150 POWER OF LOVE. 



pret the things which occur. It is this weariness of the dread- 

 ful which makes the hefethen catch so eagerly at the statement 

 of God's love — it is so new, so refreshing. Because he is Love, 

 he is the more readily enthroned in the long dormant affections 

 and faith of the people just coming to the light. It is not the 

 testimony of Dr. Livingstone only, but of all who have labored 

 for the enlightenment and conversion of the heathen, that noth- 

 ing which can be said arrests the attention so quickly and holds 

 it so strongly as the story of the cross. It is all idle to go 

 about pulling down the idols : we need only set up the crucified 

 One over against them, and they shall fall of themselves, out of 

 the relaxing fears and confidence which have been banished by 

 the goodness and won by the love of the true and gracious. 



Intemese, the guide furnished by Shinte, occasioned the party 

 no little delay by his petty stubbornness and strategies, which he 

 practised in order to prolong their stay within the boundaries of 

 his commission as guide, because he found that position a fat 

 place owing to the liberal orders of his master. It was a piece 

 of this strategy which led his charge apart from the proper 

 route toward the town of Katema to that of his father-in-law. 

 This gentleman was named Quendende, a fine old man as it 

 turned out, and one who entertained them over a Sunday with 

 real kindness and pleasure. 



He had just returned from a funeral of one of his people 

 when the visitors arrived. Few things in savage life are of 

 more singular interest than the ceremonies of burial. The 

 reader may recall very singular customs of certain Indians, 

 with whose habits most of them are more or less familiar. The 

 Mandans, for instance, take the body of their dead, and having 

 clothed it in his best robes and ornaments, furnish it with many 

 articles which are supposed most desirable, and wrapping the 

 whole carefully in soft wet hides, place the precious burden on 

 a scaffold some feet high. In the course of time the scaffold 

 falls; then the relatives assemble and bury the remains, except 

 the skull ; this they place on the ground, where there are per- 

 haps a hundred skulls in a circle, all looking inward. About 

 this place of the skulls the women are often seen, sitting with 

 their work for hours at a time, holding in their laps the skull 

 of a dead child, and not unfrequently they are seen to clasp 



