At last the messenger arrived, the day was proclaimed, and those members of the Church and their friends (for everybody--Christian and non-Christian--was welcome to this festival) prepared their baskets of food, their offerings, their children and their clothes for the great event. As they travelled up to the station they met other contingents coming from various districts, near and far. They chatted about the news, compared their gifts, and the teachers and deacons consulted and talked over the progress of “God’s palaver” at the different centres of work.
Oh! wonder of wonders; the men helped the women in carrying the babies and the loads of food, etc. A kindly service they never rendered in the old days, for then the men swaggered along unencumbered, left their women to trudge after them as best they could with all the impedimenta on their backs, heads and in their arms--poor beasts of burden.
This Christian religion had certainly wrought a great change for the better in the condition of the women. Instead of being treated with contempt as inferiors, they were respected as equals; instead of receiving the leavings of the men, they now sat at the same table to eat with them; instead of being regarded as mere chattels to be borrowed and loaned, ill-treated, cursed and killed, they were cherished as wives; and instead of being mere children-bearing, farm-making, food-cooking animals, they were now the companions of their husbands and the sharers of their sorrows and joys.
It was early on Saturday afternoon when we arrived on the station. There across the entrance to the ground was a red banner with these letters in white on it: “TUKAIYISI” (= Welcome); and that was not the only welcome our party received. The white men and their wives greeted us very heartily, and showed us houses, and loaned us mats for our use during our stay. The women quickly gathered about their lady teachers, and questions, kindly inquiries, and answers were the order of the day. My owner, Mikula, recognized, greeted and conversed with many of the young men who were lads at school with him in the old days.
What a happy reunion! How longingly anticipated, and how fully appreciated! Faces were missed there that were now present in the cool glades that border the River of Life; and some few were absent, because, through heinous sin, they had been cut off from the Church, and were ashamed to show themselves at this Christian festival of gladness and thanksgiving.
One white man had decorated the church with palm-fronds, plantain-trees, festoons of creepers, flowers and flags. The station had been thoroughly swept, the flags streamed from the apex of the church to the ground. Another white man was looking after the comfort of the numerous visitors, allotting to them their sleeping-places, mats, and utensils for fetching water and cooking food. A third was receiving the numerous gifts, noting the names of the donors and districts, and arranging the offerings in front and around the platform.
What a miscellaneous assortment of gifts was there! Heaps of pumpkin seeds and peanuts; numerous bunches of plantains and bananas; a pile of oranges; pieces of cloth of various colours and qualities; umbrellas, eggs, glasses, fowls, rabbits, parcels of native tobacco, mats--plain and ornamented, kwanga loaves of native bread, pumpkins, calabashes, bundles of native greens, tomatoes, garden eggs, boxes of gun-caps, tins of gunpowder, and bottles of kerosene. Those who could not give garden produce or pieces of cloth presented mugs, plates, wash-hand basins, saucepans of native make, and European enamel-ware; those who had come too far to carry their offerings in kind, had sold them on the local markets and brought the results of such sales in francs and brass rods. Native tailors, who had made jackets, dresses and cloths ready for wearing, presented them as their share.
A CHRISTIAN WEDDING.
