—The same Society reports that its work in behalf of the freed slaves in East Africa is beginning to bear spiritual fruit. The improved condition of the settlement at Frere Town, materially and morally, has been reported from time to time; but the spiritual results hitherto have been comparatively small. Until lately no mention has been made of the gospel’s taking root among the poor liberated slaves rescued by Her Majesty’s cruisers, and handed over to the Mission in the Autumn of 1875, to the number of nearly 300, and perhaps another 100 in smaller detachments since. Mr. Streeter now reports the baptism of thirty-two of them on their own confession of faith, besides infants. The Rev. A. Menzies reached Frere Town June 1st.
—The Free Church of Scotland reports the transfer of Miss Waterston to the new field at Livingstonia. Miss W. has for seven years been the successful superintendent of the female seminary at Lovedale. She is fully qualified as a medical missionary, and carries the confidence and good wishes of all who know her. Says the Monthly Record: She means to go first to Lovedale, where she will halt for a short time in order to select coadjutors from among her former pupils. She hopes to induce some of them to accompany her to the sphere of her future labors, where they will be employed as teachers, and in other departments of the work. When Dr. Stewart first started for Lake Nyassa, so many of the Lovedale young men volunteered for service under their noble missionary’s banner, that he found it impossible to accept of half the number. From what we have heard of the young women, they are not likely to be behind in courage and zeal, nor is Miss Waterston likely to be disappointed in her hope of volunteers. Her aim will be now, as formerly, to blend Christian teaching with efforts to civilize and elevate, and, as opportunity offers, to gather the young into boarding and industrial schools. She will also help Dr. Laws in his dispensary and other medical work among the women.
The only other lady who has gone to Livingstonia is to be the wife of the well-known missionary, Dr. Laws, who so ably conducts the Free Church Mission there; and at Blantyre, the station of the Established Church of Scotland, there already resides the wife of one of the missionaries—Mrs. Duff McDonald.
—When the missionary steamer owned by the mission of the Free Church of Scotland was to be placed on Lake Nyassa, the leader of the expedition applied to the chief of the tribe for reliable help to carry the craft around the Murchison Cataracts. The chief responded by sending eight hundred women,—a compliment certainly to the trustworthiness of the sex. “Some of them came fifty miles, bringing their provisions with them. These women were intrusted with the whole, when if a single portion of the steamer had been lost, the whole scheme would have failed. They carried it in two hundred and fifty loads in five days, under a tropical sun, seventy-five miles, to an elevation of 1,800 feet, and not a nail or screw was lost. They ‘trusted the Englishman,’ asking no questions of wages, and receiving each six yards of calico; and for the sake of being liberal, each was given an extra yard.”—Heathen Woman’s Friend.
—The sudden death of Rev. Dr. Mullens, of peritonitis, at Aden, is announced. He has been for some years a Christian leader in Great Britain, and his opinions have had great weight with intelligent Christians throughout the world. He has been the chief Corresponding Secretary of the great London Missionary Society during about twenty years—a position of great responsibility and usefulness, and one of the most influential in the Church of Christ. Before he was called to this service he had been for many years a successful missionary in India. Two or three months ago, by his own request—if memory serves us faithfully—he was appointed by the Society to accompany a band of young missionaries to Zanzibar, and to go on, if necessary, if his judgment so decided, to Lake Tanganyika, in the heart of Southern Africa. It was expected that his strong sense and remarkable executive ability would see and organize some method to overcome the serious obstacles and difficulties which lie in the path of missions to Central Africa.
On arriving at Zanzibar, Dr. Mullens decided, in the exercise of the discretion given him by the Board, to proceed onward, in company with Messrs. Griffith and Southon, to Lake Tanganyika. The party left Zanzibar on the afternoon of Friday, June 13th, and having landed at Saadani, started for the interior. Letters dated Ndumi, June 16th, report that all the members of the expedition were in excellent health, and were well on their way westward.
News of his death on the 10th of July has brought sadness to many hearts outside of the circle who will most deeply miss his counsels and mourn his loss. He was not yet fifty-nine years of age, and was one of the foremost men of the present time in foreign missions, having been, perhaps, the most prominent leader in the Basle Missionary Conference held in October last.
—There is now an unbroken chain of communication by steam from England to the northern end of Lake Nyassa in Central Africa, excepting seventy miles of the Murchison Cataracts in the Shire River; and it is ascertained that Lakes Nyassa and Tanganyika are but 130 miles apart, instead of 250.
—The London Daily Telegraph says: Among many interesting particulars of discoveries brought from Africa by the gallant Portuguese explorer, Major Serpa Pinto, none is more absorbing than his story of the white people encountered between the rivers Cubango and Cuando. Serpa Pinto found in these districts a tribe absolutely European in tint, yet nowise of the Albino type, for the hair was black and woolly. He described them as uglier than the plainest negroes, and lower in civilization than any race met with, having receding foreheads, slanting eyes like the Chinese, prominent cheek-bones, and hanging lower lips. The appearance fails to do much credit to the white men whom they resemble. Who, then, and whence, are these people, so strangely recalling the tribe spoken of by Mr. Stanley between the equatorial lakes?