differed from him in education, in manners, in color, in civilization.
Mohammedanism, on the other hand, reached the Negro in his own country,
in the midst of his own surroundings. When it had acclimatized itself
and taken root in the soil of Africa, it was handed on to others, and
then no longer exclusively by Arab missionaries, but by men of the
Negro's own race, his own proclivities, his own color. The advantages of
this method of approach cannot be over-estimated. We care not to enter
at all into the question of the value of the two religions nor of the
good they may respectively do for poor Africa. We wish simply to deal
with the methods and means, and with the peoples who may best employ
them. We again summarize the language of Dean Smith: The very fact that
there are millions of Negroes in America and the West India Islands,
many of whom are men of cultivation and lead more or less Christian
lives, is proof positive that Christianity is welcomed by them. Is there
not room to hope that many of these men, returning to their own country,
may be able to present Christianity to their fellow-countrymen in a
shape in which it has never yet been presented,--in which it would be
very difficult for Europeans or Americans ever to succeed in presenting
it--to them, and may so develop a type of Christianity and civilization
combined which shall be neither American nor European, but African,
redolent alike of the people and of the soil?

This is a point which the American Missionary Association has frequently
urged, and which it had begun to exemplify by sending colored
missionaries to Western Africa. The experiment was in many respects
satisfactory, but we realized that a longer training and a more thorough
maturing of character were needed in those who had just emerged from the
darkness and limitations of slavery. But what greater hope can there be
for Africa than in the training of these millions, so apt in learning,
so earnestly religious, and so well qualified to meet as brothers and