XVIA CHURCH
“Ethiopia shall haste to stretch out her hands unto God.”—Psalm68:31.
“Ethiopia shall haste to stretch out her hands unto God.”—Psalm68:31.
There are many who seem to think that the heathen, the world over, are reiterating the ancient cry of Macedonia, “Come over and help us,” and that multitudes are converted to Christianity at the first hearing of the Gospel; notwithstanding that in our own land those who know its transcendent import and ample evidence, and those who have even been trained in Christian households, are not so easily won. Degradation and ignorance are a poor preparation for Christian faith.
To the cultured heathen of old the Gospel was foolishness, and it is not less foolish to the uncultured heathen. The inspiring vision of a nation in a day is more poetic than factual. Neither the nation nor the individual is won in a day. Evangelism would be a simple process if it were only to say, as Philip said to Nathanael: “Come and see.” Nathanael, however, was not a bloodthirsty savage, but a pious Jew. It is certain that our duty does not end in merely announcing the Gospel to the heathen, and giving them the opportunity to hear, while we pass the word on to others; for this does not evangelize, nor accomplish anything else worth while. The watchword, lifted with battle-cry fervour, that appeals for the evangelization of the world in this generation,has inspired the zeal of many and has thereby done good service; but it is liable to look for geographical rather than moral results, and the policy of missions, if it respond to this exigent desire, becomes spectacular, the aim being to cover the utmost territory. New work is begun before the old is half done, with a consequent waste of the labour already expended. New stations are opened before the old are half manned for thorough work; and since only a thorough work can ever become self-sustaining and be left to take care of itself, it follows that this principle of forced extension defeats every other principle, and in the end defeats itself.
I know eleven missionary societies working in West Africa, and in most of those societies there is need of a policy based upon reality versus romance. In most of them the missionaries agree that the stations are seriously undermanned. I know one mission station at least which has been opened for more than sixty-five continuous years, and missionaries are still there without the least likelihood of their moving on; for the simple reason that the station has been so undermanned in all these years that they have not yet trained a native ministry; whereas, if instead of making haste to open new stations they had concentrated their forces there in sufficient numbers to do a thorough work, they might have left it long ago to the care of the natives themselves, and the missionaries might have opened new fields, with the likelihood that those also would in a reasonable length of time be sufficiently evangelized to be left to themselves.
Nothing retards progress like too much haste. The cause of the undermanned stations and the resultant crippled work is not, as many will say, that there are not enough missionaries, but that there are too many stations. The policy cannot make missionaries, but it does make stations, and a wise policy will adapt the number of stationsto the number of missionaries, instead of so scattering the missionaries that not one of them can do a work that will remain. In the arithmetic of missions two men can do not only twice as much but ten times as much as one. The French Protestant Society, whose work on the Ogowé River in the Congo Français is without doubt the most successful work in all West Africa, have only two stations, but have ten missionaries at each station. Neither can it be said that the crippled force at work in most of the missions is due to the hostile climate, inasmuch as every year, and almost every month, the unexpected happens, and missionaries are obliged to lay down their work suddenly and go home. I reply thatelsewhere(as I have said before) it is the unexpected that happens, but in Africa it is the unexpected that weexpect. We know the climate. It is one of the exigencies of the situation, and since the policy cannot change the climate, the climate ought to change the policy.
A policy of true evangelism must aim to establish a self-sustaining church, that is, a church which is independent of foreign money, and which is manned with its own ministry; and this is a slow process. It involves a threefold work, that of preaching (not on Sunday only, but daily, probably itinerating) that of teaching (at least in Africa, where there are no native schools) and the higher training for the ministry. If any one of these departments is wanting, the work is not progressing towards a self-sustaining church, and the policy is so far defective. But here is work for several men, at least, at one mission station. To place them at several stations means that no thorough or progressive work can be done at any station. And as such scattering of forces is poor policy it is also poor economy. For a station is usually an extensive property, expensive to build and expensive to maintain. The unnecessary multiplying of stations is extravagance.In our Presbyterian mission these considerations are being fully realized, and the present policy evinces a determination to do thorough work in the field already occupied rather than to enlarge our territory at the expense of crippling the established work. We have learned by our failures as well as by our successes.
The result of an inadequate force of missionaries at a station is not so much that the missionary is overworked—most missionaries are not making any such complaint—but that the work is not adequately done. And this wears on mind and heart; for the work is one, and if a part of it be neglected the whole must suffer. It is not the work that the missionary actually does that wears him out, but that which he does not do and cannot do, although perhaps his success depends upon it.
The Fang work included itinerating over a field more than a hundred miles by fifty miles, and the charge of a school in which I had no adequate assistant for two years. To this was added the Mpongwe work when Mr. Boppell’s health compelled him to leave the field. The Mpongwe work included the charge of the church at Baraka with its regular Sunday and mid-week services, and the pastoral work, a class in the Sunday-school, a teachers’ meeting, and the instruction of a candidate for the ministry. At such a station there is also a great deal of secular work; the care of the premises and the buildings, which are in constant need of repair, the care of several boats, the buying of building material, the charge of a store, ordering and receiving our own supplies, the treasurership—the latter a large work, because all purchases of goods and food were made in Europe and America. I suffered some under the strain, and the work, of course, suffered more than I did. My day and evening were laid out by the hour in a routine that was fixed as far as circumstances would allow.
The arrival of an English steamer, once a month, deranged all plans; but it was a welcome interruption, chiefly because it brought the mail. It is a pathetic instance of the white man’s interest that the natives everywhere, even if they know no other word of English, have learned to call the steamer, “the mail,” because this is what they hear the white man say when he sees it. The steamer nearly always came in the morning. While it was still fifteen miles away we could see the smoke on the horizon. There was always a strife among the boys and the men for which of them would be the first to announce it. At the sight of it they all came running and shouting, “Mail! Mail!” If Toko made the announcement he would say: “Mr. Milligan, mail live for come; I look him.”
Immediately I call Ndong Koni and tell him to call the crew, get out theEvangeline, and see that they all have their uniforms.
Meanwhile I put on a suit of white drill, such as I have described, a white helmet, and white shoes. Thus attired in the regulation best I go aboard and take breakfast with the captain, who gives me all the news of the coast. If he has cargo for the mission I wait until it is discharged on the beach, and then go ashore and have it carried up to the mission storeroom. When this is done I read my letters. But I sometimes carried the bundle of them around with me full half a day before reading them; and I always waited until I could close the door of my study and give the order that I was not to be disturbed.
But an urgent duty awaits me. A technical and minute declaration in French must be made of any and all the goods that have arrived. In declaring provisions, for instance, the different provisions in a given box must be declared separately, with the weight of each. The boxes, of course, could not be opened under any circumstancesuntil everything was declared and a permit received. But if the bills of lading should be delayed, or if they were not made out with all the particular weights, there was endless trouble. I could not open the boxes until I made the declaration, and I could not make the declaration until I opened the boxes. In such a case, after much waiting and annoyance, an officer would come and I would open the boxes in his presence. Sometimes these declarations were very troublesome. In one instance there was malted milk in one of the boxes. I did not know how to declare it; for I could not imagine under what class it would come. That I might make no mistake, and run the risk of a fine, I sent some malted milk that I had already on hand to thechefof thedouanestelling him what it was and how it was made, and asking him how I should declare it. After a day’s consideration he wrote advising me that malted milk should be declared aspain d’épice—spiced bread. But if the rules and regulations bothered me, I must say that the French custom-officers are, I believe, the most courteous and obliging in the world, and a striking contrast to American custom-officers.
But besides the arrival of the steamer there are other interruptions less welcome. While I am busy preparing my sermon for Sunday, in time stolen from other duties, a man appears at the door, and without waiting for recognition asks me to go with him to the mission store and get him a package of rat-poison—price about five cents. Shall I, or shall I not, go to the store? We are owing him this amount for produce he has sold us, and he holds a “bon” for it, which he can negotiate only at our store. He lives far away, and his friends are waiting for him. Besides, rat-poison itself is a kind of Gospel in this rat-ridden land. It ranks about next to soap. I get him his rat-poison. But I do not believe in missionstores. At some stations, of course, they are a necessity: at some, I know they are a serious hindrance to the real work of the missionary. It is vain to answer that some money (a small amount at the most) is thus turned into the mission treasury. I reply that missionaries are not sent out to make money; let those who stay at home do that: they are sent to spend it. I am glad to say that if I accomplished nothing else in Africa I finally sold out that mission store, and gave our trade to one of the trading-houses. And I am glad also to add that instead of a financial loss, we actually gained by dealing with the traders, not to speak of the great saving of time for the serious work of the missionary.
The work of itinerating I regarded as my chief work, however much detained from it. For most men it is also the most interesting work, inasmuch as it brings one into contact with the people in their native condition. With all their savagery there is really very little danger of violence at their hands. But a drunken savage is to be feared. Not that he is much more bloodthirsty; but his greed overmasters him, and he might easily be tempted to kill for plunder. For if the white man had nothing but the suit of clothes which he had on him he would still be rich enough to inspire native cupidity.
One Sunday at Nenge Nenge, a town sixty miles up the river, I left the launch at anchor and went on up the river several miles in a canoe borrowed from a trading-house located at Nenge Nenge. It was a very large canoe; and since the workmen were all idle, the trader gave me a crew of fifteen men. The West African trader is supremely generous in granting all such favours. It happened that a short time before this a white trader of Gaboon, a young man whom I knew very well, who had been in Africa less than a year, returning one night by boat from Elobey Island to the mainland, was drowned.The body was never recovered, and indeed, it is not unlikely that he was immediately seized and devoured by the sharks. Not one of the crew was lost, and although we could not formulate a charge against them, we more than suspected foul play on their part. No one will ever know the tragedy of that young man’s last hour.
The recency of this occurrence made me, perhaps, more suspicious than usual, or qualified my courage, on the occasion of the canoe ride at Nenge Nenge. The men had all been drinking, which I did not observe until we had started, and they were all of one tribe, a distinct disadvantage to me if they should mean mischief. And what was worse, they were just fresh from a distant bush town, and never had been in contact with white men. The river is broad at this place, and the current is very swift. They first started to sing one of their wild and fascinating boat-songs, keeping time with the paddles. Then the leader began improvising, according to their custom, on the theme of the white man and the white man’s riches, the others responding with a refrain. They were gradually getting excited, and were swaying their bodies from side to side, so that I feared continually that the canoe would be capsized. Then the song became a yelling-match, and they were getting still more excited. I had never at any time had a more distinct feeling that I was in a dangerous company of real savages, fifteen to one, and if I had been in their musical mood I should have been singing Robert Louis Stevenson’s immortal buccaneer song:
“Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest—Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”
“Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest—Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”
“Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest—Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”
“Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest—
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”
Before we reached the most secluded part of the river, and while there was still a small town to be passed, I ordered the headman to go close into the bank away fromthe current until we should pass a turn in the river. When I came close to the bank I said I would land here. They knew, of course, that this was not my destination, and they supposed that I would continue the journey in a few minutes. But as soon as I had landed I ordered them back to Nenge Nenge, and I proceeded in a small canoe which I hired at the town near by. Thus I avoided the possibility of being cut off in the flower of my youth. Or, it may be that I missed an adventure that I should have been proud to tell afterwards.
I often found the whole town engaged in dancing, of which they are passionately fond. It is not only their chief amusement, but also serves for physical culture, and accounts for their well-developed forms and graceful carriage. A great dancer among them becomes widely known, and is as highly esteemed as a virtuoso among us. I was one day teaching the people in a town where there were four Christians, when my attention was arrested by a good-looking and singularly well-developed man coming towards us down the street. I had not seen in Africa nearly so fine a form. He was graceful as he walked, and much more so when he threw himself down on the ground. He seemed to me a very Apollo Belvidere in ebony. They told me that he was a famous dancer. He had applied himself with diligence and extraordinary perseverance to the practice of all the difficult movements of the native dance until he was the envy of the men of his tribe. It was probably his persistent application to this practice, and his constancy of purpose, that gave to his face an unusual expression of gravity and strength.
I was reminded of the story told by Addison of a shepherd who used to divert himself by tossing up eggs and catching them again without breaking them; in which he became so skillful that he could keep up four at a timefor several minutes together; and who, by his perseverance and application had contracted the utmost severity and gravity of countenance. “That same attention and perseverance,” says Addison, “had they been rightly applied, might have made him a greater mathematician than Archimedes.”
My native friend, for such he became, remained after the service to talk with me. He had come from his town five miles through the bush on purpose to meet me. He said he had been in this town frequently, and had heard those four Christians telling the people about God and the salvation of Christ, and he desired to be a Christian. He afterwards put away an extra wife, and he also renounced his dancing, for their dances are associated with certain immoralities. We never know in what unlikely place the Shepherd will find His sheep. Our duty is to declare His Word in every place, and His sheep will hear His voice and follow Him.
But if I frequently found the people engaged in the noisy dance, I sometimes found the whole town steeped in sleep. One day I entered a town that was like a city of the dead; absolutely quiet, and no one to be seen. I walked the length of the town, thrusting my head in at every door, and asking the people to come out and hear God’s message; but only one man came. At last I asked this man if he would go and call the people. He started down the street, calling men and women by name as he passed, telling individuals in aloud voice their particular need of this preaching service, because of their personal sins, which he forthwith enumerated and charged upon them, exposing the private wickedness of men and women in brief biographical sketches, which it might be interesting but not edifying to repeat. I need not say that they responded to this urgent invitation. In a few minutes the whole population was in the street, eloquentwith resentment. One might think that they had the tenderest reputations to sustain. I would not commend to my fellow ministers in America this novel method of securing a congregation.
But how would one preach to such an audience? or what would one say? I am often asked. Well, that day I asked the people what kind of a king they would choose, if God should give them their choice. After some discussion they settled upon the idea of power. They would like a king who would be stronger than all their enemies, and especially stronger than the Mpongwe people. Then I taught them that Jesus whom God had sent is such a one; and I told them how He stilled the storm. Next, I asked them whether power alone would be sufficient. They first thought it would. “But,” I said, “suppose your king had no sense. Do you put a gun into the hands of a child? And would you like to see a foolish person armed with power that none of you could resist?”
“Oh,” they said, looking at one another, “we never thought of that,” and it was soon agreed that the king of their choice must be wise as well as powerful. Then I said that Jesus was wise with the wisdom of God, knowing all our needs and how to supply them. Again I asked if this was all they would desire in their king, that he be powerful and wise. They were quite sure.
“But,” I said, “suppose he were bad? that he loved only himself and robbed and killed you?”
Just at this moment a little child began to cry, and all the child’s numerous parents, a considerable part of the audience, turned upon it with such a howl of remonstrance that the frightened child ran for the bush.
“Suppose,” I continued, when they were again quiet, and looking as if they had done a good work,—“suppose your king were like yourselves (for you are cruel asbeasts) and that he should howl at you and frighten you just as you did that child?”
That would be a calamity indeed. They soon agreed that their king ought also to be good; and that this was the principal thing, although they had not thought of it before. And again, I told them of the love and sacrifice of Christ.
But do I really think that they heeded this Gospel? I think that as I left them talking together some probably laughed at the message,—in fact I heard them,—some doubted, and some perhaps pondered these things in their hearts, to whom they may afterwards have become the words of eternal life.
One often must turn aside during the service to answer irrelevant 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 thatthe 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 womanhas 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 spirituallyand 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 theEvangelineto a town fifteen miles away, calledElen 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 illsuddenly, 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 braceletand 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 AyolChurch 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 yearshe 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 theJesuits 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 acatechist 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 itebol 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 mypart,” 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!”
Time passed, and I had five catechists in the field. At last some of the catechumens were ready to be baptized. Then the church was organized at Ayol, with fourteen members. They were not likely to confound the church of Christ with any mere building made with hands; for as yet there was no building. We organized the church and held the first communion service in the street. The second communion service was held in another town called Makwena, Ndong Koni’s town, where his uncle was chief. The Christians of Makwena had built a beautiful chapel of bamboo, with doors and windows on hinges. Ndong Koni had worked in the yard at Baraka in order to buy those doors and windows for the church.