man was. Sultry as was the day, there was a hot blaze in the cavernous
fireplace. Over it hung an iron kettle, from which most sickening odors
emanated. The sick man was in a heavy stupor. We tried in vain to arouse
him, even for a moment. His wife looked unusually cheerful, as she
assured us that he "was a great deal better; that he did not cough at
all, and rested mighty easy."

We understood the situation at once. The poor woman was densely
ignorant, and believed her husband had been "conjured." The old hag in
the doorway was "a witch doctor," who had promised to cure him for ten
dollars! How the poor wife with her five little children to support
managed to raise it, God only knows; but she had done it, and was
pouring down that unconscious man's throat, hourly doses of a villainous
compound of most loathsome things, over which the old hag muttered her
incantations, and worked her Satanic spells. She watched us with her
evil eye as we looked pityingly upon the poor sufferer, and glared
menacingly when we told the poor wife that he was no better; that the
end was near.

That very night the death-like stupor was broken by agonies of torture
which racked the wasted frame for many hours. There was no respite for a
prayer, or for a thought of the eternity into which his poor soul was
hastening. The witch doctor fled in haste, unable to endure the sight of
the tortures she herself had invoked. It was an unutterable relief when
those shrieks of agony were hushed by the awful silence of death.

To us, there came an added burden of care as we realized how many of
this people are still in bondage to these heathenish customs and
superstitions. Nothing but the light of a pure gospel and the elevating
influences of education, will lift them out of their degradation. It