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—14—, will soon find that through the introduction of a mild, innocent, and Christian commerce, it will be more profitable and advantageous to employ a servant in cutting five bushels of palm-kernels to pay for eight pieces of cloth (or one head money) than to exchange him for it.

Is it not then an indisputable fact that if Africa becomes evangelized and civilized it must be through the power of the gospel combined with innocent commerce? We read of the cruel king of Dahomey refusing to accept missionaries because they were no traders.

In one of his discourses at Flickinger Chapel I once heard Rev. J. Gomer remark that “certain men offered to attend divine service for biscuits. While it is true that some may have come for biscuits, it is also true that God sent them away with the bread of life.” It is said that the chief of Casegut, one of the Bissago islands, built a chapel with a bell to induce Europeans to come and trade in his country. Governor Randall, late of Gambia, in one of his letters to the duke of Wellington, said, “Of all the measures calculated to insure the prosperity of Africa, none promises so well as the encouragement of its legitimate commerce and agriculture. * * * * Give an impulse to industry by establishing model plantations; let moral and religious education go hand in hand.” Mr. McQueen says, “The future prosperity of Africa will be attained only by teaching the negroes useful knowledge and the arts of civilized life, and when by the influence of innocent commerce the native chiefs are taught that they may be rich without selling men, and to depend upon the cultivation of the soil.” “Example is better than precept,” and “men live more by example than reason.” Is it not then absolutely necessary that Christianity should be combined with industry, and a model farming, with an example of innocent commerce, be established in heathen countries in order to civilize the inhabitants?