CHAPTER IV. THE SAVIOUR'S LAST COMMAND. Let us suppose that all kindreds and people of the earth are assembled, and that the inhabitants of Africa, Asia, the Isles of the Pacific and the wilds of America, are called upon to speak, and to give in their testimony _how far the Saviour's last command has been obeyed_. The inquiry is first put to Africa: "Africa, to what extent and for what purpose have people from Christian lands visited thee, and thine adjacent islands? What have they carried to thy shores? And what is the treatment thou hast received from them? Tell the whole truth: let it be known to what extent the Saviour's last command has been obeyed in respect to thee." To this inquiry Africa replies: "The truth I can tell, but the _whole_ truth cannot be told. I have indeed been visited by people from Christian lands. Thousands and hundreds of thousands from those lands have visited my shores. Some have come to measure the pyramids, and to gather relics of ancient literature and decayed magnificence; some to search out the sources of the Nile and the course of the Niger; some to possess the best of the soil; and a vast multitude have come, with a cruelty that knows no mercy, to tear the husband from his wife and the wife from her husband, parents from their children and children from their parents, brother from sister and sister from brother--to crowd them together without distinction of age or sex in the suffocating holds of their ships, where a large proportion of them die, and to convey the remainder far away to spend their lives in degrading servitude. They have brought beads and trinkets; they have brought _instruments of death_, such as muskets, powder, knives and swords; and they have brought, too, full cargoes of _liquid poison_. The navies of Christian, lands have fought in my harbors, and their armies upon my shores. Their money by millions has been lavished, and their blood has run in torrents. "A few individuals, however, of a different character, have found their way hither. They have come in the spirit of benevolence and of peace, and have brought in their hands the precious treasure of the Gospel of Christ. But their number is so small as to be almost lost among the multitude. For one who has taught righteousness, purity, truth and mercy, thousands have taught, by their example, rapacity, drunkenness, lewdness and cruelty. For one who has led us in the path of life, thousands have led us in the paths of destruction. For one who has brought the Bible, thousands have brought rum. For one whose example has been salutary, the intercourse of thousands has left a loathsome disease, which with sure and rapid progress is depopulating the land. Such is the sum of my testimony. Days and nights would be required to give the detail." This testimony of Africa being finished, the same inquiry is put to Asia: