THE SUSTAINING POWER OF THE WORD.
“Sanctify them through Thy truth; Thy Word is truth,” contains an enduring principle. The Word of God is not only the means of conveying the Gospel of salvation to sinners, but it is a means of preserving the character and influence of those who accept it. We give the following items, taken from an article in The Christian, by a French missionary:— The Portuguese founded a mission on the Kongo in 1491, which was attended with great apparent success. A native Christian monarchy was founded, of which we read that “great cathedrals lifted their spires toward heaven, the African sun shone on sumptuous episcopal ornaments in the processions which marched through the streets of the capital, and above their ranks floated standards of white and gold blessed by the pope.” One of these standards, still treasured by the present titular king of the Kongo, “a few crucifixes, some pictures of saints regarded as fetishes, and an empty title—that is all that remains of the Kongo Mission so loudly vaunted by the Portuguese Dominicans and the Italian Franciscans of the sixteenth century.” They had not given the people the Bible! It is only needful to set against this Scriptureless mission, which disappeared under the storm of persecution, the memorable example of the martyr church in Madagascar. The missionaries of the London Missionary Society, just before their banishment in 1835, had succeeded in printing the complete Bible. They had gained some precious months of time through the knowledge of soap-making possessed by an artisan missionary, and Queen Ranavolona’s desire that this art should be taught to her people. When, twenty-six years afterwards, they were able to return, on the death of this cruel persecutor, they found that the few hundreds of native Christians whom they left had grown, notwithstanding many martyrdoms, to several thousands. The precious promises of the Bible had been the secret oil cast upon the fire of Christian faith and love, to keep it burning, in spite of the floods of persecution by which it had been sought to be extinguished.