THE DEPARTURE OF MISSIONARIES.
By Mrs. A. B. Simpson
THE International Missionary Alliance has just sent out a new party of missionaries to a most important and novel field. This society has been in existence about five years, and its board of management consists of thirty ministers and Christian workers, representing the various evangelical denominations. Its head offices are in New York City, corner of Broadway and 45th Street. It has now about one hundred and fifty missionaries in various countries. About twenty-five went out to the Kongo last May, and two other parties to India in July and August, consisting of sixteen persons. October 9 another party of fourteen sailed for Liverpool on their way to the Soudan, Northern Africa. Their field is the largest single country in Africa, with a population of about ninety millions, stretching from Khartoom, on the Red Sea, to Sierra Leone, on the Atlantic Ocean, a strip four thousand miles long by one thousand miles wide. This densely populated region is wholly unevangelized. The first missionary party sailed two years ago under the leadership of Mr. Kingman to this field from New York. Others have since followed. The present reënforcement will increase the working force to twenty. Their base of operations is Freetown, Sierra Leone, and their line of advance is up the Rokelle River, which they have already ascended nearly one hundred miles and planted a number of stations. The present party will occupy about eight stations. The chairman of the Soudan committee under the Alliance is Mr. George S. Fisher, of Kansas.—Mrs. A. B. Simpson, in African News.