In Nigeria

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 3, 1914

OUR first step toward the West African mission field was aimed at the Yoruba country, now included in southern Nigeria. An interest, however, in the Gold Coast, turned our first workers in that direction, in 1893. This year, however, the work has been opened in Nigeria by the European Division Conference. Elder D. C. Babcock, formerly of Sierra Leone, is there, leading out in the work. From a recent letter we take the following items of interest concerning the work rapidly progressing in this new field:—

“By invitation from the chief at Ibadan, I had a very pleasant interview with him. He gave me an earnest invitation to open our work in that city of 180,000 people. Our present location is about sixteen miles from this place. It is on the site of the old city of Erimu, once very large and prosperous. Here are remains of the old fortifications built to protect the people from the invasions of the Egba tribe, at Abeokuta. They eventually captured most of the Erimu people, destroyed their city, and sold them into slavery. “The Yoruba people have evidently

been quite industrious. Traces of their mining iron ore and of the manufacture of implements for the farm and of cutlery are yet found on the land where we are located. We dig pottery of almost every description out of the earth, part of it evidently very old. Some of the work was quite artistic.

“Owing to the time required to get official promise, we have not yet been able to erect a suitable place to live in. Our present house is built of galvanized iron, and some days the heat is almost unbearable to our children. But we cannot do better. Now that there is war, we do not know how long we may have to wait.

“We are not idle, however. We have two schools in operation. One young man that we took into our family while he was yet a little boy in Sierra Leone, is now conducting a school three or four miles from our location. He has learned to speak the Yoruba in about five months, so that he can carry on ordinary conversation. We shall probably open a third school in two or three weeks.

“Brethren Dauphin and Morgue are both doing well in the language study. A young man, the son of the Erimu chief, and our teacher in the language, has accepted the message. This young man can also speak the Hausa language.”