THE KING'S BUSINESS
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and Wadai, they are still to be met with as far north as Khartum, and also in Katanga the extreme southeastern corner of the Belgian Congo. Won to Christ they are likely to become missionaries to other tribes in the interior of Africa, left alone they will become Mohammedan and the missionaries of Islam. “Shall I tell you,” says Dr. Holland, of India, “what is going to happen; as certainly as anything can ever be predicted in the next few years Africa is going to be Mohammedan, unless something absolutely radical and revolutionary occurs in the Church at home.” Africa Pagan with its cruelties, tortures, cannibalism, sorcery, witchcraft, deviltry, and unbridled lust is bad enough. Africa Mohammedan would be worse. The people desire our advent. The Belgian officials invite us to come, promising to help rather than to hinder. Yet once let the Niam-Niams become Mohammedan and the door of their hearts lies locked and barred against u s ; for it is a hundred times harder to win a Mohammedan to Christ than to convert a Pagan. The crisis is on. It is “now or never.” THE DELAY OF A COUPLE OF YEARS MEANS TH E LOSS OF OUR GREAT OPPORTUNITY. Last June at the mouth of the Congo there waited 2,000 prospectors, traders, merchants, and gold seekers, waiting to rush into these regions as soon as the government should open the door to them, for rumor declared that there is an abundance of gold. If such can hear so loudly the call of gold and obey it, can it he the ears of Christ’s soldiers are deaf to the call of God and the cries of the dying souls of men ? Are gamblers for gold so many and gamblers for God so
are vast tracts of land inhabited by some forty million people who have never heard of the name of Jesus, nor seen the face of a Protestant •Christian “soldier!” “In the Belgian Congo State are twenty millions of unevangelised people ! In the French Congo, eight millions ! In Baghirmi, in Kanem, and Wadai are another four millions. In the Eastern Kameruns, three millions; in N. E. Nigeria, six millions." (Edinburgh Conference Report). In all 41 millions as yet unevangelised. Japan has 40 millions of people and 1,034 Christian missionaries. These folks have not one. Japan has 2,140 native workers. These have none. Japan has 100 principal missionary stations and 1,146 sub-stations. In these regions there is not one of any kind. Japan has 67,000 communicants, 82,000 baptised Christians, 1,- .394 Sunday schools, and 87,000 Sunday school teachers and scholars, but the heart of Africa is destitute of one any kind. Yet Japan is undermanned, and the position critical. Then what about the crisis in the heart of Africa ? THE N IAM -N IAM S ARE TH E BLOOD OE TH E HEART OP AFRICA. A great Pagan tribe, otherwise called the Zandey or Azandi, number ing about one and a half millions in the Belgian Congo and some millions more in the French Sudan. Considerably more intelligent than most interior tribes, the Niam-Niams are a brave and hardy race; the men are workers in iron and excel in hunting, the women cultivate the soil. Universal report declares them to be or to have been cannibals, but at the same time they are eager to learn, quick at picking up ideas and putting them in practice, and desire that teachers be sent to them. Rovers who originally came from the provinces of Darfur
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