But to the native chaotic conception of nature we must add another idea of fearful import. To the mind of the African nature presents a frowning aspect, from which he naturally infers that the spirits which rule or reside within it are mostly hostile to him. It is only to the reflecting mind that nature seems beneficent. Her greatest forces, her constant ministry, are not obvious. That which is normal and regular does not attract attention. A man thinks more of the one month of sickness than the eleven months of health; he is more observant of the storm than of sunshine, more conscious of adversity than prosperity. The laws of growth, seed-time and harvest, rain and sunshine—all the kindly ministry of nature is quiet and unobtrusive, while her cruelty thrusts itself upon the attention because it is her unaccustomed mood. The conception of nature in the African mind is derived from the devastating tornado and the storm upon the sea that threatens to engulf him, from the hard work necessary to procure his food and the scarcity of meat, from sickness that disables him and death that bereaves him of his friends. It is therefore a part of his philosophy that the spirits are at enmity with him. His own ancestors are among them and they may be placated and even rendered favourable, but a far greater number are hostile; and the motive of his worship is not devotion but fear. He worships the spirits of his ancestors that he may obtain their help against all other spirits. Contrary to all this Jesus teaches him to call God, Father; and God’s Fatherhood includes His care, which at once relates God to nature, for it is largely through nature that God’s care is exercised. To believe in God’s care over us is to believe that nature’s laws are the operation of His will. The mind awakens to the beneficence of nature, and we learn that even storm, disease and death are under the control of a sympathetic Power. The fear of the native is changed to confidence and trust. Next to the ancestral relic is a lower form of fetishism in which the external object is the vessel or residence of a spirit, which is under the control of the possessor of the object. A still lower form of fetishism is pure animism, in which the various objects of nature have each a life analogous to that of man to which their phenomena are due. Witchcraft is a supernatural power obtained by a person through a compact with an evil spirit. In Africa witchcraft is also fetishism inasmuch as it is usually, and perhaps always, supposed that there is within the witch’s body a physical object which is the residence of the evil spirit.