KAFFIR WESLEYANS | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 6, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 39.

KAFFIR WESLEYANS.

THERE are said to be over 30,000 Protestant Kaffir members in the Wesleyan missions in South Africa, and they are all professed abstainers from intoxicating liquors. The Wesleyan Missionary Notices gives an account of the experience of one who gave up the use of both the native beer and tobacco:—

“He had gone home that night, thrown the beer away, and destroyed the pot; heaven came down into his soul, and it was very blessed (mandi kakulu); he assembled his family for prayer, and it was mandi kakulu; he went to his place of private prayer among the rocks, and it was mandi kakulu, God himself filling his soul with the joy of salvation. In the night he awoke; still mandi kakulu; but, turning to seek a live coal with which to light his pipe, the ubanmandi (blessedness) vanished, he knew not where or how; but there and then he had fought out the matter. His reason said, ‘I have surrendered beer; surely tobacco is no sin!’ His conscience answered, ‘You have killed the cow; now you must kill the calf.’ Still reason argued, but again and again conscience replied, ‘You have killed the cow; now you must kill the calf;’ and he could get no return of blessedness until his surrender was complete, and the last idol was put away; he had destroyed his pipe, and resolved that both beer and tobacco should henceforth be laid in absolute surrender on God’s altar.”