“The month passed, Gwebede walked about slowly and sedately, holding his head in the air because his neck was stiff. He got fatter and fatter, till his face grew like a little round moon—a black moon—full of smiles and dimples. He was the jolliest little boy you could imagine. Then came again the big brothers. Gwebede’s neck was now quite healed. The great open wound had closed up and now there was only a scar left. Soon he was dancing and skipping along the road with his brothers, having clean forgotten the stiffness of his neck, and that was the last we saw of little Gwebede.”
Now that you have heard such a great deal about Africa and its children, and about mission work, are you not glad, my dear young friends, that you are enjoying the privilege of helping to make Christ known among the black people, that you are helping them to learn to read and write, that you are helping them to be taught useful trades, and that you are helping to bind up their wounds and ease their pain? I know that you are. We all want Africa to belong to Christ and in God’s own time it will be so. Meantime we must not faint or be weary although the fight against the powers of darkness be fierce and long. Africa, the dark continent must emerge from darkness at the call of her Lord and Master and take her place among the nations who live in the Light of the Saviour of the world.
“Spirit of truth and love,
Life-giving, holy Dove,
Speed forth thy flight:
Move o’er the water’s face
Bearing the lamb of grace,
And in Earth’s darkest place
Let there be light.”