his wife was dead, and his only child far away. He was hungry, and had no one to give him food. I procured some for him, but he could not eat it. He looked gratefully at me however, and told me I might drink the palm wine standing by in a small calabash !

This is the first instance of gratitude I have met with in a native. I managed with difficulty to make him take some medicine. This man has the best built and best thatched house I have seen, and it is surrounded by a garden of beans, peas, and ground nuts. He is well again now, but takes little notice of us unless spoken to first.

On the 4th of June I went into the village to hold the services, and came upon the people having a palaver about the king, who had got a bad leg. They were preparing to make an idol. A square place had been cleared, and four small posts put into the corners, from which palm branches were suspended. In the centre was a stone on which were placed the ingredients for making the idol. The medicine man, with three other men and a female helper, had been at work about it a whole day, and had brought the ingredients together in small pinches. Drumming and rattling went on all the time, and ever and anon they went to the different roads near, shaking cloths to keep away ndoki. A fowl had been killed, the heart and blood being used in the manufacture of the idol. I was pained to see such childlike proceedings. The men physically were finely developed, but spiritually dead, blind! I got the people to come to a service at the king's house, the medicine man among them, but he slipped off shortly after I began. Mansoni, my boy, interpreted for me, and told them the story of the creation. He is a clever lad, and can write fairly well and read. I like him very much, and shall be sorry to part with him when his time is up.

The following Sunday I heard that a man was to be poisoned. I went to the village and had a service, feeling sad at the thought that in a short time a man was to drink what might prove to be his death on the very spot where I stood. The poison as far as I can find out is what they call cassa. The bark of the tree is stripped off, and soaked in water for some time, and then squeezed. The extract is of a bright red colour and very bitter. If not vomited it soon causes death. At Banza Manteka they use a root called bundu, which on being taken causes a series of convulsions. But this cassia bark causes only one strong convulsion, and the person falls down dead. Oh that people in enlightened England could only see the doings of these poor deluded natives! It would rouse them to a mighty wrestling with God, and to greater efforts to send these people the gospel light and liberty which has made our own beloved land what it is.

Brother Frederickson told the king the other day that he should try and build a large house for himself, and that we would help him if he did. He cut the wood and asked us to come and show him the way to build. I went with him, measured out a site for it, and marked the place for the main uprights and corner posts. When I went to see the finished house I found them holding a marriage feast, a mutual exchange of presents, cloths, plantains, and pigs; the bridegroom had also provided palm wine in abundance. They seemed happy, the men sitting on one side and the women opposite, with the bride in the centre, well adorned with beads. They were exchanging jokes, the bride of course looking bashful, and the bridegroom kept busy filling out palm wine to his thirsty guests. I left them, and shortly after heard them commence dancing and singing, which was continued till the morning.

If after the feast the woman dislikes her husband she can say so and leave him; and on the other hand, if she is lazy, and does not work enough, he can tell her to go about her business. If she dies, the king has to give back all the cloth he got from the husband.

122

I am told that a good deal of gum copal is to be found on some of the islands near Itunzuma Falls, but at present the grass is so long that it is nearly impossible for us to get down. After the grass is burned I will collect some specimens. I had some burrs brought to me one day, and, on opening them and pressing the seeds, a brilliant red colour was yielded. The people used this for painting and colouring their faces at times. They call it tekedi nputa. I do not know the botanical name.

I am kept well and happy, and thankful for our peaceable and friendly relations with the natives. Oh that we may soon be enabled to get at their hearts, and see some of them turning to God!

Yours in the Master's service,

STEPHEN J. WHITE.

FIRSTFRUITS TO CHRIST FROM CONGO.

"THE end of the geographical problem in Africa is the beginning of the missionary one," said David Livingstone. Similarly we may say the end of all the material efforts, and endeavours after material progress, which we have for the last four years been making and reporting, is spiritual progress, the creation and development of a Christian church in Congo.

It is therefore with profound joy and gratitude to God that we now record the baptism of the two first converts connected with our mission, N'dambi and Pukamoni, or, as they have now been named, Francis and Robert Walker.

These two dear lads had been for some time under instruction at Palaballa station before they accompanied Mr. and Mrs. Craven to England in the summer of 1881. Since that time we have been in daily intercourse with them, and have learned to love and esteem them.

The nature of their occupation, day by day-furnishing the materials for a study of the Congo language, the native equivalents for English phrases has of course thrown them much into the company of Mr. Guinness, Mr. Craven and others, who have thus come to know their minds and characters pretty thoroughly. It had for months been evident that their hearts were right with God, and that reverence for God and faith had sprung up within them. Their conduct has been good

and satisfactory in every way. Their intelligence, perseverance, industry, and amiability, coupled with their love of reading and prayer, have been remarkable.

Mental effort is of course not easy to lads like these, so recently rescued from savagery. Yet these boys have studied and worked at literary work for six and eight hours a day and often more, without impatience, and they have latterly especially taken a vivid interest in the work of translation, or rather of telling the stories of the Old and New Testament in their own tongue, for regular translation has hardly been attempted yet. Their faith in Christ and love to Him are of course simple and childlike, and their knowledge as yet small. But there can be little doubt as to their sincerity; and their earnest desire to do always that which is pleasing in God's sight is very marked. Hence, when they expressed the wish to be baptized as Christian disciples, we felt that there was no ground to refuse, but the reverse.

On the day when, after months of patient toil, Mr. Guinness revised the last sheets of his Grammar of the Congo language and sent it to press, July 31st, he had the joy of baptizing at Mr. Archibald Brown's East London Tabernacle these two dear lads; and the occasion was, as our friends will easily believe, one of intense interest to all our party.

The firstfruits of the Mission! And, "gathered in time or eternity, what, oh what shall the harvest be?" Faith could look forward and see scores, hundreds, nay, why not thousands and millions of such, Ethiopia's dark sons, pressing into the kingdom! Firstfruits! Love looked back and remembered the men and women who had gone forth weeping, bearing precious seed, and who had endured so much hardness in the endeavour to break up the fallow ground for the sowing of that seed. They were not visibly present with us, to rejoice in the fruit of their labours; but who should say their spirits were not in full sympathy with ours? What would not dear Telford, and McKergow, and McCall and the rest have given to see that sight? What did they not give, that that sight might be seen? All they had. All they could give, themselves, their very lives! And was this result and what it promised and implied worth such costly sacrifice? Ah, let Christ Himself reply! "There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth." And these dear lads were not only saved sinners, but full of earnest desire to become ambassadors for Christ among their people. They will we trust be invaluable as native agents. A Sierra Leone or West Indian negro is not a native agent in Congo just because he has a black skin; he is as much a foreigner as a white man. He has to learn the language and customs of the country as much as we have, and is regarded with as much suspicion. But here are real native evangelists, who can out of full hearts talk in their own tongue to their own people, and tell what God has done to save a ruined world.

Very grateful were our praises that night, and when all was over and the dear boys knelt with us alone in the study where they had spent so many busy hours, they poured out their hearts in prayer in their native tongue, with an amount of earnest, trusting dependence on God to keep them, that was deeply touching.

"We must never forget this day, never!" they said. "We must live new life now! You must write it all down, ma'am, in book, so we may never forget!" said Robert, tears mingling with his bright smiles of joy. We did not allow them to think too much of the ordinance as a means of grace, but they evidently felt they had crossed the Rubicon and confessed Christ before men.

We commend the dear lads to the prayers of all our friends. They sail (D.V.) in November, with Mr. and Mrs. Craven, on their return to their own land. We dare not keep them longer here, their lungs suffered severely last spring, and another cold season might prove fatal to them. They must pursue their education at the Mission stations for some years at any rate, though they may visit England again to complete it. Meantime we expect much good to arise from their return. Credence will be given by the natives to their accounts, in a way it is not to the statements of the white men. Their story of the way they have been

received and treated in England, and of all the marvels they have seen, of the wealth and resources of this country, the numbers of its inhabitants, etc., will do more to produce an impression that our mission among them must be a disinterested one, than almost anything else. Thus confidence and goodwill will be promoted, and prejudice we trust removed or abated. One of them has learned a little shoemaking among other things, for they both say they can never return to their former shoeless condition.

They are taking back with them many treasures that have been given them at various times by friends, and several presents for their "king,” among other things a barrel organ, which will, they expect, create quite a sensation at Palaballa!

MR. HARVEY, of the Livingstone Inland Mission, who has been about three years on the Congo and is returning in ill health to recruit in England, is expected to arrive in November.

He is bringing with him two more native lads, to replace the two now returning to Congo, and assist in further translation work. May the stay in England of these boys result in saving blessing to them also. The Jesuits of San Salvador are beginning to oppose our efforts at Palaballa. Mr. White mentions that on going into the town one Sunday to hold a service, the king informed him that he had built a house now to worship God in, and seemed proud of the achievement. He took the missionaries to a small newly erected house, and what was their surprise to observe when it was opened, not a rough native idol, but a wooden image of Peter with the keys in one hand and a book in the other! "It has been sent to me by white men at San Salvador to worship God with!" said the old king with great satisfaction, evidently considering that as it was a white man's "fetish" the missionaries must approve and admire it!

This wooden idol stood about two feet high, was dressed like a priest, and had the head shaven. Kakumpaka insisted that he could worship God much better with it than without it, and listened with evident disappointment to Mr. White's explanations as to the nature of idolatry, and to his exhortations to burn the image. It had been sent to him from the king of Congo! It must be good, it was the white man's God! Alas for those whose missionary labours result merely in the substitution of one image for another!

Will our praying friends, when interceding for this Mission, covet earnestly for it the best gifts, even spiritual results, the actual quickening of dead souls, the creation and development of native witnesses for Christ, native heralds of glad tidings!