“And now, turning to Central Africa, what a solemn responsibility has been thrown upon the Church of Christ in connection with that vast continent! True it is that the North of Africa has been connected with European history ever since Europe had a history, and Egypt, especially, is rich in associations of the most remote antiquity. South Africa has been colonized by modern European nations, and the East and the West Coasts have furnished the material for that iniquitous slave trade in which Christian nations have not been ashamed to join hands with Mohammedans in order to rob their fellow-men of their liberties. “But all this has touched only the fringe of this vast continent, and the interior has been practically unknown. Look at the maps of a few years ago and you will see blank spaces, relieved only by imaginary rivers and unverified mountains, and the letterpress of the geography books was just as meagre and as unsatisfactory. I chanced to light upon a school geography, the other day, published in 1847, in which this was the description given: ‘The interior of Africa is little known. The climate is so bad that the few Europeans who travel there generally die before they return.’ And it concluded by saying: ‘Most of the inhabitants are negroes.’ I think that the young people of to-day may congratulate themselves that they have not to study the text-books of thirty years ago--at any rate, on this question. I need not remind this meeting how, by the labors of eminent geographers and explorers and, not the least, missionaries, this reproach has been rolled away, and Africa promises to be as widely known as is Asia. But it is more to the purpose of this meeting to express the admiration and the thankfulness with which we witness the Church of Christ, of divers denominations, taking up the solemn responsibilities thrown upon her, and addressing herself to the evangelization of Africa.