A few months ago, a Faith-healing Mission, a party of four men, sent by Mr. Simpson’s church in New York, started for the Congo. They held this same notion of self-support, and of being able to establish mission work far into the interior with a small sum of money. I saw the leader of the party, gave him the fullest information, and more advice than was agreeable. They reached the Congo, and, ignoring medicine, the leader died in a week or two, the rest were obliged to abandon their principles, and the mail of May brought a message from them that they wish they had followed my advice. They had come to the end of their means, differences of judgment had arisen; without money enough to return home, they were hoping to get some employment on the coast, and thus to earn sufficient to return. Such a story needs no comment, but certainly ought to be known. The next point occupied along the coast is Benguela, whence the missionaries of the American Board had extended their operations as far as Bihe (Ovihe). The intrigues of Portuguese traders resulted in their being driven away from Bihe and Bailunda, and nearly all the party returned home. We hope, however, to hear shortly that the work, which commenced with so much promise, has been resumed, and that the southern districts of the Congo Basin may be evangelised by that agency. Further south we find the Rhenish Missionary Society in Namaqualand; but there we are beyond the limits of the Congo Basin. So the various societies are attacking the continent from the west coast at points about four hundred miles apart. Roman Catholic Missions have been established in the Gaboon territory, also at Loango, Landana, on the Congo as far as Stanley Pool, in the Portuguese possessions south of the Congo, and on the Cunene River. On the east coast they are at Zanzibar and Bagamoyo; also on the Victoria, Nyanza, and Tanganika lakes, and on the Zambesi River. [Illustration: THE PLYMOUTH AFLOAT.] CHAPTER VIII. Missions on the Congo River. Now as to the Congo River, and the two Protestant missions established there. When the missions had been established on the great lakes, Mr. Arthington, of Leeds, wrote to the Committee of the Baptist Missionary Society, offering them £1,000 if they would undertake mission-work in the Congo country, and in districts east of Angola, where there had been Roman Catholic missions in time long past. The Society accepted the offer, and sent instructions to two missionaries at the Cameroons to prepare for a preliminary journey in the region to be occupied.