Congo life and folklore

by John H. Weeks

BLACKSMITHS.

To him the teacher replied: “Supposing the white man had asked God to punish you and your people for driving him out of your town. Where would you be now? Not sitting there, but dead, without an opportunity of hearing of His great love. We will not ask God to punish them; but we will pray that He may do for these people what He has done for you, Satu, and your towns-folk: so change their hearts and superstitious thoughts about us that another day they will gladly invite us to stay in their town.”

Before very long the rain had ceased, some grass and wood were collected, and the white man, soaking a paper with kerosene, and putting the grass and wood over it, soon had a blazing fire that thawed the hearts and tongues of the lads. In a few minutes they were laughing and joking as though they were in their cosy houses on the station, instead of being in the wet bush outside a hostile, inhospitable village with a very superstitious people shaking their charms at them not fifty yards away. Bakula never forgot this incident, and his constant prayer was: “O God, open the hearts of the people to understand Thy messengers and to receive Thy message.”

Bakula was a great acquisition to the other boys on the station. He entered heartily into all their games, was a leader in many of their sports, and told them many a story around their evening fires. His humorous, merry ways, his amusing manner in telling a story, his cheerful, obliging disposition, his common-sense way of looking at things, his marked ability in school, and his genuine earnestness made him the favourite of all on the station, both white and black. He had discarded all his charms and had learned that a lad’s position was not due to them, but to his own disposition and willingness to oblige others.

One morning, when Bakula had been on the station about three years, he heard one of the white men give an address on the Parable of the Ten Virgins, and the narrative and teaching so stirred his heart with the fear that he would be left in the outer darkness, that all through the day he was unusually quiet, and at meal-times scarcely ate anything.

At night he started up more than once from horrid dreams with the awful words ringing in his ears: “I know you not.” For several days he bore this soul agony, and at last resolved to lay the whole matter before his white friend.

It was easy to converse with the white man about pictures, Mputu, and many other palavers when other boys were about, or even alone; but Bakula shrank from talking about the inmost feelings of his heart, although he knew he would be listened to kindly and sympathetically. With much shyness, therefore, he went one evening to his teacher and asked for a talk with him. He was received with a smile of welcome and taken into the white man’s room, and the door was shut upon them. The white man had noticed Bakula’s quietness, had partly surmised the reason, and was not surprised at the request for a talk on God’s palaver.

Now that Bakula was sitting there he found it difficult to begin. When he opened his mouth no sound issued, for a lump seemed to rise in his throat and block the passage. His friend chatted to him until he felt more at ease, and then he poured out all the pent-up feelings of his heart, and gave expression to the thoughts of his long broodings. He told the white man of the address he had heard, of his dreams, of his fears that Christ would not know him, and of the many sins of adultery, robbery, cheating, lying and false accusation of which he had been guilty. He laid bare his whole previous life in all its ghastly wickedness until the white man felt it crowding on and pressing down his own soul.

Tears rolled down the lad’s cheeks as he asked if God’s Son would know such a guilty one as he, and could He forgive so many sins? The teacher spoke to him quietly and earnestly, read to him various passages from God’s own Word, and, after praying with him, dismissed him to his bed comforted and happy.