An offer of £4,000 ($20,000) has been made by James Stevenson, Esq., of Glasgow, for the construction of a road between Lakes Nyassa and Tanganyika. The gift is based on the condition that the London Missionary Society and the Livingstonia Mission open and maintain stations at Mambe and Maliwanda, on the line of the proposed road, and that the Central African Trading Company undertake to keep up regular communication between Lakes Tanganyika and Quilimane. The distance between the lakes is about two hundred and twenty miles. The London Missionary Society has resolved to assume the conditions as far as it is concerned, and the Livingstonia Mission of the Scotch Free Church has sent a force to begin the station at Maliwanda.
Christendom knows not any other such mission as the Niger mission of the Church Missionary Society, begun in 1867, to evangelize that portion of the continent by native Africans, headed by a native African, Bishop Crowther. Large and increasing Christian congregations exist at Bonny and Brass, and assemblies of varying sizes at Onitsha, Asumare and Lokoja. Sixteen hundred worshippers attended religious services at Bonny last Christmas. Kings and chieftains are erecting churches for themselves and their subjects. A cathedral is to be built at Bonny at a cost of £2,000, ($10,000.)
The appointment of a Secretary by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to superintend its operations in Africa, indicates an earnest purpose with respect to that land. Three pioneer missionaries have been cordially received by the King of Bailunda, and others are on their way to found a station at Bihe, which lies behind Benguela, some 250 miles from the Atlantic Ocean, an elevated region, inhabited by large and compact tribes.
The American Missionary Association has sent two commissioners to select a site for a station near the headwaters of the Nile, in aid of which Robert Arthington, Esq., of Leeds, has contributed £3,000, ($15,000,) and English Christians have given a like sum. Two missionaries are under appointment to occupy this field. The American Baptist Missionary Union is considering the Soudan as a theatre of labor, stimulated by an offer from Mr. Arthington of £7,000 ($35,000) toward a mission on an extensive scale in that populous district. No man in this age has done so much to stimulate missionary enterprise as Mr. Arthington. The Southern Presbyterian Board of Missions is contemplating the opening of a station at Kabenda, preparatory to an advance on the centre of the Kingdom of Loango.
American Colonization Society.—This association is quietly prosecuting its work of boundless scope and thrilling issues. An impartial observer of its progress in the United States, and who has personally seen its fruit on the coast of Africa, lately declares: “This was the first and remains the only Society ever organized for the explicit purpose of giving the Negro perfect freedom, of promoting his education for his own good, of making him independent, of giving him a country he can call his own, and of elevating his race to the standard of a Christian nation. * * * * * Liberia’s flag is now honored by all Christian nations, and none more deserves honor, for the cause over which it floats is the grandest and holiest which ever gave birth to a nation—the redemption of a whole race of mankind from heathenism and slavery.”
The number of persons provided passage to and homes in Liberia by the Society in 1880 exceeded that in any one year since 1872. One of its recent proteges, Rev. James O. Hayes, a graduate of Shaw University, writes: “I have met many of the prominent citizens and others, all of whom have extended to me the warm hand of fellowship and welcome. Hon. Beverly P. Yates, who has resided in this Republic fifty-two years, remarked to me that he would prefer Liberia to America, even if he were made President of the United States. I have two brothers and their families, with numerous friends residing at Brewerville, and they are prospering finely. The conviction is strengthened by all I see that persons who improve the advantages afforded immigrants here could not be induced to exchange countries.” The Society looks hopefully for that increase in gifts which the broadening work imperatively demands.
Climate.—Africa continues to be guarded by her malarious seaboard and poisonous fevers, and alien travelers, explorers, miners and missionaries still there find early graves. Statistics show the difference in the effects of the climate upon the white, the mulatto and the black man. In the recent Ashantee campaign, out of the heavy death list of forty-two English officers only six died of wounds. Four scientific explorers are known to have fallen in the last few months, including the hardy Popelin, the leader of the second Belgian expedition. Each of the three first stations of the Livingstone Inland Mission has been consecrated by the call of one of its founders to higher spheres and grander activities. The Presbytery of West Africa has had during the past twenty-five years eleven members. Four were pure Negroes, the others mulattoes and quadroons. Of the mixed men six are dead, all comparatively young. Of the Negroes two are dead, both over sixty. Of the two who survive, one is nearly seventy and the other is fifty years of age. The Niger mission of the Church Missionary Society is manned wholly by native Africans, among whom the deaths in twenty-three years have been but eight, and that in a section which is mostly swampy and under water several months in the year. The Negro is the man of God’s right hand in Africa.
MAP OF PROTESTANT MISSION STATIONS IN AFRICA.
Workmen.—A convention of colored delegates from twelve Southern States, held at Montgomery, Ala., organized the Baptist Foreign Mission Convention, the object of which “is to give the gospel to the people of Africa.” Three ministers have expressed their readiness to enter upon labors in “fatherland.” The African Civil and Evangelical Association has for its purpose “the sending and supporting of missionaries and school teachers in Western and interior Africa, a duty we owe as descendants of that continent to our kinsmen there.” The Presbyterian Synod of the Atlantic, composed largely of Freedmen, has inaugurated a movement looking to missionary efforts in the country of their ancestors.