IX
A STORY FROM EAST AFRICA
Mombasa, though a Mohammedan town, is perhaps scarcely a typical one, as of late years it has become decidedly cosmopolitan, still in what is called the "Old Town" Mohammedanism with all its attendant ignorance and bigotry prevails.
There are women in this part of the mission-field with whom we have talked and prayed in past years, who seem further off from the Truth and Light than they were even in those early years of work amongst them.
These are the words of a young girl who, we know, was convinced of the truth of the Gospel: "Oh, Bibi, if I confess Christ openly I shall be turned out of my home, I shall have neither food nor clothing, and [with a shudder] perhaps they will kill me." We knew this was only too true.
She was a beautiful girl with sweet, gentle manners, living in those days with her sister in a dark, ill-ventilated room which opened on to a small courtyard where all the rubbish of the house seemed to be thrown, and where goats, hens, and miserable-looking cats seemed thoroughly at home amongst the refuse.
Yet, in spite of these surroundings and in spite of her knowledge of all manner of evil (alas! how early these children learn things which we would think impossible to teach a little child), in spite of all this she was pure and good. Now she seems to have no desire at all to hear or read the Gospel. When we do see her, her manner is always flippant and worldly. We don't want to give her up, we keep on praying for her, but there have been so many hardening influences since those early days, and she never took the definite step of openly confessing Christ. She was soon married to a man much older than herself who already had a wife; probably more than one. We suppose he was a higher bidder!