SOCIETY OF AFRICAN MISSIONS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIII, Issue 432, 24 June 1922, Page 6

SOCIETY OF AFRICAN MISSIONS.

REV. D. J. O’SL'LLIVAN’S VISIT. A TRAVELLER IN .MANY LANDS, The Rev. D. J. O’Sullivan, of (he Society of African .Mission.- of Lyons, France, who will be remembered as having lectured here some 16 years ago m aid ol the mission work in Africa, which he represents, is again visiting these soul hern lauds and is a guest at the Catholic Presbytery, Father O'Sullivan’s confreres have accomplished during the past 64 years in Vest Africa the transformation of the Guinea • oast and the region lying inland, from the slave hunters happy hunting ground of three centuries into the successful mission field of to-day. This notorious region had been supplying ihe west-bound slave ships and the American slave markets with their human •freights and their wares loi SC‘J teats. Whydah, on the coast of Dahomey, used to be the chief port of embarkation. ’lhe annual output here was estimated at Io.QuU .-laves annually for the Western mat Lots'. To-dav a cathedral church attended by 350 U native Catholics stands upon the site once occupied by the prison dens, where the slaves awaited deportation. 'Hus is only one of nine diocesan centres and only one of several hundred missions founded during l,e cast 64 years m West Africa by the order which ‘Father O’Sullivan represents. ’The work has been made possible by financial assistance from Christian countues, 'The procuring of this assistance at various intervals during ihe past 30 years lias identified Father O’Sullivan with lectinc tours which have necessitated 22 trips .across the Atlantic between France and America, 18 across the Mediterranean, six ;e i(ws ihe Indian Ocean, and dozens of shorter sailings on the southern seas. When last visiting Palmerston he was stationed .•hi the Egyptian mission field of his society. He is now attached to its central house at Lyons, France. He is a native of Cork, Ireland, and in the month of February last was -till in the midst of those conditions which are making history jn the Emerald Isis.