Chapter 22 twenty two

Brown's successor James.Reverend Smith was a different kind of man.He publicly denounced Brown's policy of compromise and settlement.He sees things in black and white, and black is evil.He sees the world as a battlefield in which children of light fight to the death with children of darkness.When he preached, he talked about sheep and goats, and about wheat and tares.He believed that the prophet of Baal should be killed [Note: Baal is the evil god believed by the Israelites.For the story of Elijah killing the prophets of Baal, see Old Testament.Chapter sixteen of 1 Kings. 】. Mr. Smith is troubled by the ignorance of many believers on such matters as the Trinity and the Eucharist.This suggests that they were nothing more than seeds planted in rocky soil.Mr. Brown is all about numbers.He should know that the kingdom of God does not depend on numbers.Our Lord emphasized the importance of the few.The road is narrow and there are few people.It is always folly to fill the holy temple of the Lord with idolatrous mobs clamoring for miracles.The only time our Lord used the whip in his life was to drive the crowd out of his church.

Within a few weeks of Mr. Smith's arrival in Umm Ofia, a young woman who put new wine in old bottles was excommunicated from the church, because she allowed her pagan husband to open up the body of a child.The child is said to be two Pipa ghosts who died and were reborn in their mother's womb to torment its mother, and have repeated this evil cycle of life and death four times.Cutting the body open is to prevent it from coming back. Mr. Smith was furious when he heard this.Even some of the most faithful believers affirmed that some children are so vicious that they are not afraid to cut them open, and they will come back with scars.Mr. Smith didn't believe it at all, and replied that such stories were spread into the world by demons to lead people astray.Those who believe such stories are not worthy of the Lord's banquet.

There is a saying in Umm Ofiah that as a man dances, the drummer beats for him.Now that Mr. Smith danced angrily, the drums also angrily followed.The zealots who felt uncomfortable under Mr. Brown's yoke were now Mr. Smith's favorites.One of these was Enoch, son of the serpent priest; it is believed that he once killed a serpent and ate it.Enoch seemed to be more zealous about the new religion than Mr. Brown himself, so much so that the villagers said of him that outsiders wept more than the families of the dead. Enoch was short and thin, always in a hurry as if he was going somewhere.His legs were short and stubby, and when he stood still or walked, his heels were always brought together, and the soles of his feet turned outward, as if his two feet had quarreled and wanted to go their own way.Although Enoch is small in stature, he has excess energy. He either quarrels with people or finds people to fight.He always felt that his Sunday sermons were designed to teach those who disagreed with him.If it happened to be such a person sitting next to him, he would wink at him from time to time, as if to say, I told you already.Since Mr. Brown's departure, the enmity between Church and Clan had increased; and it was this Enoch who had at last brought about a great conflict between the two.

The conflict took place during an annual ceremony dedicated to the Earth Mother.When this kind of ceremony is held, the souls of ancestors in the clan who have long been dead and buried in the ground will emerge from the small ant holes. One of the greatest sins a man can commit is to unmask ancestor spirits in public, or to say or do something that would lower the prestige of these immortal ancestor spirits in the eyes of the untitled.Enoch did exactly that. This year, the day of worshiping the Earth Mother happened to be Sunday. After the masked ghost came out, some female believers who went to church to worship could not return home.Their husbands come to ask the spirits of the ancestors to retreat for a while and let them pass.The ancestor spirits agreed, and were about to go away, when Enoch boasted aloud that they would never dare touch a Christian.The spirits all came back again, and one of them used a stick of which every soul had one, and often hit Enoch hard with it in his hand.Enoch pounced on him and tore off his mask.Immediately the rest of the souls crowded round to shield their profane companion from the unholy gaze of women and children.Enoch kills an ancestor spirit, and Umm Ofia is thrown into chaos.

That night, the ancestor's soul mother traveled all over the clan, crying bitterly for her murdered son.It's been a night of terror.Such a strange and terrible sound that not even the oldest man in Umm Ofia had heard, nor would he hear again.It almost sounded like the elves of the clan were wailing over the impending catastrophe of the clan's demise. The next day, all the masked ancestral spirits of Umm Ofia gathered in the market place.They come here from all corners of the clan, even from neighboring villages.Otakagu the Terrible came from Immo, Ekwinsu with a great white rooster from Uri.This is an extremely scary party.The miserable screams of countless ghosts, the jingling bells hanging on the ancestors' souls, and the sound of running around, greeting each other, and clashing knives made everyone tremble with fear.For the first time in living memory, the sound of the sacred bull-roaring board was heard during the day.

An angry procession marches from the market to Enoch's house.Among the elders of the clan, some people also brought protective objects such as spell amulets and followed them.These people all know how to use witchcraft.As for those ordinary men and women, they could only carefully hide in their huts and listen. There had been a meeting of the Christian leaders at Mr. Smith's house the night before.As they discussed, the mother of the ancestral soul could be heard weeping for her son.The eerie sound also overwhelmed Mr Smith, who for the first time showed signs of fear. What are they going to do?he asks.Nobody knows.Because this kind of thing has never happened before.Mr. Smith wanted to send for the rector and his clerk, but they happened to be away the day before yesterday.

One thing is clear, Mr Smith said, we cannot use force against them.The Lord is our strength.Then they all knelt down and begged God for deliverance. O Lord, save your people.Smith yelled. and bless your inheritance.The rest replied. It was decided that Enoch should take shelter at Mr. Smith's house for a day or two.Enoch was disappointed by this decision, which he had hoped would provoke a holy war; there were also a few believers who had the same idea as him.Yet among the faithful, reason prevailed, and many lives were saved. The procession of ancestral spirits descended on the Enoch's yard like a whirlwind of rage, and reduced it to ruins with machetes and fire.In a frenzy of destruction, they continued on toward the church.

Mr. Smith heard the masked ancestor spirits coming in the church, so he calmly went to the door leading to the church yard and stood there.When the spirits of the first three or four ancestors appeared in the church yard, he almost tried to run away.He controlled himself, instead of turning around and running away, he walked down the two steps of the church door, and walked towards the souls of the ancestors who came in. The spirits of the ancestors rushed in and knocked down a long row of bamboo fences surrounding the church yard.Scattered bells, the clang of machetes clashing, the air was filled with dust and horrible sounds.Mr. Smith heard footsteps behind him.He turned around and saw Okeka, his interpreter.At the meeting of the church leaders the night before, Okeka had strongly condemned Enoch's behavior, and to this day there is still a bitterness between him and his teacher.Okeka even went so far as to say that Enoch should never have been allowed to hide in the Smiths' house, as that would only direct the clan's hatred towards the priest.Mr Smith fired back at him with sharp words at the time.The next morning he did not consult Okeka about anything.But now, in the face of these angry spirits, Okeka came and stood beside him.Mr. Smith glanced at him and smiled, forced but with deep gratitude.

The unexpected composure of these two people made the ancestor's soul stand still.But the pause was only momentary, like the tense silence between two thunderbolts.When they rushed forward again, they were stronger than the first time, and they swallowed these two people at that time.At this time, a loud voice overwhelmed all the noise, and all the sounds immediately fell silent.Opening up around the two of them, Arophia began to speak. Aruphia is the most authoritative ancestral soul of Umm Ofia.He is the chief and spokesman of the nine ancestors who enforce the clan law.His voice was instantly recognizable, so that he immediately silenced the agitated souls.He then proceeded to speak to Mr. Smith, while the smoke continued to rise above his head.

You white flesh, I salute you.He spoke with the tone that God speaks to man. You white flesh, do you know me?he asks. Mr. Smith looked at his interpreter, but Okaka was from far away from Umru, and he didn't understand either. Arophia let out a laugh from her throat and giggled for a while.They were strangers, he said, and how stupid they were.But this has nothing to do with us.He turned to his companions and saluted them by calling them the father of Umm Ofiah.He thrust a rattling spear into the ground, and the spear shook like a living thing.He turned again to the missionary and his interpreter.

Tell the white man we won't hurt him, he said to the translator, and tell him to go back to his house and leave us alone.We liked him very much when his brother was with us.He's stupid, but we still like him.For his sake we shall spare his brother.But the temple he built must be destroyed.We can no longer allow it in our midst.It has caused untold trouble, and we are here to destroy it.He turned again to his companions and said: Fathers of Umm Ofiah, I salute you.They agreed in unison with a guttural voice.He turned to the missionary again: If you like our way of life, you can stay with us.You can worship your own god.It is always good for a man to worship God and the spirits of his fathers.Go home so you won't get hurt.Our anger is great, and we have restrained as much as possible in order to talk to you. Mr Smith told the interpreter: "Tell them to get out of here, this is God's house and I would rather die than see it insulted." Okeka did not translate these words to the souls and leaders of Umm Ofia, he said: The white man said, you come to him like friends to express your dissatisfaction, he is very welcome.He will be glad if you leave this matter to him. We cannot leave the matter to him, for he knows as little of our customs as we of his.We call him stupid because he doesn't understand our way of life, and maybe he calls us stupid because we don't understand his way of life.Tell him to go away. Mr. Smith didn't go away.But he couldn't save his church.When the spirits of the ancestors left, the red clay church built by Mr. Brown had been reduced to a heap of ashes.The anger of the clan soul subsided for the time being.