REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE.
The Committee to whom was referred the general report on Africa would submit the following:
Little that is new or very noteworthy has occurred during the year past. The Mendi Mission, which has been so long, and at such sacrificial cost, maintained by the Association, was reinforced by a graduate of the theological department of Howard University, Rev. Mr. Hall, who took charge of the church at Good Hope station, and has brought to his work such qualifications as promise to make him a valuable worker in this growingly hopeful field. Mr. St. John, who went out to become the business manager of the missionary steamer John Brown, though obliged temporarily to return to this country, has accomplished some useful exploration, and demonstrated that the proposed steamer will become a most timely and invaluable assistant to the missionaries in the way of facilitating transportation and intercommunication. There are encouraging signs that the influence of the workers at this mission is extending to the interior, and that the representatives of its schools and churches who are engaged in secular callings are a credit to the same, and are advertising the value of Christian training and character to those who are as yet strangers to both. One faithful laborer has, during the last twelvemonth, fallen at his post, after a service of fifteen years, Rev. J. M. Williams. His name will go to swell that ever-increasing list of heroic workers, who sacrificed their lives for Africa’s redemption. A native preacher has taken the vacated place, and so the holy work goes on, though the brave workers here and there are summoned to leave their toil and go up to their exceeding great reward. It is a token at once significant and prophetic, that this successor of Mr. Williams, at the Kaw Mendi station, has a son now in Fisk University who will keep up the succession of workers in Africa, by in due time returning to the land of his fathers as a herald of the gospel of Christ. Three other youthful representatives of the Mendi Mission are at school at Hampton and Atlanta, their very presence here being fraught with good to fellow students from the colored people of this country and to the land from which they came as the first fruits in the way of missionary consecration. At the last Annual Meeting, great interest was excited by the expedition of Superintendent Ladd and Dr. Snow, which had just been entered upon, to find on the upper Nile a suitable place for the proposed Arthington Mission. Much was hoped for from this resolute attempt to locate a new station in the region of the Sobat. These pioneers have safely returned, and bring their mature recommendations as to what is expedient to be done in the district, where that generous patron of African missions, Mr. Arthington, was so urgent something should be done. On the whole, this Association has made a noble record, in concert with other missionary societies in the dark continent. The chapter of what has been endured and achieved by its representatives will be one of imperishable glory in the annals of this body. Whatever changes the future may bring, for the good brave work of the past, we and all lovers of Africa will praise God. Never was its mission work in the far-away land more promiseful, and we can but believe that days of large ingathering and of immediate advance are before it, so that past sacrifices and toils will not have been in vain, and the speedier successes of coming days will justify a missionary policy of the boldest and broadest character.
M. McG. Dana, Chairman.