to group the whole island-world
lying to the east and south, though these are utterly different peoples.
This includes the great number of islands scattered throughout the Pacific
Ocean. The conditions are largely those of savagery except where affected
by Christian civilization through the missionary enterprise. The Gospel
has done some wonderful feats of transformation here. And there is plenty
of room for more. Australia, the "island continent," is a British colony,
and of course now reckoned among Christian lands; as is also the large
island of New Zealand, also a British colony, which has been a leader in
some of the most advanced steps of modern civilization.

Crossing the Pacific to the east brings up the South American Continent;
and Central America, the connecting stretch of land with our own
continent; and Mexico, which is commonly grouped with foreign-mission
lands. South America has been spoken of both as the "neglected continent"
and as the "continent of opportunity." The common characteristic
religiously of all this vast section from Mexico to the "Land of Fire," at
the southernmost toe of South America, is that it is under the sway of the
Roman Catholic Church. Some parts of it have been spoken of as "baptized
heathenism." A vast network of church forms and organization, practically
lifeless, holds these peoples in an iron grasp. The need of the Gospel of
Jesus is fully as great as in civilized China or savage Africa.

One more long easterly stride, across the Atlantic, brings black Africa,
and completes this rapid run around the globe, so far as distinctly
heathen lands are concerned. Africa is peculiarly the savage continent,
though it has the oldest civilization in its northeast corner, and the
newest British civilization rapidly developing on its southern edge. It is
the "dark continent," both in the color of its inhabitants and in its sad
destitution and degradation. About <i>a tenth</i> of the world's population is
here; with as many missionaries as in civilized India, but unable to reach
the people as effectually as there because of the lack of national
organization and the absence of great highways of travel.

Africa is essentially a great mass of separate tribes, larger and smaller,
most of them in deepest savagery, with sorest need not only of salvation,
but of civilization. The sore need of its very savagery has seemed to make
it a magnet to missionary enterprise. And yet all that has been don