YvSLa- ■F' :t. ^0 Vl v^ t.: O k'i cylFRoICA REPORT TO THE BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS NOVEMBER^) 19-22, 1923 150 FIFTH (lAVENUE NEW YORK INTRODUCTION Since the last meeting of the Board your representative has visited all of our mission stations in South and Central Africa except Tavane and Kabongo; has met every missionary but one and most of the African workers on our force; also many Government officials, business men and representatives of other Boards and Societies. He has attended a session of the Annual Conference in each of our five mission fields and met with the Finance Committees, Boards of Education and Home Missions, and other important committees; has inspected and photographed our properties; has endeavored to make clear the position in which the Board finds itself at the close of the Centenary period, and, in so far as was possible in the time allotted, to confer about the post-Centenary askings and program of each field and station. In London, Brussels and Lisbon, as well as in such centres as Cape Town, Durban, Lourenco Marques and Johannesburg, opportu¬ nity was given to confer with the Secretaries of the International Missionary Council and of the leading Boards and Societies having work in the countries visited. Unfortunately the necessity of pro¬ ceeding to Angola by steamer instead of overland prevented attendance at the South Africa Central Conference held in Cape Town early in October. The tour involved a journey of more than thirty-two thousand miles, twenty thousand by sea, over nine thousand by rail, seven hundred and twenty-five on foot, in hamock or cart or on mule back, and twenty-six hundred by motorcycle or motor car. These figures, however, give an inadequate conception of the time required when, as in some cases, trains run but once a week and steamers from some ports may not be available more frequently than once a month. LIBERIA Our oldest mission field, after ninety years, despite a multitude of difficulties, still offers a great missionary opportunity. The Americo- Liberian element is dying out, some estimates of their number being as low as twelve thousand. As a rule these descendants of the early settlers are in and around Monrovia, up the St. Paul River, or along the Coast—Marshall, Bassa, Greenville, Cape Palmas and other centres. Along the Kru Coast and in the interior are native Liberians numbering from one to two millions, still largely unevangelized. A 3 new movement towards the Interior is now taking place on the part of several Societies, and the missionary efforts of our Church should be separated from the old work which should be placed upon a basis of self-support. The approaching Centenary of Liberian Methodism offers the opportunity, and the Annual Conference appointed a strong commission, under the leadership of the Reverend R. V. Richards, to plan for Liberia’s Centenary along lines similar to those followed in America. Strong churches, such as First Church, Monrovia, with a history dating back to the founding of the colony, are ready not only to support themselves but to undertake home missionary respon¬ sibilities, and a Board of Home Missions was elected by the Annual Conference to develop local extension into the Interior. The most impressive group of native African chiefs met on this tour were gathered at Suehn to meet the President of Liberia, and they, with the cordial approval of the Government of Liberia, invite us to open work among their people far back in the interior, near the French border. We plan to send out our first missionaries to these people in 1924 and thus start a new era in the work in our oldest field. At this point we come into direct contact with the advancing waves of a militant Mohammedanism already working down triumph¬ antly to the shores of the Gulf of Guinea. As a rule our missions lie farther south among peoples little touched as yet by Islam. We should welcome this opportunity to add our strength to the feeble forces on the firing line and make this frontier mission one of real value and power. The material for the new leadership in Liberia may be found in the large number of students who have come to America for graduate courses in Medicine, Engineering, Agriculture and Educa¬ tion. The Board has assisted several of these students to return and to devote themselves to the development of their native land. The movement is one of large promise and should have our hearty support. Liberia is a land the charm and richness of which are appreciated more deeply as one visits other parts of Africa. Within its borders are unrealized possibilities of development and self-support rarely found elsewhere. To a large extent our boarding schools, if run upon simple agricultural and industrial lines, could be self-supporting. The new Board of Education outlined a plan for the strengthening of the College of West Africa, the Cape Palmas Seminary, and ten boarding school centres, looking towards the largest possible development of native resources and self-support. White Plains, Bassa, Sasstown, Garraway, Nana Kru, Sinoe River, Leonard Mission, Wissika, and new interior points have been selected for this study. The College of West Africa and the Stokes Bible Training School occupy a key position in Liberia’s chief town, Monrovia. The College, including primary and secondary classes, had an enrollment of 323 in 4 1922 and is the largest school in Liberia. One hundred and sixty-three of these students were enrolled in Bible classes in Stokes. No work is now undertaken above high school though earnestly desired. The Board of Education favors rebuilding and repairing the old college buildings on the present site, with the addition of a farm within easy walking distance for higher agricultural work, including a more healthful boarding department and with possibilities for the students along the line of self-support. It is proposed to make the new college building the Cox Memorial, utilizing $5CXX) already raised on the field and raising another $5000 there with the hope that aid to the extent of $15,000 may come from the United States. Liberia is rich in memories, not only of our first martyrs, but of the self-sacrificing labors of Bishops Taylor, Hartzell, Scott and Camphor, and of the present fine service and personal influence of Bishop Clair and the missionaries serving under him. The Board owes a special debt of gratitude to Mrs. Camphor, who, as treasurer in Liberia during these recent difficult years, has made a great con¬ tribution. The field has not been an easy one, and in station after station one stands reverently before the graves of many who have given their lives, counting them not dear unto themselves, but laying them down gladly for the sake of the people of Liberia and of the dear Lord who called them, and who shall call them again. ANGOLA After Liberia our oldest field is Angola, also associated with Bishop Taylor and his heroic bands of missionaries who attempted to demon¬ strate the possibility of self-support in Africa. On the bluff overlooking the old Portuguese city of Loanda, the largest on the West Coast, is our fine property, one of the best we have in Africa. One rejoices to meet there two of Bishop Taylor’s pioneers, the Reverend and Mrs. Robert Shields, who have nearly forty years of service to their credit. The church built by Mr. Shields is the best in our South African field, and the school, also an excellent building, is overcrowded with an enrollment of 230, making it the largest in Loanda. The Cen¬ tenary has made possible the addition of five new missionaries for this important city in which we are the only Protestant mission. Farther inland, reached by the railway to Malange, we have well- developed mission stations at Quiongua, at Malange itself, and Ques- sua, six miles beyond, all dating back a generation or more. Malange is a growing town, a two days’ journey by rail from the Coast, which will be the junction point later for diverging lines to the Congo borders, north and east. Quiongua and Quessua have been strength¬ ened materially as a result of the Centenary, the latter completely rebuilt on a new and more healthful site. The Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society has just provided $20,000 for its fine new plant at Quessua, consisting of school, mission house, dispensary and dormi- 5 tory system. The work is practically completed and the new scliool should open before the end of 1923, under very promising conditions. The Society plans to have four or five missionaries as their quota in this Central Training Institute for Angola. The work of our Board is represented by an excellent bungalow of five rooms, another under erection for which funds are awaited anxiously, and a line or two of shops and dormitories. These are built at very low cost, the walls being of adobe. The tile roofs and the zinc sheets for protecting the houses against white ants are the chief items of expense. In addition, a large church, to seat one thousand, is being built from the tithes of the missionaries and native church members. An organized Sunday school of four hundred is an inspiring feature and no available building is sufficient to hold the present congregation, even though the girls’ school is not yet open. Some fear is expressed that the new church may prove too small, especially for Conference and other great occasions! The Board is represented by Mr. and Mrs. Kipp, Mr. and Mrs. Edling and Mr. Longworth, the last three sent out on Centenary funds. Agricultural and industrial training is provided and the future of this promising centre depends upon continued support by the Church. Quiongua is forty miles south of the railway, below Pungo Andongo, one of the stations occupied in Bishop Taylor’s time and notable as the place where David Livingstone spent some six months after reaching the West Coast. We have no missionaries at Pungo .Andongo now, having concentrated at the more promising point of Quiongua, with Mr. Nelson in charge, where we have some good ljuildings, a school of 150, and a small, but active, dispensary and hospital under Doctor Kemp and Miss Eckstromer, a trained nurse. It is planned to extend the work into the unoccupied Labollo territory south of the Coanza River, as it is also planned to extend our lines from Malange over to the Belgian Congo border, where we touch the Lunda people who are found in strength on both sides of the Kassai River. A new center, one hundred miles east of Malange, was visited and favorably considered as a suitable site for an advanced station which we may be able to occupy in 1924 when Mr. and Mrs. Wengatz return from furlough. The Mission is rejoicing over the receipt of the first copies of the New Testament in Kimbundu, the result of many years of painstaking labor by the Reverend li. C. Withey, whose entire time is now being given to literary work for this field. Some difficulties have been pdaced by the Government in the way of the circulation of books in native languages, but it is hoped that these will be waived in the case of the Scriptures and that the steps now being taken will be successful in opening the way for the circulation of this fine new work, provided for with the aid of the British and Eoreign Bible Society. 6 SOUTHEAST AFRICA From Angola one sails to Cape Town and proceeds by rail or steamer to Lourenco Marques, to connect with a local steamer for Inhambane. The trip to Cape Town took ten days, the steamer being delayed by fog. The journey by rail to Durban required a week of steady travel, but included opportunities to visit Healdtown and Lovedale, two of the great schools of South Africa. The magnificent harbor of Cape Town and the beauty of the city and its surroundings and of many other parts of South Africa surprise and charm the traveller. The pleasure is increased by the ride through beautiful Natal to Durban, another fine seaport. The American Board has a notable work in Natal and two busy days were spent there. A trip of twenty-six hours by steamer brings one to the important harbor of Delao-oa Bay, where, after a week’s delay, a steamer was taken to Inhambane, requiring thirty hours additional. Sailing up the Coast the steamer enters the Inhambane Bay, pro¬ ceeding due west. The town of Inhambane lies on the southern shore of the Bay. Our mission is located on a high bluff at Gikuki, on the northern shore, five miles away from Inhambane and reached by sailboat. Here, on a property of twenty acres, reside Dr. and Mrs. Stauffacher, Mr. Bush, Miss Roush of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society and Mrs. Gaudin, a trained nurse representing the Free Methodist Society, which is cooperating in the fine medical work at Gikiki, where more than eighteen thousand cases are treated yearly. Dr. and Mrs. Morton, recently sent to this mission, will cary on the medical work during the furlough of Dr. and Mrs. Stauffacher in 1924. The Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society has acquired an excel¬ lent piece of ground a half mile farther east on the bluff and their school of one hundred girls will be transferred as soon as the necessary buildings are erected. At Caponi, a mile or so farther west on the shore, the Wit- watersrand Native Labor Association operates one of its most important recruiting stations. Some five hundred men are sent on each week to Johannesburg to join the four hundred thousand or more needed to operate the mines of this greatest city of South Africa. The men arc well cared for and many return for further service and to secure funds for taxes and for marriage. Johannesburg makes a mighty impression upon the youth of Southeast Africa and the twenty-five thousand men pouring in and out each year are transformed and are transforming the life of the villages from which they come and to which they return. Unfortunately, notwithstanding the care which is exercised by the Association and by the specialists employed by the Chamber of Mines, many return in poor health after the great change from the tropical sea coast to underground work in an altitude equal to that of Denver. Our mission is planning to cooperate with the Association in social, medical and religious work for these men, as they come and go. 7 Our representative at Johannesburg, Mr. Terril, is exceedingly busy trying to follow up the thousands who come each year from our territory in Inhambane and who are distributed for eighty miles along the Rand. A congregation of eight hundred men greeted us one Sunday morning in a borrowed hall, and presented resolutions earnestly requesting aid in securing the central church which they need so greatly as a headquarters. The cost is estimated at $15,000. Other meeting places at widely separated mines can be built with funds raised locally. Our members now support seventy-five local preachers, exhorters and teachers, and the four preachers in charge, and a valu¬ able work is being done. During the recent famine large sums of money were sent by these men to relieve sufYering at home and they contribute steadily to their home pastors also. At Kambini, thirty miles from Gikuki, our mission has its Central Training School and the Inhambane Mission Press, the latter one of the best we have in Africa and practically self-supporting. The tract of twelve hundred acres is very rich and unusually well watered. The force has been strengthened through the Centenary, but is still incom¬ plete to assure a well-equipped school. Plans are made and rein¬ forcements are available, and the future of this important centre rests with the Church. In the Manjacaze circumscription, near the Limpopo River in the South, we have a third of our Christian community. Our missionaries are living in native huts, though these are screened and have cement floors. We expect to build this year, as soon as title to the new site is obtained. Our missionaries, with this addition, will be fairly well housed, but we do not have a single satisfactory church or school building in the chief stations of Southeast Africa. This condition should be remedied at the earliest date possible. An expenditure of $5000 in each of the three main stations would provide a satisfactory begin¬ ning and give much encouragement to our devoted missionaries in that difficult field. The evangelization of the territory from the Limpopo to the Sabi River, with a population estimated at a million, is left to our Church. We must strengthen the stations already occupied and open others, especially to the North, to meet this responsibility. A further stretch of territory from the Beira-Umtali Railroad to the Zambezi River has been assigned to us and waiting fifteen years for us to occupy it. It is felt that this extension, owing to governmental conditions, should proceed from Portuguese territory and be conducted by missionaries and African workers who know the Portuguese language. There is a sensitiveness with regard to any approach from British territory which makes work across the Rhodesia line unwelcome and inadvisable. RHODESIA Two days in a little Portuguese steamer of nine hundred tons brought us from Inhambane to Beira, and after a wait of two days 8 a train carried us in one night to Umtali. The scenery as one rises through the mountains to an altitude of three thousand feet is charm¬ ing. Umtali, Old Umtali, Mutambara and the stations in the North, Mrewa and Mtoko, remind one of Colorado. The railway and motor car help to bind our Rhodesian Mission closely together and it was possible to visit the stations in a week of steady travel, leaving another week for Conference and committee meetings. Fifteen hundred Christians gathered for Native Assembly Day, preceding Conference at Old Umtali; and a thousand took communion in the impressive open air service held in the warm sunlight of a typical Rhodesian winter morning. Later the people came forward by village groups, the ninety-eight pastors and teachers leading their contingents. Many had walked twenty or more miles and some had come several days’ journey to be present. The influence of ^he mission on the people was apparent and yet, as Dr. Gurney remarked, “There was not a native Christian in this whole section when I came here twenty years ago.” In the afternoon a revival meeting was held—also, of necessity, out of doors—and the people crowded forward at the invitation of Bishop Johnson, seeking a deeper work of grace in their hearts. Nowhere is the value of the work we are doing in Africa more apparent than in and about the strong centre of Old Umtali. The influence of this school is felt for many miles and it is, today, perhaps the best manned school in Rhodesia, through the recent additions supplied by the Centenary and largely supported by the Government. Our missionaries in British territory have much for which to be thankful. The Government recognizes the value and need of missionary work and leaves the education of the native largely to the Churches, aiding them as liberally as available funds permit. It insists, properly, upon high standards, and our Board and the Woman’s Foreign Mis¬ sionary Society are winning commendation for the well-trained mis¬ sionaries now on the field and for the character of the work done at Old Umtali and Mutambara. Agricultural and industrial education have a large part, along with normal, literary and Bible training, and the attitude and aid of the Government result in a supply of African assistants not available in other fields where conditions are so much more difficult. Our school at Old Umtali is hampered by the lack of a suitable building. The small and makeshift quarters now used which came to us with the gift of the site, are said by the Inspector to be unworthy of the standing of our mission and of the missionaries we have sent out. Rhodesia feels most keenly the need of a central school building. The sum of $15,000, provided during the next three years, would enable us to meet this great need. In the North our stations he on the border of large native reserves containing some sixty-five thousand people. As the amount of ground 9 available to missions in reserves is limited to ten acres, the Government has just granted us a tract of four thousand acres lying outside the reserve, but between the stations of Mrewa and Mtoko. Here, at Nyadiri, it is proposed to develop a strong training centre for the North, in which the Board and the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society will cooperate, as they do so effectively throughout Africa. Our chief missionary opportunity in Rhodesia is in this country to the North. Dr. Gurney and Mr. Tull are now at work at Nyadiri, using available designated funds for the beginnings of the hospital and missionary homes. The Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society will commence building immediately and is providing for three of their missionaries to be stationed there. The whole mission is enthused over this advance and the prospects of the speedy evangelization of thousands of people who are highly responsive to the presentation of the Gospel and the claims of Christ upon their lives. Rhodesia has a well equipped printing plant turning out excellent work. It is the hope of Mr. Gardner that this may be made fully self- supporting in the near future, especially now that there is new equip¬ ment in hand with which to print a number of needed books prepared in Chiminyika by our veteran missionary and authority. Dr. Greeley. In Unitali we have strong English and native churches, in which Mr. James and Mr. Gates have rendered valuable service. These churches minister to a community rather subject to constant change, but are self-supporting to the extent of the missionary time given to them. CONGO Our youngest and largest field in the South Africa Central Con¬ ference lies in the southern part of the Belgian Congo, beginning at Elizabethvillc, the rapidly growing capital of the rich Katanga, and extending north to Kabongo and west to the Angola border. We minister to thousands who come from Congo and Rhodesia to work in the amazing copper mines of Katanga; to practically all of the Lunda speaking people of the southwest, and a large section of Baluba about Kabongo. Bachiokwe are coming in from Angola in large num¬ bers, and other smaller language groups are encountered as one travels through this section staked out by Dr. Springer some ten years ago as our field. Elizabethville may be reached by rail from Cape Town in five days, or from Beira, through Rhodesia, in four days. The mountain scenery of Eastern Rhodesia is succeeded by level country covered with “bush,” the low forest growth which spreads all along the route through Northern Rhodesia and the Southwestern Congo, interspersed with stretches of tall grass and low vleis, or marshes. The grass grows yellow in the dry season and great fires are kindled to burn it off and drive out the plentiful small game. All along the route in July the fires were burning, sometimes rather too close for comfort! The trains, with sleeping and dining cars, are excellent. The direct 10 service ends, for the present, at Bukama, one day’s run north of Elizabethville, but one may proceed on to Cairo by boat and short stretches of railway, and the completion of the famous route in the not distant future seems assured. Elizabethville is a growing city on the level plain, built in the midst of a forest of white-ant hills, tree covered and often taller than the bungalows built beside them. The Belgian Government allots all land and controls building, which must be of burned brick and cement, with iron or other durable roofing. The expense is considerable, as much material must come in by the long rail routes. The rich mines of the mineral district, with their great smelters and concentrating plants, employ hundreds of foreigners in addition to some twenty thousand natives. Our mission is the only important Protestant agency at work and nowhere else are we so much in the eye of the public as m this Johannesburg of the North. The mine compounds, in which the natives are housed, stretch out in all directions. We saw thirteen, some holding several thousand men. To minister to these accessible but changing groups we need a strong force of well-trained men under adequate leadership. We have an opportunity to serve other missions whose members come from long distances to work in the mines and to luake unnecessary the multiplication of competing agencies, so wasteful elsewhere. If, however, we accept this responsibility, we must not expect one overburdened missionary to carry the load, as in the past. The present church and school, holding three hundred, is often crowded to the doors. The city has granted us valuable property adjoining and in just the right location, but we must build on it at once to hold it. We need a church seating six hundred and it will cost not less than $12,000. The present building will do for school and social service work. In another part of the town, admirably located, we have been granted five lots, bordering on three main avenues, for work among foreign residents. We must minister to the hundreds of Protestants who come to live in the mineral district and who become so important a factor in dealing with the Africans under their direction. The great Catholic cathedral, the walls and roof of which have cost $50,000, is but one of the many buildings erected by the active representatives of the Church of Rome in Elizabethville. To minister to the needs of the Protestant community there should be an attractive church or chapel, a hostel and school for children of Prot¬ estants, including missionaries, and social rooms for work along Christian Association lines. It would be a wise investment to expend from $50,000 to $100,000 in Elizabethville at this point in its develop¬ ment, and to maintain a force of three or four missionaries as a minimum. Excellent social and religious work is being done by Mr. and Mrs. Dana at the great Panda-Likasi mine, ninety miles farther north, and at Kambove, one of our older stations, where the Guptills have been located, but our forces in the mineral district are all too weak for the task in hand. 11 To reach our other stations at Kabongo, Kinda, Sandoa and Kapanga, a journey of many weeks is required. Fortunately the Government is laying stress upon the widening and improving of the old paths and motor cars are coming into use. Conference was called for Kapanga, the station opened ten years ago at the seat of Mwata Yamvo’s capital. A Ford car, the first to come into the Katanga by way of Boma on the West Coast and up the Congo River, was secured by the mission on very favorable terms, and in this the journey which usually required a month was made in seventeen days, including stops at Panda-Likasi, Kambove, Kinda and Sandoa. Cars have been run¬ ning as far as Sandoa, but this was the first to reach Kapanga, one hundred and three miles beyond, though this involved a good deal of voluntary aid to the Government in the way of strengthening scores of bridges and dikes through the well-watered valley of the Lulua. The Conference at Kapanga was notable in that it was the first held there and the first attended by all of the missionary members. Hitherto attendance at Conference has meant that some missionaries have had to be absent from their stations for two or even three months, and all could not leave. The need of a central station where the mission might gather more quickly and where a training institution might be established was felt keenly. Plans are now under way to develop such a center at Kinda, not more than five or six days’ journey from the other stations, but even the occupation of this desirable site must await the coming of more missionaries to this large field. Kabongo, to the north, in the centre of hundreds of villages otherwise untouched, presents one of the urgent appeals for a larger force. We have not “occupied” the Congo, but we have planted our stakes in key positions and there are strong reasons why not less than half a dozen new missionaries should be sent to this field without delay. The opening of our new station at Sandoa by Mr. Brinton who, in his previous term of service, translated the Gospels and Acts into Lunda; the building of the new mission house and hospital at Kapanga by Dr. Piper with funds provided by the Detroit Area; the selection of a suitable site and the occupation of Kinda; the building of the new house and social centre at Panda-Likasi, and the extension of our lines in the rich Kabongo territory, are some of the recent notable achievements in the Congo. Your missionaries, young, eager and untiring, long to press into the ripe fields all about them. A cut would be a severe blow to ardent spirits_ glad to pioneer, to live in mud huts and under thatched roofs, in tropical heat and in loneliness for the Master’s sake. CONCLUSIONS It was a great privilege to journey with Bishop Johnson through the length and breadth of his immense area involving, as it did, con¬ tinuous travel from April twenty-seven, when we sailed from Loanda, 12 to August twelfth, when our paths separated at Mafeking, on the way down from the Congo. Cape Town, central as it is from the standpoint of accessibility, is a week’s journey from Loanda. To reach Inhambane requires one to two weeks, depending on connections at Delagoa Bay, and Umtali or Elizabethville are as far away by rail as is the Pacific Coast from New York. Yet these are the nearest and easiest points to touch in the four Conferences. The farthest points require from two weeks to a month to reach and are as far from Cape Town in point of time as Shanghai or parts of South America are from the headquarters of the Board of Foreign Missions. The area contains territory under British, Belgian and Portuguese rule. The problems of nationality and of language, European and native, are many, and to deal with them requires tact and consideration of a high order. Bishop Johnson is giving himself to the diversified problems of his area, including those of language, with a devotion which deserves our recognition and hearty appreciation. His interest in the native ministry is notable, and the coming of “our Bishop” is an event to which they look forward eagerly. The Bishop holds a unique place in the regard and affection of our Wesleyan brethren, the leaders in Christian work in South Africa with their 600,000 members and adherents, and in Johannesburg and Cape Town we enjoyed their cor¬ dial fellowship. Though we are working among different peoples, we profit by their fine example in the development of native leadership. In Johannesburg they have seven hundred and fifty local preachers and teachers at work along the Rand, all locally supported, and we, even with our recent beginning, have seventy-five on the same basis. As a result of such a tour, one feels keenly conscious of the isolation of tropical Africa. Rarely do the missionaries and admin¬ istrators have the privilege of contact with the other great mission fields of the world. The various fields in which missionaries are at work are also separated widely and communications within the fields are often slow and difficult. Some of our mission stations are as far apart in time as China is from India, or New York from Riode Janeiro. This isolation of continent, field and mission is one which must be overcome by providing for helpful contacts. Conferences with other missionaries on the field, visits from those familiar with conditions elsewhere, and special gatherings of African missionaries on furlough, for prayer and counsel, should be provided for if the largest results are to be secured. Successful methods in one field may not be known a few days’ journey away, and many a lonely missionary burns the midnight oil and depletes his strength in the struggle to learn by experience what comes easily to missionaries in other fields through their more frequent contacts in hill stations and other accessible gathering places. It would be a wise investment of time and money to seek means of overcoming this outstanding need of our African fields. 13 What has been said on this subject applies with peculiar force to Liberia. Hemmed in by British and French possessions none too friendly, and with afltiliations chiefly American, though treated as an orphan rather than a child, Liberia has few missionaries of any Board with experience outside of its own borders or the United States of America. Situations which seem insoluble in Liberia do not so appear to those who have had experience elsewhere in Africa or in other and larger areas. It is unfortunate indeed that the very interest which America has felt in Liberia has tended to limit some important Boards to this field and to make unnecessary the coming in of British and continental organizations with their long and rich experience, while political, racial, and social conditions have tended to restrict the range of those at work in Liberia to its own Coast. Some of these problems are of the first magnitude and call for the clearest and coolest thinking. Bishop Clair, the beloved leader of as loyal and devoted a body of missionaries as we have in any field, should not be restricted to one comparatively small Conference when there is so much need elsewhere and when this restriction is in itself a handicap. It is a question if more cannot be achieved in the next ten years by bringing Liberia into closer contact with our other missions in Africa or those fields in which similar problems are being faced and solved. The policy of concentration upon centres of higher training is producing results in every field. The Conference programs are de¬ veloping in breadth and unity. Greater emphasis needs to be placed upon the selection of a well-rounded staff for each main centre and the necessary continuity in qualified leadership which is essential to success in working among Africans. Personal influence is an enormous factor among people who move easily and who lack the restraints of civilizations like those of India and China. African students will go any distance to a school where they know they will get results and they leave as easily if they are disappointed. The secret of success in Africa rests predominantly upon a trained indigenous leadership and our schools must be manned and equipped to produce results in character and training on lines similar to those which have proved so successful in our own Southern States. Work in Africa, as elsewhere among primitive people, requires an intimate knowledge of the strange customs and traditions of the people, often varying greatly in neighboring tribes. Many languages are still waiting to be reduced to writing. In addition, the majority of our missionaries have to master Portuguese or French, the official languages of Angola, Inhambane and the Congo. It is important that all who go out should understand how to maintain health in a difficult climate. Perhaps in no other field must the missionary rely so largely upon himself or the little circle of the station for all the needs of daily life and work. There are, therefore, urgent reasons why our mission¬ aries to Africa should have special opportunity for preparation before going to the field and when on furlough. The policy of the Board in this regard during the Centenary period has amply justified itself. 14 Even greater emphasis is needed upon the mastery of the official language before entering upon the life on the field, and the necessary provision should be made for this in every case, either in the Field Budgets or by Special Grant. This report "would be incomplete without expressing the deep thankfulness to the Heavenly Father which one feels who has had a tour such as this. The hearty welcome and beautiful hospitality every¬ where extended, the self-forgetful helpfulness of our Bishops and mis¬ sionaries, and the loving and undying devotion of their Christlike service, touch the heart and refresh the spirit of whoever is so fortunate as to come into the circle of their influence. And through it all one sees the people of Africa, patient, gentle, winsome and strong, so needy and yet so earnest and responsive to the message of love in Christ Jesus, and longs for the day to come when all may know Him, whom to know aright is Life Eternal, and be changed into the same image. Respectfully submitted, THOS. S. DONOHUGH. 15