Commenting upon the conditions in which many Africans live, a missionary says that “when eleven men, women and children, and seventeen goats live together in a hut seventeen feet square, it is difficult for the flowers of love and tenderness to flourish.” If we wait for evolution to raise these poor people, we will wait forever. Fortunately, here and there, another theory of human development has been applied with magical results. [Sidenote: The African Woman.] A student of Africa and the Africans has seen in the shape of the continent the figure of a woman with a huge burden on her back, looking toward America. If it is true that “the index of civilization of every nation is not their religion, their manner of life, their prosperity, but the respect paid to women”, then we need seek no further for proof of the sad degradation of the Dark Continent. Bought and sold, rented or given away, living in polygamy or worse conditions, “she is the prey of the strong, her virtue is held of no account, she has no innocent childhood, motherhood is desecrated, and when she wraps vileness about her as her habitual garment, it is encouraged.” In the words of Doctor Dennis, “she is regarded as a scandal and a slave, a drudge and a disgrace, a temptation and a terror, a blemish and a burden”. It is far easier for an African to accept the Gospel for himself than to believe that it is intended also for women. Doctor Day describes the vigorous driving away of the women from his services by the headman or “king-whip” who laid about him briskly as he cried out, “This God-palaver is not for women!” [Sidenote: The Riches of Africa.] The riches of Africa are for the most part surmised rather than accurately known. The country is fertile and crops can be cultivated with a minimum of effort. Great forests abound--ebony, teak, rosewood, mahogany and almost every other known kind of timber. An investigator with a fondness of mathematical speculation has said that the forests of Africa would build a boardwalk round the globe six inches thick and eight miles wide. The names of certain localities, “Diamond fields”, “Gold Coast”, “Ivory Coast”, tell us of the riches to be found therein. The coal deposits are estimated as covering eight hundred thousand square miles. The copper fields equal those of North America and Europe combined; the undeveloped iron ore amounts to five times that of North America. Nor is the power for the development of these riches wanting. Human strength is there; the black who carries on his back for the many hours of a long march a sixty pound burden can learn to apply his muscles to other tasks. Water power is there in enormous waterfalls, and there are many navigable rivers.