Again, chiefs in receiving visits from other chiefs and their retinues had to give free hospitality for long periods. This required a large amount of food and several women to prepare it daily. Then again, for generations the women have believed that if they allowed their husbands to have intercourse with them between the time of pregnancy and the weaning of their children, those children would die. This superstitious belief has been a potent factor in keeping polygamy alive, if it did not originate it. Remember how they procure their wives, and that the woman’s family must replace her in the event of death, consequently the family has been careful to see that she has not been weakened by frequent child-bearing, lest they should have to give another woman in her place. Among some tribes the man had to wait until his wife’s family took him a calabash of palm-wine, and renewed their permission to him. Some writers think, judging by the tone of their articles, that we missionaries rush pell-mell into a country, and delight in upsetting the institutions and customs of a place whether they are good, bad, or indifferent. This, however, is not true to the facts as I know them. Our Mission on the Congo commenced its operations in 1878, and it was well on in the eighties before churches were formed, with rules and regulations for the guidance of converts. In the meantime a language had been reduced to writing, much translation work had been done, and a mass of information collected about the habits, customs, and view of life taken by the native. “Many men, many minds” is an old saying, and we found it a true one when the time came to deal with native marriage customs and polygamy in relation to church membership. There was not a single aspect of this great question but had its exponents; and it was not until after mature consideration, and a careful study of all the pros and cons, that we came to the conclusion that monogamy was the only wise rule to adopt, and we therefore laid it down as a condition of church membership that one man should have one wife only. It is also a rule of the church that no Christian shall receive marriage money for his daughter, niece, or ward; and no Christian is permitted to give marriage money for his wife, except to a heathen if he asks for it. The reasons for this exception are obvious. We also insist that all Christians shall marry either by civil law or “holy matrimony.” We are interested in the natives and, rightly or wrongly, we devote our lives to them; and if we had desired numbers on the church roll to quote in reports rather than the moral and physical well-being of our parishioners, we should have made these restrictions less rigorous, and entrance to church membership more easy and pleasant for them. Our Society gives us a free hand in dealing with these great problems.