I suppose that it is true that in the theology of even the worst forms of religion there is more or less truth, and almost equally true that in the theology of the best forms there may be somewhat of superstition. This is so because, as I believe, all religions had but one source, and that a pure one. From it have grown perversions varying in their proportion of truth and error. In this study of the African theologic ideas I shall endeavor to separate these two--the false and the true--into two divisions: First, Beliefs in God more or less true, which have had their birth in tradition of some divine revelation, which find at least faint echoes in human conscience, and which among exalted nations would be formulated into confessions, creeds, and articles of faith. Second, Animism or beliefs in vague spiritual beings, which, being almost pure superstitions, cannot, from their very nature, be accurately formulated, they being the outgrowth of every individual's imagination, and varying with all the variances of time, place, and human thought. Eliminating from any theology its superstitious element, we shall find the highest and truest religion. But if you eliminate from the theology of the Bantu African its superstition, you will have very little left; for, among the religions of the world, it comes nearest to being purely a superstition. So nearly is this true that travellers and other superficial observers and theorists have asserted that the religious beliefs of some degraded tribes were _simply_ superstitions, destitute of reference to any superior being. I can readily see how the reports of some travellers--even of those who had no prejudice against the Negro, the precepts of the Bible, or missionary work--could be made in apparent sincerity, when they state that native Africans have confessed of themselves that they had no idea of God's existence; also, their belief that some pygmy and other tribes were too destitute of intelligence to possess that idea,--that it either must be given them _ab extra_ by the possessors of a superior civilization, or must be developed by themselves as they rise in civilization. The difficulty about the testimony of these witnesses in this matter is that, being passers-by in time, they were unable--by reason of lack of ability to converse fluently, or absence of a reliable interpreter, or of being out of touch with native mode of thought or speech--to make their questionings intelligible. On the heathen side, also, the obsequious natives, unaccustomed to analytic thought, will answer vaguely on the spur of the moment, and often as far as possible in the line of what they suppose will best please the questioner. All native statements must be discounted, must be sifted.