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310 Land. So God, now, unseen to human eyes, may be leading on His hosts to a mighty victory over Satan; and in the briefest of all the periods of the Church's warfare, may intend to accomplish the most brilliant and consummate of all His triumphs. And this is my conviction with regard to Africa. In my soul I believe that the time has come. I have the strongest impression of the nigh approach of her bright day of deliverance. The night, I am convinced—the night of forlornness, of agony and desolation—is far spent, the day is at hand! The black charter of crime and infamy and blood, which for nigh three centuries, has given up my father-land to the spoiler, is about to be erased! The malignant lie, which would deliver up an entire race, the many millions of a vast continent, to rapine and barbarism and benightedness, is now to be blotted out! And if I read the signs of the times aright—if I am not deceived in supposing that now I see God's hand graciously opened for Africa —if to my sight now appear, with undoubted clearness, "the baby forms Of giant figures yet to be," what a grand reversal of a dark destiny will it not be for poor bleeding Africa! What a delightful episode from the hopeless agony of her unmitigated, unalleviated suffering! For ages hath she lain beneath the incubus of the "demon of her idolatry." For ages hath she suffered the ravages of vice, corruption, iniquity, and guilt. For ages hath she been "stricken and smitten" by the deadly thrusts of murder and hate, revenge and slaughter. Fire, famine,