How vividly this description brings to our minds a danger not often considered at home, the fearful effect which constant sight of the most hideous immorality upon the missionary who is himself but a man. God be thanked that they hold fast to all that is pure, thinking, in the midst of monstrous crimes, of those things which are lovely!
The Basel Society has here thirteen main stations which extend nearly a hundred miles into the interior. Here there are sixty-three European missionaries. The Christian community numbers twelve thousand.
The _Gossner Mission_, whose chief work is in India, resolved in 1914 to send missionaries to Central Kamerun. Just before the outbreak of the war four missionaries were sent out to make preliminary studies.
On the Slave Coast the _North German_ or _Bremen Society_ has had a mission since 1847. This society has no mission school of its own, but draws its workers from the mission school at Basel. Its African mission has been continued only at enormous sacrifice. In fifty years sixty-five men and women died. The climate is dangerous, the hearts of the natives are stubborn. The territory in which the mission is situated is partly German and partly English, a fact which causes not only political but linguistic complications since German must be the language of one section, English of the other.
[Illustration: CENTRAL CHINA LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, SHEKOW, HUPEH, CHINA.]
[Illustration: CHAPEL AND MISSION HOMES, CHIKUNGSHAN, CHINA. (UNITED NORWEGIAN)]
Nevertheless, the Bremen missionaries have persisted. To-day they have nine stations with a staff of twenty-eight, and over ten thousand native Christians. A thorough study has been made of the language, customs and religion of the people, who belong to the Evhe tribe.
Assisting in the work of the Bremen Society are deaconesses. The lives of these godly women have had a marvelous effect especially upon the native women.
[Sidenote: A Land of Many Nations.] By South Africa we mean the great southern portion of the continent extending from Cape Town up to the Zambesi River, which flows toward the east and the Congo which flows toward the west. Here, in addition to the native tribes who are chiefly Hottentots, Bushmen and Bantus, Kaffirs and Zulus, are large settlements of whites, who, unable to go beyond this section on account of the climate, are more and more steadily making the country their own. Their presence, as may easily be imagined, complicates and makes immensely difficult all mission work. To this fertile land, rich in gold, diamonds and other minerals, have gone naturally the adventurous and in many cases the wicked of other nations. There have been already fearful struggles between native and foreigner, black and white. When we realize that among the five hundred and seventy-five thousand baptized native Christians, one hundred and twenty thousand are Lutherans, our interest in the sadly complicated situation becomes keen.