elled while following up the course of the great river:

"Over the whole Nature has flung a robe of verdure of the most fervid tints. She has bidden the mountains loose their streamlets, has commanded the hills and ridges to bloom, filled the valleys with vegetation breathing perfume, for the rocks she has woven garlands of creepers, and the stems of trees she has draped with moss; and sterility she has banished from her dominion. Yet Nature has not provided a soft, velvety England in the midst of Africa. Far from it. She is here too robust and prolific. Her grasses

of a square foot," wrote Mr. Stanley, "an entire chapter might readily have been filled." Game is most abundant. Elephants are numerous, and leopards are found throughout the country. There are two species of buffalo on the Upper Congo, and many monkeys inhabit the woods. The lion has disappeared from certain districts. Hippopotami and crocodiles abound in the river. Fish are plentiful, and are largely caught by the natives.

It has been said that the climate

are coarse, and wound like knives and needles, her reeds are tough and tall as bamboos, her creepers are of cable thickness and length, her thorns are hooks of steel, her trees shoot up to the height of one hundred feet. We find no pleasure in straying in search of wild flowers, and game is left undisturbed, for once the main path is left we find ourselves overhead among thick, tough, unyielding, lacerating grass."

Bird and insect life are as prolific and varied as plant life. "If I were to enter into the details of the insect world I saw within the area

of Africa has been unduly vilified. But while its malarial fevers have claimed many victims, missionaries have proved that it is possible to live on the Congo. Wild winds, torrents of rain, thunder and lightning, make the stranger think at times the world is going to pieces. But notwithstanding the intensity of the electric storms, accidents by lightning are rare.

Amid all this wildness and variety of the vegetable and animal world there exists a similar wild

ness and variety among the tribes of men which inhabit the unknown continent. "Fierce, wild savagery, loathsome cannibalism, cruelty, the densest darkness and degradation

KING OF THE CHUMBIRI, CONGO COUNTRY.

of heathenism-such was the aspect as the white man, with some one hundred and fifty followers, endeavoured quietly and peaceably to paddle in mid-stream past their villages."

Well might Stanley exclaim as he rowed up the majestic river, among the surrounding luxuriance of vegetation,

"Every prospect pleases,
And only man is vile!"

Until the missionary explorations of Dr. Livingstone, nothing could be done toward the evangelization of the interior of Africa. All efforts were confined to the coast. He drew attention to the peoples and their needs. On his first return visit to England, in 1856, he said to his countrymen: "I go back to Africa to make an open path for commerce and Christianity. Do you

carry out the work which I have begun. I leave it with you."

As to the missions on the Congo River, the Baptist Society appear to have made the first step in that direction. Mr. Arthington, of Leeds, wrote to the Baptist Missionary Society, offering them one thousand pounds if they would undertake mission work in the Congo country. The society accepted the offer, and sent word to two of their missionaries to prepare for a journey to that region. About this time Mr. Stanley had arrived at the mouth of the Congo, having traced the course of the river.

Shortly after this a party arrived on the river to found the Livingstone Inland Mission-undenomina

tional. Mr. Crudgington of this party, according to Mr. Stanley's advice, returned home to get a steel sectional boat, the Plymouth. He hoped to be able to navigate the cataract region.

Great progress has been made since that time in the opening up of the country. Trading houses have

staff of twenty-three workers, and seven missions. The Southern Presbyterian Church of the United States have four missionaries on the Congo. The Evangelical Missionary Union, in connection with Mr. Simpson's tabernacle, New York, is also at work.

The African is a great lover of music, so much so that someone has said a London organ-grinder could go in perfect safety through the heart of Africa unguarded; so the singing missionary will gain the ears of the people, if not their hearts.

Bishop Taylor, of the Methodist

CANOES.

ley, of the English Baptist Mission, in his work, "Life on the Congo," condemns, with undue asperity, it seems to the writer, the proceedings of the bishop, and gives a harrowing description of the "terrible time of starvation, privation and death" which followed the arrival of the bishop's party in Africa. If cre

dence can be given in any measure to this report it shows in an eminent degree the necessity of "strategy in missions."

A great deal has been said about the Christianization of Africa, and very different have been the views

entertained. The following appeared in the Missionary Herald:

"CIVILIZE THE AFRICAN AND THEN CHRISTIANIZE HIM.-This seems to be the order some celebrated African explorers would have missionaries observe. Sir Samuel Baker says: "The philanthropist and missionary will expend their noble energy in vain in struggling against the savage herdes until the first steps toward their gradual enlightenment shall be made by commerce.' He advises the missionary to wait awhile till the Africans have been humanized.

"Alvan S. Southworth, in an address before the American Geographical Society, said: 'I have roughly computed that the Christian world has spent on

as the moral life-power in his nature. We may apply this to the lowest of our race in heathendom as well as in Christendom. The Gospel meeting the soul's needs, its greatest want, dispels its darkness. The entrance of Thy Word giveth light.' God's Spirit working through the truth and the preacher effects a change without which all benevolent efforts are in vain.

"Attending this change and springing from it, as naturally as a stream from its fountain, there springs up in the heart of the hitherto unclad, filthy, and lazy heathen, a desire for clothing, for soap to cleanse it, and for some industrial pursuit. Then follow neat and comfortable dwellings, schoolhouses, sanctuaries, improved methods of cultivating the soil, and

missionary labour in Africa, since the era of railroads and telegraphs began, an amount sufficient to have built a railroad along the line of the equator. Let us be practical with the negro, for in his aboriginal state you cannot spiritualize him.'

"He rejoices that such missionaries as the railroad and steamboat are getting into Africa. What are we to infer from these and similar statements? Evidently that those who are devoting their lives to the elevation of Africa are mistaken, for their modus operandi is to evangelize first, in accordance, as they maintain, with the divinely-appointed methodPreach the Gospel to every creature.' It has been truly said: As there is no philosopher too wise, so there is no child too simple to take in God, through Christ,

other proof of the civilizing power of the Gospel. The writer can speak from experience. Ten long years of toil among Africans, almost as wild as the beasts which nightly prowled around his dwelling, witnessed no desire for either a shirt or a plough until there were conversions to Christ."

Perhaps, as with some of the reforms which are being made in our own country, more is to be expected from work among the children of the dark continent than from any other quarter.

"There is a peculiar charm," said one of the travellers, "in the associations

with children in this land of hardened hearts and savage natures; there is a time in the life of the most savage when infancy is free from the fierce instincts of race, even the lion's whelp will fondle the hand that it would tear in riper years: thus, separated in this land of horrors from all civilization, and forced by hard necessity into the vicinity of all that was brutal and disgusting, it was an indescribable relief to be surrounded by those who were yet innocent."

And these little innocents are the subjects of the most cruel barbarities of a cruel people. The cannibal prefers the tender flesh of a child to that of an adult. The cannibals known as Makkarikas, the Arab traders declared, were bad associates, as they insisted on killing and eating the children which the party wished to secure as slaves. Truly, "the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty." WELLAND, Ont.

The missions are establishing schools, and Africa's children are being won for Christ. We would not by the above remarks wish to lead any to believe that the work of the missionary was without effect among adults. They too are being reached, and the mighty miracle of conversion has been wrought in many souls. There has come at times a simultaneous awakening at several mission stations many miles apart, showing that the almighty power of God produces the same glorious effects in working on the hardened hearts of the sons and daughters of Africa.

"Nor bounds, nor clime, nor creed Thou know'st,

Wide as our need Thy favours fall; The white wings of the Holy Ghost Stoop, seen or unseen, o'er the heads of all."

WAITING for Him in the darkness,
Watching for Him in the light;
Listening to catch His orders

In the very midst of the fight.
Seeing His slightest signal

Across the heads of the throng; Hearing His faintest whisper Above earth's loudest song. Dwelling beneath His shadow

In the burden and heat of the day; Looking for His appearing

As the hours wear fast away. Shining, to give Him glory; Working to praise His name, Bearing with Him the suffering, Bearing for Him the shame.

Art thou afraid to trust Him,
Seeming so far away?
Wherefore, then, not keep closer –
Close as He says we may?
Why, then, not walk beside Him,
Holding His blessed hand;
Patiently walking onward

All through the weary land?

Passing safe through the mazes,
The tangle of grief and care;
Safe through the blossoming garden
Where only the world looks fair;
Crossing with Him the chasm,

As it were by a single thread;
Fording with Him the river--
Christ leading as He had led.

Then up the heights of glory,
Unfollowed by death or sin;
Swift through the pearl-white portal
Thy feet may enter in.
Into the realm of music

Where not a note will jar:
Into the clime of sweetness,

Which not a breath will mar;

Where sighs are all out of hearing,
And tears are all out of sight;
And the shadows on earth are forgotten
In the heaven which has no night;
Where loss yields its long-lost interest,
And bitter its long-hid sweet;

And they sing, "Unto Him that loved us,"
And lay down their crowns at His feet.