Chapter XXIII: I Find many Changes

Mikula while digging the foundations for a brick house discovers me--The
town is changed--There is daily worship--Observance of the
sabbath--Sunday service--Collections for support of
teachers--Christian funeral--Visit to the mission station--Teaching
teachers--Martyrs for the cause.

[Fifteen years are supposed to have elapsed between the concealment and the unearthing of the Brass Rod.

The preceding part of this narrative unfolds the prejudices, superstitions and evil practices rife on the Congo thirty years ago, while the following chapters indicate the progress that has been made in christianizing the people and leading them to higher and better things.]

After burying Bakula on that sad night, Tumbu carried me back to his hut; but being afraid to wear me lest he should be accused of robbing a dead body, he secretly polished me, and, wrapping me in an old rag, concealed me beneath the earth in a corner of his house, hoping no doubt some day, when all fear of detection had passed away, to take me out and wear me in memory of his friend.

How long I lay buried I know not; but my finder was a sturdily built, pleasant-faced young man whose name I heard later was Mikula. When he had rubbed me clean of all my accumulated dirt, and found that I was good solid brass, he well polished my sides and wound me in graceful rings round his wrist.

I discovered afterwards that my new owner was digging the foundations of a brick house when he happened upon me. Mikula had been taught on the mission station, and had learned there, among other things, the arts of brickmaking and bricklaying, and now he had returned to his home he was busy building a brick house into which he hoped to bring his future wife. He had already made and burnt several thousands of bricks, and was hurrying forward the building of the walls so as to roof in the house before the rainy season commenced.

What a change had passed over the town! I scarcely recognized it for the same place. Here and there were comfortable brick houses, a few plank ones, and many others of wattle and daub nicely colour-washed, while the grass huts were larger and very neatly made. And as Mikula walked through the town that evening I noticed that many of the homes were lighted either with candles or lamps, and families--father, mother and children--were sitting around one common table partaking together of their food; those families that could not afford artificial light sat together round their fires.

Occasionally we came upon some who maintained the old state of things--broken up families, the male and female members of which still sat and ate their food apart from each other.

At six o’clock every morning a small bell rang out, calling the natives to morning prayers before they started their daily employments. Mikula, who was a deacon of the Church, had charge of the religious work in his own town, and performed voluntarily the duties of a pastor of the Church and teacher of the school.

About a hundred men, women and young people gathered every morning for worship--a hymn was sung, a portion of the New Testament was read and commented on, a short prayer was offered either by Mikula or one of the Christians, and another hymn brought the simple service to a close. After that the women went to their farms and the men to their various occupations. Who can measure the influence such services exerted over the lives of the folk who attended them? Their horizon was no longer confined to the trivial affairs of their former mean lives, but extended to the boundless reaches of heaven and God’s own eternity; their thoughts no longer grovelled in the trough of lustful desires and evil passions, but were lifted to higher, purer and more spiritual concerns; and their aims were no longer wholly selfish--set on attaining many women and much wealth,--but they gave their time, energy and money that their heathen neighbours might enjoy the same blessings that had come into their lives, and had transformed them, by a wondrous alchemy, from base metal to beautiful gold.

On Sundays the Christians refrained from farm work, visiting the markets, trading, and any other form of labour that would desecrate the Lord’s day; and a large number of those who were not professing Christians also observed the day; but there were still many who clung to the old state of things, who farmed, toiled and traded on that day as though they had never heard of a day of rest.

During the Sabbath afternoon the bell rang out, and more than three hundred natives attended the service which was held in a large brick building that had been raised and paid for by the native Christians themselves. What a pride they seemed to take in their "House of God"! The walls were colour-washed and decorated with pictures of the life of Christ; the doors and windows, which were of native carpentry, were nicely painted, and the roof was of corrugated iron sheets that they had bought with their own hard-earned money. There stood their “House of God” on the finest site, in the very heart of the town.

What a contrast to Bakula’s little grass school-chapel that had been so ruthlessly destroyed by some of the very people who had laboured to erect this new building! Yet the latter, and all it stood for, was the outcome of the former.

That Sunday was a Communion day--the first sabbath of the month. Mikula, as deacon-pastor, took the service. Native Christians living in the surrounding villages had walked to this centre to take the Communion. The meetings in their own villages had been postponed, and, headed by their teachers, some of them had marched across hills and dales, forded streams and waded swamps to be present at that service.

Many of them had walked from five to nine hours from the more distant parts of their district. They were in earnest, and expecting a blessing they did not return disappointed. The building was not large enough to contain all who attended, so the overflow sat round the windows and doors that they might share in the service.

How heartily they sang! What prayers they offered--not wholly for themselves, but also for their neighbours that they too might be saved. How attentively they listened to Mikula’s teaching, on “Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.” They were an agricultural people, and knew the truthfulness of the lessons their teacher enforced with eloquent directness, and wealth of illustration taken from their own daily work on the farms.

The first service over, those who were not in Church membership left to make room for those who had come so far to take the Communion. Soon the place was full again, and Mikula, assisted by the teachers, dispensed the bread and the cup. Close upon two hundred that afternoon commemorated the death of their Lord and Saviour.

During the former service the usual collection had been made, and at the close of the Communion Service the teachers from the various towns handed over to the deacons the amounts that had been received at the gatherings during the previous month. Every Church member was expected to give according to his or her ability for the support of the native teachers who prosecuted the local missionary work. And the gifts from the different towns and villages were recorded in the deacons’ books, and the offerings of the Church members were written in the diaries Sunday by Sunday by the teachers in charge.

Apparently, from what I heard, two things have been recognized from the beginning by the white men who founded the work at the various centres: (1) that Congo is too big a land for white men only to evangelize, hence the need for an ever-increasing supply of native teachers and preachers; and (2) that if you want a person to appreciate anything, let them pay for it, for what costs nothing is very soon valued at about the same price--nothing; hence every member of the native Church has been taught to give freely and generously for the propagation of the gospel among the villages. No native Christian is financially bettered by joining the Church; but it costs him or her something every week to be a member. These gifts are the expression of their appreciation of what Christ has done for them.

I would that Bakula could have attended that Communion Service. He would have felt well repaid for all his toil, anxieties, disappointments and death. And who shall say that his spirit was not hovering over and witnessing the wondrous sight? How I should have liked to have asked about Old Plaited-Beard, Satu, Tumbu and many another, but the natives were very reticent in speaking about their dead.

I recognized among the communicants some who had been taught by Bakula in the old school hut. Of course they were grown into young men, and a few of them were married and had children toddling about their knees.

Two or three weeks after the Communion described above, a message was brought to Mikula that an old man, a member of the Church, had just died, and would he go and bury him. Mikula fully recognized that this was one of his duties as a deacon of the Church, and readily promised to conduct the service on the afternoon of the next day.

On arriving in the village of the deceased man, Mikula went straight to the house of mourning, and spoke a few kindly, comforting words to the widow who was weeping silently by the corpse of her lost one. A few young men picked up the body and carried it reverently to the little chapel.

It was an unpretentious building of wattle and daub, colour-washed and clean--a house of comfort and strength, a place of worship to the few souls in that village who professed the Christian faith. In front of the small platform the body was laid, and over it were spread some palm-fronds--symbols of joy and victory.

Mikula conducted a simple service, and spoke with much tenderness and force to the heathen present, on “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.” They listened attentively, and more than one man dated his conversion to that address. At the grave a hymn of triumph was sung, and then the poor wasted body was laid to rest with these beautiful words as its shroud: “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

No drunken orgies, no dissipated feasts, no sensual dances accompanied this funeral; neither was it followed by any smelling out of witches, nor charges of witchcraft, nor giving of the ordeal, nor the leaving on some neighbouring hill-top the stabbed body of a murdered man. Death was now dressed in another garb, wore a different aspect, for it was now regarded not as the result of malignant witchcraft, but the call of the Father to His child to occupy one of the places in the many mansions. Consequently there were no howls of rage, no wails of despair, no sinister threats of vengeance over the body of the deceased, but the palm-fronds, the hymns, the promise of a sure and certain resurrection, and the assurance that the absent one was present with the Lord--the dead had received eternal life.

Mikula hurried forward the completion of his house, as he desired to visit the station for the week of special teaching periodically arranged for teachers, deacons and Christian workers. Soon after we started on the road we were joined at different points by teachers and deacons whose faces, like my owner’s, were turned towards their Jerusalem--the Mission Station.

We arrived on Saturday afternoon, and were cordially welcomed by the white men, not one of whom I recognized as being on the station when Bakula lived there. I heard that some of them had died and were buried on the hillside overlooking a quiet peaceful valley, and others broken by health, had been compelled to leave the country; but whether dead or sick, their work was being prosecuted with zeal by those who had taken their places.

The foundations so well and truly laid were now receiving the superstructure, the cornerstone of which was Christ. Other men had laboured, and these had entered into their labours; would they not all rejoice together when the topstone was placed amid the shouts of men and angels?

The lessons began in earnest on Monday morning, and for the next five days the teachers and others present received five hours a day of special instruction in such subjects as would help them in their work as teachers and leaders of the people--sermon-making, pastoral theology, Church history, hygiene, astronomy, geography, and a thorough study of one of the Gospels. Each attendant had his exercise-book, and opportunities were given for taking copious notes. These afterwards became the bases of many of the addresses they delivered to their people in the numerous little chapels dotted about the districts.

There were early morning prayer-meetings, the usual morning services, and public meetings on two or three evenings during the week. Between the lectures the teachers discussed with the white man who had charge of their particular district the peculiar difficulties of their spheres of labour, and sought counsel and guidance on knotty biblical, doctrinal, or other questions.

It was a busy time for all, white and native teachers alike; but it was of untold value to the latter, and undoubtedly exerted a great and beneficial influence on their life and labours. On the Sunday following the week of lectures, the Communion was taken; and the teachers returned strengthened, mentally and spiritually, to their work.

On Monday morning my owner, Mikula, bought a supply of various simple medicines to take back to his town, and he also asked for and received some slates, pencils, and reading-books to meet the demands of his numerous scholars. By noon he and the others had said “Good-bye” to their friends, white and black, and were on the road again with their faces turned homewards. Mikula moved with a buoyant step, for his heart was light and happy. His work as a deacon, teacher and preacher had received the commendation of his white man; and he was returning home to be married--to take to his house, which had cost him so much time, thought and labour, the girl of his choice, one who had been taught on the station, was a member of the Church, and sympathized with him in all his work.

During the evening, while we were sitting round the fire, the conversation turned on the days when much superstitious opposition and prejudice existed against the Christian religion, and witch-doctors and their followers exerted their combined forces to crush it. Mikula told of one zealous teacher he knew who travelled the country proclaiming God’s message of salvation, who was seen to enter a town, but was never known to leave it. False and misleading reports were spread concerning him; but after a long period the truth came to light: the evangelist went into the said town to preach, the people seized him, hurried him down the long slope to the river, fastened a great stone to his neck, and, hurling him from the rocks, drowned him in the rushing waters.

“A few months ago,” said one of the teachers sitting round the fire, “the people in a town I visited caught me and tied me with my arms extended on a cross in mockery of my Master; then they placed me for hours out in the broiling sun, so that my mouth and throat became parched and dry like the bottom of a saucepan. As the sun went down they set me free, and we have a teacher and some Christians now in that town, for they were astonished to hear me praying for them instead of abusing them.”

“Have you heard what happened some months ago in the district next to ours?” asked another. “An evangelist went into a town, and the natives took him and stretched him on a cross in imitation of our Saviour, and then, spearing him, they cut off his head and flung his body into the bush. Christ suffered much for our salvation, and it is to be expected that we shall have to suffer a little for Him.”

As they sat there round the fire two or three engaged in prayer, and singing softly their evening hymn--“Jesus, Lover of my soul, Let me to Thy bosom fly,” they rolled themselves in their blankets, and there in the open around their fires they stretched themselves in sleep.