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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 29, 1915

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 92, No. 21.

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West Africa

By W. H. WILSON

W. H. WILSON
I AM SURE the brethren and sisters of other lands will be glad to hear something about our little school here in the hinterland of Sierra Leone, West Africa.
School work was started here Sept. 24, 1914, and although the rice harvest has taken most of our students from us, yet we are thankful for the success already achieved. As you know, the heathen tribes of Africa are wholly given up to superstition and devil worship, and we are right in the midst of one of these tribes. I see some manifestation of the renewing power of the truth on a few of our students. Two have given up smoking. But the work cannot be done in a day, for Satan has taken a firm hold on the minds of both young and old, and so much the more now when he sees that some efforts are being made to emancipate them from his yoke.
Here is an instance which shows how firmly devil worship has taken hold of the people. On my way to school one morning I saw nine women in one of the baras (native courthouse), with their feet in the stocks. Being shocked at the sight, I asked a man near by why the women were thus treated. He told me that the women in the town were having a big sacrifice to a krefe (devil) who required that before the sacrifice could be accepted every woman with child in the town should be stocked and compelled to abstain from food for at least twelve hours; and that as soon as the women who carried the sacrifice to the krefe came, these women would be released. How terrible it is to serve Satan! And yet so few will accept the Saviour!
After this explanation I continued my walk to the school, which is being held in a bara until a permanent building can be procured. There are vast fields yet to be worked here in West Africa. Let us pray that some of these devil worshippers may be redeemed, and numbered among the 144,000 to meet the Lord when he comes in the clouds of heaven.
Mamunta, Sierra Leone.