The women of West Africa, in preparing their food, bury it in the ground beside a stream for several days. A fellow missionary, one day examining an old woman who presented herself for baptism, and careful lest she might regard the water of baptism as a fetish, asked her a question regarding its significance, to which she replied: “When I bury my food in the ground I mark the place. What use would the mark be if there were no food there? Baptism is but the mark: God dwells in the heart.” XIV THE MORAL DEGRADATION OF FETISHISM An African woman was one day walking through the forest to her garden when she found a little child who was apparently lost and was crying with hunger. She took pity on the child and immediately carried him back to her town where she comforted him and nursed him. The child remained a few days and then mysteriously disappeared. Immediately a dreadful plague broke out in the town and many people died and there was much mourning. Then they knew that it was not a real child whom the woman had found, but a spirit in the form of a child, who had appealed to the woman’s pity and had lain on her bosom in order to bring death and desolation upon the people. With such spirits, wanton and wicked, the African mind has filled the invisible world. The powers above him are hostile—all except the spirits of his immediate ancestors. The former worship of snakes in Dahomy (nearly extinct by this time) throws a lurid light upon the African’s conception of the powers above him. According to the belief of the Dahomians snakes were spirits incarnate. The Dahomians have a peculiar interest for Americans since the World’s Fair of Chicago, where the chief attraction of the Midway Plaisance was an African village of real Dahomians, who regularly entertained a gazing throng with war-songs and war-dances and also scandalized feminine modesty. In one respect, however, the Chicago village had been modernized, as we shall see. When Leighton Wilson first went to Dahomy he found in each village a house in the middle of the street, provided for the “exclusive” use of snakes—there was probably not much difficulty in keeping it “exclusive” considering the deadliness of many African snakes. The snakes, Dr. Wilson tells us, were fed and better cared for than the inhabitants of the town. If they were seen straying away they were brought back. At the sight of them the people prostrated themselves upon the ground. It is not improbable that during the World’s Fair Dahomians in far-away Africa were offering prayers to snakes for the safety of their friends in Chicago.