handmaids of religion. Civilization is to be a most marked agent in the process of evangelization, among the million masses of that vast continent. We shall see, in West Africa, in these our own days, and on a large scale, that primitive mode of propagating Christianity over a whole continent, which characterized the rapid progress of the faith in Apostolic times; when the Spirit of God seized upon an actual, though pagan civilization; and ran, Avith an almost electric speed, through Palestine, through Asia Minor, through Greece, through the Roman provinces, through the Roman Empire; until, in less than three centuries, the Christian faith became the master influence of the world; and the diadem of the Caesars had to bow in submission to the cross of Christ!
So, most probably, will it be in West Africa. The day of Africa's agony is being closed up by the simultaneous entrance of Christian churches and civilized colonies, all along her coasts, and through all her interior quarters!
3. You see here also the important fact that the main agency God is employing for the ends I have pointed out, is black men themselves. It is, indeed, in West Africa, as everywhere else in all history, namely, that the primal training, the early preparation come from advanced and superior people. They always plant the germs of a new faith, or are the pioneers of a new civilization. But the work itself is alwyas effected by indigenous agencies. So in Africa, the work of these settlements, colonies, and mission, is being done by Negroes. Some of these came from the British West Indies: numbers of them
