instruction that they might be received into the church. My
purpose had been to form a class in each of the towns where Christians
resided, and to place a catechist in charge of several adjacent towns,
who would live among the people, and teach them daily. But my catechists
were not yet ready, though for some time I had been preparing for the
emergency. In connection with the school I had a class of young men,
to whom I had been giving special attention, in the hope that they
might be fitted for the work of catechists. Yielding to the exigency of
circumstances, I placed three of these, Amvama, Obiang, and Eyena, in
three principal towns to teach the people. It was a mistake, however, and
I soon recalled them.
During the next year I concentrated my efforts upon this class of
catechists, and meanwhile, I visited these groups of Christians as often
as possible, just to keep up their courage. My catechists accompanied me
in my itinerating, and much of their training was in the actual work of
preaching and teaching, and in discussions and criticisms as we travelled
between the towns. But occasional and desultory teaching did not answer
the needs of these new converts. It was hard to keep them waiting; for
they had delivered up their fetishes, and were helplessly asking, “What
shall we do next?” I kept them waiting a whole year before I sent out the
catechists. Those were strainful as well as joyful times, and it was then
that I received the name by which all the Fang came to know me, “_Mote Ke
Ye_,”—_Man who doesn’t sleep_.
In one of my towns six persons who had professed their faith in Christ
became weary of waiting, and went over to the Roman Catholics. For a
Jesuit priest of the French mission had visited them, and offered to
teach them at once. I need not say that it hurt to have the Jesuits
gather the harvest for which I had waited so long. I should have welcomed
their help if I believed that they had a real Gospel for the people.
There were so many towns in which no missionary work whatever had been
done that I had always been sufficiently courteous to pass by those
towns where they were working, and go on to those which were utterly
heathen. But the Jesuits did not reciprocate this courtesy. Usually, as
soon as they heard that I had placed a catechist in a certain town, they
immediately sent one of their catechists to that same town. A priest
visited Ayol, where, as I have said, there were twenty-two Christians. He
knew that they had been waiting long for instruction. He first tried to
impress upon them that baptism was necessary to salvation; and he told
them that the reason “Mr. Milligan” did not baptize them was that he was
their enemy, and was trying to keep them out of heaven. Then he said that
he himself was willing to baptize them then and there, and receive them
into the church. There were several shrewd men among the Christians who
kept them all loyal. They said: “We are not ready to be baptized. We have
not been taught.” Then the priest offered to stay there a week and teach
them every day. But they refused outright, and said they would not be
baptized by anybody but myself.
There were many strings to this man’s fiddle. When he went into a town
where he perceived that there was a strong tie between the people and me,
he would assume a most friendly and even affectionate attitude towards
me. In one such town he found one of my catechists, Eyena, who had a
large class of thirty-one persons, some of whom were only inquirers and
not converts. The priest told the people that he and I were the best of
friends, and that they ought to treat us both alike; that this large
class ought to divide into two parts, and he would place a catechist
there who would teach half of them. They did not waver. But finding
that there were several men in the class who were not yet converts, but
inquirers, and who were living in polygamy, he at last told those men
that if they would enter his class they could be Christians without
putting away their wives. This inducement enticed four men out of the
class. He could the better take advantage of me because I made it a point
never to refer to him among the people.
When I was once away for a health-change, he visited one of my towns
where there were sixteen newly converted Christians. With great
enthusiasm he made the bold announcement that Mr. Milligan had been
converted to the Roman Catholic faith and that he had come to baptize
them and receive them into the only true Church. They were staggered. I
do not know what might have happened had it not been for a certain man,
Angona. Angona stepping forward, said: “If Mr. Milligan is a Catholic we
will all become Catholics. But we will only be baptized by him. So we
will wait until he comes.” Despite this opposition this Jesuit and myself
always seemed to be good friends when we met.
One day I walked to an island town six miles away. It was a new town;
the people had recently come from the bush. The road, being also new,
was very bad: we sometimes waded in mud to our knees. Ndong Koni called
it _ebol nzen_—_a rotten road_. While I was speaking to the people of
the town, on the subject of a future life, endeavouring to awaken their
interest by asking questions as to what they knew and believed regarding
it, I observed in the audience two persons, a man and a woman, wearing a
Roman crucifix, and I addressed my question to them. I found them quite
as ignorant as any of the others. “Most of us,” they said, “have some
belief in a future life; but we really do not know.” “For my part,” said
the man, “I believe that death finishes everything.”
Pointing to the crucifix which he wore, I asked him what it meant. He
replied: “This is a Catholic fetish. A priest came into this town when I
was very sick and put this thing on me. I suppose it is a health-fetish,
for I soon got well and I have not been sick since.”
The woman was as ignorant as the man, and they represent a large class
who have been baptized and are wearing the crucifix without any idea of
its meaning. Thus is the cross of Christ degraded to the level of an
African fetish. I would not say, however, that this is the rule. I am
sure it is not.
The Jesuits instil a certain idea of morality; but it leaves much to be
desired. One day a girl who had just come from confession was quarrelling
with a male cousin, or more likely he was quarrelling with her, when in
reply to some scurrilous observation, she said to him: “I would half kill
you if I were not in a state of grace. But you just wait!”