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Sunday at Lambarene
BY DR. ALBERT SCHWETTEER.
[Since the publication of his book, On the Edge of the Primeval Forest, in which he wrote of his first years as a doctor in French Equatorial Africa, Dr. Albert Schweitzer has only had time to write a few circular letters sent home to his supporters in Europe and Great Britain and this article. The translation from the original German is by Mrs. C. E. B. Russell, one of the Doctor's principal helpers, who is now on a hodday in England. The British Council for Dr. Schweitzer's Hospital includes the Archbishop of York, five Bishops, Free Church leaders such as Dr. F. W. Norwood and Dr. W. B. Selbie, representatives of the medical profession, and musicians such as Sir Walford Davies and Dr. Vaughan Williams. The Honorary Secretary of the Council is Mr. J. P. Fletcher, Toynbee Hall, E.1.—En. Spectator.] ON Sunday morning at 9 o'clock a hospital orderly with a bell goes round the separate wards to call the people together for " Prayers," as he calls the Service. Slowly they make their way to the place between the two wards on the side of the hill and sit down under the -wide roofs in order to be in the shade.
A good half-hour goes by before they are all together. Mrs. Russell's gramophone plays a record of solemn music, and as soon as it is finished the sermon begins. My parishioners cannot sing hymns, for they are almost exclusively heathens, and, what is more, they speak six different languages. To begin with prayer is also impos. sible, because the many new people who every Sunday are at the Service for the first time would not know what it meant and would cause a disturbance. So they must be prepared for prayer by means of the address.
During the address I have two interpreters at my side, one on the right and one on the left, who repeat each of my sentences. The one on my right translates them into the Pahouin language, the other on my left into that of the Bendjabis, which most people from the interior understand more or less.
I cannot demand of my hearers that they should sit as stiff as the faithful in an Alsatian church. I overlook the fact that those who have their fire-places between these two wards cook their dinners while they are listening, that a mother washes and combs her baby's hair, that a man mends his fishing-net, which he has hung up under the roof of the ward, and that many similar things take place. Even when a savage makes use of the time to lay his head on a comrade's lap and let him go on a sporting expedition through his hair, I do not stop it. For there are always new people there, and if I were continually to keep on admonishing them during the Service, its solemnity would be much more disturbed ; so I leave things alone. Nor do I take any notice of the sheep and goats who come and go among my congregation, or of the numerous weaver-birds which have nests in the trees near by and make a noise that forces me to raise my voice.
Not even Mrs. Russell's two monkeys are regarded as a disturbance. They are allowed to run about free on Sundays, and during the Service they either practise gymnastics in the branches of the nearest palm tree, or jump about on the corrugated iron roofs, and finally, when their energy is spent, settle down on their mistress's shoulder.
In spite of all this movement, the Service in the open air has an impressive solemnity from the fact that the Word of God here comes to men and women who hear it for the first time.
While preaching I must take pains to be as simple as possible. I most assume nothing. My listeners know nothing of Adam and Eve, of the ancient fathers, of the People of Israel, of Moses and the Prophets, of the Law, of the Pharisees„ of the Messiah, of the Apostles. And as my congregation is in a constant state of renewal, I cannot think of attempting to teach even the most elementary of those historical ideas with which we have been familiar from infancy. I must let the Word of God speak to them almost without reference to Time. Since I must avoid so much while I am speaking, I feel as if I were playing the piano without being allowed to touch the black keys. If I utter the word " Messiah," r explain it at once as " the King of our hearts, who was sent by God."
Once having accustomed oneself to preaching on this assumption that nothing is known already, the task is comparatively simple. The difficulties that have to be overcome are more than compensated for by the privilege of writing the words of Scripture on the hearts of men to whom they are something entirely new.
As much as possible I try to resist the temptation, to which everyone who addresses heathens is exposed, of " preaching the Law " (one's first thought, of course, is to keep on holding up the Ten Commandments to people who take lying, stealing, and immorality for granted), and in this way to try to prepare them for the Gospel. Naturally, I often preach about some one commandment or another. But in addition to that 1, try to awake in their hearts the longing for the peace of God. When speak of the difference between the heart that knows no peace and the heart that is full of peace, the most savage of my savages know what I mean.
Thus my sermon endeavours in a quite elementary way to be concerned with what the hearers have already themselves experienced, and with what they may expe- rience. Whatever I make my starting-point, I always lead on to the innermost fact involved in becoming a Christian—namely, the being led captive by Christ—so even the man who is only present at one service can get an inkling of what it really is to be a Christian.
So far as. is possible, in every sermon I find an oppor- tunity of speaking of the nothingness of idols and fetishes, and then at the same time I attack the mad delusion that there are evil spirits, and that fetishists and magicians are in possession of supernatural powers. All my savages live with these ideas. It is possible that the words he has heard in a single sermon at the Hospital may bring liberation to a man who is under the spell of these horrible ideas. In the course of our medical work, how much do we learn of ill-treatment and murder as the result of the pronouncement of a fetishist ! Again and again I get a shock when I see the misery of superstition.
I need not complain of any want of attentiveness among my hearers. One can see in their faces how their minds are occupied with what they have heard. I often break off in order to ask them whether their heart and their thoughts agree that what they have heard of the Vord of God is right, or whether anyone has anything to say to the contrary. Then in a loud chorus they reply that what I have said is true.
At the end of the sermon I give a short explanation of what prayer is. Then I tell them all to fold their hands. Those who don't yet know how, learn by looking at the others. When at last all the hands are folded, I say very slowly an extempore prayer in five or six sentences, and it is repeated equally slowly by the interpreters in both languages. After the " Amen," heads are bent long over the hands. Only when the soft music of the gramophone begins do they raise them. All sit motionless until the last note has faded away. Then after I have said " Thank you " to the two interpreters and have taken my leave, my listeners begin to rise.
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