ARTHINGTON MISSION.
Extracts From Recent Correspondence.
We trust it will be of interest to the friends of African Missions to learn that Mr. Robert Arthington, of Leeds, England, has paid over the £3,000 pledged by him to this Association, for a new mission on the Upper Nile.
The following extracts from letters give a comprehensive view of the present attitude of affairs relating to the mission:
“Leeds, England, December 14, 1880.
“Dear Brethren in our Lord Jesus, our Saviour: For some time I have had it in my mind and heart to write to you and say I thought it time—I do trust the Lord’s time—we should begin the mission. If, therefore, your faith is fully with my faith, I propose to send you the £3,000 at once. How does it seem with you in the Lord’s sight? Without Him we can do nothing, and we must have Him with us from the beginning to the end of this enterprise.
“Let all the true people of God in the United States understand this, our view and feeling. We are all one family—they who are ‘the children of God scattered abroad.’ So I ask them all throughout the States, yea, and the world, to go with us heart and soul and prayer always in this undertaking. Surely in the mighty God of Jacob we shall overcome. We shall win many for Christ, and they shall stand amidst the multitude of the redeemed with palms in their hands, out of every kindred and nation and tongue and people.
“With my Christian sentiments to your committee, and asking the blessing of God on all their deliberations, yours and theirs, ever in Him, whom not having seen we love, in whom believing we have joy unspeakable and full of glory,
“Robert Arthington.”
“56 Reade Street, January 14, 1881.
“Robert Arthington, Esq., Leeds, England. Dear Brother: * * * * Further information about the requirements of the mission and the territory to be occupied have been gathered, so that on the receipt of your letter, we felt called of God to take definite action. Our Executive Committee, with prayerful gratitude to God, interpreted your communication as an indication from Him that the time had come for us to go forward. Accordingly they voted to accept your bountiful gift and to undertake the preliminary work needful during the coming year. Among the persons with whom we had been in communication was Rev. Henry M. Ladd, the son of a missionary, who had spent 17 years of his early life at Smyrna and other localities in the East, before coming to this country to study for the ministry, and who was presumed to have peculiar fitness as the leader of the new mission. On receiving your letter, we obtained an interview with Mr. Ladd, and after a full and prayerful deliberation, we tendered him the superintendency of our African Missions, and this week he writes us as follows: ‘I hereby accept the position, praying the great Head of the church for His blessing on the arduous work undertaken in His name.’
“We learned last spring from Gordon Pacha, the late Governor-general of the Soudan, that it would be necessary to secure certain privileges from the Egyptian Government, assuring protection to the missionaries, the privilege of navigating the Upper Nile, etc. This we trust may be accomplished in part, at least, by correspondence, upon which we can enter directly. Meanwhile, inasmuch as the best season for starting from Cairo and the mouth of the Sobat commences about the first of October, we desire Mr. Ladd and a physician to be on the ground at that time, to take advantage of the favorable weather of the latter part of autumn and the early winter, to visit the territory it is proposed to occupy, and determine about the location, and the men and facilities needful in order to insure the success of our new work.
“We are seeking prayerfully and most earnestly under God, to lay enduring foundations, and to build up a work which may extend over the utterly destitute region of country, included in the boundaries, marked out, we believe, so wisely and prayerfully by yourself. We now most cheerfully, and relying upon God hopefully, are ready to undertake the great work you have suggested to us.”