“Why should we try to buy English clothes, if we like our own better? Why should we build larger houses—our own suit us very well? Why should we farm more ground when we are quite contented with the food we have?” If they asked further whether this civilisation always made men happier and better, the civilised man could not tell them that it did. Undoubtedly, a native might become a very good Christian, and still be content with his small hut and his coarse fare. If mere civilising agents had met with a man like Abraham, I fear that the life and manners of the patriarch would have been too simple for their tastes. Yet, while the Missionary takes for his text “One thing is needful,” he knows that other things will be added thereunto. He feels that he has to proclaim “good news” which will bring happiness to everyone that believes it, and as he looks along all the stages of the native life from the day that the African draws his first breath beside a stream in the dense forest till the day that he lies down on his mat to die, the Missionary knows that these glad tidings will soon brighten the whole. The native beliefs regarding witchcraft must occupy the attention of the preacher, who will fail to impart Scripture ideas of the government of the world unless he refer to the opposing views. The opinion that a man cannot die without being bewitched, is one which they cling to most tenaciously; and withal they are very metaphysical. We might think that a single lecture on physiology from a medical man would cut up this doctrine by the very roots. But no. The natives admit that death is always the result of injury or decay, but they maintain that this fact does not in the least discredit their own theory. It rather confirms their belief, for did not the witch use means to bring about these causes of death? As the natives seldom speak of their customs and beliefs, one may live here for years before becoming aware of the evils and hardships that so many Africans endure: but when these things are known in all their horrid enormity, they furnish a text for a great many “practical remarks,” and the poor people listen attentively to every subject that bears on their ordinary life. To ourselves the sad practice of the witch-detective gave a new meaning to the text “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”: for if there be beings that ought not to be suffered to live these sorcerers must be among the number. Each year they consign scores of their fellow mortals to an untimely grave.