“The Church Missionary Society advancing to Lake Nyanza, the Scotch Church taking possession of Lake Nyassa, the Baptist Missionary Society establishing itself on the banks of the Congo; and, not to mention other kindred societies, our own London Missionary Society advancing to Lake Tanganyika—are so many distinct columns of the great invading army which has gone forth to rescue Africa from the power of the prince of this world, and to bring it into subjection unto Christ. Surely this is the dawning of the day which David Livingstone rejoiced to see and was glad. And I hope that I may take upon myself, in your name, respectfully to congratulate our venerable father and apostle, Dr. Moffat, upon the advent of a time so rich in promise, and so glowing with hope, for that Africa which he has so long and so lovingly served. The report has spoken to us in forcible terms of the anxieties of the directors concerning the establishment of this Central African Mission, and I think you will feel that nothing shows that anxiety more clearly than the action of the directors in regard to the offer of Dr. Mullens, that they should have accepted that offer and dispatched him, if not to the front, at any rate to the base of operations for this new campaign; and he will carry with him to Zanzibar our best wishes and our most earnest prayers in the enterprise which he has so promptly and so generously undertaken.
“I think nothing can exaggerate the seriousness of the enterprise to which we, as a society, have committed ourselves in connection with Central Africa. To have to travel 600 or 700 miles, every mile of it measured out by the weary tread of human feet, and to be accompanied by 200 or 300 porters, not simply to carry your luggage, but even to carry the very money with which you have to pay your way, is no holiday excursion; and to have to deal with native chiefs of difficult and capricious tempers, with differing and oftentimes opposing interests, demands qualities of the highest statesmanship. To establish a mission like that of Lake Tanganyika, the lake itself being of the length of the distance, say from London to Carlisle, and twenty miles broad, with all its shores lined with populous villages—to establish a mission in such a centre of such a district demands an energy and a zeal and a patience equal to those of the greatest missionaries that have ever lived; and to do this, with the certain loss of the comforts and conveniences of civilized life, and with the equally certain risk of losing life itself, demands a heroism equal to that of the ancient martyr. All honor to the brethren who have responded to the demands of Christ, and have given themselves to this sacred work. We sympathize with those that are living and working, and we shall never forget those that have laid down their lives in this blessed service. Dr. Black in the South, Lieut. Smith in the North, and our own J. B. Thomson, and others who have fallen with them in this warfare—shall not the Church of Christ register them, each one, in the roll of heroes and of martyrs, by whose immortal example she will seek to stimulate the generations to come?”
THE EDUCATION OF FREEDMEN.
Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe has contributed two articles with the above title to the June and July numbers of the North American Review, tracing the history of this work, and giving a valuable summary of its present status.
We reprint a brief paragraph and the six general propositions, of which the facts given are offered as the proof:
“For years patriots, statesmen, conscientious and Christian men, had toiled and agonized over the inscrutable problem, How could slavery be abolished without ruin to the country? Madison, Jefferson, Washington, all had their schemes—all based on the idea that after emancipation it would be impossible for the whites and the blacks to live harmoniously together. Sudden emancipation was spoken of as something involving danger, bloodshed and violence; and yet, as no one could propose a feasible system of preparation, the drift of the Southern mind had come to be toward indefinite perpetuation and extension.
“Our emancipation was forced upon us—it was sudden; it gave no time for preparation; and our national honor forced us to give not only emancipation, but the rights and defenses of citizenship. This was the position in which the war left us. We had four million new United States citizens in our Union, without property, without education, with such morals as may be inferred from the legal status in which they had been kept; they were surrounded by their former white owners, every way embittered toward them, and in no wise disposed to smooth their path to liberty and competence.
“That in such a sudden and astounding change there should have been struggle and conflict; that the reconstruction of former slave States, in such astonishingly new conditions of society, should have been with some difficulty, wrath and opposition; that there should have been contentions, mistakes, mismanagements, and plenty of undesirable events to make sensation articles for the daily press, was to be expected.