The story is one that always appealed to the Fang of the Gaboon. For, in bringing their garden produce to the morning market, they must cross the bay at night in their frail canoes, and they all know what it means to be overtaken by the sudden fury of a tropical storm until they have despaired of reaching the land. And it is with the African as with the disciples, his fear of the supernatural is always greater than his fear of the natural, and confidence in Christ casts out all fear. So also in the last hour, when about to pass out of this life into the dread world of spirits, I have seen him meet death without fear. For he hears the voice of Jesus saying: “It is I; be not afraid,” and he responds: “Lord, bid me come unto Thee.” XV FETISHISM AND THE CROSS During my study of the language of the Fang I was one day talking to a young boy and searching for a better word for _mercy_ than the very vague word in general use. He was a bright lad, with beautiful eyes and frank manner. I said to him: “A man was hunting in the forest, when he discovered a woman of a neighbouring town alone in her garden. He decided to steal her and add her to the number of his wives. He caught her and tied a bush-rope around her, and himself holding the end of it he made her walk ahead of him through the forest towards his town. On the way, the woman, recovering from her first fright, began to cry and to plead with him to let her go. She told him that she had three little children and that the youngest was sick and would probably die without its mother. The man for some time hardened his heart, but the woman continued to plead and to cry more bitterly. Then at last the man’s heart was softened. He began to think that perhaps two wives were enough for the present; and he let the woman go. “Now, when he reaches his town and tells the people what he has done what will they say about him?” Promptly came the answer: “They will call him a fool.” “Why will they call him a fool?” I asked. “Because he is not a real man. He has a soft heart like a woman’s heart. All women are fools.” “And how about small boys?” I asked. “Oh,” said he, “small boys are very much like women; but of course we will be real men when we grow up.” Not that the African is destitute of the instinct of humanity—by no means; but a false ideal calls for the repression of his best instincts.