of Winchester conveyed to the Foreign Office, was the information that the whole question was under the consideration of Her Majesty's Government; and in the course of the following year it was announced that active measures were to be taken with a view to the suppression of the East African slave trade. It may be fairly supposed that this action of the Government was in some degree the fruit of the Mission work; for attention had repeatedly been called to the frightful progress of the slave trade by friends of the Mission deriving their information from Zanzibar.

It was in the January of 1873 that Sir Bartle Frere landed at Zanzibar, and not many months after his arrival, a treaty was signed by the Sultan there, prohibiting the export of slaves from his slave markets, which after the 5th day of June that same year were to be for ever closed. We cannot assert that this treaty was quite as important as it appeared; but it showed how the Sultan was beginning to regard the fact of slavery from an European point of view, and that he was now willing to shun a guilty traffic from which in old times he must have reaped much gold.

Then came the question,-what was to be done with crowds of liberated slaves? Sir Bartle Frere, remembering Bishop Tozer's offer at the Winchester House meeting, in his official report recommended the Government to avail itself of the Missionary Societies established at Zanzibar and its neighbourhood, believing with good reason that the Government could not do the work so well and so cheaply as they could.

From the following words spoken by Bishop Steere at Oxford in 1875, it appears that nothing was done for the newly liberated slaves but what could be accomplished by the missionaries and by any charitable people in England who volunteered their help :

"It is a reproach to our English government that we give £5 a head to the men-of-war's men for every slave seized by them, and then refuse one penny for the benefit of the released people. Children, infirm, sick, whatever they be, no schools, no refuge, no hospital, not even a temporary allowance, scarcely even food. . . . . But what the State will not, the Church must do ; and I should be ashamed to hint even that the Church of England was not rich enough and liberal enough to do all that is required."

Bishop Steere tells how many individuals, many congregations, and many schools came forward to help them by maintaining one or more of the children. And for the adults, they also must be at first fed,

clothed and maintained until they get heart to work for themselves, so broken are they for a time in body and mind during the first dawnings of liberty, that they are alike destitute of strength and of will to work.

We have mentioned a hurricane, the painful details of which we have passed over, having much else to tell. By this ruinous hurricane it is estimated that the Mission sustained damages to the amount of at least £1000; a relief fund was raised by friends in England which realised £800, thus enabling the missionaries to tide over the difficulty.

No wonder that shortly after this disaster, to the horrors of which were added the loss of one more faithful helper, Mr. Pennell, who died on the eve of an intended recruiting journey to England, the health of Bishop Tozer should seriously fail; the strain of the last few years was enough to crush any man; but he stood bravely to his post until he at last found himself quite unequal to any exertion, either bodily or mental. Leaving Dr. Steere in charge of the Mission therefore he sailed for the Seychelles Islands, hoping that even a temporary rest would set him right again. Eventually however he found himself obliged to return to England, and finally placed his resignation in the hands of the Archbishop of Canterbury. This was in 1874. Dr. Steere was appointed his successor, and very faithfully and effectually has he from that day to the present presided over the Universities' Mission.

Mr. H. M. Stanley in Vol. I. p. 78, of his book entitled "Through the Dark Continent," writing in 1874, thus speaks of the good then being done by the Universities' Mission to Central Africa, and of the Bishop now devoting himself to that perilous work:

"Almost single-handed remains the Rev. Edward Steere, faithful to his post as bishop and chief pastor. He has visited Lake Nyassa, and established a Mission half way; he keeps a watchful eye over the Mission-house established among the Shambalas; and at the head-quarters or home at M'bweni, a few miles east of Shangani Point (the old residence), he superintends and instructs lads and young men as printers, carpenters, blacksmiths, and in the practical knowledge of other useful trades. His quarters represent almost every industrial trade useful in life, as occupations for members of the lower classes, and are in the truest sense an industrial religious establishment for the moral and material welfare of a class of unfortunates (liberated slaves) who deserve our utmost assistance and sympathy. This extraordinary man, endowed with piety as fervid as ever animated a martyr, looms grander and

greater in the imagination as we think of him as the one man who appears to have possessed the faculties and gifts necessary to lift this Mission with its gloomy history into the new life upon which it has now entered. With all my soul I wish him success; and while he lives, provided he is supported, there need be no fear that the Mission will resume that hopeless position from which he, alone, appears to have rescued it."

The above testimony, valuable as that of an outsider and a great traveller well able to judge of what he saw, was written five years ago. It is cause of rejoicing to all those who are interested in Mission work, that the intrepid bishop still faithful to his post, is no longer "almost single-handed." During the great troubles and losses it had become necessary to give up the fair and promising station of Magila; but towards the close of the year 1872 earnest entreaties were sent for the restoration there of all as it had been—the natives had gathered round the deserted Mission-station, asking, "When will the white men come back again to teach us ?” Dr. Steere could not resist this cry for help: he sent out two subdeacons and some helpers with Samuel Speare at the head of the party. Before they left, he thus addressed them :

“Brethren, you are going on the noblest errand which it is possible for men to go. You are sent as God's messengers to publish His acts, and to explain His counsels. The more completely you can forget yourselves, and remember only Him, so much the better will your work be done. GOD has looked with compassion upon the sinful and the miserable, and sends you to tell them that He loves them. . . . . Do not expect immediate success; it is better to work slowly than hastily, and I shall not be disappointed, and you must not be if you seem for some years to preach and teach in vain your religion. In any case, whether, from disease or violence, do not fear death; for what men call death is really the gate of peace and joy to all true Christians. But our prayer for you is, that you may live long and happily, and have such success that you may be counted among those who, having turned many to righteousness, shall shine as the stars for ever and ever."

so,

At that time in England, there lived a clergyman possessing some wealth of his own: he was delicate in constitution, but strong in courage. Disregarding his failing health, and hearing of the brave struggles over at the Zanzibar Mission, he threw himself into the work; sailed for Zanzibar; resolved to give up all his worldly goods to the cause and to devote the remainder of his life to this labour of love. For some time past, Dr. Steere had sought a central place of assembly, accessible to all, where he could preach to the people in

their native tongue. The site of the old slave-market now happily closed was just what he wished: there, he had from time to time held Christian services: the small temporary place of worship soon became crowded to excess. I began my vernacular preaching," writes the Bishop, "in the old slave-market, and soon the room was filled to overflowing with listeners, and the tracts and papers we were able to print were eagerly snatched from my hands."

Mr. West, his heart all aflame with Christian zeal, feeling how appropriate the scene of former slavery would be for the publication of the gospel news of deliverance from the bondage of sin, came forward, threw down his gold and purchased the ground for a Mission Cathedral to be built there; and the next Christmas Day (1873) the first stone was laid by the English Consul at Zanzibar, Captain Prideaux, amid a great crowd of natives who listened with respect to the singing of "Jerusalem the golden," as well as to some prayers in their own tongue, and a short address from Dr. Steere. Many Europeans also were present. The church, or rather cathedral, is named Christ Church, and is, we believe, connected, or to be connected in some special manner with the memory of those who "counted not their lives dear" in the service of the Mission.

As soon as possible after his appointment, Dr. Steere, leaving Mr. West in charge of the Mission, travelled to England, that he might be consecrated in Westminster Abbey. While in this country the new bishop travelled over the whole island preaching and speaking of the Mission to which he had given his heart. He visited Oxford and Cambridge, where he succeeded well in his efforts to revive the interest first awakened by Dr. Livingstone. He was recalled by the mournful news of Mr. West's death. On Christmas Day, the first anniversary of the laying of the foundation of that church of fair and stately proportions in the slave market, this devoted missionary was called away to his rest. "His self-sacrifice, his enthusiasm, and his untiring energy, in the midst of much physical weakness and suffering," we read in the Mission annals, "speak to us yet, and will be a lasting help to the cause he loved so well."

Here we must stop short in our narrative of the past, although there is much more worthy of record. Should our readers desire to know something of what we have left untold, they can gain all information at the Society's offices, from the secretary, 19, Delahay Street, Westminster.

M. G. M.

74

Reviews and Notices.

In doors and out, poems by E. Wordsworth, (Hatchards, London.) Under this simple title we have a unique little work of quite unusual merit. We should naturally look not only for true poetic genius, but also for vigorous powers of thought, from the possessor of a name that is almost as well known for its association with literary talent in our own generation, as it was in the days of the purest and sweetest of the Lake poets, and the promise is amply fulfilled in the work before us. The verses it contains are of various degrees of excellence, some having been written at an early age; but the author tells us in her preface, that we are to look on her little volume "in the same light as on a portfolio of sketches, none of them representing the things which are absolutely the best and most beautiful imaginable, but those which happen to have come within the artist's own observation . . . the sketches are all genuinely from nature, and endeavour faithfully to record things that when they were seen or felt seemed to possess an interest that deserved to be permanent." The chief merit of this work lies however, not in the musical flow of the verse, nor even in the high tone of thought and the pure devotion it reveals, but in the unmistakeable evidence it contains, that the author with a mind of no common power and cultivation, has faced the dark problems which are making shipwreck of the faith of many, only to turn with unswerving confidence and trust to that one Light of the world, before Whose coming at the last these shadows shall for ever flee away. We give one specimen of the poems, recommending our readers to obtain the work for themselves.

"Blind for our sakes, O CHRIST Our Light!
Bound for our sakes, O CHRIST our Might!
What more could Love Divine, to show
His brotherhood in human woe?

"O slay me, but in light,' man saith;
"'Tis darkness that I fear, not death;
O give me freedom, though to woo
Pain, danger. Let me see and do.'

"And Thou stand'st there, Thou only dark,

Yet only Light; a blindfold mark

For coarse derision whilst they cry,

'Say now, who smote Thee? Prophesy !'

"Those Eyes, unutterably bright,

That felled a crowd to earth last night,
Those Eyes, that pierced the covert dim
Where Peter lurked, and 'looked on him,'

"Now hid beneath that twisted fold,

From sinful men their light withhold ;

Eyes, whose least flash of sovran ire

Might wrap the world in folds of fire.