HEATHEN WORSHIPERS OF THE TRUE GOD.
By Christian Work
BISHOP JOHNSTON, of Africa, writing of some tribes of Southern Nigeria, declares that African heathenism, too often spoken of as mere fetichism or superstition, has some very interesting and suggestive features about it. "It was a revelation to me to find heathen tribes worshiping the Supreme Being, the great I Am, Jehovah Himself, directly, and this frequently. I had noticed in Benin City that altars were erected and worship performed at them to Him by a heathen people who worshiped some other imaginary deities more frequently. But here are tribes, wild, savage, barbarous and cannibal, that worship any imaginary deity but little, but whose chief and constant worship is presented to the Most High God, who have no images of Him, and who, with blood atonement sacrifices presented directly to Him, seek His good-will. It is worthy of notice that the Yorubans, who profess to worship no less than four hundred and one imaginary deities, do occasionally, and among some of the tribes annually, offer worship to the Supreme Being; and the Ibos, a tribe inferior to the Yorubans or Benins, constantly present worship, directly and without the intervention of any imaginary mediator, to the Supreme Being, and this, too, as to a spiritual Being. There is much in this heathen religious system that would, if known to him, facilitate the work of the Christian teacher, especially if he would recognize what is true in it [as Paul did at Athens], and seek with the use of it to lead the people to accept the Gospel, with its higher teaching and higher provision for man's spiritual need."—Christian Work.