Woman’s foreign JVEissionary gociety 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN CANADA 
 (Western Division). 
 
 MISSIONS IN AFRICA. 
 
 r 
 
 By MRS. JOHN McLEOD, 
 
 VANKLEEK HILL. 
 
 June 6th, 1894. 
 
 ■gffFRICA, the cradle of Art and Science, the early home of 
 Christianity, the land of the Pyramids, the birthplace of 
 the Negro, the grave of the Missionaries, with its dense 
 forests and trackless deserts, occupying nearly one-third of the 
 habitable globe, is the continent toward which the eyes of the 
 commercial nations of the world are looking with avarice and 
 jealousy of each other, and those of Christendom with expecta¬ 
 tion, sympathy and intense interest. Until lately little was 
 known of Africa. Indeed it is not so very long ago since this 
 part of his geography was the school boy’s Paradise. He knew 
 
2 
 
 the Mediterranean Sea lay to the north and that the southern¬ 
 most portion was called Cape Colony. He knew Egypt lay to 
 the north-east, and he could even tell the name of its principal 
 river, though he was very glad indeed the source of that river 
 had not yet been discovered. He hoped it never would be 
 at least during his school days. It was one fact less to be com¬ 
 mitted to memory. South of the Great Desert was a blissful 
 blank supposed to lie rich in gold and ivory, apes and slaves. 
 There were no countries partitioned off, no bewildering lists of 
 lakes and rivers to be remembered—Stanley Falls, the Victoria 
 and Albert Nyanza, were, to him, sealed history. To-day the 
 lot of the school boy is much harder. Through north and south, 
 east and west, threads of exploration cross and re-cross each 
 other in every direction ; and though they have not yet woven 
 themselves into a closely knit and complete web of geographical 
 knowledge, still Africa, in this latter part of the nineteenth 
 century, hides few mysteries from the modern map-maker. 
 What taxes his patience still further is that the country is a 
 congerie of nations—being divided among Great Britain, France, 
 Belgium and others, with but beggarly scraps left here and there 
 to the ancient possessors of the soil. 
 
 Formerly it was the custom to steal the Africans from Africa- 
 It is now the fashion to steal Africa from the Africans. 
 
 According to latest procurable accounts, the divisions stood 
 as follows :— 
 
 France, with Madagascar, had a proprietorship of 2,783,950 
 square miles, with a population of 22,010,000. 
 
 Great Britain stood next, with an area of 2,462,436 square 
 miles, population 39,836,000. 
 
 Portugal claims 909,824 square miles, population of 5,518,000. 
 
 Turkey with Egypt and Tripoli has 836,000 square miles— 
 population of 7,980,000. 
 
3 
 
 Germany, 831,000 square miles—population 5,511,000. 
 
 The Congo State, acknowledging the protectorate of Belgium, 
 has 827,000 square miles—population 15,000,000. 
 
 Spain has 246,757 square miles—population 444,000. 
 
 Boer Republic has 163,000 square miles—population 810,000. 
 
 Liberia has 37,000 square miles—population 1,050,000. 
 
 The unappropriated land is somewhere in the region of 2,023,. 
 583, with a population of about of 24,000,000. 
 
 By this table it will be seen that England stands first in point 
 of population, having 16 to a square mile, against 8 to a square 
 mile of France, and as the political situation is changing every 
 day it is impossible to state with absolute accuracy what the 
 relative position may be at present. Even while I write, the 
 following acquisition is announced in our daily papers :— 
 
 “ Britain has concluded a treaty with Belgium, whereby 
 Belgium cedes a narrow strip of territory in Central Africa to 
 Britain, to connect British South Africa with British North-east 
 Africa, and the head waters of the Nile. In other words, Britain 
 now possesses a path of her own from the southernmost point 
 of Cape Colony, the south of Africa northwards, through the 
 entire continent to Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea. It is 
 easy to see under what flag most of that big continent will be 
 sooner or later—probably sooner.” 
 
 Mr. Cecil Rhodes has been busy lately painting the map 
 red. Since the Chartered Company came into existence the red 
 has pushed its way up to lakes Nyassa and Tanganyika—taking 
 the pick of the land as it goes—pushing aside the green of Ger¬ 
 many and the blue of Portugal, and any other desirable stretches 
 of country which map-makers had agreed to assign to other 
 nationalities. Indeed, the candid Briton is forced to the con¬ 
 clusion that there is nothing more towering than the rapacity 
 with which England appropriates land in foreign countries. 
 
4 
 
 On the whole, however, the protectorates established by the 
 superior nations must be regarded as in the line of progress—as 
 a means of developing the commerce of the world—federating 
 the nations, upraising the fallen, stopping internecine strife, 
 and preparing a highway for the Missionary of the Cross. 
 
 To tell the progress of discovery would be impossible in the 
 limited space of this paper—800 explorers are estimated to have 
 entered the field of African exploration, and 600 are said to have 
 lost there lives there, or have died shortly after returning home. 
 
 Physical conditions, however, seem to have blocked out 
 certain spheres for exploration, which for the most part centre 
 about the chief rivers, and fall into two periods. The first is 
 that of isolated exploration between 1788 and 1850; the second 
 is that of linking the results of these discoveries. 
 
 During the first period up to 1830 the Niger was the main 
 object of attention. During the next 20 years some progress 
 was made in the Nile territories and Southern Africa. During 
 the second period, between 1850 and 1872, the problems of 
 the Nile, Zambezi, Sahara and Soudan excited, great interest 
 among explorers. 
 
 Since 1877 the region between the Congo and Soudan, akes 
 Tanganyika and Nyassa, with Somali lands, have afforded the 
 largest areas of discovery. Merely to mention the names of the 
 men who have been associated with these discoveries would be 
 tedious. Such pioneers, however, as Mungo Park, Horneman 
 and Barrow deserve the gratitude of those who succeeded them 
 for their valuable contributions to geographical knowledge. 
 Then associated with the discoveries of lakes Tanganyika 
 and Victoria and Uganda, come Burton, Speke and Grant. 
 
 To say anything worthy of such a brave true-hearted Chris¬ 
 tian explorer and missionary as Livingstone, would be to devote 
 more time than is expedient at present. To say that he braved 
 the Kalahari Desert in 1849, discovered lakes Ngami, Shirwa, 
 
5 
 
 Nyassa and others in the Eastern Section, and shortly after that 
 mighty fluvial system—of whose existence none had previously 
 dreamed—the Zambezi. To say the world is mainly indebted to 
 Livingstone for a knowledge of the fact that the interior of 
 Africa is not a desert but a land of enormous possibilities, is to 
 say very little of what Livingstone did for Africa and the world. 
 But for him, Baker, Speke, Grant and Stanley might never have 
 seen Africa. To him we owe it that the slave traffic in its most 
 revolting forms is so nearly suppressed, that it is now a matter 
 of a very short time until this dark stain shall be a thing of the 
 past. The opening up of new country was, to Livingstone, 
 matter for congratulation only so far as it opened a prospect 
 for the elevation of the inhabitants. It was to him but the pre¬ 
 paration for missionary enterprise, and though he did not live 
 to see the results of his labours—dying on his knees, with 
 prayers for Africa on his lips—we owe it to this man, who like 
 his great Master, gave himself up for a lost, degraded race, that 
 his death should not be in vain. 
 
 The work of Stanley and Sir Samuel Baker, lately gone to his 
 reward, are too fresh in the minds of readers to require notice here. 
 Through their untiring efforts, added to what others had done, 
 the Congo and the Nile have yielded up the secrets of centuries. 
 The rapid opening up of these enormous stretches of country, 
 and the marvellous way in which civilization and Christianity 
 are bringing light and hope and liberty to the African races, are 
 adding thrilling chapters to the history of the world. The tele¬ 
 graphic communication which is, one may now say, continuous 
 from Bechuana and Mashona land along the way of the lakes to 
 Uganda and down the Nile Valley to Alexandria—together with 
 its 4,000 miles of railways and surveys for twice as much more 
 —all these may be said to have done more to reclaim the Dark 
 Continent in the last 30 years, than had been done in the pre¬ 
 vious 30 centuries. 
 
6 
 
 Africa has an area of 12,000,000 square miles, with a popu. 
 lation of from 150,000,000 to 200,000,000, or one-seventh of the 
 whole world. 
 
 Of the Island of Madagascar, lying east of South Africa, I 
 omit any description. The history of that vast insular country, 
 occupying 230,000 square miles, both politically and religiously 
 is of so interesting a character, that an entire paper would barely 
 suffice to do it justice, and I pass on to speak of the people of the 
 great African Continent, for whom so much, and yet so very 
 little philanthropic work is being done. 
 
 From the shores of the Mediterranean to about 20 ° north 
 latitude, the population consists largely of tribes not native to 
 the soil originally, but of Arabs and Turks planted there by 
 conquest, with a considerable number of Jews, and the more 
 recently introduced French. 
 
 From 20° north latitude to Cape Colony, tribes commonly 
 classed under the title of Ethiopic or Negro family are found, 
 though many depart widely from the peculiar physiognomy 
 of the Negro. In the Cape Colony and on its borders the 
 Hottentots form a distinct variety closely resembling the Mongol 
 races of Asia. They have the broad foreheads, high cheek bones, 
 oblique eye and dull, yellow complexion of the Mongol. They 
 are a lively, good-humored people, by no means wanting in 
 intellect, but, up till lately, they have been subject only to harsh 
 treatment. Under British protection, however, they have shown 
 themselves not unworthy of kindness. 
 
 The Kaffirs, who occupy the greater part of South Africa, 
 are a strong, muscular, active people, much addicted to warfare 
 and plunder. They are all pastoral, keeping large herds of 
 cattle, live in well-built houses, cultivate the ground carefully, 
 and seem capable of entire civilization. 
 
 The Berbers are a people inhabiting the banks of the Nile, 
 below the southern boundaries of Egypt, for several hundreds of 
 
7 
 
 miles. Nearly all who are not Arabs in Tripoli, Tunis, Morocco, 
 and Algiers are Berbers. These people are a nation of great 
 antiquity, and from the times of earliest history have been spread 
 over the same extent of country as at present. They are an 
 athletic, strong-featured people, very abstemious, professing the 
 Moslem religion. They are divided into a great many tribes, 
 with every variety of feature and complexion. The Ethiopian 
 division, too, presents many striking differences—their color 
 exhibiting all the varieties between ebony black and yellow 
 brown. The true negro type is particularly distinct in Guinea 
 where they are very black. The Ashantees, who surpass all 
 their neighbors in civilization, are said to be more like Indians 
 than negroes. 
 
 The habitable parts of the Sahara are possessed by tribes 
 who live in tents and remove from one place to another. From 
 twenty to one hundred of these tents form an encampment 
 governed by a Sheik of their own tribe. They are a daring set 
 of people, not restrained by any scruple in plundering, ill-treating 
 and even killing people not of their own faith ; but to such as are, 
 they are benevolent and hospitable. They are a fine race of 
 men—tall, straight and handsome. They live chiefly on tribute 
 exacted from all caravans traversing their country. 
 
 The languages spoken by the people are legion. As a general 
 rule the Arabic is the language of the sea-coast, from the Delta of 
 the Nile to the Straits of Gibraltar and down to the mouth of 
 the Senegal. The Berber is an inland language. Then there are 
 the Zulu, the Signamba, th9 Congo, the Swahali and scores of 
 others. Moffat, Boyer, Wilder and others translated the Bible 
 into several of these languages, and found some of them to be apt 
 exponents of every variety of human thought, with an unlimited 
 vocabulary and a structure of unsurpassed symmetry. 
 
 Commercially, Africa is a very valuable country. It has 
 long been known to be rich in gold, diamonds, ebony and ivory. 
 
8 
 
 The gold and diamond mines are being steadily worked, giving 
 employment to thousands of men and yielding rich returns. 
 Parts of it, too, are exceedingly valuable as a grain-growing 
 country. In Basuto Land alone, last year, the output of grain 
 was valued at £250,000. All these considerations are powerful 
 arguments to the commercial nations of the world to go and 
 possess the land ; but to Christain men and women, whose hearts 
 go out to our Pagan and Mohammedan brothers and sisters, 
 groaning under the yoke of Islam, the curse of the slave trade, 
 the cruelties of witchcraft, human sacrifices, fetishism, and all 
 other superstitious horrors ; to Christians, I say, commercial 
 considerations are but as dust in the balance compared with one 
 human soul. The writer, speaking a few years ago to an 
 enthusiast in Home Missions, alluded to the great needs of the 
 sons and daughters of Darkest Africa. “ Yes,” he replied, 
 “ they have souls it is true ; but,” he added, after a lengthy 
 pause, “that’s about all they have.” 
 
 In refutation of this, I would like to mention a few instances 
 of what the grace of God has done for some of these native 
 Africans. Khama, the refined and Christian ruler of Bechuana 
 Land, is pronounced by the Review of Reviews to be the most 
 distinguished trophy of Christian Missions of modern times. 
 He has lately instituted a prohibitory law which is enforced all 
 over his kingdom. Spies are stationed on its borders to report 
 any infraction of its laws. He has even put a stop to the manu¬ 
 facture of native beer. Here is prohibition that prohibits. He 
 has lately built a church at his new seat of Government, Palapore> 
 seating 5,000 people, at a cost of $13,000, all subscribed by his 
 people. British officials find him very helpful in their efforts to 
 extend telegraphic communication and railroads, and in the 
 development of South Africa generally. Some of our Canadian 
 law-makers might very profitably study in the school of this 
 African savage. 
 
9 
 
 The name of Bishop Crowther, a native slave, emancipated, 
 converted, educated and consecrated to preach the Gospel, will 
 ever stand connected with the Niger region and mission. “ The 
 Lord shall count when He writeth up His people that this man 
 was born there.” 
 
 Prof. George Grenfell, who has visited all the tribes along 
 the Congo, says that “ when natives can be found uncontamin¬ 
 ated by the vices of civilization, they show sterling qualities, and 
 can stand their ground before the white man. There is a 
 vitality of race-power about them that is going to make them 
 take their place some day among the nations of the earth. ” 
 Prof. Smith says: “80,000,000 natives of Central Africa are 
 as good stuff to make men and women of as were the ancient 
 Britons, of England.’’ 
 
 The transformation among Christianized Zulus and Hottentots 
 is something marvellous. A glance at what missions have done 
 will perhaps be the best reply to the taunt that Africans are 
 incapable of being christianized or civilized. To give a com¬ 
 plete account of the missionary work going on in this land 
 would be utterly out of the question in the limited time at my 
 disposal. The subject must necessarily be treated cursorily 
 with many gaps which you will readily notice. 
 
 Beginning with South Africa, because it has now become a 
 strong centre of missionary activity, we find that in its re¬ 
 sources and societies there i3 no other part of Africa equal to it. 
 
 Cape Colony is entirely Protestant, the various churches 
 established there being in a great measure self-supporting. 
 
 The Hermansburg Mission, of which the present missionary, 
 Mr. Jansen, has been there since 1863, has a membership of 500. 
 In the course of his ministry, Mr. Jansen has baptized over 
 1,000 converts. They have lately built a church, costing $1,350, 
 of which $500 have been subscribed by the natives in addition 
 to their labor. 
 
10 
 
 The Moravian Mission has, in South Africa, a membership of 
 3,352 with 1,300 adherents. In the mission of Kaffraria in Cape 
 Colony, out of 600,000 Kaffirs 150,000, have been baptized. 
 Out of 50,000 in Zululand, 2,000 are Christians. In Pondo- 
 land out of 150,000, 3,000 are Christians. In Basuto Land the 
 French Mission has 17 stations, 128 out stations, 5 superior 
 schools, 129 primary schools, with 243 native workers, 7,900 church 
 members and 4,543 candidates for membership. There are 
 8,000 children on the school-roll and 700 young men training 
 for teachers or in industrial institutions. 
 
 The Berlin Society has gathered 11,456 church members in 
 South and East Africa. 
 
 The Rhenish Society has in Namaqua Land, after one half 
 century of work, 10 stations with 2,000 communicants and 5,000 
 native Christians. 
 
 In the Wesleyan Mission in South Africa there are 30,000 
 Kaffirs who are professed abstainers. 
 
 The newer organization, the Cape General Mission, which is 
 non-sectarian, dates from 1889 in which year 6 missionaries 
 were sent out. Now there are 58 stations extending 1,200 miles 
 inland from Cape Town, where Europeans, Africans and Malays 
 are ministered to. They have among their institutions, a 
 Deaconesses’ Home, a Nurses’ Home and three Sailors’ Homes. 
 
 The missions in South Africa hare been classified a3 follows .- 
 
 (Missionary Review, Oct. 1892.) 
 
 Dutch Reformed Church, 298,000 adherents, of whom 200,000 
 are Europeans. 
 
 English Church, 139,000 adherents, of whom one half are 
 Europeans. 
 
 Methodists (of all kinds), 139,000 adherents, of whom 22,000 
 are Europeans. 
 
 Independents 66,000, Presbyterians 32,000, Roman Catholics 
 7,000. 
 
11 
 
 In East Africa, I mention only the societies at work. 
 
 The Universities’ Mission has 12 stations. 
 
 The Established Church of Scotland 5 stations. 
 
 The Free Church of Scotland 1 station. 
 
 The London Societies have 3 stations. 
 
 The United Methodists have 3 stations. 
 
 The German Protestants have 5 stations. 
 
 The Church Missionary Society has 2 lines of missions. 
 The first has its basis at Mombasa with 8 stations. The second 
 stretches from Zanzibar to Uganda with 9 stations. 
 
 In 1875 came Stanley’s challenge to Christendom to send a 
 mission to Uganda. The one Church Missionary Society estab¬ 
 lished in answer to that call has, in 1894, multiplied to 50. 
 Bishop Tucker says that in the last few months 40,000 reading 
 sheets—translations of parts of Scripture—have been sold, and, 
 as this means an average of 6 person to a sheet, the inference is 
 that 240,000 people in Uganda are learning to read. 
 
 On the west coast of Africa, in the great Congo land, it is 
 estimated that through 12,000 miles of coast and river line, 
 towns and villages are approachable by missionaries. Twenty 
 years ago the natives of Congo had never seen a steamer, now 
 a fleet of 20 ply the Upper Congo. 
 
 Dr. Guiness says : “I don’t know a more hopeful mission 
 under Heaven than the Congo. The interior is healthy be¬ 
 cause it is high-land.” He thinks the great mortality among 
 missionaries has been because they keep to the coast which is 
 malarious. Some of the societies at work there are the American 
 Baptist, the Congo Mission, the Bishop Taylor and the French 
 Evangelical of Paris. 
 
 There are 30 Baptist churches in the little republic of 
 Liberia. The president, himself, is a Baptist, and where, a few 
 
12 
 
 years ago, $10,000 a year were given to the work there, now 
 8,000 church members contribute $20,000 yearly. 
 
 In North Africa we find that the United Presbyterians of 
 America began work in Egypt, in 1868, which now reaches 188 
 centres, with about 4,000 communicants, and extends from 
 Alexandria to Assouan, a distance of 700 miles. The Church 
 Missionary Society has 3 schools for girls in Cairo and the Estab¬ 
 lished Church of Scotland has 2 in Alexandria. The North 
 African Mission has, in all, about 80 stations in Tunis, Tripoli) 
 Algiers and Morocco. There are 4 state-paid churches in 
 Algeria—Protestant, Jewish, Catholic and Moslem—none very 
 flourishing, as under the circumstances might be expected. 
 
 Railways extend east and west from Algeria and even to the 
 desert on the south, leading one to think of Isaiah’s words as 
 being fulfilled in a way of which, perhaps, the prophet never 
 dreamed : “ Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” 
 The Atlas Mountains are being pierced with tunnels for the 
 locomotive. 
 
 The early Christian church of North Africa has many a 
 name of historical importance. Origen, the great preacher and 
 writer of Alexandria ; Tertullian, the Christian Apologist and 
 defender of the faith ; and Athanasius, whose name, says the 
 Rev. John Rutherford, will be had in everlasting remembrance 
 for the magnificent stand he was enabled to make on behalf of 
 the glorious truth on which human salvation depends, of the 
 true and eternal deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 We read in the Acts that “ a man of great authority under 
 Candace, Queen of the Ethiopians,” was brought to a knowledge 
 of the truth through the instrumentality of Philip. He had 
 come from the modern Khartoum, where the brave, Bible-loving 
 Gordon died a few years ago at the post of duty, and Christian 
 hearts can never forget that it was Simon, a man of Cyrene, 
 
13 
 
 who assisted our Saviour to bear the Cross, when His strength 
 was exhausted. ‘Him they compelled to bear the Cross.’ ” 
 These early churches of North Africa waxed cold in their love, 
 and forgot their duty to Christ, and divine retribution followed 
 in the form of the scourge of Mohammedanism. 
 
 It is said that not one Arab woman in Algiers is able to read 
 —hence the Gospel must be spoken to them. This is easily 
 accomplished however by lady missionaries who may visit Arab 
 ladies in their own homes. No man is allowed to enter the 
 houses of the Arab women. 
 
 An interesting fact, and one which calls aloud to the Church 
 of God to send the Gospel to North Africa, is that there exist 
 to-day among the Berbers’ customs which have come down to 
 them through twelve long centuries of Mohammedanism, and 
 which tell of the time when they were a Christian people. For 
 example, the Berber women refuse to wear a veil over their 
 faces—a custom universal among Arab women. Certain of their 
 tribes, too, observe their Sabbath, not on Friday the Moham¬ 
 medan Sabbath, but on the Christian Sabbath, or Lord’s Day. 
 They observe Dec. 25th as a feast called the Moolid or Birth. 
 The mark of a cross is tatooed on the foreheads of many of the 
 boys and men at Biskra and other places. One such, who spoke 
 a little English, on being asked what it meant, answered in 
 one word “Jesus.” May the day soon dawn when the Cross of 
 Christ will not be written in ritualistic fashion on their fore¬ 
 heads, but shall become the inspiration of their hearts. 
 
 Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli and the great unexplored 
 desert—from Egypt to the Atlantic, from the Mediterranean to 
 the Niger and the Congo—these countries with their millions 
 now under the sway of the false prophet are gasping for the 
 Gospel, and well may Christian hearts use the prayer of Abraham 
 “O that Ishmael might live before thee.” 
 
14 
 
 The vast Sahara is practically unexplored. No herald of the 
 Cross has yet penetrated that strange wilderness of sand to tell 
 the wandering descendants of Ishmael, the story of the Cross. 
 Still, we believe, the time is not far distant, and may we help 
 to bring it about with our prayers, our means, ourselves if need 
 be, when 
 
 “Arabia’s desert ranger 
 
 To Him shall bow the knee 
 The Ethiopian stranger, 
 
 His glory come to see.” 
 
 How dark after all is the picture ? After all the statistics, 
 which may seem encouraging as well as tedious, have been 
 gathered in—what remains? Africa is still, alas, the most 
 destitute of all the continents in religious teaching. All Europe 
 could be put into an area of Central Africa, which has not a 
 single missionary, or an area of nearly 4,000,000 square miles 
 without the sound of the Gospel, with from 60.000,000 to 80,000,- 
 000 of immortal souls ! Can we picture to ourselves this entire 
 Dominion of Canada without a solitary religious teacher. When 
 we have done that, then try to imagine a population from twelve 
 to sixteen times as great who have never heard of Christ, and 
 you have the condition of Central Africa, Darkest Africa 
 indeed ! 
 
 Even on the West African coast, where missionaries are at 
 work, the habitations of cruelty still abound. Near Lagos 
 lately, 200 human beings were offered in sacrifice. Christian 
 countries have introduced 70,000 gallons of rum to every mis¬ 
 sionary. The Secretary of the Chicago Congress on Africa 
 says, “ Christianity and European influence go to Ethiopia as 
 she stretches out her hands unto God, with the Bible in one 
 hand and the rum bottle in the other.” In 1889, a World’s 
 Congress met at Brussels explicitly to suppress the slave traffic 
 
15 
 
 and choke the trade in rum. For the first time in the history of 
 nations, Mohammedan governments took council with Christian 
 powers as to the wrongs wreaked on Africa by each. Trade 
 interests rallied to the support of the rum traffic, though the 
 powers made a genuine effort to grapple with the question. One 
 valuable result, however, is that British chartered companies 
 in South Africa are obliged to embody prohibition in their 
 charters. In the Kimberly diamond mines, where some 20,000 
 heathen are at work, liquor is strictly prohibited. 
 
 What a thing to be sorrowed over, is the fact that trade which 
 is so valuable a civilizer almost invariably meets the aboriginal 
 nations with itsworst side. Rum, opium, gun-powder, and, at 
 best, flimsy cloth and tawdry beads, are exchanged for valuable 
 ivory, ebony and other native products at an advantage of often 
 more than one thousand per cent, to the so-called superior 
 nation’s traders, not sent by the Lord but drawn by greed of 
 gain, and who basely misuse their higher civilization to plunder 
 the poor heathens. 
 
 The missionary, on the other hand, applies his energies 
 both to civilize and christianize. He teaches the natives 
 how to build better houses within their means. Bow to 
 build wells in the parched country, as Paton did in the 
 New Hebrides, and with such results on their minds and 
 hearts that they might sing in the words of the English 
 Church litany: “O, ye wells, bless ye the Lord, praise 
 Him and magnify Him forever.” He teaches them, in short, 
 how to pursue any of the callings which are within the range 
 of their capabilities. 
 
 The motto of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society, 
 The World for Christ, necessarily forces upon me the fact that 
 this vast continent, with its 80,000,000 of Pagans and Moslems 
 in its central part, is as yet untouched by missionary help from 
 our Presbyterian Church. Can the Presbyterians of Canada 
 
16 
 
 make no further sacrifice so that our Foreign Missionary Society 
 may at least touch the fringe of the garment of missions in 
 Africa ? Let us give to ourselves to-day, as in the sight of a just 
 God, a strict account of our stewardship. Are our expenditures 
 in the cause of missions in any degree proportioned to our 
 expenses for ourselves, our dress, our enjoyments generally ? 
 To what extent are we enriching our spiritual natures at the 
 needless expense of our perishing bodies that all for whom Christ 
 died might be told this glorious truth ? Is it not true that our 
 style of living is constantly getting more expensive—bringing, 
 indeed, not always comfort, but added anxiety to the already 
 cumbered housekeeper—but indulged in that our houses may be 
 better furnished than our neighbors, and our children better 
 dressed ? 
 
 Let us entreat God, with strong crying and tears, to have 
 mercy net only on the heathen but on ourselves and our shallow 
 self-denials, and in answer to the cry of the enthralled women 
 in heathen countries say— 
 
 ‘ ‘ Take my silver and my gold, 
 
 Not a mite would I withhold.” 
 
 Almost every society which has for its aim the salvation of 
 women, is recognizing the great opportunities for usefulness 
 opening on all sides by the ministry of healing ; and the end of 
 the nineteenth century has been signalled by the sending forth 
 of fully equipped lady doctors, who have gone forth to battle 
 with the ignorance and treachery of the heathen, teaching them 
 the simplest elements of hygiene and sick nursing. Their 
 value as missionaries cannot be over-estimated. 
 
 The Missionary Review for May, 1894, says : “ In some 
 
 respects Africa is a paradise for women missionaries. Indeed 
 the work of one woman is valued at that of twelve men, since 
 
17 ' 
 
 they can go anywhere, even among the fiercest tribes, their 
 motives never being questioned as are those of men.” Should 
 not this knowledge be an incentive to our Society to help in 
 the uplifting of those of our own sex in this dark land, where 
 sickness is so misunderstood and so cruelly treated; where, 
 indeed, it is almost invariably supposed to be the work of 
 demons ? In some parts of Africa children are scored from head 
 to foot “ to let out the pain.” Bishop Wiliam Taylor, at the 
 World’s Congress of Religions, said that he had seen women, 
 when too feeble or ill to snare rabbits, catch fish, or do other 
 work, strangled and burnt to ashes in the Congo district ; but 
 that after conversion he had seen sons carrying their aged 
 mothers long distances in their arms to hear the Gospel. 
 
 The woe and sorrow and sickness and sin in the unchristian¬ 
 ized portions of Africa are unutterable, and I entreat my sisters 
 here to bear in mind that all this wretchedness weighs most 
 heavily upon women. Which of us does not shudder at the 
 thought of what she endures, exposed as she is to nameless 
 barbarities in the “great pain and peril of childbirth,” when 
 her life is only too often forfeited to ignorance, supersti¬ 
 tion and cruel treatment. If she recover, in spite of these 
 hindrances, it is only to continue to be the slave of man. I 
 need hardly urge upon you, my sisters, the truth that these 
 heathen religions degrade women, yes, many of them below the 
 level of beasts. Women in Canada are sometimes ill-treated, 
 but thanks to our blessed Christian religion, there is in our land 
 a public opinion that makes for righteousness, and when she can 
 no longer endure the cruelties of the wretch who has sworn to 
 love and cherish her, she can appeal to the law to protect her ; 
 there is some sort of escape for her. But what hope has 
 the heathen woman against her oppresser, where might is 
 right ? What escape is there for her ? Does sickness mean 
 
18 
 
 for her, as it does for us, careful nursing, skilled medical 
 attendance, the ministration of loving hands, the consola¬ 
 tions of the Gospel ? 
 
 Though her skin is black, her habits filthy and her soul 
 corrupt, is there any one to tell her that if she will do the will of 
 God, Christ her Redeemer says she is His “ sister and His 
 mother ?” When the pains of death take hold of her, can she 
 say “ Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death 
 I will fear no evil for Thou art with me !” Alas, no ! her con¬ 
 dition is too far removed from this for us even to conceive of. 
 Truly the fields are white to the harvest, as never before in 
 the history of the world. Ethiopia is stretching out her hands 
 unto God ; and, at the rate the heathen are dying every day, 
 more than one and a half million in Central Africa must pass 
 annually in one awful reproachful procession into the heathens 
 grave, and to the heathen’s eternity whatever that may mean. 
 
 “ Is it nothing to you, 0 ye Christians ? 
 
 Oh, answer me this to-day ; 
 
 The heathen are looking to you 
 You can go or send or pray, 
 
 You can save your soul from blood-guiltiness’, 
 
 For in lands you have never trod 
 The heathen are dying every day 
 And dying without God.” 
 
 The reports we are constantly receiving from our missionaries 
 in heathen lands of the power of the Gospel to transform, even 
 the lowest cannibal men and women, whose intellect seems 
 besotted almost below the brutes, into human, lawabiding, 
 zealous, consecrated sons and daughters of God—this Gospel 
 which teaches men the sacredness of the marriage relationship, 
 and that their wives were given for help-meets, not for beasts of 
 burden—this Gospel which gives to mothers a loftier idea of 
 motherhood, which transforms them into living epistles of itself— 
 
19 
 
 should not these reports make Christian people feel a thousand¬ 
 fold repaid for all they have done and are doiDg for missions ? 
 The Church is at length beginning to realize that in her 
 future warfare, with error, her missionary work must and will 
 furnish the most convincing and incontrovertible argument for 
 her faith. May the great Church of Christ on earth go still 
 farther until she realize, and act upon the realization, that her 
 power or weakness, is it too much to say her life or her death, 
 are to be determined by her obedience to the great commission : 
 
 ‘ ‘ Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every 
 creature.” 
 
 Price 3 cents. 
 
 ■’BESS OF THE CANADA PRESBYTERIAN 
 

 
 
 \ . 
 
 
 
 - 
 
 Oil 
 
 ' 
 
 I • • . , • . ih I I > 1 
 
 • . « t 'i !■■>/■ ff'-'tj ■ i , A 
 
 i I i i• ■ ; I .1 < : 
 
 i . . II. v/ ill i • V 
 
 ■ i 
 
 
 ' <: ■■ mu''® 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 'N i 
 
 
 
 
 HA'; .“V H'4 AOV».\r> • •