Page:Distinguished Churchmen.djvu/143

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PREBENDARY HENRY ELLIOTT FOX, M.A.
113

England it may be said, no missionaries went from this country. The first were Germans. Now there is a self-supported native ministry, with regular parishes and a well-organised constitution. The Society does little except supply a certain amount of education and support a college, which is affiliated to Durham University. There is an English Bishop of Sierra Leone, who ranks as Government Chaplain, so that Sierra Leone may be said to be almost independent of us. There are at present three Africans in Episcopal orders, who are assistants to Bishop Tugwell of Western Equatorial Africa—all men of true piety, intelligence and ability, and worthy successors of their countryman, the well-known Bishop Crowther, who died in 1891 after an episcopate of twenty-seven years. On the East Coast you know of Bishop Tucker's work, and how, on the division of the Diocese of Eastern Equatorial Africa, Bishop Peel took charge of the Diocese of Mombasa. The work on the coast does not present such striking features as that in Uganda. You can well understand that the influence of civilisation, or that which accompanies it, is often very hurtful to the progress of Christianity. The example of ungodly Europeans and the inducements to drunkenness or other immorality are among the most serious hindrances. Though European Governments restrict the importation of spirits and powder in most of the countries under