The fetish folk of West Africa

by Robert H. Milligan

But that which concerns us just now is the strange fact that the African immediately accepts the new ideal. He recognizes the character of Jesus as the authoritative standard even when he refuses to conform to it; and its authority is based wholly on his perception of its intrinsic superiority. The African finds in Jesus the complete definition of his own conscience. We shall not find a better explanation of this fact than that of the Bible; that he was made in the image of God and has not forgotten his origin.

If this depiction of the mind and heart of the African be true, it will be almost a foregone conclusion that the gospel which inspires his faith and becomes the power of God unto his salvation is the gospel of the cross and the atoning Saviour. Those who are called to preach Christ to the most degraded of mankind are ever in accord with the persistent instinct of the Church in all ages, embodied in the beautiful tradition that the spear which wounded our Saviour’s side on Calvary had henceforth the power to heal every wound that it touched.

This gospel of the atonement, in the first place, relieves his sense of guilt. His sense of guilt is very vague, indeed; but the ceremonies which he has instituted for its removal are the most concrete expression of his moral nature. He knows nothing of the theological implications of the atonement, nor does he understand the philosophy of his own salvation; but he knows that the crucified Christ satisfies his heart and relieves his conscience. For man is always greater than his reasoning faculty, and sometimes when it is impotent he still may know the truth by faith direct. The justice of vicarious atonement is not incredible to the African because he already has the idea. In common with most oriental races he has an idea of human solidarity which the occidental has lost (though he is regaining it) by reason of his excessive emphasis upon individualism. The African represents the opposite extreme. Each member of a family or tribe may be held justly accountable for any misdeed of any other member. If, for instance, in conducting a caravan through the forest one of them should desert, it would be in strict accord with African justice to shoot all the remaining members of that man’s tribe. White men (including some missionaries) have occasionally won a reputation for generosity by foregoing their rights in this respect. The human mind will never exhaust the divine mystery of the cross; but somewhere in its neighbourhood society will probably find the true mean between the two extremes of individualism and social solidarity. The voluntary sacrifice of Christ as our representative and its procurement of our pardon is credible to the African and relieves his sense of guilt.

Again, it is Christ as the atoning Saviour who secures his repentance. Nowhere else but at the cross have men united the ideas of holiness and love, God’s hatred of sin and love of men. In heathen religions, when love is attributed to God, as in some forms of Hinduism, He is indulgent and indifferent to sin; when holiness is attributed to Him, as in Mohammedanism, He is remote and indifferent to men, because they are sinful. And even the Pharisees were scandalized, not understanding how that Jesus, while professing to be holy, could receive sinners and eat with them. But the atoning death of Jesus, in which the divine goodness is concreted, unites holiness and love, hatred of sin and love of righteousness, and makes them inseparable.

Those who have acquired an intimate knowledge of the mind and heart of the heathen know that it is the consequences of sin, rather than sin itself, which they would escape. There is but little real abhorrence of sin. And the missionary feels instinctively that to proclaim to such an audience a gospel of forgiveness on a basis of repentance alone, without either penalty or atoning sacrifice, would only give license to indulgence, and make repentance itself impossible. The atonement of Christ, while offering free pardon, impresses even the mind of the African with the enormity of sin and the impossibility of pardon to the impenitent.

And again, Christ the atoning Saviour is the highest impulse to self-sacrificing service. The love of the atonement is more than the love of complacence. The atonement is love actualized as service.

It seems to me one must have lived among the heathen in order to realize how this principle of self-sacrifice stands over against the world’s principle of self-assertion. It is claimed, and with some truth, that Buddhism also has this principle of self-sacrifice. But, according to that religion, self-sacrifice leads to death, practical annihilation, which is therefore more desirable than life. In Christianity self-sacrifice leads to more abundant life and is the way not to a grave but to a throne. In Revelation a Lamb slain from the foundation of the world is seated upon the throne and rules: self-sacrifice is the principle not of death but of life, the way to power and glory; and this is not merely a temporal discipline, but an eternal principle—“from the foundation of the world.”

The African has a capacity for devotion not surpassed in the world. And he easily construes Christian duty in terms of service.

Ndong Koni was one of the first of the Fang Christians. He chose Christ early in life, and his mind was as completely purged of fetishism as was his heart of heathen cruelty. He was gentle and affectionate; and through all the years in which he was my constant companion, in frequent sickness, and in toils long and hard, I received from him so much kindness and affection that my heart still grows tender when I think of him. Ndong Koni was accounted very poor because he had no sisters. A man gives his sisters in marriage, and with the dowry which he obtains he procures for himself as many wives as he has sisters. Ndong Koni had not even one sister; and since he would not elope with another man’s wife his domestic future was a problem which neither he nor his friends could solve. Therefore, when he came to the mission and asked for work, I supposed that he had resolved to procure a dowry by working for it—which would require the labour of years. But I found, when I visited his town, that, with only the assistance of an old uncle, Ndong Koni had built a little church in his town; and in order that it should be far better than any house in town they had decided that it should have real carpenter-made windows and doors swinging on real hinges. This grandeur would be very costly, and Ndong Koni had sought work at the mission in order to earn money to pay for it. From that time, as long as I remained in Africa, he never left me, except for an occasional brief interval. He rose from one position to another until he was captain of the crew of the Dorothy, and, finally, a catechist. Many of the towns near Ndong Koni’s home were new, the people having come recently from the interior. I was the first white man to visit most of these; but I always found that Ndong Koni had preceded me and was the first missionary.

One of Ndong Koni’s converts was Onjoga, a remarkable man, who afterwards became an elder in the Fang church. Onjoga had reached middle age when he became a Christian, and for a long time he was the only Christian in his town. It was a peculiarly bad town. Soon after his conversion he came to the mission to ask me if I could send a teacher to his town; for, he said, he would like to learn to read the Bible that he might instruct his people. I had no teacher whom I could send; but Onjoga was so determined that I concluded to keep him at Baraka for a while and give him special instruction. He remained several months during which I taught him daily; and half of each day he worked in the yard to earn the price of his food.