Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1884-09-14
THE CONGO VALLEY.

The Vast Mission Field in Central Afri-
ca-Interesting Addresses in fremont
Temple.
The Rev. and Mrs. Grattan Guinness, of
London. spoke on ''The Congo Valley and
the New World of Central Africa" in
fremont Temple, yesterday afternoon,
SAYS the Boston Advertiser of Aug. s,
to a large audience. Mr.. and Mrs.
Guinness have established and maintain
ed the East London Training Institute,
which has over 800 graduates laboring in
different parts of the world; and for the
past six years they have managed the
Livingstone Iceland mission, which has
been offered to the American Baptist Mis-
sionary Union of this city, and the tender,
it was announced yesterday, has been ac-
cepted. The addresses yesterday were de-
signed to furnish some idea OF the vast
field for missionary labor IN Central At
rlca. The Rev. Mr.. Guinness was intro
duced as the same man who held series
of eyangelistic meetings in this city "A
years ago. He said his work for the past
six years had been confined to training
and instructing those who had gone into
the Congo region to labor. He had reduced
the Congo language to a system, made a
grammar and dictionary IN about three
years, and though the mission was only
six years old, great progress had been
made in the work of preparing for the
evangeliZatiOn of the benighted people.
He impressed upon his audience the duty
of all Christian people assisting IN this
work of eVangeliZation saying: "Those
who have the gospel owe it to those who
have it not" Africa is vast country; it
is as broad as the United
States and nearly as long as
North and South America together,
and more populOus than all of North, Cen
trail and South America. 1t is a great
work to make the gospel known to that
teeming population. Within the last 20
years East and Central Africa have been
penetrated by explorers and misslona-
ries. The great lake district has been
opened up, and no less than four distinct
missions established. The Baptist mission
| of England, besides the Livingstone mis-
! sion, have also been at work in the Congo
! Valley. The whole region is well water
ed and very populous. The people are in
telligent but simple, easy to convince OF
error, and their language is simple to
| study, easy of acquisition, and exceeding
! Iy rich in it's infections. The speaker
| closed with a strong appeal for prosecut-
| ing the work of evangellzatiOn.
Mrs. Guinness, who is the secretary of
| the Livingstone Iceland mission, followed
with description of the expeditions of
Livingstone and Stanley, showing their
results to the cause of Christian missions.
Central Africa, lying south of the Sahara
desert and north of the great Zambesi
river, is a group of great countries knit
| together somewhat like the United States.
| 1t is emphatically a new world. In 1874
just ten years ago-Livingstone started
/ to explore this region, but it was reserved
| for Stanley to finish the work. She then
presented a vivid picture OF SANKEY'S ex-
! petition by the aid of a map. The coun-
| try through which he passed contained at
least 100, 600, 900 people, not one of whom
was Christian or ever had the opportu-
nifty to become one. Now, that we know
of this new world, what are we going to
/ do about it? On account of the climate,
in which no white person can labor any
| length of time, the missionary work
must be done by native evangelists. In
the past six years about 80 missionaries
have been prepared for this work, and it
! is for US to see that the number is vastly
| increased in the years to come.