The weekly Anglo-African., 1860-06-09
AFRICAN CHARACTER.

Rev. J. L. Bowen, the well-known
Southern Baptist Missionary, for several
years, in Yoruba, speaks as follows of the
Africans, in communication to the Chris
tian Index:
Africa is vast country, larger than all
North America, from the frozen ocean to
the Isthmus, and her people exhibit vast
diversity of character.
The early stories of African barbarism
had three sources 1. The lying propen-
sites of travellers and slavers 2. The
fact that the coast people everywhere are
barbarous 3. The inference that the
people of the remote interior are much
worse. But this inference is now Known
to be incorrect. Clapperton, Livingstone,
Barth, and in short all who have penetrat-
ed into the interior, have testified that the
people of these remote regions are far in
advance of the coast people in evcrvthing
pertaining to civilization. The barbarians
of Africa are only about one-sixth part of
the population. This, I repeat, on the
highest authority of books. The romance
of African barbarism, like the story of
tailet negroes, must expand its wings and
fly away before the light of truth. Even
the coast people are not generally savages,
for they live in houses, and support them.
selves by farming, not by the chase. The
people of the interior for the most part
cultivate the soil with considerable skill !;
they dwell in walled towns they carry
on many arts, as the smelling and forging
of metals, ather-dressing, spinning, weav-
ing, and tailoring, etc. and finally they
are polite, kind and hospitable to strangers,
and often anxious for missionaries to live
in their country.
How is it that every man from Europe
and America, who has once lived in At
RIGA, is never satisfied to live elsewhere
again? This fact is notorious. The
reason of it is, that the Africans are the
most docile, friendly, heart-winning people
on the globe. Nowhere else do we see
the good traits of human nature so we'll
developed. l quote the sentiment of COL
Hamilton Smith, a British officer, and a
very respectable writer on Ethnology,
when l say, it is impossible toslive among
the negroes and not love them. To the
missionary they are doubly interesting,
because of the intense eagerness with
which they often listen to the Gospel.
There is not one missionary who has ever
been in the interior, who will deny, or
even mitigate word that | have written.
Is it likely, now, that the barbarism of
these people will prevent the success of
missions :? But l will not rest on infer
ences will state facts which have be-
come a part of history, and ought to be
universally known.
In the first place, then, no missionary
has ever abode for few days in any
town in the interior without preaching to
swarms of deeply interested people of
both sexes and all ages. No missionary
has ever preached in town for two or
three months without gaining some con-
verts. At least I have heard of none
1t fell to my lot, under the providence Of
God, to be the first who ever preached in
the interior, and the first to consecrate the
streams of Soudan by baptism. / had
not been in Yoruba four weeks before sew
eral professed to believe, and I saw there
some of the clearest cases of conviction
and conversion / have known two or
three cases of people who believed under
the first sermon / have met with people
from the more remote interior, who believ-
ed in Christ, and had renounced idolatry
from hearing missionaries only few times,
nearer the coast There are converts in
many parts of Yoruba where Christ was
first named in 1852.