The American Missionary — Volume 34, No. 3, March, 1880Various
Religion
The American Missionary — Volume 34, No. 3, March, 1880
Various
Congregational churches -- Missions -- Periodicals; Home missions -- Periodicals
1. That trials at the outset are often God’s means of arousing a
deeper faith. The history of missions, modern and Apostolic, is
full of examples. The Teloogoo Mission where such an unusual work
of Divine grace has recently been experienced and the converts have
been numbered by thousands, was for a long time the scene
of unfruitful labors. Bishop Crowther’s Mission in West Africa, now so
strong and growing, had an early experience of toils and persecutions.
The Apostles themselves encountered imprisonments and death not only,
but their labors were sometimes followed by defections, perversions of
doctrine and scandals in life.
2. We should take courage from the fact that the slave-trade, the worst
foe to missionary labors in Africa, is feeling the effects of the
earnest efforts of Great Britain for its overthrow. Sir Samuel Baker,
and after him Col. Gordon, the stout old Covenanter—the Havelock of
Africa—have crippled its power on the Upper Nile, while the labors
of Sir Bartle Frere, and subsequently of Dr. Kirk at Zanzibar, have
been equally effective along the coast, so that the Church Missionary
Intelligencer feels authorized to say that “the slave-trade if not
killed, is scotched.” The missions themselves, though hindered in many
respects, have had a salutary influence in shaming and arresting this
fiendish traffic.
3. Finally, the church of God must bear in mind that the Saviour’s last
and great command, “Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel,” is
accompanied by that all-comprehensive and all-sufficient promise, “Lo,
I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” God will redeem
the whole world, and in the Saviour’s heart and plan, Africa is not
forgotten.
* * * * *
THE NEGRO IN AMERICA AND AFRICA.
Dr. Edward W. Blyden, of Liberia, Africa, is the author of an
interesting article in the _Methodist Quarterly Review_ for January,
1880, from which we gratefully reprint elsewhere his tribute to
our work. Anything which comes from the pen of this distinguished
gentleman—one of the most cultured men of the race whose cause he
pleads—is well worth reading and consideration. With much that the
Doctor says, we are in full and hearty agreement, but beg leave to make
one or two suggestions, growing out of what seem to be at least not
unwarranted deductions from his positions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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