Short story about African missionary couple losing his mind, making mud statue

Question

My mom remembers reading a short story published in a college anthology at least before 1980, she thinks it was her father's so maybe published 30's or 40's. It was about a missionary couple to Africa and the man going insane/tribal, the wife giving him back the wedding ring and leaving him, and specifically the man making a mud statue that incorporated the wedding ring. We confirmed that she is NOT thinking of the Poisonwood Bible.

Answer 1

The Man Who Saw Through Heaven by Wilbur Daniel Steele, 1946

Reverend Hubert Diana has disappeared. He was last seen traveling with a group of women including his fiance. The narrator was on the trip with them as well when his friend Mr. Krum introduced Hubert to astronomy and many constellations in the sky. Hubert became so interested and started asking questions about science and theories, that his fiance suspected it affected his teachings in the church. As he has been teaching less of the Bible and a little bit more of his theory that he learned from Krum. Now Hubert has left to travel and be a missionary, but his fiance becomes worried about his well-being as he has changed his teachings quite a bit. He began speaking of tentacles, rings, dimensions and other strange concepts that were more secular in the eyes of the church. The Narrator and Mrs. Diana are now on a journey looking for Hubert in East Africa. They hear stories from their guide that he was brought to a village thought to be a missionary. While Hubert was there he was making dolls and figures from mud and was heard talking about the new theories he began teaching in the church. The villagers would follow him and his ideas, but some people, such as the narrator's guide did not like the ideas and especially did not like African people to interact with the reverend. When the pair do learn of Hubert's whereabouts it is too late. They learn that he has died and was buried five weeks prior. The pair mourned and prayed over their lost friend.

From this analysis:

At the place where Hubert planned to found a Christian mission, he begins enacting the history of religion from the start by making mud images that resemble the tentacled creature suggested by Krum, evoking the earliest human images of divinity as monstrous: “a religion in the making, here before our eyes.” But his iconoclasm is taboo in this culture too. “Primitive societies without religion have never been found.” (William Dean Howells) Ironically, these black primitives are more advanced than Hubert the white man.