1856.] HEART-STIRRINGS AT ABBEOKUTA. 127 a descendant of a highly respectable family, some of whom have held public offices in the country. We feel, however, that we can pray much for him; and with our God all things are possible. wwwwww SPEAK GENTLY. SPEAK gently it is better far Speak gently let no harsh words mar Speak gently love doth whisper low Speak gently to the little child, Speak gently to the young, for they Speak gently to the aged one, Grieve not the careworn heart: Speak gently, kindly, to the poor- Speak gently to the erring: know Speak gently: He who gave His life Speak gently: 't is a little thing www.www HEART-STIRRINGS AT ABBEOKUTA. We have been perusing some journals, which have recently reached us from Abbeokuta, and we should like to convey to our readers, in a few words, the nature of the intelligence which they convey to us. There are no large accessions of numbers, no sudden movements among the people but the word of God is telling powerfully on individuals; and one here, and another there, are led to cast away their idols, and join themselves to the Christian flock. Persecution is not wanting, of a 128 HEART-STIRRINGS AT ABBEOKUTA. [NOV. domestic character, or sometimes from the ogboni of the district in which the inquirer lives -very harassing, yet checked and kept in bounds by the superior authority of the king, who only interferes to prevent extremes. It is thus overruled for good, and becomes a wholesome test of our converts' sincerity. In the earlier part of the year the small-pox was very prevalent in Abbeokuta. The natives have been accustomed to regard this contagious disease as a deity, and reverence it, accordingly, with an adoration profound as the dread which they entertain of it. Two young men, notwithstanding the opposition of their friends, had placed themselves under Christian instruction, and became candidates for baptism. They were attacked with the disease, but declined, in their affliction, the attendance of their mothers, unless they solemnly promised to abstain from all idolatrous practices. Maternal affection proved stronger than superstitious fears, and the mothers consented, and were soon found at the side of the sufferers. Finding, after a few days, that, by the use of simple medicines, without any sacrifices to idols, their sons were recovered, they opened their ears to the advice and persuasions of their children and other converts, as to the great folly of worshipping and adoring a disease. Soon after, they became regular attendants on the means of grace, and candidates for baptism. There was another woman, well known to the Christians as a great opposer of the Ifa truth. Though not a priestess, she was a generally acknowledged leader of all the thunder-worshippers, and, by her stimulating songs, excited to their shortlived madness those whom the demon was supposed to have entered into. Numerous were the sheep and other animals offered by her in order to obtain such good things in this world as she coveted; and such was her supposed influence with the idols, that in the market-places the people readily gave her many cowries, in order that she might obtain like blessings for them. Her husband, who some months previously had placed himself under Christian instruction, suffered, as might be expected, no little persecution at her hands. Just about this time another woman in the city, who had given herself out as some great one, and had deceived many, thus enriching herself at their expense, was taken up as an impostor, and brought before the magistrates. This brought reflection to the mind of Shango's devotee, until, convinced that idol-worship is useless and unprofitable, her mind completely changed, and, regarding her former practices with disgust and contempt, as monstrous things, as an evidence of her determination to renounce them she brought her orishas to one of the Missionary stations, there to give them up for ever. They were five in number, namely, Shango, Yemaja, Yewa, Oge, and Elegbara. The first of these is the god of thunder. Tornadoes are frequent in the Yoruba country at the end of the rainy season. The storm-cloud comes with crashing thunder, forked and sheet lightning, and torrents of rain, breaking down and overturning in its course forests, cultivated fields, houses. Then rush forth the worshippers of Shango, with shouting and drumming, to propitiate the god. Whatever is touched by the thunderbolt is sacred to the god; or, indeed, if fire from any cause break out, the house becomes sacred, in the sense that it is lost to the owner, and becomes the plunder of the Shango worshippers. In June last, our native Missionary, the Rev. T. King, heard that a man had been hurt by thunder in a neigh 1856.] HEART-STIRRINGS AT ABBEOKUTA. 129 bouring street. He found him under a tree, shivering with cold, surrounded by a great crowd of people. The Shango worshippers were there with drums, ready to perform their idolatrous rites. He was asked why he remained in the open air, exposed to the cold, instead of going into his house. He said that he had been at home, but had been brought back by the Shango people. He had been struck by the lightning obliquely across the right arm and chest, and had fallen to the ground. The people, finding him there, did nothing but cover him with wild figleaves, until one of our Christian visitors, passing by, rescued him from their hands, and led him to his house, from whence he had been again brought forth by the Shango people. In spite of all Mr. King's remonstrances, they succeeded in carrying the poor fellow away to their own place, where probably they dealt worse with him than the lightning had. Yemaja is the goddess of the river Ogun; Yewa, the goddess of the river Yewa, near Ado, &c. All these, her former objects of superstition, the poor woman now brought, convinced they could do her no good, and desiring to find a better way. On being asked whether, in carrying out her purpose of giving up these things, the people had offered her any hindrance, she said, "They told me, that if all their orishas cannot take revenge on me for the insult I have, in this respect, done them, they cannot surely do it on any one else. I told them to leave them to do with me what they please, but that if I die to-morrow they must not think it to be the orishas, but God, who takes me away." We can mention only one instance more. A sick man came, a relative of one of the converts, together with his son, a little boy of about eight or nine, and also his Ifa, which he had been worshipping during an illness of from six to nine months; but, instead of becoming better, he grew worse and worse. No fewer than eight sheep and goats had been killed by him, and thirty heads of cowries expended in sacrifices and medicines, until, at length, both strength and purse were exhausted. While in this state he had a dream. He was carried by a man to a very large assembly of all ranks and ages, all having books in their hands, and engaged in reading, praying, and singing. He was told to kneel down and pray, which he did. He was then admonished, that unless he gave up worshipping Ifa, &c., and began to attend God's house, and hear His word, he would surely die under this sickness. He dreamed, also, that one of his wives tried to hinder him from going that way; to whom he replied, with tears, "Do not you hear that, unless I do so, I shall be ruined?"5 With these words he awoke, his eyes full of tears, and the mat on which he was lying wet with them. This dream was evidently the result of entreaties and warnings addressed to him by his believing relative; and from that moment he decided, without conferring any longer with flesh and blood, to choose the good path. He had brought his son to leave him with the Missionaries, that he might be taught. "I am not going to take him away any more," he said, "not even if I die. I come here to live or die." As a further proof of his determination, he broke some of his Ifa with stones. Thus the salt is penetrating very much through individual effort on the part of the converts themselves. They suffer, in the first instance, trouble at the hands of their friends; but, after a time, they have their 130 SAU QUALA. [NOV. revenge by persuading them to become inquirers also. It is evident that there is, throughout the population, an increasing sense of the folly of idols, and a conviction that what the oibos teach is the better way. We have only to add, that our experienced Missionary, the Rev. H. Townsend, accompanied by three young lay agents, has just left this country, in renewed health, for Abbeokuta. May they arrive in the fulness of the blessing of the gospel of peace, and may the Lord's work prosper in their hands! SAU QUALA. In the year 1826, on the termination of a war with England which had lasted two years, a large portion of the kingdom of Burmah, called the Tenasserim provinces, were ceded to the British crown. The American Missionaries immediately took advantage of the opportunity, and commenced Missions at two cities, Tavoy and Maulmein. The dense jungles were soon penetrated by themselves and their assistants, more especially by Ko-Thah-byu, the first Karen convert; and the poor suffering Karens, freed from the cruel yoke of the proud Burman, gladly welcomed the white men, and attentively listened to the message from God which they had come to tell them. And still, as the work advanced, and the Karens were found willing to hear, new districts were visited. The highest range of mountains in the province was climbed by Mr. Mason and Sau Quala. The timber trees were tall as they began the ascent, but gradually dwindled into a thick growth of stunted bamboos, unmixed with a single shrub. From the elevated spot which they had gained, when some of the bamboos, which obstructed the view, had been cut away, they beheld a wide-spread prospect: rivers were there, wandering through glens and gorges, and Karen hamlets peeping forth at intervals through the dense forests. When first seen, there was not throughout these regions a single professor of religion; and as the Christian teachers descended into the dark valley of Tenasserim, the question was asked, When shall we look down on Christian churches in these valleys? As years passed over, the question was answered. Little congregations were raised up; and in the year 1842 Sau Quala was placed in charge of a church of a hundred members, at a place called Pyeekhya. Here he was led to acquire a new dialect, with a view to more extended usefulness among his countrymen. There are two Karen dialects, the Sgau and the Pwo. Sau Quala hitherto had occasion for the Sgau only; but now he found himself among a people to whom the Sgau was unintelligible. He therefore applied himself with diligence to make up the deficiency, and, after a time, was able to preach in Pwo without difficulty. The Pwos appear to have been driven down by other Karen tribes from the mountain fastnesses into vicinity with the Burmese, from whom they had to endure cruel suffering and persecution, until at length, as a nation, SAU QUALA. 131 1856.] they embraced Buddhism. But amongst them, as well as among the Sgaus, Christian churches have been formed. One of their places of refuge in former times of suffering is thus described by Mr. Mason On looking abroad from the pagoda-crowned hills of Maulmein, an unbroken range of primitive mountains, four, five, or six thousand feet high, is seen on the margin of the eastern horizon, sweeping around on the north-west like an amphitheatre, where they are lost in the misty distance. From the rocky cliffs of Martaban another range extends nearly north, "Footprint-of-the-Buddh" mountains, parallel with the west bank of the Salwen. In the space between these mountains, bounded by the Salwen river on the west, and the Gying on the east, is an immense alluvial plain, resembling the prairie lands of Illinois and Missouri, terminated on the south by a lake of surpassing beauty, studded with green islets, formed by the mouths of the Attaran, the Gying, and the Salwen, whose united waters find an outlet between the promontories of Martaban and Maulmein. In the midst of this plain, twenty miles north of Maulmein, and six or eight east of the Salwen, the attention of the spectator is arrested by a pile of the most picturesque mountain limestone that ever graced a landscape. Rising abruptly in the most fantastic shapes, from the level of tide-water to nodding precipices two thousand feet high at a single leap, the pinnacles seem to shake their hoary-lichen faces and fern-fringed foreheads at the passing traveller, and threaten him with instant destruction. The whole range is not more than eight miles long, and at twenty miles distant its numerous grotesque peaks give it a striking resemblance to a gigantic Gothic cathedral; and the illusion is rendered the more real by the spire of a small white pagoda being distinguished, with some difficulty, in the distance, on the very topmost summit of the highest point of the range, and on the margin of an abrupt precipice. The whole pile is called Zwaga-being, "The mooring of the ship," from a tradition which says that, in ancient times, the whole world was covered with water, and the only survivors of the human race were in a ship which floated hither, where, the highest point of the range being above water, to it the ship was moored. Certainly there is not a more remarkable natural curiosity in all the guide-books of Europe than this castellated mass of mural limestone. Until my first residence at its base it had ever been deemed a cluster of inaccessible crags, except one point, where a small pagoda has been erected; but I found the Karens around me knew of an impregnable natural fortress, an eagle's nest amid the Gothic spires on its summit, capable of containing many thousand persons, which, for many generations, had been their refuge when the wars of the Burmese, the Talings, and the Siamese, were desolating the plains below. I determined to verify the statement of my informant; so he led me to the base of an unbroken precipice, five or six hundred feet high. A cool crystal stream, several yards wide, and two or three feet deep, gushes out of a cave at the base, accompanied, in a hot day, by a current of cool air. On the right of this brook the limestone on the face of the precipice has been worn, by the waters of ages, unequally, and many masses of rock |