[Sidenote: The Traffic in Gin.] “Within a stone’s throw of us lay a large steamer laden to the water’s edge with rum. When we remember that one of these steamers carries four thousand tons of freight and that hundreds of them are running to the country laden with rum, the very vilest that chemistry can invent and concoct, we may have some conception of what it means, not only to the heathen, but to missionaries at work there. At the mouth of every river and stream wherever there is a rod of beach smooth enough to land, the traffic goes on. In the name of God, in the name of all that is high and holy, why do not the owners of these ships, who live in luxury in Boston, Liverpool, Hamburg and London, paint their ships black and run up the black flag, or better still, nail it to the mast? Never pirate sailed the seas whose crimes were so black as the crimes now perpetrated on this continent in the name of commerce. “At Freetown, our ship had a lot of powder to discharge. It could not be landed at the regular wharf, but must be landed in a state of quarantine a quarter of a mile away. What a farce! There lay the liquor ship landing thousands of cases of rum, dangerous in a thousand fold greater sense than all the powder that ever went into the dark continent. [Illustration: GIRLS OF EMMA V. DAY SCHOOL, MUHLENBERG, AFRICA.] [Illustration: CARRYING WATER AND SEWING IN GARDEN.] Think too of the awful caricature of ships carrying in their holds these untold millions of gallons of rum, holding on Sabbath the beautiful services of the Church of England! More than all this, along this coast are ships of war, bristling with cannon, and on these ships, too, are read the Sabbath service, and there is a chaplain to read daily prayers. They are here to protect commerce, a trade that is transforming so many of these people into driveling idiots, gibbering maniacs, thieves, harlots, everything that is low and wicked, then launching their sinful souls into the lake that burns.” To the horror of its own situation Africa is not dull. Like the American Indian, like every poor besotted wretch in his hours of sanity, the African has besought that this curse be removed. In 1883 the natives of the diamond fields implored the Cape Parliament to have public houses removed at least six miles. The petition was refused. [Sidenote: Mohammedanism in Africa.] A little over six hundred years before the Christian era Mohammed preached his new religion in Arabia, urging upon those who followed him prayer, almsgiving, fasting and pilgrimage to Mecca, and allowing them slavery, concubinage, polygamy and easy divorce. With the rapidity of fire in a field of dry grass the new faith spread, not the least productive of the methods of the prophet being wars of subjugation and extermination.