The Congo Mission.

HISTORY of the newest, and in some respects most interesting,

of the enterprises of the Baptist Missionary Society, from the pen of its respected Treasurer, is a welcome addition to Baptist libraries. The preparation of this little work has been the occupation of Mr. Tritton during his recent illness. It breathes his devout and cultured spirit, and is enriched by engravings of scenes of the mission, and by a map of Equatorial Africa from Congo on the west coast to Zanzibar on the east, showing the great basin of the Congo, and the region of the vast lakes, Tanganyika and Victoria, where the river takes its rise. The exhilarating purpose kept in view in this mission, as our readers are aware, is that our missionaries, advancing from the west along the waterway of the Congo, shall meet the men of the London Missionary Society who are advancing from the east; and it will be a high day in the history of missions when the two bands greet one another in Central Africa, each at the end of their line of light. A shining zone of missionstations will then exist, stretching right across the "Dark Continent," and the Congo will be the highway of the gospel, a River of Life for Africa. The lonely death of Livingstone at Ulala, and the bringing over of his remains to England for burial in Westminster Abbey, profoundly moved the minds of Christian people on behalf of Africa. Mr. Stanley's book, narrating his wonderful journey " across the Dark Continent," fanned the rising flame, and showed to discerning minds that the carrying of the gospel into Interior Africa was a practicable achievement. Then came the ludicrous and romantic, but suggestive incident, of the royal salute fired at Uganda in honour of the name of Jesus, by command of the king, Mtesa. The leaders of the Baptist Missionary Society found their thoughts strongly led to the spiritual needs of Central Africa, and they waited for an opportunity of endeavouring to meet that need; when, in the spring of 1877, Mr. Arthington, of Leeds, offered them £1,000 if they would commence a mission in the Congo Country. This offer was supplemented by £500 from Mr. Wathen, of Bristol.

Here, then, was the signal to "go forward." Messrs. Comber and Grenfell, two of our missionaries at the Cameroons-men who have since proved their splendid qualities, and whose names will be imperishably connected with the evangelization of Africa-immediately undertook the pioneer work. Without waiting for full instructions from home they took ship to the mouth of the Congo, proceeded seventy miles up the river in a Dutch trading-vessel to Mboma, travelled thence to Noki, on the borders of the Congo kingdom, and having sent a letter to the king telling him of their projected visit, returned with valuable information to the Cameroons. In June, 1878, furnished with instructions and stores, they set out again, and with two native preachers and ten helpers, reached San Salvador, the capital of Congo, and were favourably received by Dom Pedro, the king.

The Congo country, the reader must bear in mind, is not a designa

Baptist Missionary Society: Rise and Progress of the Work on the Congo River." By the Treasurer. Published and sold for the benefit of the Mission. The Baptist Missionary Society, 19, Castle Street, Holborn, and Alexander and Shepheard, London.

tion given to the whole vast basin through which the great river flows from its source to the sea, but is the name of the comparatively small territory at the coast on the south bank of the river. It is an old and partially civilized kingdom, and in former times was instructed to some extent in the externals of Christianity by Roman Catholic missionaries from Portugal. The Portuguese discovered the country four hundred years ago, and gave the name of San Salvador (Holy Saviour) to the chief town. They imposed a nominal Christianity on the king and his subjects, and allowed him to rule under their auspices. "The sword, the cannon, the slave-whip, and the torture, the strong hand of power and the lust of gain, were the influences that marked their path." For a hundred years the Roman Catholic mission had been abandoned, but no sooner did our missionaries arrive than it was resumed, with the escort of a Portuguese gun-boat; and by the liberal distribution of threats and gifts the Roman Catholics endeavoured to induce the king to expel the English missionaries, but with little success, for the Portuguese name is hated in Congo. The king assumed an apparent coldness, but at heart remained friendly to our men.

Comber and Grenfell, then, had reached San Salvador; and after an unsuccessful attempt to penetrate in a north-easterly direction to the river Congo above the falls, which impede its navigation from the seain which expedition they were well received by the King of Makutathey returned through San Salvador to the Cameroons, and Mr. Comber came to England to confer with the committee and secure helpers.

In April, 1879, he returned to San Salvador, accompanied by his wife, to whom he had just been married, and by Messrs. Crudgington, Hartland, and Bentley. There, in August, the brave wife died; and after her burial the heroic husband pushed on to Makuta in company with Mr. Hartland, with the view, as before, of reaching the river above the falls; but the tribes were hostile, and the attempt was again unsuccessful. After three months spent in teaching at San Salvador, Comber and Hartland made a fresh attempt in a new direction, to be again repulsed; but hearing on their return more favourable news of the disposition of the king and people of Makuta, they determined once more to try the Makuta road, which is the most direct to Stanley Pool. Their carriers were afraid to accompany them, and they had with them only Mr. Comber's boy, Cam. As soon as they reached Makuta they were surrounded by an infuriated people, brandishing knives and shouting, "Fetch the guns: kill the white men." The missionaries appealed in vain; they expressed their readiness to go back, but the natives made arush, and no course was left them but to fly. Mr. Comber was shot in

the back with a slug, and fell, but was able to rise and continue his flight. The chase continued for five miles. At length night befriended the fugitives, and passing through several towns on tiptoe, for fear of waking the people, they reached a friendly place, where Hartland engaged a few men to carry his wounded colleague in a hammock to San Salvador. There, thanks to Mr. Crudgington's skill, the slug was extracted, and Mr. Comber recovered, but not without a severe attack of fever.

In January, 1881, Comber and Hartland, with invincible courage, made another attempt by the Makuta road, while Crudgington and Bentley attempted the task on the north bank of the Congo. The Makuta party were deserted by their Krooboys, and had to return; but

the other party, crossing the river at Vivi, accomplished a march of twenty-one days, and on February the 10th, Crudgington, emerging upon an open space, sighted a wide stretch of water, like a streak of cloud in the horizon, and exclaimed, "There's Stanley Pool!"

The extensive sheet of water known as Stanley Pool is an expansion of the river at a point three hundred miles above the coast, and is twenty-four miles long, and of about equal width. It divides the Upper from the Lower Congo. Below it the river flows towards the sea in rapids and torrents through a gorge, and is unnavigable for many miles; but above it there is a clear stretch of one thousand miles before you come to Stanley Falls, which are on the equator, in the very centre of Africa. This gives to Stanley Pool its immense importance. Had it been the purpose of our missionaries to evangelise merely the races on the Lower Congo the Pool would have been their terminus: but as their aim is the conversion of the tribes in the interior, it becomes the starting-point.

The two missionaries, after a variety of thrilling incidents, and a narrow escape from being slaughtered by the savages at Nshasha, were hospitably entertained by Mr. Stanley, who merits the warmest acknowledgments for his unvarying courtesy and helpfulness. He gave them valuable information and counsel, and on their return conveyed them on board his steamer along the navigable reach of the Lower Congo from Manyanga to Isangila. Crudgington was now despatched by his colleagues to England for conference. The committee approved the plans of the missionaries; a steel boat, The Plymouth, so named as the gift of a friend in that town, was constructed to ply on the navigable reach of the Lower Congo just mentioned; and it was resolved to send out six more men, one of whom, Mr. Dixon, accompanied Mr. Crudgington on his return.

Meanwhile Comber, Bentley, and Hartland established the necessary stations on the north bank of the river, which, however, were presently transferred to the south bank on account of a road Mr. Stanley was constructing there; and Comber, reaching Stanley Pool, secured a plot of ground from Mr. Stanley for a Baptist mission-station at Leopoldville, at the south-west point of the Pool, which received the name of Arthington.

At this juncture Mr. Arthington wrote to the society that he believed the time was come "to place a steamer on the Congo river, where we can sail north-eastward into the heart of Africa for many hundreds of miles uninterruptedly, and bring the glad tidings of the everlasting gospel to thousands of human beings who are now ignorant of the way of life and immortality." For this purpose he presented £1,000 (which he soon afterwards increased to £2,000), and added £3,000 more to be invested for the maintenance of the steamer "until Christ and his salvation shall be known all along the Congo, from Stanley Pool to the first cataract of the Equatorial Cataracts of the Congo, beyond the mouths of the Aruwimi and Mbura rivers."

Mr. Grenfell was recalled to England to bring his practical knowledge to bear upon the construction of the steamer; and the vesselthe Peace-when complete, was sent off in 700 packages. These were carried on men's heads along the road to Stanley Pool, and there the steamer was successfully reconstructed and launched.

Thus the first stage of the work was completed, and the second stage entered upon.

But it is time we looked at the shadows which overcast the scene. To the first six-Comber, Grenfell, Mrs. Comber, Crudgington, Hartland, and Bentley-have been added from time to time other thirteen: Dixon, Weeks, Butcher, Hughes, Moolenaar, Doke, Sidney Comber, Ross, Whitley, Hartley, Darling, Cruikshank, and Mrs. Crudgington. Of these, Weeks, Moolenaar, and Hartley were from the Pastors' College. But our band on the Congo is not nineteen strong. No less than five missionaries' graves already consecrate the mission. Mrs. Comber, as we have seen, was the first to die, and that in three months from her arrival. "We were working hard," said her husband, "at the site and foundation of our stone house, 'preparing a place' for her; but the Saviour's 'place' was ready first, and she, with her brave, tender nature, her simple trustful faith, her ready obedience to the call of duty, and, I know, trusting alone in the salvation wrought for her by the Saviour, was ready too." Then Doke, who had watched the construction of the Peace and went out to assist in its reconstruction, died three weeks after landing at Underhill, the station nearest to the sea, and accessible by ocean vessels. Then Hartland, one of the seniors, was struck down by dysentery. "After four years' preparation," said he, "and just as I am about to enter upon mission-work proper, it seems strange for me to realise that my work is done; but HE knows best." But the momentary grief at being torn away from Africa gave place to the attraction of the Master's glorified presence. He cried out, "Let me go, friends! Don't hold me back! Let me go! I must go! I want to go to him! Simply to thy cross I cling.' Let me go!" Next, Butcher died at Manyanga. Finally Hartley, who had gone out with two mechanics, to take the place of Doke, and who made undue haste with his party to reach the Pool, was struck down with fever, and, with the mechanics, died also at Manyanga. "Oh! the preciousness of our lives now," said Mr. Comber; "we who are left, how careful should we be! And oh! with what fervent earnestness must all our dear friends in England commend us to our gracious Father in prayer, and the Congo Mission, for which we would any of us live or die with glad readiness!" The December "Herald" informs us of another loss in the death of Mr. Mims, the engineer who went out to assist in the working of the Peace.

Other three of the band were forced home by sickness-Dixon, Ross, and Whitley; the first of these, unable to return to Africa, intends to serve the Master in the North China Mission.

The time occupied in the prosecution of this pioneer work was not unfruitful in direct result. The missionaries carried on preaching and the education of boys, and efficiently maintained the work of the original station at San Salvador. The king attended the services, and they had "the pick of Congo, the finest boys and men" on their side. trusting in Jesus, and trying to keep his commandments, is to be a Christian, some in San Salvador," says Mr. Comber," and two or three of my boys on the river here, are, I think, Christians."

"If

Calls for gospel preaching began to pour in from the native towns around. Tuka, twenty miles to the south-east of San Salvador; Mbangu, on the Zombo mountains; Nkungu, five miles to the south-west; Ma

dimba, Moila, Zombo, all eagerly asked for the gospel, and itinerant evangelistic work was done by the missionaries for many miles round San Salvador. Hundreds more of "the towns among the trees hunger for the bread of life.

At all the river-stations also-Underhill, Baynesville, Wathen, Arthington-school work and evangelistic work were carried on. Opposition is met with only where Portuguese cruelty and extortion have exasperated the native mind; patient, changeless kindness wins its way invariably, and Stanley's action in this respect has favoured the work of our missionaries wherever his influence extends.

During the present year Mr. Grenfell has made a voyage of 400 miles as far as the equator. He rested at the stations of the International Association, which is under the presidency of the King of the Belgians. He found the way open, the conditions favourable, and the natives ready to welcome the missionaries. The site of the first station beyond the Pool, "Liverpool station," is fixed at Lukolela, two hundred miles up the river. £21,000 has been thus far expended on the mission. Its prosecution will draw heavily upon the treasury; and as the missionaries go forward along the river, planting additional stations, £10,000 a-year will be required to carry out the noble enterprise. Will Christ call for this money in vain? At the close of his voyage, Mr. Grenfell wrote thus-"How much this part of Africa stands in need of help I cannot tell you; words seem utterly inadequate. I cannot tell you a tithe of the woes that have come under my notice, and have made my heart bleed as I journeyed along; cruelty, sin, and slavery seem to be as mill-stones round the neck of these poor people, dragging them down into a sea of sorrows. Never have I felt more sympathy than now I feel for these poor brethren of ours, and never have I prayed more earnestly than now I pray, that God will speedily make manifest to them that light which is the light of life, even Jesus Christ our living Lord."

This letter has drawn from that princely giver, Mr. Arthington, an additional sum of £2,000; and the committee, trusting in God for both money and men, have resolved on establishing ten stations, with two missionaries each, on the Congo, as centres of evangelization along its great navigable channel of 1,000 miles. This glorious mission deserves the most enthusiastic support. It appeals for itself, and it would be a burning shame if the appeal should not meet with an eager and adequate

response.

A

All the Lord's.

D.

MISSIONARY of the China Inland Mission says, "There is one gentleman, down in the southern part of my province, a man of wealth among the Chinese, a man of landed property, but one who considers the whole of his time and influence and means must, as a matter of course, be at the feet of the Lord Jesus. We never told him that. He said, 'Why, the Lord has redeemed me; he shed his blood, he spared nothing in working out my redemption; therefore I consider that granary of mine, full of rice, is for the use of the brothers and sisters if they need it.'"-" China's Millions," 1884.