Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1888-03-30
pAGANISM'S DECLINE.
AGENCIES AND INFLUENCES con-
TRlBUTlNa TO ITS DOWNFALL.

RGENCIES ANU INFLUENCES COiN-
TRlBUTuNs TO ITS DOWNFALL.
Areas in Which Purely Pagan Forms of
Worship Still Predominate-Results of
European Rule - Mohammedan Doc
trines in Observation-Disclosures.
We may see on any map showing the dis
tribution of religions, that the area within
which purely pagan forms of worship still
predominant is much larger than any of the
areas in which other systems of religion pre-
vail We find, however, that this is so only
because the vast but very sparsely settled
northern portions of Siberia and North
America are in the main inhabited by pagan
peoples. A little study will show us that, ex-
cept in equatorial Africa and among a few
considerable tribes in South America pure
paganism, by which we mean rude and
wholly uncivilized idolatry, now predomi-
mates i'll no densely populated parts of the
world. We may notice also on our map
bands of color in these pagan areas, indicat-
ing that other forms of religion are making
Roadway there, and if we compare the map
with others of earlier date, we will see that
these bands have been augmented in number
and size, indicating the tendencies that
justify the belief, now widely entertained,
that the downfall of paganism in every part
of the earth is only question Of time.
IDoLATRYs BLOODY RITES
Many agencies and influences are contrib
uting to this result. Any man, be he mis-
sionary, civil engineer or trader, who de-
stroys the faith of tbs savage African in the
power of his medicine man, or i'll the eff
cacy of his fetch, overthrowS the founda-
ton on which his fimsy religious structure
rests. Physicians all over the heather world
help to undermine paganism by showing that
their healing art is more efficacious than the
lnyocations and mummerieS Of the fetch
maker. Governments are stepping in to de-
stroy superstition and to put an end to the
bloody rites of idolatry. England is stamp
ing out ON the lower Niger the custom of Of
fering up human sacrifices for the sins of the
people Wherever its influence reaches, the
Congo State is endeavoring to stop the poison
ordeal prescribed by fetch men for the de-
lection of witches, and q; treating as murder
the buechery of slaves to be the comrades of
their masters in the other world. On Bona
Plateau there is a spot, regarded probably
for ages as "fetich," which no one dare ap-
proach for fear of mourning the fatal ill
will of the spirits Two months ago the gov
ernor of the Congo State received the nine
chiefs of Bona on this very spot. "The in
cident," says LIE Movement Geographique,
twill, it is believed, put an end to this super
stition."
The whole of Borneo, the second largest
island in the world, is now under European
domination, and the terrible custom of head
hunting, abolished through European influ-
ences in scores of smaller islands, is falling
into desuetude in the great region where it
has chiefly fourished The British North
Borneo company treats head hunting as muir
der and hangs the offenders The six years.
experience of this company, says one of its
agents, shows that some Of the most import
ant tribes have abandoned many barbarous
and idolatrous customs. 1t is a noteworthy
fact in the history of white enterprises in
Borneo and in many other lands, that the
more hostile and savage tribe may be in its
benighted condition, the more faithful and
friendly it becomes after yielding to better
influences.
ATRICA'S NOCTURNAL ORGIES.
There is an old saying that call Africa
dances when night comes" Wherever pagan
ism reigns in the Dark Continent, the ever
recurring carousal by the light of the moon
or bonfire is the chief amusement of life
But in wide areas the noisy pleasures of the
nocturnal orgy are ne longer witnessed.
Throughout the broad Soudan, stretching
from sea to sea, are 60,000,000 blacks who
now gather at nightfall, not to dance like
their fathers, but to study the language of
Mohammed and hear the Koran read in the
village mosques. The beating of the tom
tom and the noise of revelry, so dear to every
savage African, cease wherever Islam adj
vances, and the hum of the school room re-
places the sounds of rude festivity. Desirable
as it is that the tenets of the prophet should
make way for the more perfect teachings of
Christianity, it is still a great blessing to
many millions in Africa that through the
impulse which Islam has given them they
have reached condition far preferable to
the savagery of their fathers
Among the hundreds of islands that dot
the western Pacific, Christianity is winning
an undoubted ascendancy over pagan forms
of religion. It is melancholy fact that
here, as in some other portions of the world,
paganism is dying out, partly because it's
adherents, unable to live in the presence of
the stronger races, are rapidly perishing. On
the borders of the northern ice zone, signal
triumphs have been won FOR Christianity
The entire tribe of Tukudh Indians on the
lower Mackenzie river are converts of the
missionaries, and 5000 people there profess
the new faith that white philanthropists
have brought them. Practically all the Els
kimos of Greenland have been evangelical,
except tine handful of isolated Smith sound
natives and the few hundreds of east coast
aborgines who are cut off from the world by
an almost impossible ice barrier.
Thus in every corner of the earth q variety
of influences is destroying paganism, and,
though Christianity is not everywhere tax
ing the place of savage superstition, all the
pagan world is gradually accepting systems
of religion that possess some elements of
progress and tend to benefit and uplift the
most debased and unfortunate races.-New
York Sun.
Arin tod in, Anne