The price which Christian missions have paid for religious work amongst the pagan tribes of West Central Africa can never be correctly estimated. In the Congo alone Protestant missions have spent nearly one and a quarter millions sterling within the last twenty-five years. Out of some 550 missionaries, over 170 have gone to an early grave, many not living six months, some only a few days. These men and women were not only the matured youth of their countries, but they were compelled to pass the most rigid medical examination prior to acceptance by the missionary boards. They were indeed the flower of the Christian Church; moreover, the very difficulties and dangers which were known to exist, served to attract none but the strongest characters. Some people, incapable of recognizing sterling qualities in any but themselves, have written and spoken of missionaries as those who could not have made their way in any other sphere of life. Whatever may be true of other mission fields, so far as the missionaries of West Africa are concerned, the majority resigned good and assured positions and accepted a comparative pittance in order that they might serve what surely is the greatest of all causes. I have failed to obtain statistics from the Roman Catholic Church, but the foregoing applies equally to the devoted men of that body. With them, as with the Protestants, it has been _via crucis via lucis_. The following statistics, so far as they are a guide to Christian progress, show some of the results achieved by the missionary forces of Protestantism in West Africa:— Annual Native _Sierra Leone_ Adherents. Scholars. Contributions. Anglican 12,700 3,283 £7,267 Methodists 7,584 2,665 — _Nigeria_ Anglican 40,700 15,089 £11,676 United Free Church 6,431 3,675 £2,834 Methodists, including French Dahomey, German Togoland, and Fernando Po 7,137 3,793 — _Gambia_ Methodists 1,058 594 — _Gold Coast_ Society for the Propagation of the Gospel 3,273 — £677 Methodists 61,481 7,821 — Basel Mission 35,000 — £9,500 _Congo_ Baptists 4,536 11,637 — American Baptists 5,230 7,500 (est.) — Presbyterian 10,000 8,000 — Swedish 1,821 5,721 — French Protestants 1,800 1,000 —