“But we have something more to say on this subject. The Missionary element has also been introduced into the comments which have been made on this affair, and has received no small amount of condemnation. Our Missionaries at Lagos have thus been placed between two fires. The efforts of Kosoko’s attacking party were evidently directed against their dwellings, and this we can understand, for Kosoko and his abettors well know that the extension of the Gospel carries with it the eventual destruction of the slave-trade, and of every other enormity under which human nature suffers. Christianity does that which the squadron can not do. The latter cuts down the branches of the poison-bearing tree, but the former kills it in its root. If this latter be not done, it will sprout again. The strength of the slave-trade lies in the latent sympathy of chiefs and people; and Christianity, by indisposing them to it, and by directing their energies into other and wholesome channels, is drying up the secret sources from whence its power has been derived. The greatest benefit which the squadron has conferred upon Africa has been to afford opportunity for the introduction of this beneficial influence; and after a time, by the blessing of God, that influence will have so increased, and the African mind, in consequence, have undergone so complete a revolution, that the further presence of the squadron on the coast will become unnecessary. That time has not come yet, but it will do so, perhaps more rapidly than we could venture to anticipate. We can, therefore, easily understand Kosoko’s antipathy to Missionaries, and the exultation with which he would have seen them compelled to quit the coast. “But there is an unfriendly feeling on the part of some at home, which is not so intelligible. It betrays itself in a readiness to entertain serious charges against Missionaries on _ex-parte_ evidence. * * *