Thinking black; 22 years without a break in the long grass of Central ...

EASTWARD HO! 103
the heavenly things he saw in this saint never left that
negro, and away he went back to Lubaland with " the
living epistle " graven on his mind. " Look up, for we
are going up—and oh, so soon ! " was a fond phrase of
Cobbe's, so this negro thought much and long, and knew
that the saint had really gone to God. That thing he
had actually seen in him could not be killed by fever.
He had only died into glory as the stars die at sunrise.
Hence the daring idea of this poor benighted soul to
evolve a private religion of his own with Mr. Cobbe as
central " saviour." "Ah !
" said the negro, "when I am
in a fix in life this is what I do, I just send up a prayer
to Bwanna Cobbe as mediator, and he will arrange it, for
he has a big say with God." " He will pass it along to
God ; he will have a big say with God ! " Of course, I
righted his wrong theology. Of course, I deplored and
implored that this was the unkindest cut of all—that this
was stabbing him, not kissing him. But oh ! the bitter-
sweet reflection notwithstanding—this that a mere dust-
to-dust man should be chosen as a daysman between God
and his soul : " a living epistle "—a walking and talking
Bible. They saw—may I dare the phrase?—the gleam
of the life eternal shooting out of his honest hazel eyes
they saw, I say, and they believed in a man of God.
How much more will they believe in the Man in the
Glory, the Man who is Jehovah's Fellow ?
Little wonder that Paul could even hope that "much
more in his absence " the young church of Philippi would
prosper, for, like many an African Missionary, might not