Pressing Into Africa’s Interior
OUR missionaries are not alone in urging the importance of pressing back into the interior of the African West Coast. The Methodist bishop of West Africa is urging his society to get into the interior. Reporting from Liberia, the district just west of the Gold Coast, where our work has begun, Bishop Hartzell says:— I sent one missionary a journey of seven days into the interior, and the stories he brought of healthful valleys and plains, and of fine type of negroes who had never seen a white man, stirred my soul. But what could I do? That missionary was compelled to come home, and I have not sufficient force to man even the station from which he started. Among the natives he found those who were making brass bells and rings and chains, and who were workers in iron, and had wealth in ivory and cattle, but they knew not the value of money, and the only way to trade with them was by exchange in goods. How long must the work in Liberia be practically confined to the most unhealthful coast region, and the vast open doors beyond be neglected? Let us help our workers to get the needed mission headquarters in the interior, where life may be preserved and workers may be trained.