Yet in all their degradation there was still something childlike about them. We found them always interesting and even lovable; and though so far below our own moral level, our sympathy was not repelled by their degradation. One upon the mountain top may seem far above his fellows; but, when he looks up, the infinite stars are equally above them all. The higher our ideals the more lowly our hearts, the more sane and broad our sympathies. It ought not to be expected that we would accomplish any individual or social transformation in a brief year. Only with length of time can even a divine religion, so long as it leaves men free, transform the customs of ages, and in minds knowing only animal desires, create new and noble ideals. Without doubt the new truth that we taught had become more intelligible and above all, they grasped its practical import. We not only preached but practiced justice, honesty, truthfulness, and kindness (to their amazement), and they interpreted our creed by our practice. For they themselves were preachers of righteousness before they ever heard of the white man; but it was in _doing_ that they lacked. We felt at the end of the year that they understood us, and recognized our moral principles as right: and this was a great advance. But the actual reforms among them were for the most part merely superficial and scarcely moral. Some of them developed a passion for clothes, which they regarded as mere ornamentation. It is sometimes said that we missionaries preach a “Gospel of cloth” mistaking clothes for morality. And a superficial observer at Efulen would probably have supposed that the ludicrous effort of the people to clothe themselves was the result of our teaching and advice. But it was due only to their ready habit of imitation; and as a matter of fact we were disposed to discourage it. For one of the first lessons that the white man learns in Africa is that clothes and morality are not so nearly related as he had supposed. It is preferable in this as in everything else that knowledge should precede practice: otherwise, the results will be at least grotesque and often injurious to health. One man is dressed in the crown or the brim of a hat; another wears a pair of cast-off shoes, or perhaps one shoe, while his friend wears the other; and even when they are new he is indifferent about shoe-strings. One man will wear as his entire outfit a ragged coat of inhuman proportions; another wears a pair of trousers that have outworn all the buttons, while his whole time and attention are occupied in keeping them on, and with indifferent success. Such rags of clothing turn these fine and manly-looking fellows into low-down rowdies or even into the semblance of apes. Nor do they always know the _gender_ of the garments shown them in the trading-houses, and not all the traders will assist their taste. One may sometimes see a tall chief dressed in a pink or blue Mother Hubbard. At the coast I once saw a stalwart