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

144 THINKING BLACK
what a long start the Devil has of the Missionary. The
sin is all sinned in the noonday glare, the kind of thing
spoken of by the prophet as " sin drawn with a cart-rope."
The same old source of troubles, too, is this tight packing
together in a filthy town. For the greatest enemy is
internal :
first the enemy of his own heart, then the enemy
of his own household, anon the enemy of the next hut,
until, finally, the enemy of the next tribe reads them the
old lesson that a house divided against itself cannot stand.
Born in their chains, they live in them and die hugging
them as they rush over the precipice into the abyss.
These chains are physical, and spiritual, and hereditary.
In an African village you can lie awake all night
pondering pitifully the needs of the land, and during that
long vigil hear the snufiles and hoarse cries of a dozen
little babies. Poor youngsters whose skin hangs loosely
on them like an ill-fitting garment, cursed with the
syphilitic curse.
' An
" An infant crying in the night
infant crying for the light
And with no language but a cry."
These are the poor little bairns who, as Bishop South
sadly said, " are not born into the world, but damned
into it." To illustrate : Take this life-history of one
such moaning and whimpering cherub. Mother loves
her bairn, but she must be ofi" to the woods for firewood,
and baby cannot go. What's to be done ? The dilemma
is solved by a neighbour woman, one of the black barren
type, who plots with deadly intent against the life of