1883.] Among the Barotse. 73 
NATIVE BELIEFS. 
The African is loth to obey, but fond of imitating. The sum 
of their own native belief is, that according to the position a 
man has in this life, so will his place be in the next. Goodness 
or badness, righteousness or sin, are not in their creeds. If a 
man dies a slave, he will have a position akin to that when he is 
dead \ if one dies a chief, he remains a chief, and so on. Thus 
the more a missionary seeks to attain and keep up a position of 
power and greatness, the more does he confirm those who follow 
him in retaining their old heathen delusion. 
When I tried to explain to King Liwanika of the Barotse that 
a man's position in this world had nothing whatever to do with 
his place in the next; that God dealt with the hearts of men, 
and not with their skins ; that a poor " matlanka " (lowest slave) 
might be seated in the palace of God, and a king or chief shut 
out, he got very excited, forbade me ever to say such a thing 
again, or ever to teach such things to his people. I told him not 
to be angry with me : these were not my words, but God's. He 
didn't care ; I might say so, but he and his fathers knew enough 
of God, and of dying, and all that. "Besides," said he, "we 
are not all going to die just now; why then speak about it?" 
It was some time before he again came round to talk quietly 
of the things which, though he little knows it, concern him so 
much. 
The native's pride of position is consummate, and for a chief 
or free man to come down to the level of a poor " matlanka " 
sinner is humanly impossible. " Unto the poor the gospel is 
preached," and most gladly would I give all my time among the 
many poor slaves of this country; but meanwhile I am not 
allowed. "Those are not people,^ they say; "they are our 
dogs." So it is only by stealth that I get amongst them. 
I have great hope that blessing awaits the declaring of the 
gospel up this river ; but one thing I desire is, that what may be 
done may be very real and entirely of God. Let us go in for 
real out-and-out conversions to God, as among the Thessalonians 
of old, who received the Word "in much affliction," so that 
God's name may be honoured in this country as it was in 
Macedonia. 
