I AM going to tell you about our fine dog, Sambo, which Mr. Arnot brought out of Africa, from England. He was a dear, faithful dog, and such a comfort to us as a watch in these African wilds. Well, he took ill one day, and became so strange and snappish, that it became necessary to shoot him. He was shot a few yards from my hut, and the boys buried him in the ground within our enclosure. But what do you think? Some of the people who live around us here, having heard of what had happened to the dog, came up and demanded that his remains should be dug up and carried to the river. There is a long story connected with this custom, and the people have so many strange ideas about witchcraft, that anything of this kind frightens them terribly. They do not know God, the God of love, and the devil has got them to believe all sorts of strange notions. When an African chief is enthroned, it is the custom to sacrifice a dog, a bullock, and a man, and owing to this they will not allow a dog to be buried in the ground. So the boys had to go and dig up poor Sambo's remains and carry them to the river. After this was done, the men came to our yard, took one of the fowls and killed it. Then they sprinkled the blood all over the spot where the dog had been buried, to atone for the error we made, I suppose. Does it not seem as if these poor people had at one time known something of the doctrine of blood-shedding, so much spoken of in the Bible. Alas! they know nothing of the precious blood of Christ once shed on Calvary to purge away our sins, but God has made it known to us in the blessed Gospel. How thankful we ought to be, that God has sent us the good news of how our sins may be all put away at once and forever by the precious blood of Jesus. Satan, who blinds the minds of men lest the Gospel of Christ should shine into them, has deluded these poor people, by making them imagine all sorts of things about their departed friends. They kill one another, and oftentimes a number of fowls and animals also, when one dies, and sprinkle their blood about the grave. The kind of God they have been taught to believe in, is not the God of love who gave His Son to die for His enemies. If they only knew that God is a God of love, they would soon cease these cruelties.
I have told you this, dear children, just to show you how dark these poor Africans are as to God's way of salvation. I hope the day is not far distant when many of them may hear of, and believe in the power of Jesus' cleansing blood, and be able to sing, as all of us can who are saved, "Unto Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood." Dear boys and girls, you have often heard the old, old story, but have you been cleansed from your sins in the precious blood of Christ? The children of Africa are in dark ignorance of the One who loves them. They do not know the meaning of His Name. How much deeper will the doom be of those who know and yet reject His love; who know God's way of salvation, and after all, refuse to accept it, and perish in their sins.