Page:Africa's redemption.djvu/16

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AFRICA'S REDEMPTION.

heathen countries. Let the missionary dissolve (as he may easily do) the charm attached to the fetiche, and the poor African has no other resource. He is then ready for a change. Many of them have imbibed the vagaries of Mohammed, and can we doubt the easy triumph of Christianity?

In discussing methods of propagating Christianity among heathen people, the question is sometimes agitated, whether the best mode is not always to establish in their midst Christian communities, where would be exhibited the practical influences of Christianity in promoting man's well-being, for the life which now is, as well as that which is to come. The Moravians have usually pursued this system, and with signal success. It is very certain that the same system is not equally appropriate for all countries. The ordinary system will not do for the part of Africa under consideration. This assertion is verified by history, and (as it seems to me) by common sense. Numerous and energetic efforts have been made within the last three hundred years, by both Protestants and Roman Catholics, to introduce the gospel into this region. But the same sad and brief history has characterized them all. They were but a series of disasters and deaths. The bones of devoted missionaries are strewed along the coast from the Senegal to the Bight of Benin. Up to the date of Colonization all such efforts failed, and left no vestige behind. The people regarded the white missionaries as the Aztecs did the Spaniards who invaded their country, as a different race of beings, with