Transformed from Babbling Heathen into Intelligent Blessedness—Dark Souls Come into the Light and Rejoice in the Blessed Hope
It is a wonderful change that the gospel makes in the very appearance of these Kafirs of Kafirland.
Here are some of the raw heathen Kafirs,— Red Kafirs, they are called, because they still smear their bodies with red ocher, and color their blankets with the same red earth. Several came bouncing out into the road, and ran on ahead of our cart, laughing and jumping, and hurrying to open the gate and get the expected copper.
It is not in the mere half-nakedness that the heathenism appears; for in lands of the black and the brown races, the color of the skin always seems as clothing. But it is in the undisguised emptiness of the life, the hopelessness of it all, that the dark heathenism stands out. The very gayety has an appearance and a sound that seem ghostly and hollow.
WHEN THE LIGHT CAME IN
Passing from this to the real Christian demeanor is like passing from dark shadow into light.
Our bouncing cape cart swung out of the road, down by the Fish River, and the brother driving called before a mud hut for some one to come out.
A NATIVE KRAAL IN KAFIRLAND
“Where is Batlani’s?” he asked of an unkempt and cowering Red Kafir woman who scarce dared look up. We found the way to Batlani’s village—Batlani being headman here. He and his family were Red Kafirs only two years ago. Now we have a most interesting school work in his village, and he and his family and numbers of the neighbors are rejoicing in the “blessed hope.”
IT IS A NEW LIFE
What has it meant to them?—They do not appear to belong to the same life that runs on all about them. They look different.
Naturally they have substituted European dress for the old blanket and beadwork costumes. But beyond all this, their faces are transformed. The mothers have the true motherly and hopeful look on their faces. Their children are learning to read, and to awaken to the wonders of the knowledge of God’s word, and of things in this great world that God has made.
When I saw the tears of joy flowing down their cheeks as we studied of God and heaven and the coming of the Saviour, and as I heard the children of these people, so recently Red Kafirs, reading creditably in English as well as in Kafir, and singing the English hymns in those mud huts, my heart kept saying, What a glorious and wonderful change! What a contrast is this new life to the old one left behind, such as we see lived all about by those who have not broken into the light!
The gospel translates the believer from one kingdom into another, sure enough.
HOW IT APPEALS
And this contrast between the two ways is a powerful appeal to us to send the men and the means to bring the truth of God to these souls in darkness. Some one has written of this contrast:
“The night lies dark upon the earth, and we have light;
So many have to grope their way, and we have sight;
One path is theirs and ours—of sin and care;
But we are borne along, and they their burden bear.
Footsore and weary each upon the way;
Mute is their sorrow, while we kneel and pray.
Glad are they of stone on which to rest,
While we lie pillowed on our Father’s breast.”
One by one, over a hundred and twenty of these Kafirs have found that pillow on the Father’s breast, in these regions where our first Kafir station is operating. The earnest calls come from outposts yet farther into Kafirland; and as fast as men and means will allow, our workers are pushing onward.
“The night lies dark upon the earth, and we have light.”
We must let it shine, for it does bless the hearts that receive it.
