Across the distance came the question: “What is a missionary?”
Then Onjoga, shouting with all the strength of his powerful lungs, gave them an outline of my work, a brief character-sketch of myself, and a rapid synopsis of the Gospel which would have laid the world under lasting obligation if I could have preserved it. Much to my surprise it had the desired effect. They waited for us and took us to their town, one of considerable size of which I had not before known the existence. We spent the night there and preached to the people. In the evening, when all the people were assembled, one of their own number started a Fang hymn (one that I had translated) in which they all joined, to my astonishment. Then they sang another, and another. The explanation was that Ndong Koni had frequently visited the town in order to teach them.
Onjoga’s wife, Nze, was a great trial to him after he became a Christian. At length he told me that he was going to put her away and asked me to come to his town and judge the palaver. For he wished me to know that he was folly justified. I went to his town and held a great palaver and heard many witnesses. I listened half a day to the very unpleasant story of Nze’s infidelity. Onjoga said that he did not care so much about it before he became a Christian, but now it was revolting to him and intolerable. After a long talk with Nze I asked Onjoga to take her back once more. He was at first very unwilling. I said:
“I know it is hard; but she promises to do right in the future; and besides, if you put her away you will probably marry some one else just as bad; for they are all alike, or nearly so.” This was before there were any conversions among the women.
“I know it,” he replied; “but I shall procure a very young wife and I am going to beg you to take her to Baraka and raise her for me.”
His heart was so set upon this project that I had some difficulty in persuading him that training wives for other men was not exactly my specialty.
At last he consented to take Nze back once more. “But,” he said, “I know she will not keep her promise.”
He was right. It was only a little while until Nze was living as badly as ever. He put her away and remained single for some time. Then he married a woman who had become a Christian under his teaching, and they lived most happily together. Shortly before I left Africa I went to his town and baptized their infant daughter. That service is still a sweet memory.
It was not a great move for Nze. She married a man in the same town and lived next door to Onjoga. Onjoga was a natural leader of men, and the influence of his life transformed that town. Each time I visited him he told me of men and women who had renounced their fetishes, together with their cruelties and adulteries, and had confessed the Christian faith. But the last time I visited his town he came walking down the street to greet me, leading by the hand none other than Nze, whom he presented saying: “She is now a Christian; and she is in the class that I am teaching.” When I left Africa Nze was still a faithful member of Onjoga’s class.
He was a man of evangelistic fervour. He regarded himself as a debtor to all his people to make known the gospel of Christ crucified, which was always the burden of his preaching. There were but few towns on the Gaboon where his voice was not heard. Ndong Koni was gentle and winsome; but Onjoga was aggressive and forceful. They represented extreme types; and there are other types among the Fang equally pronounced. For Christ lifted up upon the cross draws all men unto Him.