Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1867-05-01

4
call our attention to three different portions
Of this Inflated continent Livingstone had
sought, as Missionary and explorer. to open the
way for the gospel and Christian civiliza-
ton from the southeast, and at last fell a vic
tim to the ignorant hostility of the very men
he had sought to raise from their wretched-
ness and degradation.
Bakers work, which reads more like a
romance than a true record Of travel, though
commanding the assent of all good judges,
gives the story of efforts made purely IN the
interest of science, to solve question which
has vexed geographers since the dawn OF the
Christian era. His route lay from Alexan-
dria in Egypt, more than two thousand miles
south, and he penetrated farther into the
heart of Africa than has been permitted to
any other traveller of modern times Du
Chaillu, from point on the west coast
nearly under the equator, made the vain effort
to pierce the centre of the equatorial regions,
and, if possible, to connect his explorations
with those of Baker from the northeast, or
with those of Livingstone from the south
east. His work, had it succeeded, would
have left little for succeeding travellers but
to complete details.
These three distinguished explorers agree
in the one sad picture of the utter misery
and degradation of the native populations ;
condition, i'll large measure, the result of
contact with the civilization of Europe. The
commerce upon the coast, rum and the slave
trade, are felt thousands of miles away in
the interior, filling the midnight air with the
shrieks of murdered men, and the cries of
women and children driven away from their
blazing huts while the flag Of some Chris
tan nation, often of Portugal or France. and
sometimes, to shame be it spoken Of the
United States floats in the van.
1t is now four centuries since European
commerce doubled the Cape Of Good Hope,
and touched at all accessible harbors on either
coast, and here is the result peoples and
races, degraded before, sunk to a deeper
degradation by the vices of civilization. Not
a village not a household i'll any quarter
raised in the scale of a true humanity by
these centuries of contact with the civiiza-
/ lion of the more favored portions of man
kind Civilization, alone, with all its trade
and commerce, has done nothing TO raise the
1 colored race We say nothing here of the
multitudes carried off into slavery in other
/ lands-despite all the efforts made to suppress
the horrid traffc-but of the condition of
the native population, where the influence
of the gospel has not been felt. The past of
Africa, since the lights kindled on its north
ern border in the early centuries of the
church were tramplcd out by the followers
of the false prophet has been one Of un-
mitigated wretchedness
The promise of Africa : renovation through
the power of the gospel still stands, and the
results that have followed its faithful pro-
mitigation, are the sure pledges of its full
fllment. Already selt-supporting churches
are TO be found by scores on the western Dor
der in Sierra Leone, and Liberia, and in the
missions of various Christian denominations.
especially of the English Methodists. in the
neighborhood of the cape of Good Hope.
Not far from a hundred thousand of the
children of Africa already enrolled in
these Christian communities. The miserable
huts, the filthy kraals, give place To neat
habitations the rude habits Of sayages to
the arts of civilized life and mothers in
Christian households are teaching their chill
dren to lisp the name Of Jesus as in our own
happy New England homes. 1t has been a
work Of faith, of toll, of much patience, but
already of blessed fruits. One who toiled
eleven years without result who was driven
away three times from his chosen places of
residence, but who now reioices in church
of a hundred members and in a congregation
of some four hundred on the Sabbath Rev.
Adm circuit, of the Zulu Mission of the
American Board-may we'll be allowed little
generous Christian JOY in the retrospect
of his work We are glad To place the fol-
lowing extract from letter of his dated
Jan <. which we find in the Missionary
Herald for May, in contrast with the sad pie
ture which uneyangelizcd Afric; presents
The wear 1866 has passed and we de- not
the millennium exactly. out here neither
AZ many expected, a second coming of Christ
in person but the working of ocean tele-
graphs and laying more, the sOttcning down
of sin. the removal of obstacles to the spread
of the gospel, and much Indicate wonder
full change in many things for the better since
came to Africa in 1885. Standing up in
good spacious chapel last Sunday. preaching
and PRAYING Thy kingdom come, running
back in my thought to 1880 when not one OF
the goodly number before mc-all clothed and
in their right mind, sitting in good church.
with the old, first missionary preaching to
them-kncw of IA God, felt indeed Il good
deal of millennium inside of me Indeed it
,rorld nnt have reouirc1 much more IN call Z
out from me- Now lettest thou thy servant
depart in peace After all, the top stone is /
not on, and | am quite willing to stop long
enough to block it out and get my believer TO
help me in putting it on.
:. Then Yesterday, Monday morning, al (
though they have every day a sunrise prayer
meeting, vet as this is the prayer week, they I
were up unusually early and in large mum
bers and the first | knew was the full chorus
of singing. that sounded out so loud as To
wake me. Could it be earth, was it the mill
lenium, or had we got to heaven? Then, i'll
the afternoon. "a goodlv number came together
again. and we had nice time. The meeting
was taken up mostly by such have not
usually been forward to take part in
prayer-mectings,-an indication that they
were walked up. And so going on
with the prayer-meetings. but the post goes
this afternoon, and must send away my let
ter If the millennium actually comes in full
this week. | will let you and all our patrons
know it by next post and if you get 1t IN
before we do, YOU will of course let
us know.
d" We had nice time at Christmas. Mrs.
Llovd, as usual provided means, and we got
up Christmas tree, and some five or six hum
lred, old and young, came together to see ;
md receive All of everybody's children
we're there even the infants, and all got