Islands. The partition of the continent among the various
European nations has been on the whole favourable to mission
work. The nature of the task and of the results may be best
approached by considering the different divisions—North,
South, East, West and Central Africa.
North Africa, along the Mediterranean from Morocco to Egypt, is distinctly Mahommedan. To these regions came St Louis and Raimon Lull, and one may in passing remember the strength of Christianity in Proconsular Africa in the days of Tertullian and Cyprian, and in Egypt under Clement of Alexandria, Origen and Athanasius. To-day Islam is supreme, though the North Africa Mission, working largely on medical lines, has penetrated into many cities. In Egypt the United Presbyterians of America have met with considerable success among the Copts, and their fine educational work has proved a valuable asset both to themselves and the country. The Church Missionary Society is doing steady work in Cairo and in Upper Egypt. In the Eastern Sudan a promising beginning has been made, but the regions south of Kordofan have hardly been touched. In Nigeria the Hausa tribes are coming to be better known, and to respond to the Christian teaching. In the Sahara and at Suakin there are Roman Catholic missions. There is a Roman mission to the Gallas in Abyssinia. That country has its own crude form of Christianity, and is much the same today as when Peter Heiling in the 17th century endeavoured to propagate a purer faith. A mission undertaken by the Church Missionary Society in 1830 was closed by French Jesuit intrigue in 1838.
South Africa.—The Moravians, represented by George Schmidt, who arrived at Cape Town in July 1737, were the first to undertake mission work in South Africa. Schmidt won the confidence of the Hottentots, but the Dutch authorities stopped his work. In 1798 John T. Vanderkemp, an agent of the London Missionary Society, founded a mission to the Kaffirs east of Cape Town, and Robert Moffat (1818) went to the Bechuanas. David Livingstone was as determined to open the interior as the Boers were to keep it shut, and he succeeded, pushing north, discovering Lake Ngami, and consecrating a remarkable life to the evangelization of Central Africa. The London Mission has also largely evangelized the Matabele. In 1814 the Wesleyans began work among the Namaquas and Hottentots, and afterwards went into Kaffraria, Bechuanaland and Natal. They were followed by the Glasgow Missionary Society (1821), the Paris Evangelical Society (1829), the Moravian, Rhenish and Berlin Societies, and the American Board. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel came in 1819, mainly for colonists, the Church Missionary Society in 1837. The province of South Africa has ten dioceses, the bishop of Cape Town being metropolitan. The Glasgow Society’s work was ultimately taken over by the Free Church of Scotland, whose great achievement is the Lovedale Institute, combining industrial and mission work. The Germans and Scandinavians have also been ardent workers in South Africa, and the Dutch Reformed Church has not entirely neglected the natives. One Dutch society gives its attention to the northern part of the Transvaal. The chief difficulties in the way of evangelization have been (1) the hostility of natives races aroused by European annexations, (2) the introduction of European vices, (3) the movement known as Ethiopianism. The British Wesleyans refused to confer full rights on negro pastors, who then appealed to the African Methodist Episcopal Church, a product of American evangelization. One of them, J. M. Dwane, was made Vicar-Bishop, and a large and powerful independent negro church organized. Dwane afterwards approached the Anglicans, and in 1900 that church formed the “Ethiopian Order,” ordaining Dwane a deacon and making him Provincial of the Order. Each bishop now deals with the Ethiopians in his own diocese. The South African governments foresaw dangerous developments in the Ethiopian movement, and steps were taken to restrain its growth. Ethiopianism, if ecclesiastical in its origin, gained strength from racial base. The task of averting the racial bitterness so dominant in the United States of America is a most formidable one. There are in South Africa several vicariates and prefectures of the Roman Church, the principal missions being French, those of the Congregation of the Holy Ghost and the Oblates of Mary.
West Africa was first visited by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in 1752. Its agent, T. Thompson, trained Philip Quaque, said to be “the first convert who ever received ordination since the Reformation in the Reformed Church.” The Church Missionary Society came in 1804 and has worked heroically and successfully, though the largest mission now is that of the Wesleyans, who came in 1811, settling first at Sierra Leone. The American Baptists in Liberia (1821) and the Basel Mission in the Gold Coast (1827), the Congregationalists of the United States of America and Canada in Angola, and the English and American Baptists on the Congo (since 1875) have also extensive and prospering agencies. West Africa has taken heavy toll not only in money but in life, but the lesson has now been learned, and a system of frequent furloughs combined with a better understanding of the climatic requirements have appreciably lessened the peril. This region is linked with the name of the Anglican negro Bishop, Samuel Crowther, and with one phase of the ceaseless strength of Islam, which has so far failed to reach the west coast, finding itself confronted by the Christian influences which are at work among the great Hausa tribes and other peoples within the area of the Niger mission. The Portuguese in Angola and the agents of King Leopold in the Congo State have not been conspicuous friends of missionary enterprise, and the light-hearted childishness of the native character, so well portrayed in Miss Kingsley’s writings, shows how difficult it is to build up a strong and stable Christian church. Bishop Taylor’s effort at creating a self-supporting mission proved fruitless. The American Lutherans are attempting the same task on rather different lines, and with more promise. The Roman Catholic missions are chiefly French, and organized by the Congregation of the Holy Ghost and the Lyons African Mission.
Central Africa.—The upper Congo region opened up by Livingstone and Stanley has been a favourite sphere for what are known as “faith societies,” e.g. the Plymouth Brethren, the Christian and Missionary Alliance, the Regions Beyond Missionary Union. The American Baptists continue the work started by the Livingstone Inland Mission in 1878, and the Southern Presbyterian Board (American) have done notable work. The Paris Society, represented especially by François Coillard, has been successful along the Zambezi, and Scottish, German, Moravian and Jesuit agencies are also well represented. Northward, Central and East African organizations, following the Cape to Cairo route, are in touch with North African agencies working up the Nile.
East Africa.—When the Abyssinia mission was closed in 1838 one of the missionaries, Krapf, went among the Gallas and then on to Mombasa, working in company with Rebmann. Since H. M. Stanley’s appeal (1875) most satisfactory work, extensive and intensive, has been accomplished in Uganda, by the Church Missionary Society. The names of Mackay, Hannington and Pilkington, who lived and died here, are amongst the greatest in the roll of missionary heroes. The Roman Mission too has been very successful; for some years a French agency, the White Fathers of Algeria, carried it on, but they were afterwards joined by English helpers from St Joseph’s Society at Mill Hill. The White Fathers also work in the Great Lakes region, and on the Zanzibar coast are the French Congregation of the Holy Ghost and German Benedictines. Zanzibar is also one of the centres of the Universities Mission, another being Likoma on Lake Nyasa. Near this lake the Scottish churches are also doing noble work. Besides Uganda the Church Missionary Society is responsible for Mombasa. The London Mission is meeting with success at the south end of Lake Tanganyika in North-east Rhodesia. The English United Methodists and some Swedish societies have begun work among the Gallas. German Missionary agencies have also come in with German colonization. In East Africa, as in the West, Christian missionaries fear most the aggressive Moslem propaganda.
