prompt to carry out? As
the Hebrews were taken to Egypt, disciplined by bondage, and made
familiar with the arts of the most enlightened nation then on earth,
and were thus prepared for their high destiny in developing the plan
of salvation, so are not these children of Africa, chastened by their
severe bondage, brought into contact with the civilization of
America, and fitted by their ardent religious impulses, destined to
bear a large share in the work of Africa's evangelization?

It is to the development of this thought that I invite attention. Let
me first revert to the slow progress of Christianity in Africa,
Christianity, soon after the apostolic age, made one of its brightest
triumphs in Northern Africa--in Egypt and Abyssinia. But ere long
that light went out there and never penetrated the great continent.
So far as is now known, darkness has ever hovered over it--ignorance,
superstition, degradation, cannibalism, slavery and war, have made
and perpetuated that darkness.

But I wish now to call attention to the efforts of the church in
modern times to preach the gospel in Africa. There are now, so far as
I can ascertain, forty-one societies engaged in missionary work
there. The number of missionaries employed by them in Africa, foreign
and native, is 1,086. These have endured the malaria of the climate
and the dangers from hostile people, and some of them have shown the
most heroic spirit of self-sacrifice. They have been preceded by
others, who have laid down their lives in the work, and the living
stand on the graves of the dead, expecting soon to follow. A measure
of success has attended and rewarded this zeal, and a few favored
examples can be found of men who have long endured the climate and
have seen the good work grow upon their hands. But the results, as a
whole, have been discouraging. Christianity has found a precarious
footing along the shores of the continent while, as yet, in the vast
interior the missionaries are compelled to follow at a tardy pace the
footsteps of the explorers. Africa is yet unevangelized.

The causes of this are not far to seek. The white missionaries from
Europe and America succumb under the fatal malaria, or are deterred
by the unreasoning and deadly hostility of the natives. The
missionaries are a foreign people, with different color, features and
habits. They are known to the natives as coming from nations that
have plundered and enslaved them. They come as a superior ra