“These people are not destitute of a traditional literature: they have a great many riddles, which I am trying to collect. They have also many tales. At the head of these there is an account of the first man; this is followed up by genealogies of all the tribes in their neighbourhood; then there comes a long catalogue of wars and consequent famines, interspersed at intervals with times of peace and prosperity. I have also accounts of their important ceremonies, some of which are very objectionable, and much resemble practices that were associated with the idolatry of ancient Israel. Some particulars my informant communicated in a whisper; others were ‘hidden,’ and if he revealed them he would die. The man that has been my chief instructor is anxious to get ‘our stories,’ by which he means the stories in the Bible. After coming to Africa and seeing the effect of Scripture narratives on the native mind, my appreciation of the Old Testament history has been much deepened. To take one instance. The natives were greatly impressed with the incident in the history of David, where he had Saul in his power and spared him—they considered David’s action a most admirable one. “Congregations at home are anxious to get truth in a more abstract form, and would consider time wasted if the sermon were taken up with these simple stories; but these natives like to ruminate on every particular, and to conceive the whole narrative as vividly as possible. Though we, from familiarity, look on these narratives as simple, people hearing them for the first time may recognise in them not only a divine sublimity, but a supernatural intellectual power.”