Each mission owns lands, either absolutely or in tenancy, the Baptist Missionary Society Corporation heading the list with no fewer than fifteen, being followed by the American Baptist Missionary Union with fourteen, and the International Missionary Alliance with thirteen. The other missions have between one and eight locations each, their field of action being throughout the Upper, Middle, and Lower Congo.
All these missions are Protestant. Their work is done by between two and three hundred white missionaries, to say nothing of native evangelists, and they dispose of a considerable revenue, subscribed, for the most part, by the Protestants of Great Britain and the United States.
Mission Steamers.
Of the five large missionary steamers in the Congo State, four are owned by Protestants. The Peace and the Goodwill belong to the English Baptist Mission, the Henri Reed to the American Baptist Mission, and the Pioneer to the English Balololand Mission. Roman Catholics own only one mission steamer, Our Lady of Perpetual Help.[35]
Roman Catholic Missions.
As might be expected from its history, the prevailing faith in Congoland is the Roman Catholic. The Congo Free State tolerates all religions, no one of them enjoying a privilege denied to the others. Unfortunately the Protestants are split up into several sects; but there is no division among the Roman Catholics, and this fact has resulted largely in favour of the growth of the latter.
The White Fathers began their mission in Congoland in 1878, a year later than the first Protestant mission. They were followed by the Scheut Fathers in 1888; the Trappists, 1892; the Jesuits, 1893; the Priests of the Sacred Heart, 1897; the Prémontré Fathers, 1898; and the Redemptionists, 1899. There are also the missionaries of the Ghent Sisters of Charity, the Sisters of Notre Dame, the Trappistines, the Franciscans, and the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Mary.
The wide-reaching results of the earnest labours of these self-denying evangelists is apparent in the existence to-day of 59 permanent and 29 temporary posts; 384 missionaries and sisters; 528 farm chapels; 113 churches and chapels; 523 oratories; 3 schools of the second degree; 75 primary schools; 440 elementary schools (in which native teachers instruct in the elements of reading, writing, and arithmetic); 7 hospitals, 71 Christian villages, and 72,383 Christians and catechumens.
From statistics such as these, pregnant as they are with proof of the onward march of civilisation, it is a relief to turn to records in words. Here are two extracts from a diary kept by the Rev. Father Grison, missionary in charge of St. Gabriel’s, Stanley Falls. The diary from which they are taken was written in odd moments snatched from an exceptionally busy life in a far-off land, with no idea that any line of it would ever be given to the world.
Aug. 16, 1902. Yesterday we had 17 baptisms and I administered Holy Communion to more than 300 people.