to change this storv into a cheering episode of blessedness and mercy.
It is not so, however. The great poet of our language tells us that
"The night is long that never sees the day."
Still more pertinent to my subject is the declaration of the Psalmist, "Though, we have lain among; the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold." A contrast as broad, and marked, and gracious as this, is now manifesting itself through the vast extents of that continent, and I desire to use my opportunity to set before you a few of its prominent characteristics.
Doubtless all intelligent persons have contemplated the fact of the long-continued and unbroken benightedness of the continent of Africa; but perhaps they have not had their attention called to the recent transitional state into which that continent is passing, on the way to enlightenment and salvation.
The facts pertaining to this subject are so distinct, so prominent, and so interesting, that I may be pardoned if I pause here, for a few moments, and endeavor to present them more minutely.
1. And here, first of all, we have to observe the sad and startling fact, that mental and moral benightedness Las enshrouded the whole of the vast continent of Africa, through all the periods of time, far back to the earliest records of history. We know that since the Advent of our Lord Jesus Christ, although both civilization and Christianity have streamed out, with the Gospel, from the Holy Land, through all Europe, to various parts of Asia, across the Atlantic
