Too Short for a Blog Post, Too Long for a Tweet LXIII

Here's an excerpt from a book I recently read, "The Masque of Africa: Glimpses of African Belief," by V.S. Naipaul:

Let me tell you: the average African is very afraid of the pagan, and the pagan is there. Muslims and Christians practise forgiveness and cannot harm you. In the pagan religion there is no forgiveness. It is a tit-for-tat religion. There are rules you have to follow very strictly, and if you go against them you either die or go mad. They punish swiftly and they stick to it. They adhere to what the priests in the shrines or the gods demand. So you see it has a strong hold.