I met at Gabun about 1895 the same criticism from the mouth of a partly educated Sierra Leone Negro, who, though a professing Christian, evidently was wearing Christianity hypocritically. His well-educated Mpongwe wife was a member of my church. It was discovered that she had a certain fetich suspended in her bedroom. It was necessary to summon her before the church session; she explained that it was not hers, but her husband's, and disclaimed belief in it. She was rebuked for allowing it in her room. The husband, hearing of the rebuke, wrote me an angry letter justifying his fetich. He said in substance: "You white people don't know anything about black man's 'fashions.' You say you trust God for everything, but in your own country you put up an iron rod over your houses to protect yourselves from death by lightning; and you trust in it the while that you still believe in God; and you call it 'electricity' and civilization. And you say it's all right. I call this thing of mine--this charm--'medicine'; and I hung it over my wife's bed to keep away death by the arts of those who hate her; and I trust in it while still believing in God. And you think me a heathen!" It was explained to him that in the use of the lightning-rod white men reverently recognized God in His own natural forces, but that his fetich dishonored God, ignored Him, and was a distinct recognition of a supposed power that was claimed to be able to act independently of God; that I trusted to the lightning-rod under God, while he trusted to his fetich outside of God. For every human passion or desire of every part of our nature, for our thousand necessities or wishes, a fetich can be made, its operation being directed to the attainment of one specified wish, and limited in power only by the possible existence of some more powerful antagonizing spirit. This, hung on the plantation fence or from the branches of plants in the garden, is either to prevent theft or to sicken the thief; hung over the doorway of the house, to bar the entrance of evil; hung from the bow of the canoe, to insure a successful voyage; worn on the arm in hunting, to assure an accurate aim; worn on any part of one's person, to give success in loving, hating, planting, fishing, buying, and so forth, through the whole range of daily work and interests. Some kinds, worn on a bracelet or necklace, are to ward off sickness. The new-born infant has a health-knot tied about its neck, wrist, or loins. Down to the day of oldest age, every one keeps on multiplying or renewing or altering these life talismans.