LECTURE II. 31 



Many of these people waited on me, begging me to 

 allow them to make only a few showers, really thinking 

 that I was purposely preventing the rain from descending. 

 One old man used to come to me, and say, " The corn is 

 yellow for want of rain ; the cattle want grass ; the chil- 

 dren require milk ; the people lack water, therefore only 

 let our chief make the showers to come, and then he may 

 sing and pray as long as he likes. 1 ' Looking at my 

 peculiar circumstances, this drought was remarkable. I 

 watched the clouds as anxiously as they ; and many a 

 cloudy morning, promising refreshing showers, turned 

 into a cloudless day as parching as ever. They declared 

 that the people would starve, or all leave the district, and 

 I should have no one to preach to. It was quite heart- 

 rending to hear them, seeing their distress ; and especially 

 keeping in mind their mental, moral, and spiritual de- 

 gradation. 



I endeavoured to persuade them that no mortal could 

 control the rain, and their argument was, " We know 

 very well that God makes the rain ; we pray to him by 

 means of medicines. You use medicines to give to a 

 sick man, and sometimes he dies : you don't give up 

 your medicine, because one man dies ; and when any one 

 is cured by it, you take the credit. So, the only thing 

 we can do is to offer our medicines, which, by continued 

 application, may be successful." The only way to era- 

 dicate' such absurdities from the minds of these poor 

 people is to give them the Gospel. They entertain a 

 horror of Christianity, because they imagine that every 



