LIBERIA. [Larger.]

As might be expected, this territory, extending upwards of

300 miles along the coast to Cape Palmas, has been occupied by the American churches—viz. the Baptist, Methodist Episcopal, Protestant Episcopal, and Presbyterian Church (north). Much zeal and perseverance have been displayed in connection with all these agencies, and the result is seen in the parsonages, and places of worship, colleges and school buildings which have been erected in most of the towns and villages in the settlements, and in the improved morals of the people.

METHODIST PARSONAGE OF AFRICA.

For some years past the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church has been gradually reducing the appropriations for the carrying on of the missions from $37,000 to $2,500—a procedure that has been regarded by the conference in Liberia as inconsistent with the general spirit of the church and the growing interest felt of late years in the evangelization of Africa, and which for a time threatened to result in a severance of the ecclesiastical relations subsisting between the conference and the society. The action of the latter has been dictated solely by an earnest desire to secure in the native churches “the development of a spirit of self-reliance and independence—elements indispensable to a self-perpetuating church in any land.” The General Conference of 1888 changed the name and boundaries of the “Liberian Conference” to the “African Annual Conference” embracing the entire continent of Africa. In the other missions in Liberia there seems also a disposition to rely on foreign aid.

Fernando Po is one of the most important islands on the western coast of Africa, and enjoys many advantages from its peculiar position. It is situated in the Gulf of Guinea, about seventy miles from the coast of Benim. It is thirty miles long and twenty broad; and in its general aspect it is rugged and mountainous in the extreme, though there are some fertile valleys between the mountains, and several promising tracts of land along the shore.

Among the settlers and aborigines of Fernando Po some really useful missionary work has been done at different times, which deserves a passing notice. The first in the field were the agents of the Baptist Missionary Society. They labored for several years among the settlers of all classes with very good results, whilst the English had possession of the island; but when it was given over to the Spaniards, Roman Catholicism was proclaimed to be the established religion of the settlement, and the harshness and persecution with which the Baptist missionaries were treated by the government authorities ended in their removal to the continent. In 1870—some improvement having taken place in the Spanish government—the Primitive Methodists were induced to commence a mission in Fernando Po, the Rev. Messrs. Burnett and Roe being the first missionaries sent out. They and their successors labored for several years very successfully. In 1879, in consequence of some misunderstanding, the missionaries were again banished from the island. An appeal was at once made to the home authorities, and in the course of a few months they were allowed to return.

This question of conflict between Protestant and Catholic mission work in Africa has, at certain times and in certain places, been serious, and is greatly to be regretted, for it destroys the efficacy of both Churches, and proves a stumbling block to the natives. Pinto speaks of it with amazement, in his trip across the continent. He found places where the natives had been utterly demoralized by the spirit of contention indulged by the two Churches, and where their final answer to his advice to live at peace and deal justly with one another was, that white people might talk that way, but their actions proved that they did not mean what they said.