Trial by Conjurer by D. C. BABCOCK

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 3, 1908

Trial by Conjurer

By D. C. BABCOCK

D. C. BABCOCK

A MENDI court was in session, just in front of our house. Instead of our boys being at work, as I expected, I found them and all the Mendi boys and women in the neighborhood at court, to be tried for stealing a glass tumbler. I tried to get my boys to go to work, but it was of no use. They had their conjurer seated on a stone, his medium completely under his control, with a whip, consisting of a handle about ten inches long,

and three strands of rope, with knots tied in them, plying the whip over each one, until the guilty one was found.

Each one had to sit down before the judge, and then the whip was tried on him. If not guilty, he was released. One after another was tried, but no one seemed to be the right one. Then they remembered that one of the suspected ones had gone to town, so they chose one to be tried in his place, as his representative. The very fellow who had stolen some of our lumber the day before was selected, and took his seat.

Although the fellow had taken our lumber, I must confess that my sympathy was deeply aroused for him. I can not understand how he ever stood the flogging he got. He bore it as long as he could, and then ran for life. All the Mendies started a shout, “Tief! Tief! Tief!” and ran the poor fellow almost to death. When they brought him back, he was almost exhausted.

But the matter did not end there. In the afternoon the really guilty man returned, and again the court was called. I had begun work for the afternoon (I had some boys building a better roadway up to the house), and soon all were gone to see the final trial. I went to see what they could possibly do with that fellow, as they had given the other boy such a whipping in his place that I could not think they would whip him. He was soon found guilty, and took his treatment like a man. At first he denied; but when they whipped him, he confessed his crime. It is useless for one to say he is not the guilty person; for if he is tried, and their god says he is the one, that is the end of all controversy.

The man who is under the spiritual influence of their god is in a desperate condition. They always choose a strong young man to be used as the medium. He very soon becomes wild, running about the room, out into the yard, and down the road, frothing at the mouth. When his work is over, five or six young men pounce on him, to take the whip from him. This is a desperate struggle. It took four to hold him, and another held the hand that the whip was in, and the sixth man had all he could do to get the whip from him with both hands. As soon as they got the whip from him, and the conjurer put a little water in his hands, he was as helpless as a babe. He dropped exhausted on the ground. This is spiritism in its darkest form. Their worship is real devil-worship—sometimes in a snake, sometimes in an alligator, or in anything that suits them. The son of one of our sisters killed a snake in this city which a young woman was worshiping, and she actually went insane over the matter.

We need men and women who are not tainted in the least with spiritism—those who know from personal experience that there is a personal God. To tell these people that God is in the trees and in the creatures which he has created, would only encourage them in their present form of worship.

Freetown, Sierra Leone, West Africa.