to make a scape-goat of his wife. But our well-intentioned mistake was not a sin and we have no need of a scape-goat.
“Well, without enumerating the sources of clearer light, and the new conditions and changes which have intervened in the last two years, our unanimous judgment is that the Lord wants our present steamer for the Lower Congo,—and a much lighter one for the Upper Congo and Kasai water-ways two or three years hence. We will, as soon as the Lord will help us, occupy our station at Luluaburg, vacant since the death of Dr. Summers, and hold our footing in that vast and populous region.
BISHOP TAYLOR’S MISSIONS ON THE LOWER CONGO. (underlined) [Larger.]
“I believe the Lord has a special providential purpose to fulfil in settling us on the north side of the Lower Congo. He wants us to occupy a densely populated, and utterly neglected region, so far as missionaries are concerned, belonging to the Free State of Congo, extending 230 miles, from Banana to Manyanga, and 100 miles wide. So that, while we shall, the Lord willing, carry out our plan of planting missions in the countries of the Upper Kasai and Sankuru Rivers, we will also provide for these vast regions so near us. Our steamer will be available for the supply of all these vast fields.
Beside all this, if our time and space will permit, we can carry for our neighbors any variety of freights, except intoxicating liquors. Our plan, from the beginning, was in connection with books and Gospel preaching, to establish industries to employ the natives, and prepare them for usefulness. So, if it shall please the Lord to give us a money-saving and a money-making transport service, direct from Banana to the regions before-named, it will be in perfect accord with our plan of missionary work for this country, and furnish us means for its more rapid extension.
“Much of the work will be done by natives, whom we shall train, and our own missionaries engaged in it will not be throwing away either time or opportunity. Associating daily with the people, mastering their languages, visiting their homes, employing them in business, bettering their condition, exhibiting to them in all our words and ways the loving spirit of Christ, and unfolding to them the hidden treasures of Divine light and life is the kind of missionary work specially adapted to these nations. There is no personal money-making motive nor purpose in it. ‘We are workers together with God.’ We can trust Him for board and lodging while in His service, and trust Him for reward when the work is done.
“During my absence from Congo of over a year and a half, Brother Teter, in charge at Vivi, has had to stand firmly in defense of me, my Committee, and my cause of Self-Supporting Missions, and having a few sets of my books, he is continually lending them to the traders and State officials stationed along the river from Vivi to Banana. Among these was Mons. C. La Jeune, who became so interested in them, that at our recent meeting in Isangala, he asked me to allow him to translate and print some of them into the French language, for circulation in Belgium. He said he was soon going home for at least six months, and would in that time make the translations and arrangements for their sale. I had the pleasure of giving him a written permission to do as he desired.
“The officers of the Congo State, from the Governor-General down, are extremely polite and obliging, but the amount of Governmental tape that belongs essentially to the administration of an old
European Government is a means of grace, especially the grace of patience to an American pioneer.