Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: AWFUL SUPERSTITION. 33 whom they torment by their perversity. They are the most bitter enemies of the missionaries, and this they communicate to their children. They are here, as mothers are everywhere, the instructors of the young. Early in life they fill the young mind with the most foolish and debasing superstitions, and foster, by daily example, the worst of passions." The missionary, from whose journal we copy, says, " I am convinced that the first efficient movement, in undermining these systems of false religion, must be in the way of female training." American females, he thinks, should not hesitate to make the experiment of teaching them, though it be attended with some danger to health and life. ? Miss. Her., 1851. AWFUL SUPEBSTITION. A missionary of the London Missionary Society, among the Cafifres in South Africa, relates the following instance of awful cruelty, practised under the influence of the prevalent superstition. Two children at a Kraal, at some distance from his residence, had died quite suddenly, and their destruction was attributed to witchcraft. After an examination of the case, a Caffre sorceress decided that an uncle of the children, about forty years of age, had caused their death by witchcraft. He was thereupon seized, bound, and severely beaten. Next he was thrown on the ground, and thongs bound round his ankles, wrists and neck, and, with his limbs extended and his face upwards, he was fastened to the earth, and exposed to the fierce rays of a burning sun; a scorching fire was made at his feet, and large stones made hot in it applied to various parts of his body. In this situation he was found when the missionary, who had heard of the scene, hastily arrived, in the hope of relieving the sufferer. But his remonstrances were of no avail. The ...