The late M. de la R⸺ had already been in the service of the Congo Français for thirteen years when I first met him. He endured the climate remarkably well and only at long intervals returned to France on furlough. He belonged to a good family. He also had a wife and children in France. His wife once went to Africa with him but she soon returned home; I was told that she was a fine woman; he himself when I met him was the pitiful remains of a gentleman who had been ruined by the two vices which have made West Africa in many minds a synonym for perdition. During his first years he was faithful in his official duties and he rose in the service. He was at one time administrator at Bata, not far from our mission station, Benito. It was under the administration of this very man that our long-established schools at Benito were closed by the government on the ground that the law in regard to the French language was not being strictly observed. But our missionaries of that station believed that the action of M. de la R⸺ was due to the influence of the French priests. After many years of increasing dissipation he was dismissed from the service for various discrepancies. His health was not good, and he was prematurely old. He had not been in France for many years, and he said that he would never go there again. Thus he was an outcast and without means of support in a foreign and hostile climate. At length a certain trader of Libreville took pity on him. Eight miles back in the bush, the trader had a coffee-farm that had about petered out; and there he sent the ex-administrator, and gave him employment for which he paid him enough to keep him alive. He lived alone there for more than a year, separate from all white men, a black mistress his only companion. One day visiting some interior towns, I followed a road that passed through the farm. I was greatly surprised at seeing a white man there, but not at all surprised that in such a place he was dressed only in pajamas. Leaving the road I went to the house to salute him. He told me who he was and urged me not to hurry on but to stay with him awhile; it was so good to see a white man. I felt so sorry for him that I thought I could do no better missionary work for that day than to visit with him; so I changed my plans accordingly, remained with him all morning and ate dinner with him, the table being served by his black mistress. I thought he would probably live but a short time and I felt as if I were performing his obsequies. It is strange how a man whose dignity resides not within himself, but wholly in outward circumstances, in social position, in pecuniary abundance, or the tawdry pomp of authority,—it is strange how such a man, when these all fail, sinks in his self-respect to the level of abject prostration. M. de la R⸺ had been fastidiously regardful of his dress and his personal appearance; but now he spent his days in shabby pajamas and even shunned the acquaintance of soap and water.