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 woman has 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 spiritually and 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.