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Dr Livingstone tells us of a Bechuana woman at Mabotsa, who murdered her Albino son, because her husband refused to live with her; she went unpunished by the authorities1.

He further informs us of a slave-girl being allowed to starve by her master, because his crop had failed: also of a boy being likewise left to the same fate2.

These statements are not made either from a morbid love of feasting on the terrible, or of painting the dark side of human nature; but to prove how necessary it is for the Gospel to be made known among such benighted people, in order that it may transform them in the spirit of their minds, and cause them truly to abandon such Satanic practices.

We know that heathenism has its bright side; and that heathen men and women oftentimes exhibit the noblest traits of character, as well as practise the kindliest of the virtues. But be it remembered that this is the exception, and not the rule. Conscience may sometimes work, and the soul may occasionally aspire after higher and better things. Kindness, affection, and even justice may sometimes govern for a time, but these do not affect the main current, which is corrupt and poisonous. Whatever may be the sins of omission and of commission of Christian lands, these, in the main, are not to be compared in frequency and enormity with those of heathen countries, in which the best side of the question is almost entirely wanting.

The present Religious State of the Natives of South Africa. "And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest."-Ezekiel xxxvii. 3.

"And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent."-Acts xvii. 30.

The best way in which to understand a person's need, is to know his state. We have just reviewed the cruelty of 2 Ibid. p. 511.

1 Travels, p. 576.

the inhabitants of these dark places of the earth; and now we contemplate their spiritual gloom.

There are some very striking facts connected with the religious condition of the tribes of the South African continent. This is likewise to be regarded in a twofold aspect. Those in the south are not idolaters; whilst those farther north are so. Then, again, the tribes in the south have their rain-doctors, to make the rain; and those in the north have theirs to prevent its falling. The people of the south have no external worship, and hence are sometimes wrongly regarded as infidels, while those of the north are more prone to worship, and have outward rites. These latter have also somewhat the brighter religious perceptions.

On this subject authorities are somewhat at The ideas of God entertain- issue. In the estimation of some persons, ed by the South many Africans have no idea whatever of a African tribes, together with Supreme Being; according to the statements their worship of others, all have some such an idea. of Morimo and Barimo.

Doubtless savages in general are thorough sensualists; still the spirit within bears witness by its own promptings, longings and activity, of a something and a some one beyond what sense can see or feel.

From long intercourse and observation, perhaps, Mr Moffat and Dr Livingstone are the best authorities on the subject. Their experiences and conclusions are evidently

⚫ different.

Mr Moffat says of the Bechuanas, Hottentots and Bushmen, that he believes Satan to have erased every vestige of religious impression from their minds. Concerning the Bechuanas, he remarks: "To tell them, the gravest of them, that there was a Creator, the Governor of the heavens and earth,—of the fall of man, or the redemption of the world, the resurrection of the dead, and immortality beyond the grave, was to tell them what appeared to be

in the south, among tribes which are reported to have been as savage as the Makololol."

In another place he says: "But amidst all the beauty and loveliness with which we are surrounded, there is still a feeling of want in the soul in viewing one's poor companions, and hearing bitter impure words jarring on the ear in the perfection of the scenes of nature, and a longing that both their hearts and ours might be brought into harmony with the Great Father of Spirits."

Such portraits are painful to contemplate.

The life of God in the soul, purity of thought and manners, together with the bringing forth of the fruits of the Spirit, are never exhibited in any except Christian countries, whatever the dark side of these countries may be.

The question of the moral sense is not to Their blunt be discussed here; nevertheless much can be ed moral perceptions, and gathered both for and against it from Dr degraded man- Livingstone's narrative.

ners and cus

toms.

We find even public morality in some cases at a very low ebb; Dr Livingstone tells us that there is not even a public opinion of purity and decency. He states that among the Makololo all the women, married and single, are expected to be, and are, at the call of the chief; likewise that a female chieftain regards each man of her clan as her quasi-husband; and that such is the case with most other tribes, as well as the practice of polygamy. Some of the Balonda and Barotse tribes are an honourable exception in the treatment of their women.

The Makololo use most awful language; swearing, cursing and obscene expressions being their delight. They are not only foul-mouthed, but also very dirty in their habits and persons.

As far as dress is concerned, most of the people have but little; while murder and the grossest of crimes, often go 1 Travels, p. 226. 2 Ibid. p. 259.

unpunished. With vast numbers the ideas of common honesty, public law, private duty, and proper obligation between man and man, are, to a great extent, in abeyance. Sekomi, a Bechuana chief, tried to palliate an act of extortion by shewing that it was not swindling'. On one occasion our traveller concluded that an old Bushman had no conception of morality whatever. He says of him "When his heart was warmed by our presents of meat, he sat by the fire relating his early adventures: among these was his killing five other Bushmen. 'Two,' said he, counting on his fingers, 'were females, one a male, and the other two calves.' What a villain you are to boast of killing women and children of your own nation! what will God say when you appear before him?'-'He will say,' replied he, 'that I was a very clever fellow.' This man now appeared to me as without any conscience, and, of course, responsibility, but, on trying to enlighten him by further conversation, I discovered that, though he was employing the word which is used among the Bakwains when speaking of the Deity, he had only the idea of a chief, and was all the while referring to Sekomi, while his victims were a party of rebel Bushmen against whom he had been sent"."

Dr Burchell informs us that the Batlapis view murder with perfect indifference. Mr Moffat adds that during his stay among these people a man killed his wife in a rage. Remarking of this crime, "When I endeavoured to represent to the chiefs, with whom I was familiar, as old acquaintance, the magnitude of such crimes, they laughed, I might say inordinately, at the horror I felt for the murder of a woman by her own husband3."

The Bushmen and Bakalahari are unspeakably degraded; making the beasts of the field their companions, they are become almost assimilated to them in their every-day life. 2 Ibid. p. 159.

1 Travels, p. 146.

3 Missionary Labours, &c. p. 465.

Tattooing is universally practised among these tribes: drunkenness prevails to a great extent in Angola, and is not unknown in the interior.

Mr Moffat, in the account of his visit to Mosilikatse, chief of the Matebele, thus graphically describes one of that monarch's feasts: "The bloody bowl was the portion of those who could count the tens they had slain in the day of battle. One evening two men bore towards me an enormous basket. It was the royal dish sent from the presence of his majesty. The contents, smoking blood, apparently as liquid as if it had just come from the arteries of the ox, and mixed with sausages of suet. I acknowledged the honour he wished to confer, but begged to be excused so lordly a dish, as I never ate blood when I could get anything else. This refusal gave perfect satisfaction, when the whole breast of an ox, well stewed, was immediately sent in its place. As nothing can be returned, the bearers of the smoking present, and others who were standing round it, had scarcely heard that they might do what they pleased with it, when they rushed upon it, scooping it up with their hands, making a noise equal to a dozen hungry hogs around a wellfilled trough'."

The Mambari and some other tribes eat the most disgusting food, such as mice, moles, &c.

Respecting the Makololo, Dr Livingstone gives the following account of their moral state: "They do not attempt to hide the evil, as men often do, from their spiritual instructors; but I have found it difficult to come to a conclusion on their character. They sometimes perform actions remarkably good, and sometimes as strangely the opposite. I have been unable to ascertain the motive for the good, or account for the callousness of conscience with which they perpetrate the bad. After long observation, I came to the conclusion that they are just such a strange mixture of good

1 Missionary Labours, &c. p. 553.

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