SUDAN UNITED MISSION

Evening Star, Issue 17765, 13 September 1921, Page 2

SUDAN UNITED MISSION

ADDEESS BY ME J, TULLOCII. STEMMING THE TIDE OF ISLAM. An interesting address on the work of the Sudan United Mission was given by Mr J. Tulloch in First Church Hall last evening before a fair attendance. Professor Davies, president of the local branclj, presided. Tho Chairman explained that the mission .was a comparatively young one. The Christian world had recently been shocked to find that there was a danger of the whole of the African Continent being converted to Islam. None of existing missionary societies had been abie_ to undertake the tank of stemming this tide, and so it came about that a united .society had been formed, representing all the free churches. Tho first party of_ missionaries tinder this Sudan United Mission was sent out in 1904.

Mr Tulloch is a native of the Milton district, and, with Mrs Tulloch, is revisiting hie old home after about eight years’ (service under the Sudan United Mission in Northern Nigeria. With the aid of a largo map ho showed where the vast field of tlio operations of the mission lay. The Sudan, right from oast to west, contained some 40.000,000 people, and, roughly speaking, the northern half of these were, Mohammedan, and tho southern pagan. Ho told of tho great Mohammedan _ invasions of Northern. Africa from, tho sixth, century onwards. Some of these great movements blotted out the early Christian churches of. North Africa, but the Mohammedans were hold up by the great desert, and also ■by tho fierce resistance of the pagan tribes, from whom the Mohammedans sought slaves. About tho beginning of this century tho whole of the Sudan was Liken over by the three Powers —Britain, Germany, and Franco. An far as possible tbe tribes were still ruled by their own native .rulers, but the old glaring enormities of cannibalism and the slave trade were put an end to. The country was made peaceable, and the result was that the door was opened for tho Mohammedans, who had been held up for hundreds of years. It was this situation that had brought the Sudan United Mission into being, and it sought to plant a chain of mission stations right from east to west of the continent. Tho mission had now some sixty missionaries on its staff. One of the chief difficulties of missionaries arose from the great variety of languages in the different tribes. The Australian and New Zealand branch of tho mission had become responsible for mission stations down the Nile at the eastern border of the Sudan. 'Jo got at tho heart of (ho natives a man must speak to them in their own language, and that meant years of hard work. Another difficulty was the climate. It was hot all 'the year round, and very innervating. The missionaries were thinned to death and sickness, and frequent furloughs were essential. This meant that there was very little continuity in tho work. Then there werf!, further, the difficulties of selfsatisfied paganism. The natives did not want the missionaries, and did not believe that they knew .anything about their needs. The mission sought to reach the natives through the medical work qnd through simple preaching and leaching. Tho results had been slow in coming, and only in the Yergmn tube could they so far bo called encouraging. Ho gave some instances of the faithfulness, liberality, and endurance of some of tho Ycrgum converts, and described a typical Sunday’s work among them. In speaking of the progress of the Mohammedan menace. Mr Tullooh said that the tribe in which he had been working was now permeated with Moslems, though only twenty-five years ago they would have been killed and caton there. The next tribe, also, tho Burnn, was permeated with Moslems, and tho head man was a Mohammedan. So it was with all the tribes, except a few of the meet fierce. The Moslem menace was a real thing. The pagan beliefs wore going quickly, and unless Christianity was brought to them at once it would be too late. Men and women were needed to go quickly, but the greatest way of all to help was by prayer. Mr G. \V. Gibson, chairman of tho local branch of tbe mission, explained what the branch was doing, and read interesting extracts from letters recently received from missionaries in the" Eastern Sudan In these letters .the writers referred to their needs and described their work.