The American Missionary — Volume 37, No. 4, April, 1883Various
Religion
The American Missionary — Volume 37, No. 4, April, 1883
Various
Congregational churches -- Missions -- Periodicals; Home missions -- Periodicals
That afternoon, when the pigs were fed, he was found with his nose
in the trough eating sour milk with the animals as if he had been
one of them. At night nothing could persuade him to sleep in a room
or on a bed; and after dark, when the family had retired to rest,
he stole out of the house as slyly as a cat, and hid himself away
in the tall weeds beside the fence. Every night for many weeks he
did the same, and was so fearful of being murdered in his sleep
that he changed his nest every night, never daring to sleep twice
in the same spot.
His tongue was constantly telling lies, and he would steal
everything he fancied that came in his way. He seemed to have no
idea of right and wrong. He could not comprehend what such words as
love and duty and kindness meant. Fear was the only motive which
had the least influence in controlling him. Even the difference
between cleanliness and dirt was a thought too sublime and profound
for his understanding.
But he could believe in ghosts and haunting spirits of dead men,
like most other ignorant and barbarous people; and he thought they
lingered around every stump and tree, and followed him wherever he
went. He could hear them fluttering in the leaves, or rapping on
the limbs and trunks of the trees, or whispering in the wind. He
supposed they took possession of the bodies of men and animals, and
caused them to sing and dance, and do all sorts of silly tricks,
by a kind of inspiration. He had some notions of the Great Spirit,
it is true, but they were confused and indistinct, and had little
power over him, while a slavish fear of the inferior spirits and
other such ghostly nonsense tormented him night and day, and made
him a timid, miserable, degraded, creature.
Had you seen him in that condition you would have thought it
impossible to make anything good out of such a stupid little
animal. You would have said it was of no use to try to teach a
creature so brutal and superstitious anything about God and heaven,
and a higher life, or even about the decencies of civilized society.
But a kind lady took him under her care. She taught him to read and
write. She showed him the folly of believing in ghosts, and talking
with the spirits. She told him the story of Jesus, and made him
learn the ten commandments, and the precious words of the Saviour,
and explained to him how God made him, and fed, and clothed, and
kept him, day by day, and that he ought to love Him, and do right
in return for His kindness. She impressed him with the thought that
God is angry with wicked boys and girls every day, and that only
the pure in heart, whose lives are good, can be happy on earth, or
go to heaven when they die.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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