Sir John Kirk would announce that another batch of slaves had been brought into port. From 1875 to 1881 there was no break in this laborious and exhausting process. But towards the end of 1881 the Bishop wrote:

'I do not know how far I ought to attribute to physical causes the feeling of utter weariness which makes one work on, as it seems, only because work is ours and all else is God's. It does sustain one when exultation and almost hope seemed banished.'—Ibid. p. 336.

Early in 1882 the Bishop fainted whilst at Divine service, and the medical men on the spot thought so seriously of it that he was ordered home for a change. On his arrival in England he was indefatigable in urging the claims of the Mission. Here is a summary of his work in the Address he gave on the 23rd of June, 1882, before starting on his return:

'He had had at one time but one fellow-worker in his mission field; he spoke that day of his staff of thirty-four Europeans, and nearly as many native helpers, all of whom had once been slaves. It was the means of opening the eyes of many at home to a clearer perception of the true principles of mission work amongst the heathen, and the proper relations of missions and missionary societies. It was the record of the establishment, on a broad and deep foundation, of a great indigenous Church in Central Africa, not a feeble copy of our own Anglican Church, but a genuine Native Church. It was the history of the foundation of civilisation, of all the freedom and liberties which are dear to the Englishman's heart. He had formulated a language, so that not only future colonists and teachers might make themselves at home, but that the deepest theological truths might be clearly stated. He had, to a marvellous degree, won the respect of both Arabs and natives, and rolled away the deserved reproach that hung over the English name there. When he first arrived in Zanzibar he had found there the largest slave market in the world he had made that same spot the Christian quarter of the largest city in the world south of the Equator, save Sydney and Melbourne, with its noble church, built in great measure with his own hands, an infirmary, mission house, printing-press in active work, crowded schools, and a settlement of native adult Christians, once slaves. He began his work with five little slave boys, naked and starving, in a half-ruined house; but before his sun had set he had the satisfaction of having restored numbers as Christians to their own homes, and having formed three great centres of work upon the mainland, many hundreds of miles apart.'-Ibid. pp. 349, 350.

He returned to Zanzibar in June 1882, and the end soon came. He laid down his life amongst the children of his saving, and the men and women of his training. When he marked out the ground for his Church, he uprooted the public whipping-post of the slave-market and planned for the altar to

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occupy its site. Tears enough had been shed there, God knows! but when the great assemblage laid their Bishop to his rest behind that altar, they were not the tears of the old days. They were now the tears of a free people who, under God, owe their lives and liberty to English hearts and handsa people who look forward not to the life in the harem, or the quick death on the clove plantation, but steadfastly to the time when they shall meet him whom they learnt to call 'father' on earth, in the presence of the Common Father of us all. Of the many testimonies to the value of Bishop Steere's character and work, Miss Allen's graphic account deserves quotation :

'It is just because his memory seems to pervade everything here that I find it so difficult to define and describe my thoughts about him. Whatever happens, I find myself thinking-I wonder what he would have said to this? If I learn a new word in Swahili, or come upon an instance of an idiomatic use of a word already known, my first thought is a longing for his sympathy and pleasure at the increase of our knowledge of the language of the people for whom he lived. If I get hold of a new book, I long for the way in which he used to devour and digest a book in little more than the time it takes me to cut the leaves and glance at the headings of the chapters. He used to give one some trenchant criticism on the book that seemed to lay open its purpose und meaning at once.

If I am weeding the little patch of ground in front of the house, I am longing for his appreciation of the plants and flowers there, and I recollect with a smile how he himself dug over the whole of it, because, he said, the natives would not know how to get it level. How amazed the dignified Arabs used to be when passing by they saw him, whom they all looked up to as a man of much learning and piety, thus engaged! This often furnished me with an excellent text from which to enlarge on the dignity of labour, when the Arabs argued that they must have slaves, for how else could the work be done? "An Arab cannot dig," they used to say; then I used to take such delight in telling them how our great Bishop could dig. 'There is another way in which I constantly miss him. With all his great gifts he was always ready to turn his hand to the meanest occupation, if he could thereby do any one a service. Oh, how I miss his ready "Can I help you?" in any difficulty! It did not matter what the obstacle was, he was always ready to help you over it. If it was some difficulty in our life as a community here, he would give one some pithy saying which made one ashamed ever after to have thought of the difficulty as a trial at all. For instance, we were speaking one day of the forbearance which is certainly occasionally required to enable five or six persons who are no relations, to live together harmoniously in one house, and some one said it was quite different from doing parish work at home, where one met one's fellow

workers

workers in district or school work only, and then went home to one's own family. "Yes," said the Bishop, "half-Christians may do for that, they won't do for this." Or again, whether the trouble was a lamp that would not burn, he would have the chimney off and trim the wick, with the sort of unerring skill with which he seemed to do everything, and the lamp would burn as it seemed never to have burnt before. Even if he saw one try more than once at threading a needle, his "Can't I help you?" never failed. His quick observation, too, seemed always to show him who needed a helping hand, even in such trifles as the assistance of his arm upstairs if you were not quite well.

"The readiness, too, with which he always lent us any assistance we asked for from the workpeople outside the house, whether to alter the position of a door or window in the fabric of the house, or only to send any of them on a special message in any direction that might be convenient, it gave one a sense of everything being done that could be done to make the wheels of life run smoothly, which was worth far more than the actual service rendered.

Thoughts of him are of course indissolubly connected with every corner of our beautiful slave-market church. Few have any idea of how much thought, and pains, and watchfulness, he bestowed upon the laying of almost every stone. How he would stand patiently watching the native workmen till he thoroughly understood their methods of working, and had thought out for himself the practical advantage of the different proceedings, for which they themselves would give no reason beyond saying that it was the custom; then, having mastered their methods, he was in a position to carry out his own ideas safely and satisfactorily. So well did he do this, that even the Seyed himself said to him one day, "Can you tell me why it is that when I build, my buildings tumble down, but what you build never falls down?" It is quite true that there are frequent accidents to the buildings the Seyed puts up, but work done under Bishop Steere is conspicuous for its stability. . . . I remember when nobody believed so bold a design could be accomplished, when the Mohammedans said the whole structure was only standing by miracle, until the day when the building should be opened and it should be full of the Christians, and it would then fall and crush us all; and even some of the Bishop's best friends amongst the Europeans in the town shook their heads and said they didn't think they should like to be under that roof when the supports on which it was built were taken away. Now people will hardly believe that they ever doubted its stability.'-Ibid. pp. 281-285.

As far as we can judge, the educational training of the children furnishes some remarkable results. He must surely possess the hope that hopeth all things when, in fanning up the little spark of life which is left amongst the skin and bones hoisted out of the slave dhow, he anticipates to see scholars some day appear. However, results speak for themselves. We

have some examination papers before us which were set at Kiungani in July 1887: the Principal writes::

All the questions were printed at our own press by old boys of the Mission, and the examination was conducted exactly as in any good school in England; and considering who the examinees were some of them only six years ago being slaves right away in the interior of "the Dark Continent," and most of them being quite eight years of age when they began to learn the alphabet-the results are remarkable, and plainly show how God has wonderfully blessed the efforts of all their present teachers.'

Here are some of the questions, which we will preface by saying that they are set for young men, a few of whom will be drafted in amongst the clergy, while the vast majority will continue their training into well-instructed mechanics and clerks. The Sultan and those around him speak bad Arabic; Swahili is the language of the coast and the interior trade path: and the Yao or Nyassa student is fortified with a tongue which he can speak to all whom he is likely to come across.

'Question XVI.-Arabic Writing.-The boys had to write in English characters the Swahili of an Arabic tract, and afterwards to write in Arabic characters, the Swahili of St. John xv. 1-12. Full marks were 35: Paul and Samuel obtained 32; William, 29; Hugh, 25.'

We take a few of the questions out of the Divinity paper. We find that a lad named William gained 20 marks out of a possible 30, with such questions as these before him :—

1. How was Melchizedek a type of our Lord?

2. Jesus Christ (1) prayed for His murderers; (2), was thirsty (3), was betrayed by Judas Iscariot. How were these events foretold in the Old Testament?

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William

3. What do you think of Jael's act in killing Sisera? wrote:-"In these present times if a person kill another, he, too, is put to death. But considering those times in which we do not fully understand the mysteries of God, I think she did well, because he was an enemy. Therefore we are not able to judge her as to her action being good or bad-according to her belief she did well."

Who that is acquainted with the climate of Africa's swamp lands imagines that a native ministry can be dispensed with? In the next place where the German and English 'spheres of influence' become clothed with reality, it is from Colleges of this description that agents and factors will be drawn.

As we have said, Bishop Steere passed away suddenly in August 1882, and his successor, Dr. Charles Alan Smythies, the present head, was consecrated in January, 1884, to a post Vol. 168.-No. 335.

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which

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which is now beset with very grave complications, as daily telegrams from the scene of the German invasion tell us. coast tribes and those behind them are beginning to discover that they have been protectorated' and 'sphered' off, not only on maps, which they do not understand, but by new flags, and shot, shell, and canister, too, when it comes to a definite object lesson!

There is a sad passage in 'Livingstone's Last Journals' (vol. i. p. 81), where he laments the abandonment of the Mission's original intent, for he recognized in 1866 that its presence was more and more required on the Lake. The matter was taken up in Scotland with enthusiasm soon after Livingstone's death, and carried out with tact that left nothing to be desired. The tale of the Scotch Missions in Nyassaland should be told in some popular form; nothing more honourable or praiseworthy could be collated, and in the person of the Rev. Dr. Laws, M.D., we have one whose value is second to none of the men we have mentioned.

But neither did Bishop Steere ever lose sight of the original plan of planting a Mission on the shores of Lake Nyassa, and, with a view to this, several of his mainland stations were placed along the route between the Lake and the coast, notably Masasi and Newala. In the autumn of 1875, he travelled on foot to Mwembe, with a view to establish a station on Lake Nyassa. In the following year a halfway station was formed at Masasi, being, in fact, a Christian village, peopled by freed slaves once torn from that same region by slave-dealers. The higher ideal of life, set by the Christian villages before the heathen tribes, made deep and favourable impression, though suspicion was slow to be allayed, and actual conversions for some years very few.

We must recur to the last year of Bishop Steere's life, 1882, for it was the most eventful since the foundation of the Mission. In January, Mr. Johnson, who had already spent two years (1879-1881) on the Lake, travelled from Masasi to Chiteji's, on Lake Nyassa, accompanied by Rev. C. A. Janson. There, in February, Mr. Janson died, and Mr. Johnson remained alone. Mr. Janson had joined the Mission from Oxford in 1880, and during that short time had made himself much beloved by all his fellow-workers. It is of him that Archdeacon Maples gives the following touching account:

One word I have about him: he solemnly charged me, when in June last year he thought he was dying, to do my utmost to prevent anything being published to his praise in our reports and papers; he said: "I always feel that our Mission stands in great danger of losing

God's