Since the establishment of foreign governments it is seldom that a white man is allowed to witness this ordeal; but in earlier days they witnessed it frequently. Du Chaillu tells of such a trial at which he was present, in a town near Gaboon. There lived in the town a woman, Ogondaga, an unusual woman among her people, he says; the one also who had kept his house and cooked his food and had been exceedingly kind to him. A number of deaths occurred in the town, and when the witch-doctor was consulted he announced witchcraft as the cause. The usual panic ensued. The terrified people, exclaiming, “There are those among us who eat people,” ran through the streets with drawn swords, athirst for blood. The witch-doctor named three persons as possible witches; and last among them he named Ogondaga. As they dragged her from her house towards the river she caught sight of her white friend and piteously begged him to save her. The lonely white man, pale and trembling, looked on, but could do nothing. They made her drink the poison. There was a moment’s terrible suspense; then she was seized with vertigo and staggered. But even before she fell they sprang upon her with savage yells, cut her body to pieces, and with curses flung it piece by piece into the river. And yet I am citing the ordeal as evidence of a moral nature! The roots of certain shrubs, the bark of certain trees, and, above all, the notorious Calabar bean are used as ordeal poisons. Sometimes both the accused and the accuser are compelled to submit to the ordeal. In at least one African tribe, when one person charges another with certain serious offenses they are both (accused and accuser) tied to stakes some distance apart, on the brink of the river in the neighbourhood of crocodiles, and whichever of the two is seized first is adjudged guilty. The other is then set free. The ordeal is a form of judicial trial in which supernatural aid is relied upon to take the place of evidence and to determine guilt or innocence. We must not forget that the ordeal was a medieval practice in Europe; and that our fathers were required to prove their innocence by dipping their hands into boiling water, or carrying a red-hot iron nine paces. But our fathers believed in a righteous God, and when evidence was wanting the ordeal was a direct appeal to His judgment. It is very different, and more strange, to find the African relying upon the ordeal, who does not believe in a righteous God. The God of African belief made the world; but in character He is no better than the Africans themselves; and, moreover, he is a God afar off and inactive, while the spirits who are near and active are also evil and hostile.