Rev. Melvin Fraser, from whose report we quoted last week, tells, through the Assembly Herald, of special reasons for expecting favorable results from the African people:—
“The native has a broad, susceptible, religious nature, ready to respond to the ideals within his reach. He interprets whatsoever comes to pass in life as the expression of an invisible something. To him, nothing either good or bad occurs but by the intervention of a mysterious, unseen power. He is constructively religious, and knowing nothing else, worships fetish, with all its inconsistencies and hideous cruelties. When the ideals of the Gospel are plainly presented, they appeal to his understanding and judgment, and take hold of his heart, and begin to command his obedience.
“Since the opening up of the Kamerun interior work ten years ago, hundreds of people have come to tell of their desire to be Christians. By no means have all these proved steadfast, or realized what they were doing. There has been a deal of chaff in the wheat. But out of these numbers, two churches have been organized, one at Efulan, one at Elat, and material is in sight for organizing at Lolodorf. Hundreds of others are in classes on probation, and in course of instruction for membership.
An Arab Village in Abyssinia.
“What kind of Christians do the natives make? The act of making a public profession of faith in Christ, and of entering upon the new life, involves a heroic break. A tremendous tide is to be stemmed of temptation—often of persecution and ostracism, Not a little of these has been endured for Christ’s sake. Women have been flogged by their male masters for attending meetings, and confined days without food for guarding virtue, and charged with murder by the occult power of a Christian witch. A young man recently put away two of his three wives, and received a brutal beating by his tribesmen because he would not add his little sister to the other’s plurality of wives. Many a Bulu house is to-day divided against itself, rent asunder on the Rock, Christ Jesus. There are those who have in them the stuff martyrs are made of, who know whom they have believed, and would die rather than yield under coercion, and forsake their new-found Lord.
“There are boys and young men and women whose records of years show that they will not lie or steal or break the seventh commandment, and this is saying not a little in recognition of the power of God’s grace to keep that which is committed to Him in the slums of Africa. With the rising generation the groundwork of polygamy, with all its litter of vices, and which gives occasion to the tenths of Bulu troubles and sorrows, is beginning to crumble, and many a young fellow, tired of sin and its wages, is stepping right out of the ranks of heathen society, marrying one wife, and walking honestly in the marvelous light and liberty of the truth that has made him free indeed and happy.
“How any one, while counting the cost, yet seeing the output, the quantity and the quality of it, can say that missions to Africa do not pay, is past understanding. If coming to Africa and being used for the production of such sturdy, intelligent, useful Christian lives as so many of them are, if this is being buried alive, then blessed be the burial.”
“We have not said that Africa is not dark; she is dark, and for the natives her unwritten history has been one long, black night. But much of the darkness is of a kind that light will drive away, and the servant of God who brings that light can live here with all the comfort and safety he needs, and discovers a kingdom to live for. Come over and help us. The missionary who comes with his lamp trimmed and burning in faith, hope, and love, meets not a dismal task. Bearers of the torch of divine truth find that, in personal experience and actual outlook, even in Darkest Africa there is not more night than day.”
