Africa

Review and Herald Publishing Assn. · Washington, D.C. · Dec 31, 1903

ONE hundred years ago Central Africa and the Congo region were shrouded in dense darkness. Superstition, cruelty, and debauchery ran riot. It is only with the last quarter of a century, since the valiant explorations of Livingstone and Stanley, that we have seen the rays from the Sun of righteousness illuminating the awful gloom. The religion of the people is fetishism, a form of demon worship, the utter hopelessness of which renders its devotees much more ready to receive the gospel than are those of other heathen countries, where their religions promise future rewards.

The vigorous churches there, with thousands of stalwart, independent Christians, who a few years ago were naked savages, “having no hope, and without God in the world,” should stimulate the churches in the home land to more earnest efforts to sow the good seed in the vast fields of rich, virgin soil in the regions beyond.

The Roman Catholics are opposing the work of Protestant missions, even to the extent of committing acts of violence upon the persons of Protestant converts. They are pre-empting large districts, to the exclusion of missions, and at present are especially aggressive.

The history of missions is replete with difficulties and oppositions; but these are the badge of the genuineness of the work, and have tended to strengthen and purify it. There is no alternative; we must press forward; duty demands it; the love of Christ, the needs of Africa’s millions of people, and the opportunity all demand it.— Selected.