We can use their phraseology to explain how we may be brought under a higher, holier, and more blessed influence. They can the better understand how our Heavenly Father will give us His Holy Spirit, who will dwell within us to be our Guard and Guide, to warn us against wrong-doing, to protect us from our spiritual foes, and to purify our hearts. That woman’s dream gave us words to express most graphically and intelligibly the great truths of which they in their darkness still had a shadow.
Another custom helps us. When a slave has a bad master, who ill-treats him, and who may, perhaps, intend to sell him on the coast, the slave will run away to a chief who has a good name in the country, and tell him that he has come to be his slave. If the chief is willing, he orders a goat to be killed; the chief and the slave eat goat together; the covenant is made, and the new slave is called a ‘goat.’ His old master hears that his slave is with the other chief, and comes with bluster to demand him back. The new master refuses to give him up in spite of all threats, and finally the old master is obliged to accept a fair price. Slaves thus obtained are much esteemed, for they are generally faithful, and having thus made their choice, are not likely to run away again. Sometimes free people in trouble will thus become slaves for protection.
So, borrowing their terms, we can urge the dear lads of our schools to take refuge with the Saviour, who will redeem them from a more terrible bondage, and deliver them from the power of the evil one; a Saviour who will be their protector, and who will take them to live with Him, a Master in whose service is truest freedom. We have reason to believe that some of our lads have taken the Saviour thus to be their Lord and Master, and trusting in Him for pardon, rejoice to consider themselves His ‘goats.’
Our couriers came in one day and told us that they had seen a man killed on Mbimbi market. A chief had caught a man for debt on market-day;