sand guns which compete with them? What chance has a Christian virtue where the soil is so suitable for European vicewhere, for every individual influenced for good by merchant or missionary, there are a thousand caught up in the Styx-like flood of spirit-poison and swept off helplessly to perdition?

It would, however, be presenting an entirely misleading picture of the situation were I to restrict myself to the distant and general prospect. As already said, a closer and more detailed examination reveals many bright points in the night-like darkness. Of these, none scintillate with a more promising light than the enterprises of the Christian missionary. And yet, however promising for the future, when we look around and see with what rapid strides the emissaries of Islam have made their influence felt throughout the whole of the Central and Western Soudan, and left the mental and spiritual impress of their civilization upon the natives, we cannot but sadly wonder at the comparatively small headway that their Christian rivals have made against the sodden mass of heathendom. As compared with the progress of Mohammedanism in Africa, Christianity in these lands has been practically at a standstill. Wherever Mohammedan seed has been sown there it has taken root, and there it has remained to flourish with a vigorous grip of the soil which nothing can destroy. The same cannot be said of Christian seed it has ever been as a delicate exotic, difficult to plant, more difficult to rear, and ever requiring outside support and watering.

What, then, is the secret of this discouraging state of matters? It cannot be for lack of good men and true. Of such there have been hundreds-men who have been possessed with the very highest ideals of duty, and who have literally burned out their lives in the ardor of their missionary enterprise.

The explanation is simply this: Mohammedanism has succeeded because of its elasticity and its adaptability to the peoples it sought to convert. It has asked of the heathen negro apparently so little, and yet, in reality, so much, considering what he is; for in that little lie the germs of a great spiritual revolution. In fact, it is in a manner because of its very inferiority as a religion-looked at from our standpoint that it has succeeded and because it

has just presented that amount of good which the negro could comprehend and assimilate. Moreover, the Mohammedan missionaries have been like the natives themselves-men who spoke the same language, lived the same life.

On the other hand, the Christian worker has accomplished so little because he has tried to do so much. He has seldom comprehended the problems he has had to face. His educatior has rarely been adapted to the work before him, and, filled with much enthusiasm and ardor and more erroneous ideas, he has gone forth too often to do little more than throw away his life with but small result to the cause he has at heart.

The missionary, as a rule, has ignored the fact that men's minds can only assimilate ideas in proportion to their stage of development. He acts as if he could in a single generation transform a being at the foot of the ladder of human life into a civilized individual, and raise a degraded heathen at a stroke to the European spiritual level. Filled with such beliefs, he has ever attempted, in defiance of all common sense, to graft Christianity in its entirety upon undeveloped brutish brains. Instead of taking a lesson from his successful Mohammedan brother-worker in the missionfield, and simplifying the presentation of the Gospel truth, he has generally done his best to stupefy his hearers with views and doctrines which have been beyond their spiritual comprehension.

It has rarely occurred to him that he had better, like the Mohammedan, sow one good seed which will grow and fructify, and strike deep and permanently into the life of the negro, than a thousand which only remain sterile on the surface.

Before any great advance will be made in the Christian propaganda in Africa, a total revolution in the methods of work must be accomplished. Surely the time has come when professorships for the preparation of missionaries should be founded, so that men might be sent out properly armed for the conflict, instead of leaving them, as at present, to enter the mission field not knowing what they have to face, imbued with the unworkable traditions of bygone times, and hampered by the unsuitable theological training for the ministry which they have received among a civilized people, and which in Africa is worse than useless.

Once the negro is attacked in the right spirit, and with a suitable choice of weapous from the Christian armory, I venture to predict even more splendid results to Christianity than has ever marked the progress of Islam. For the negro, with all his intellectual deficiencies, is naturally a very religious individual. In his present helplessness and darkness he gropes aimlessly about after an explanation of his surroundings, and finds but slight consolation in his stocks and stones, his fetichism and spirit-worship. That he gladly adopts a loftier conception is shown by the avidity with which he accepts as his God, Allah -the one God of the Mohammedans. We cannot be too quick in entering the field in opposition to the religion of Islam, however great may be its civilizing work among the natives, or splendid its beneficial influence in raising up a barrier against the devil's flood of drink poured into Africa by Christian merchants. For unhappily its ultimate results belie the promise of its initial stages among the lower levels of humanity, if we are to judge from Morocco and other Mohammedan empires; and we have only too good reason to fear that what in the present is a great blessing to myriads of negro people in the Central and Western Soudan, may become a deplorable curse to the generations of the future.

In view of these facts-namely, that our intercourse with Africa has been almost one long carcer of crime and shame, fraught with direst consequence to a whole continent of people, and, in addition, that our various missionary enterprises have not accomplished the amount of good which might reasonably be expected of them-one might be tempted to ask, ought we not to retire altogether, and leave Africa and the African alone? To such a question I should answer most emphatically, No. We must not, if we could, and we ought not even if we would. We have laid ourselves under an overwhelming load of debt to the negro which centuries of beneficent work can never repay. We have not made reparation and atonement for the evil we wrought with the slave-traffic. The hydra-headed beast -the gin and weapon trade-is still continuing its ravages, still bringing new territories under contribution. We brought the monster into being, and ours is the duty to give battle to it, and rest not till

we have not only checked its desolating career, but slain it outright.

Here is indeed a gigantic task, which we, as a Christian people, cannot shirk. It would be well if we heard less about high-sounding impossible schemes for the suppression of the present Arab slavetrade, and more practicable proposals for the stoppage of our equally ruin-working commerce in spirits and weapons of destruction. Let us stop our pharisaical trumpeting from the house-tops over the pounds we spend for the conversion of the heathen, while our merchants continue to make fortunes out of their demoralization. Instead of talking of retiring with our enormous gains-a proceeding which would only be in harmony with all our dealings with the natives-conscience calls aloud that we should put ourselves in sackcloth and ashes, and set about sweeping our commerce and our politics free from the iniquities by which they have hitherto been characterized. That accomplished, we have before us the still more mighty task of undoing the evils propagated during the last three centuries, and inaugurating the real work of civilization-religion, working hand in hand with no hypocritical make-believe "legitimate com

Justice might indeed join hands with such as demand our withdrawal from Africa were there no indication on our part of a consciousness of wrong-doing-of a desire to reform where we have erred, to retrace our steps where we have gone astray. But already on all sides there are signs of hope-signs of the approach of a brighter day and of better things for the negro. The national conscience is awakeningmen's eyes are being opened to the real character of our doings in the Dark Con tinent. Societies have been formed, vowed to the suppression of the worst evils, and are spreading their influence at a rapid rate. Governments are becoming more and more alive to their duty to the ignorant savages who have come under their rule, and are striving to check the liquor traffic where it has been established, and to absolutely prohibit it where no hold has yet been obtained. The sympathetic car of the Houses of Parliament has been obtained, and Churches of all denominations are lending the weight of their influence to the good cause. Still better, merchants themselves are becoming alive to the fact

that they are engaged in a business they ought to be ashamed of, and are seeking for a way of escape from the situation in which they have placed themselves. Public companies, too, armed with the powers of a Royal charter, are entering the field with enlightened views as to what their aims and objects should be. More especially do they take a stand against the further development of the ruinous traffic of which so much has already been said, apparently determined to restrict and finally extirpate the vile thing.

Of such we have no better example than the Royal Niger Company, which since it got its charter has started on a career bright with promise. The British East Africa Company is another which we may be sure will never soil its hands by any misdirection of its commercial dealings with the people under its rule.

As a bright spot in the black expanse of Africa, let me point with pride to what our Scottish merchants and missionaries are doing on Lake Nyassa.

There, hand in hand, commerce and religion are pursuing a common end. Filled with the noblest aspirations of their great pioneer, Livingstone, and the best characteristics of their native country, the band of Christian heroes have planted their flag on a rock, and, unfurling it to the breeze, have taken the helpless heathen under their protection in the name of Christ and humanity. Sword in hand, they have driven back the slave-raiding hordes in the north, and now they stand prepared to repel the equally desolating wave of Portuguese aggression which threatens them from the south. At such a crisis, it is our duty as individuals, as a Christian people, as a nation, to see that that flag is never again lowered, and that those who protect and gather round it are supported and encouraged in their glorious struggle.

In such facts we see clearly that the tidal wave of evil has commenced to turn, and that a new and more beneficent current is asserting itself. But, happily, not

only commercially and politically are there signs of the approach of a brighter day.

It is gradually dawning upon Missionary Societies that their methods have not always been the most suitable for the work to be done. In this respect our Scottish Missions have also been taking the lead, They have sent of their best to carry on the difficult work. They no longer disdain the helping hand of the layman, but see in the artisan and the merchant coworkers in the same field. In every respect they have broadened the basis of their operations and grappled in a more modern and common-sense spirit with the question of Christian propaganda, and how best to come in touch with the undeveloped degraded nature of the negro. This spirit is likewise reflected in the communications to our missionary magazines. Throughout, these manifest a more vigorous and healthy tone, and are made up less of the weak milk-and-water demanded by spiritual babes and sucklings.

Thus, with missionary enterprise starting forth new armed on a more promising career of Christian conquest; with commerce purging herself of criminal iniquities, and joining with religion in the work of civilization, what may not be predicted of the future of Africa! Already the remotest corners have heard the glad tidings of the coming good-uttered in a still small voice perhaps, and possibly unheeded, uncomprehended-but bound to catch the heathen ear at last, and grow in form, in volume and in harmony, till they swell into one grand pæan and Christian hymn, which shall be heard in every forest depth and wide waste of jungle.

Then in the far distant future, Englishmen who shall be happily alive to hear that hymn, may indeed be able to speak of the beneficent results of European intercourse with the African, knowing that the sins of their fathers have at last been expiated, and the blot on the national honor wiped out.-Contemporary Review.

M. PASTEUR'S persistency in claiming to have discovered an almost infallible remedy for the prevention of hydrophobia induced the Rev. R. A. Chudleigh and some friends of his to urge me to visit Paris and interview the famous French chemist, and as Mr. Chudleigh generously provided the means, off I set. My visit took place at the time when Pasteur's treatment against hydrophobia was attracting most attention. My object was not to take a patient in danger or supposed danger of hydrophobia, nor to collect statistics, still less to strengthen any theory it was simply to see what was actually taking place to observe the man and his assistants, and to report upon and to converse with the people whom I found in his rooms; in short, I was only to be a spectator, nothing more, though my long experience of hospitals and private medical practice gave me some claim to rank as a trained observer, less likely than some other inquirers to be led astray by prej udice and falsehood.

The character of hydrophobia invests it with an interest not often extended to diseases which destroy a thousand times as many lives. There is something so dreadful in the thought that the bite of a pet dog or the inoculation of a scratch with the saliva of a favorite cat may be the first stage in a disease hopeless in its character and peculiarly distressing to witness, that new remedies are examined with a pa tience and hopefulness not often shown in other and really far more important cases. The great uncertainty as to whether a particular bite will end in hydrophobia, and the chance that even when the dog or cat is undeniably rabid, the sufferer may es cape all evil consequences, make investigations as to the value of any new treatment peculiarly perplexing and difficult.

Some preliminary statements about bydrophobia, a subject on which the public are often ill informed, cannot be but in place here. It is, then, a disease of great rarity, and not always of very clear origin. Many medical men pass a long and busy life and never see a case; others see one or two. On this point the experience of the late Dr. Austin Flint, one of the ablest

and most eminent physicians America has ever produced, is of special value he had only seen two cases, and the reader must remember that Dr. Austin Flint, from his eminence and metropolitan position, was of all American medical men one of the most likely to have opportunities of seeing

cases.

"Dr. Carter of Shipley," says an able writer, was one of the many men escorting patients to the Rue d'Ulm with whom I conversed on what goes on there. Не has had unusual experience in hydrophobia, having treated eight cases, one of which was caused by the scratch of a cat. He knew a death from rabies-or at least a death with every rabid symptom-from the bite of a dog never ill, and yet alive."

We may fairly assume that hydrophobia may occur once in many millions of cases of other diseases. Some practitioners doubt its very existence, though the majority believe it to be a real disease. It is generally supposed to result from the bite or scratch of a rabid animal; in other words, the saliva of a cat, dog, badger, wolf, or fox is introduced through the skin by a bite or scratch, and passing into the general current of the circulation, leads to singular changes and nearly certain death. The rapidity with which the virus enters the circulation is such that local applications are probably useless, and the faith in caustics seems only another time-honored superstition. Some authorities hold that the virus may remain latent in the cicatrix of the wound for days, months, even years, before being taken up by the system; others treat such theories, and probably with reason, as old wives' tales. Austin Flint argued that rabies did not occur very soon after the bite, nor very long after; in other words, in cases of illness commencing directly after the bite, or very long after, there was no reason to believe the complaint to be hydrophobia; from ten days to a year fairly covered the extreme limits of incubation, and in all probability, when the disease appeared some years after a severe bite, which the patient had not forgotten, he had been subsequently inoculated by an infected animal. Again, granting the existence of

Dr.

the disease—and the evidence is sufficiently strong and admitting that it is caused by the virus of an infected animal, much remains; and to this the reader's close attention must be directed. Not one dog in a thousand-not one, perhaps, in ten thousand-biting human beings is rabid; and as many people, bitten by a rabid animal, are proof against the poison, and, as in a large proportion, the fangs are wiped clean by the clothes or skin in their passage into the subcutaneous tissues, the percentage of people bitten by rabid animals, ultimately becoming rabid, is very small. Still more to complicate matters, many nervous diseases simulate hydrophobia, or are liable to be mistaken for it. Many animals suffering from epilepsy and other nervous complaints are hastily assumed to have rabies. Hot weather has nothing to do with the frequency or virulence of the disease, either in man or beast; though hot weather is vulgarly supposed to have much to do with bringing it on. As the possibility of developing hydrophobia is present in the minds of nearly all people bitten by animals, deaths from terror are not unknown, and cases occur of what are called pseudo-hydrophobia. When the dead body of a dog is carefully examined by competent investigators, there are no certain signs by which hydrophobia can be recognized. The appearance of the corpse, and the presence in the stomach of straw, bits of wood, and other such matters is not conclusive. In many instances, too, the sufferer promptly sucks the wound, and may thus remove the virus, and in a still larger proportion a medical man, a chemist, or some neighbor applies acid, vinegar, carbolic acid, hot iron, nitrate of silver, or some other potent agent, and so may destroy the virus. The severity of the wound, though adding danger of another kind, cannot have much to do with increasing the risk of hydrophobia, as the most minute particle of the poison introduced into the system acts as a ferment, and in some inexplicable fashion sets up destructive processes terminating in death. Nor has the locality of the bite anything to do with increasing or diminishing the risk; the introduction of the virus is the one important matter, not the amount injected, nor the region wounded.

Around Pasteur a fierce vivisection con

test has aged. In many circles he is regarded as the incarnation of cruelty and

inhumanity, and it has seemed to many of his opponents that his discomfiture, or rather that of his anti-hydrophobic treatment, would be the death-knell of experiments on animals; on the other hand, many scientific men have rallied around him, apparently expecting that his triumph would forever set at rest the anti-vivisection agitation. The difficulty, therefore, of being impartial, that is, judicial in the tone of my article and in the investigations which led to it, is obvious. Had I been asked to write a paper on the architectural beauties of Paris, its superb churches and ancient cathedrals, its picture galleries, its beautiful avenues and its transparent summer atmosphere, how quickly would my pen run on, how rapid would be the flow of words! but the cold blooded habits of the scientific investigator awaken no response in my breast, and to deal with scientific details, to balance facts-that was a task I was ill fitted for.

Unfortunately in all respects, unfortu nately for his reputation in many circles, still more unhappily for the hecatombs of innocent victims whom he has slaughtered -sacrificed to what he supposed to be cruel necessity-Pasteur's connection with vivisection has surrounded any investigation of the man and his labors with complications of such a character that it is almost impossible to dismiss those terrible. experiments from the mind, although very many Englishmen are not opposed to vivisection.

Many of our most enlightened countrymen would endorse the following passage on vivisection from a reply once made by Charles Darwin to Professor Lankester: "You ask about my opinion on vivisection I quite agree that it is justifiable for real investigations on physiology, but not for mere damnable and detestable curiosity. It is a subject which makes me sick with horror, so I will not say another word about it, else I shall not sleep to-night." On the same subject Sir J. Fayrer says of Darwin: "He was a man eminently fond of animals, and tender to them; he would not knowingly have inflicted pain on a living creature; but he entertained the strongest opinion that to prohibit experiments on living animals would be to put a stop to the knowledge of and the remedies. for pain and disease" Charles Darwin's views are much those of most medical practitioners; they regard vivisection as a