AMONG THE HEATHEN.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 13841, 22 December 1908, Page 7

AMONG THE HEATHEN.

MISSION WORK IN UGANDA

The story of missionary efforts and sacrifice in Uganda, told by Bishop Tucker in his Eighteen Years in Uganda and East Africa," is one of the most interesting chapters of missionary history. The first man sent out by the Church Missionary Society landed in East Africa in 1844. and* six months later was dead. No organised effort was made to evangelise Uganda until Stanley challenged England to do the work.

The Christianising of the country was at first attended by great danger and hardship. Missionaries succumbed to disease and martydom, and converts were tortured and put to death. A boy had his arms cut off, and was then Inn-lit to death. Bishop Hannington, the first- bishop, suffered martyrdom, "hid'lin^ his murderers tell the king that Ie died for the Baganda, and that lie had purchased the road to Uganda with his life."

When Bishop Tucker arrived in' the country in 1890, the number of baptised Christians was about 200. Today there are over 6*0,000. What the missionaries had to contend against is shown by a description the bishop gives of a service in a remote place, attended by the three hundred wives of a chief.* In the middle of the service, which the women were following with great interest, tho whole congregation suddenly rose up and fled to their huts. The cause of the stampede was the unexpected return of the chief. 'I do not know that any incident in the whole of my missionary experience has ever stirred and touched me more than the sight of that flying mass of womanhood." The natives are capable of the loftiest heroism and the greatest devotion to Christianity. On learning that on a certain island on the Great Lake a number of -natives were dying of sleeping sickness without anyone to teach them Christianity, a native woman volunteered for the work. She was warned that she was going to almost certain death — there is no cur© for the sleeping sickness — but she insisted. She worked among the dying people, and then came home stricken with the disease. So long as she could move about the hospital she ministered to the other patients, and in a period of comparative strength walked to the cathedral to receive the Sacrament. She sat in a distant corner till all the other people had been to the Communion Table, andwhen the Bishop was about to close the service, walked slowly up the. nave. She know that had she /mmgled with the other worshippers they would have shrunk from her as a person stvieken with a terrible disease.

To-morrow is the last day for discount for gas and electric light consumers. Father Christinas has arrived at Carter's. On this occasion he ha« brought the chimney with him, and can be seen defending at one minute past midnight and afterwards.