# The Lutheran Pioneer_St. Louis_1928_S11
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

11

Things of Darkness.

It is the gloaming. You hear the ringing
laughter of little children who are playing before
their mothers. They are such little tots you want
to smile with them, and you draw near them, but
you quickly turn aside, shivering with horror.
These little girls are making game of obscenity,
and their mothers are laughing.

You turn out of the village square to see lads
and girls play. ‘They are dancing, but every act
is awful in its shamelessness, and an old grand-

but clear eyes look up, and there is no look of shame
anywhere. It is hard to speak of such things, but
you alone are ashamed that day; and when you
are gone, the same horror is practised under the
same clear moon.

No, I cannot speak of the bitterness of hea-
thenism, only its horror. ‘True, also hags were
there who are only middle-aged women, and there
were men bowed, scarred, dull-eyed, and with fur-
rowed faces. But when these speak or sing, there
seems to be no alloy in their merriment. The chil-
dren are happy as only children can be. They

An Inhabited Rock in West Africa.

mother, bent and withered, has entered the circle
to incite the boys and girls to more loathsome
dancing. ;

You go back to your tent bowed with an awful
shame to hide yourself. And from the village the
dance choruses are rising, and you know that under
the clear moon God is seeing wickedness that can-
not be named, and there is no blush in those that
practise it. :

Next morning the village is gathered together to
see your carriers at worship and to hear the news
of the white stranger. You improve the occasion
and stand ashamed to speak of what you saw. The
dance boys are there, the same old grandmother,

laugh and sing and show bright eyes and shining
teeth all day long: But what of that? Made in
God’s image to be His pure dwelling-place, they
have become the dens of foul devils; made to be
the sons of God, they have become devotees of
passion.

I have passed through the valleys of two little
rivers only and have seen there something of the
external life of those who can be the children of
God. The horror of it is with me day and night.
And on every side it is the same. In hidden valleys,
where we have never been, in villages quite near
to this station, the drum is beating and proclaiming
shame under God’s face. — Among the Wild Ngont.