The anchor, therefore, was a power—was a devil to be feared—that is, a god to be worshipped; for in savage countries there is a wonderful likeness between the two. Thus was born a religion in Koussa Kaffir. Divine honours or dastard fears were lavished on the anchor; a priesthood sprang up who made their account in the Kaffir superstition. They were called anchorites. They were partly cheats, and partly dupes; but they made a livelihood between the two characters. They fixed the nature and the amount of the sacrifices to be offered, and the requirements of the anchor were in remarkable harmony with the wants of its priests. Natural causes, too, were happily blended with supernatural. The anchor was declared to be the great healer of diseases. For immense sums the ministering priests would give small filings to the diseased, and marvellous were the cures produced by oxides and by iron; never, in short, was there a more prosperous faith. The morals of the people, I grieve to say, did not improve in proportion to their faith. An anchor that is supposed to remit sins on sacerdotal intercession is probably not favourable to the higher morals in Koussa Kaffir. But a trial had to come upon the anchor-devil and its worshippers. Under it it must collapse, or passing through it as through the flame of persecution, come forth stronger and brighter than ever. Which should it be? It was an interesting spectacle. Let me finish my story. There returned to Koussa Kaffir a native who had voyaged round the world since he had left his native land; he had seen and had observed much; he was well acquainted with anchors; had seen them in all stages and under all conditions; he knew their use by long experience; he had handled them. One time his vessel had been saved by its stout anchor, another time he had had to save the ship by slipping his cable and leaving the anchor at the bottom; he had never known an anchor resent the worst usage; he would not worship this old broken one. Some thought him mad, some wicked; he was called infidel by those who knew his mind, but for a long time he followed his friends’ advice, and said nothing of his awful heresy. But this condition of mind would hardly last for ever. Travel had improved his intellectual force, as well as given special knowledge about anchors and other things; he began to lament over and even to despise the folly of his race; he burned to cast off some at least of their shackles of ignorance and superstition. “How shall I begin,” cried he one day, “to raise their souls to something higher, while they worship that stupid old rusty anchor in the sand?” His soul began to burn with the spirit of martyrs and reformers. “I will expose this folly; I will break to pieces their anchor-devil, and when they see that all is well as it was before, they will begin to laugh at their own devil, and will have their minds open to a higher faith.”