—Mr. Arthington at a breakfast meeting in Leeds.—At a convention of the Baptist Churches in Leeds, England, the following minute was passed unanimously: “Resolved, that this meeting, on behalf of the Leeds Churches, pledges itself to raise a sum not exceeding £500, which shall be employed in supplementing Mr. Robert Arthington’s gift of £1,000 for the purchase of a steamer to be placed on the Congo River.” Mr. Arthington himself was present, and delivered a most interesting address on the claims of mission work in Africa.
—At the Livingstonia Mission Dr. Laws has already trained one native of the country to be a teacher among the Angoni, and has two others in preparation. Mrs. Laws has received a sewing-machine from Glasgow, and has taught two native girls to work it. Money has been introduced to the country, as have also the rites of Christian marriage.
—On August 22d, Archdeacon D. C. Crowther baptized 27 converts at Bonny, in the presence of a congregation numbering no less than 842 persons. One of the candidates was Orumbi, the rich woman who has been holding daily family worship for all her dependents.
—Bishop Crowther was recently visited by a wealthy chief from Okrika, a town of 10,000 people, 40 miles from Bonny, who informed him that his people had built a church for Christian worship, to hold 500, which was filled every Sabbath to listen to the reading of the service by a school boy from the Brass Mission.
—Mr. Felkin has fulfilled his commission in seeing the Waganda envoys safe to Zanzibar, and in paying a visit to Frere Town. At the latter place, the missionaries have been instructed with regard to runaway slaves, and the disturbances threatened recently are likely to be avoided.
—There is said to be a marked difference between the tribes on the eastern and those on the western shore of the Tanganyika Lake. The former have neither images nor idols, while the latter have both, in great numbers. An image is found at the entrance of every village, and of nearly every hut. These are carved in the shape of human figures. The art of carving exists in great perfection among some of the tribes.
—R. M. Wanzer, of Hamilton, Ontario, is running his immense sewing machine factory largely with gold received from Africa, from the sale of more than 100,000 of his machines in that country. It is not until we have seen orders from the agents of one great manufacturing establishment like this, that any adequate idea is formed of the extent to which our civilization is being introduced into that dark continent. We may well hope that when the native African is royally clad in long, flowing robes, made from American prints, on American sewing machines, that he will be ready to listen to the Gospel from the lips of him who represents these material blessings.