[Sidenote: The Picture Not All Dark.] But the picture is not all dark. The mention of Africa recalls to our minds the names of Livingstone, of Robert Moffatt, of David A. Day. The Christian world has in Africa its records of shame, it has also its records of glory. It has at Kimberly the deep shafts of diamond mines, symbol of the pride and lust of man’s heart; it has nearby the graves of many pious German Lutherans. Lingering along the western shore there must be still the cries of the afflicted, the wailing of mothers torn from their children, of husbands beaten from their wives! Yet here are the graves of the children of David A. Day. Into the distant interior penetrated the slave raiders, torturing, driving the inhabitants from their villages, binding them with chains, marking their course with blood; yet here is buried the heart of Livingstone. Whether or not we heed the call, we are bound to Africa by an unbreakable bond. [Sidenote: The First African Missionary a Lutheran.] It is a satisfaction and an inspiration to know in the searching of heart which should be ours that our own church has heeded the Ethiopian call. If it is true that “when the history of the great African States of the future comes to be written, the arrival of the first missionary will be the first historical event”, then will the Lutheran Church have its Peter Heiling (Chapter I) to record as the first of the Protestants to concern himself directly with the spiritual welfare of the Africans. Would that there were no such gap as that which exists between his going to Abyssinia in 1634 and that of the next Lutheran missionaries! For purposes of Lutheran missionary study, we shall divide Africa into three sections: first, the West Coast; secondly, South Africa; thirdly, East Africa. As in the case of India we shall consider first the work of the German, then the work of the Scandinavian, then the work of the American Lutherans. THE GERMAN SOCIETIES THE WEST COAST. [Sidenote: The Spirit of Faith.] To the eastern side of the so-called Gold Coast went in 1828 the _Basel Society_ to begin a costly work. “Sober and patient”--thus Doctor Warneck describes them. Opposed to them were superstition, dense ignorance, a fearful climate, to say nothing of all the difficulties produced by colonial politics.