I went to his house and he told me the whole story of his temptation and fall, a story that I cannot repeat here. He told it with a broken voice and crying all the time. The school had been closed two weeks before, the boys were all gone and nobody around. Bojedi was waiting for the English steamer, on which he was going home. This complete idleness after his responsible and constant work was perhaps the devil’s opportunity. Still crying he rose at length and opening a box took out all sorts of native riches, presents from Antyandi, native robes which must have been paid for by white men, a fancy bed-quilt and embroidered pillow-covers. Without saying a word, but still sobbing, he made a pile of these things just outside his door, while I looked on not knowing what he was going to do, until he struck a match and set fire to them. Then he remarked: “I should have done that long ago;” which I fully admitted; or else he should have returned them, which would have been better. The next day he left for home. I felt that this moral fall was peculiarly serious, much more so than some sin of sudden impulse. It was no doubt the very crisis of his life, a long deliberate battle in which all his moral resources were called out and all his moral energy engaged. Victory in such a fight transforms temptation into a purifying alembic; but to fall in such a fight means usually to be maimed for life. Very soon after this I left Africa. Bojedi remained at home the following year. He was married during the year. The last letter that I received from him was dated at Brazzaville, in the very heart of Africa, on the Upper Congo, where he had a good position with the _Commissaire Général_. He says: “Your letter dated at Lebanon, Indiana, August 21, 1906, was received March 20, 1907,” after which he tells me that just before he left his home in Benito a son was born to him, whom he has named Robert Milligan! May his tribe increase! XV A LITTLE SCHOLAR The following letter, with some slight omissions and alterations, was written on board the English steamer _Volta_ to a little circle of friends in America: _S. S. “Volta,” Aug. 7, 1900._ It is three months since I left Gaboon for a health-change on the sea, and I am just now returning. I had supposed that I would be away only a few weeks; but the time was prolonged by the sickness and death of an African boy whom I called my little scholar, of whom it is the purpose of this letter to give you some account.