When I passed Zanzibar the Swahili Bible was fast approaching its completion! We ask any one to reflect what great labour this implies. If we lived in times when Church censures took a tangible form, and if any man were ordered to write out the whole of the Bible in his own language before he could be restored to the Church, the sentence would be equivalent to excommunication for life. Most men would be too discouraged to attempt the task amidst other work, and the various interruptions that they might count on. But the Missionary has to write the Bible in a FOREIGN language amidst much pressure of other work, and many interruptions that no man is subjected to amidst European civilization, and if a single or even a _twofold_ copying of his material be sufficient, the circumstance would say a great deal more for his present peace of mind than for the permanent value of his work. All the time he is translating he is obliged to keep up the closest intercourse with the natives, ever learning from them, and ever teaching them, introducing reading books, founding schools, forming friendships and consecrating these friendships by imparting views of life that go beyond the seen and temporary. Besides having stations on Zanzibar, Bishop Steere[16] has been carrying his work far into the interior of the Dark Continent. The interior is in some respects the more promising field. There are many highland sites where the European can work with all his might. He can study hard, and personally engage in teaching without suffering in health, whereas the climate is so enervating in stations on the coast and fever is so prevalent that few constitutions can do more than keep this enemy at bay. Again in large places where an artificial civilization shews itself, the Missionary takes his position not merely as a man, but as a civilized man, and this makes a breach between him and his dark friend, which the latter feels very much. I have sometimes been sitting in conversation with an old headman when another European would join us. Then the English language was spoken, and our native friend would say with sadness that he “did not know English,” and he would sit in silence evidently regretting that his white friend was not so near him after all. This is only an illustration of peculiar disadvantages which are greatly done away with in the wilds of the Interior. All this, it may be said, is counterbalanced by the fact that in the interior there are constant wars. Such difficulties however will gradually pass away as the evangelistic work is quietly carried on, and most of them may be met by the simple plan of carefully placing a Mission station in the disturbed district. The one great obstacle in the interior is the difficulty of communication, and the want of all appliances from books downwards.