enormous on the part of the Church Missionary Society in particular. One and then another of its agents fell, and they are succeeded by others from year's end to year's end. When we admire the persistency of a Society that has so nobly faced difficulties for full ninety-nine years, we cannot but admire, still more, the heroism of the individuals who have not hesitated to stand and fight where their predecessors fell martyrs of the Cross. And they had no hope of succeeding better than did their predecessors. It was with a view to counteract the influence of the climate that the Church Missionary Society in 1826 appointed a Medical Committee, consisting of Doctors W. F. Chambers and John Mason Good, and Messrs. Pearson and Babington, to inquire into the causes of the heavy rate of mortality in the ranks of their agents. They suggested many sanitary improvements, but that could hardly have been expected to reduce the high rate of mortality. Still, the ranks of the missionaries were always recruited by those who counted not their lives dear unto themselves.

One great drawback to the success of foreign missionary efforts in Western Africa seems to be the evil influence of European residents. This was pointed out by Major Rowan's Commission of Inquiry in the following language:—

"The neglect of public worship is very prevalent amongst resident Europeans; and to this may, in part, be attributed the non-attendance of many who might be influenced by their example." *

*p. 65 of Part I.

This is corroborated by the Rev. S. A. Walker in his valuable work entitled Church Missions in Sierra Leone.* In reviewing the many hindrances in the cause of Christian missions, and especially of the Church Missionary Society, he says:—

"Another source of hindrance to the cause, especially as regarded the Society's operations, was the example of the European residents, and the indifference to religion evinced by the official authorities of the Colony. The connection that existed between the latter and the Society's missionaries was found to militate considerably against the independence of action, without which no Christian work can prosper. Where character and sentiments are so well ascertained, as they must be in such a limited community as the European population of a colony like Sierra Leone, the inconsistency of Christian men being associated with those whose ungodliness is notorious, for the ostensible purpose of advancing the kingdom of Christ, becomes more glaring, and must operate against the object proposed. This species of difficulty is hinted at in the following remarks of one of the missionaries:

'Many of the natives take encouragement from the example of Europeans, to cohabit without being lawfully married; and they also apply to me to baptise their illegitimate offspring; for both Europeans and natives seem determined, notwithstanding my explanation of the rite, to look upon the baptism as something that must work like a greegree, or an enchantment, to bind over God, as it were, to adopt the child as his own.'

In reference to these two quotations we may say, as it was, so it is now, and will always be, perhaps worse than before.

* pp. 301-2.

But there are always creditable exceptions. There are always those who, few though they be, are sensible of man's responsibility to his brother man, and these of the highest intellectual order. We have examples of these, in professional men, in Chief Justice Hogan and Chief Justice Fitzgerald. Of Governors, so far as we are informed, of Governor Macarthy and many others. Whenever, we presume, such a difficulty is felt as that of making secularity compatible with religion, it is generally an intellectual defect in whomsoever it exists; it is very seldom a matter of obstinacy, and a Native African of moderate pretensions has been able to steer clear of such evil example, differentiate matters of fact from sentiment, the ostensible from the real, so that he is without excuse to allow himself to be led away by such evil influences.

It might be well again to point out one more cause of hindrance in the cause of Church Missions in Western Africa. This will be given in a quotation of the Rev. W. Johnson's, quoted by Walker.*

"When the African once gets a bad opinion of a European there is no help. Oh that missionaries and schoolmasters would make it their principal object at the beginning to gain the hearts of their people! I know by experience that the missionary who has the affections of his people can do more with two words spoken in season, yea, with a sorrowful look, than another with never so severe means. I have seen some who have used

* Church Missions in Sierra Leone, p. 258.

the most entreating language, but to no purpose. Why? Because the individuals entreated did not believe that it came from the heart."

We may add they believed that it came from the brain merely.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE CLIMATE OF SIERRA LEONE

So much has been said against the climate of Sierra Leone that one word in explanation will be necessary.

When it is said that the climate of this Colony is deadly, it is taken to mean that, despite all precautions, an European constitution cannot survive the severity of the Sierra Leone climate.

It would be untrue to deny that the climate has been insalubrious to some extent; still, to assume the uselessness of sanitation and other necessary precautions would be the height of folly. We have before us many instances of the outbreak of epidemics in one form or another, destructive alike to natives and foreigners, under the malignity of which the colonists have succumbed in varying proportions, but all, dependent on the degree to which sanitary laws have been observed and selfcontrol exercised.

When a foreigner from the temperate or frigid zone, taking advantage of the notoriety of the climate of Africa, indulges in every excess that must produce lassitude and mental disorders, we say he is indiscreet.