PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3006, 25 October 1911, Page 80

PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

lI.—THE SUDAN AND MOHAMMEDANISM. Last week I promised that I should give another Chat upon this subject. Dr Ivumm is lecturing in Australia upon tha evangelisation of the Sudan, and in the Sudan United Mission booklet, " Ethiopia," trader the heading, "A Call for Comrades," there axv «he following, with other sections :

'" (b) That as far as the larger area- of the Sudan is now British territory, or under British protection, we look to the various British colonies to join with the Motherland hi this missionary effort, and we gladly acknowledge the great help already received from our colonies in South Africa.

" (g) That we heartily recognise the wairm interest manifested by our kinsmen in the United States in this endeavour, and the noble and generous way in which they have already come to om assistance in sending worthy men, and meeting the funds • required, thus establishing the international character of the mission.

"(h) That, as considerable portions of the Sudan are now in the possession of France and Germany, including the great States of Wadai and Adamawa, we seek an opportunity of laying the claims of these lands before the Protestant Churches of our French and German brethren in Christ."

I am not writing a missionary article 'for a religious paper; I am just showing that in the Sudan United Mission there is a mission of an international character intended to lift the blacks of the Sudan to a higher level than they would reach if made Moslems. Apart from the spiritual point of view, the object should be encouraged, for Christianised native -races under the domination of the leading white nations of the world —I refer more particularly to Great Britain and the United States—would result in a higher civilisation.

But why concentrate so much on the Sudan? It is practically untouched by Christianity, .and comprises perhaps onethirtieth of the people of the world. Here 4000 die daily, and here in a short time Mohammedanism index present conditions will hold full sway, and it will be almost impossible, remembering its militancy, to displace it by Christianity. But there is another reason.

Cardinal Manning once said: "Give me the education of a child up to the age of 6evui, and he will be a Roman Catholic for life." It is in the days of childhood that character is formed. Now it is in the childhood of a nation that it is most susceptible to religious influences. ''The innocence, credulity, the trustfulness, the enterprise, and boldness that we find in childhood we find among the baby nations of the world; as we find deliberateness in action, slowness in movement, lack of trust in self amongst the senile peoples of the globe, such as the Egyptians, the Armenians, the Tibetans, the Koreans. The Aryan race, especially the youngest branch of it—the AngloSaxon, —is to-day in the full strength of its manhood, while in Africa and in the South Sea Islands we have the infants of our human family.' The irresponsibility, credulity, and simplicity of most of .the tribes in Central Africa are the unmistakable signs of youthfulness." And Dr Kumm takes the Anglo-Teutons to. prove his case. "In West Central Europetheae lived a race of healthy woodsmen without a history, without a past; woodsmen with a strong physique, a moral people among whom the woman was the priestess of the family. . . . This was the material out of which Christianity formed the world Empires of the Teuton and AngloSaxon races." But Germany and the Anglo-Saxon tribes received Christianity in their early baby days, and now we are having the full fruitage. -Compare with Rome. "lXi was a civilised empire with a past, an empire decadent, and in spite of Christianity .being grafted upon it, the decay was not stayed. Imperial Rome broke up." The same with India and China. "An Indian or .a Chinese convert to Christianity is a full-grown man; _ a savage Central Africa convert to Christianity is a baby. But the baby has a future, while the old man has a i)a.st. The gospel should be preached to grown-up people, but the future is with the baby races of the world.'" And the great baby race of the day is the Sudan negro. "He is the hobble de hoy of the human family - the stripling who does not know how to behave himself, who has plenty of brawn and comparatively little brain, but who with iris years will outgrow his clumsiness And the six-foot-three Dinka, and the six-foot-four Shilluk, and the six-foot-five Musgun will coins to their inheritance someday a.s well as the Zulu, the Barotsi, and the Baganda." EUROPE IN THE SUDAN. I thought that I might conclude to-d.av by outlining tht history of Mohammedanism, as it has come into contact with Christianity, but I'll leave that until next week, and shall give instead .a synopsis of a chapter called " Europe in the Sudan," appearing in "Look on the Fields," one of the reports on the Sudan United Mission.

Within the last 20 years of the nineteenth century Great Britain undertook the government of the Eastern Sudan from Egypt to the Lakes, including all the lands of the Nile, beside the two great Kingdoms' of Darfur and Kordofan, and the populous Western Sudanese realms of Vupe, Bornu, Grando (.alone as large as England), and Tokoto, which includes the seven States of H.ansaland. Within the same time France assumed the government of the Western Sudan beyond the British sphere of influence, and rules from Cape Verde and the Atlantic across) to Timbuktu, on to Lake Chad, and over three great lands on the east of the lake —Kanem, Bagirmi, and Wadai. In the same time- Germany took the Kame-

runs and Adamaw.a, reaching from the Gulf of Guinea also to Lake Chad. A PEW DATES: EASTERN SUDAN. Purchase by Britain from Egypt, 177,000 shares for £4,000,000 1875 Rise of the Mahdi mear Khartoum .. 1881 Revolt of Arabi Pasha •• 1881 Massacre of Europeans at Alexandria 1882 British bombardment of Alexandria, victory of Tel-el-Kebir, surrender of Cairo, occupation of Egypt 1882 Mahdi defeats of Anglo-Egyptian troops at El Obeid (Kordofan), Suakin, and El Teb (Red Sea) 1833 Gordon arrives at Khartoum 1884 Pall of Khartoum, murder of Gordon 1883 British build Nubian Desert railway, Wady Haifa to the Atbara .. ..1897-8 Pall of the Mahdi, defeats at Atbara and Omdlurnran, recapture of Khartoum .. 1898 French evacuation of Fashoda and the B&h/r el G nazal; British Government established in Eastern Sudan .. .. 1898 As I have pretty well filled the space that can be spared me, I'll hold over until next week the dates connected Avith Central and Western Sudan and my notes on Mohammedanism, as promised above. WHAT IS EGYPT? Just a note. In our schools very few geographies are used —a benefit where teachers are readers and can give a comprehensive view of the subject, but a disadvantage where children have paragraphs dictated to be learnt by heart. Here is a compact description taken from Dr Kumm's "The Lands of Ethiopia": "We know that Egypt consists of nothing hut the narrow Nile Valley, some 700 miles in length, and at its widest some four or five miles across, plus the Nile delta, which is about the size of Holland. The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan alone is some 20 times as large as Egypt'; and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan is only about onethird of the whole of the Sudan." Of course, what is meant by Egypt being only four miles wide is that only that width can be brought under cultivation under present conditions. This width may be widened a little in the future when the whole of the waters of the Nile are impounded in reservoirs for irrigation purposes.