influence, exercise all their power to prevent any of their followers joining the Mission. This is probably the only reason of the failure, because Christianity amongst negroes only consists in the outward observance of the Sunday ceremonies, and proselytes would have to give up none of their present pleasing practices. Morality is a word which conveys no meaning whatever to the ordinary negro mind. Fetishism is everywhere rampant; before almost every house may be seen a wooden or clay idol, to which offerings of food and drink are daily made, and human sacrifices are not by any means rare. A very common sacrifice to Ju-ju is that of a young girl, who is at low water fastened to a stake firmly imbedded in the river mud, and then left to perish in the rising tide, or to be devoured by sharks or crocodiles.
All English Missions on the West Coast of Africa, of whatever denomination, are an utter failure. Their custom is to get children to attend their schools, and then administer doses of religion to them, with the rudiments of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Now, in the first place, the advantage of these acquirements does not very much strike the average negro parent, and, in the second place, the schools turn out annually HcorcH of youths who are only fitted, educationally, to become shopmen and subordinate clerks and book-*keepers.
