he diamond mines had given the southern section of the
continent a rebirth of prosperity. Will the Congo mines perform the same
service for the Congo? In any event they will be a determining factor in
the future world diamond output.

No record of America in the Congo would be complete without a reference
to the high part that our missionaries have played in the
spiritualization of the land. The stronghold of our religious influence
is also the Upper Kasai Basin. In 1890 two devoted men, Samuel N.
Lapsley, a white clergyman, and William H. Sheppard, a Negro from
Alabama, established the American Presbyterian Congo Mission at Luebo
which is about one hundred miles from Tshikapa straight across country.

The valley of the Sankuru and Kasai Rivers is one of the most densely
populated of all the Belgian Congo. It is inhabited by five powerful
tribes--the Baluba, the Bena Lulua, the Bakuba, the Bakete and the
Zappozaps, and their united population is one-fifth of that of the whole
Colony. Hence it was a fruitful field for labour but a hard one. From an
humble beginning the work has grown until there are now seven important
stations with scores of white workers, hundreds of native evangelists,
one of the best equipped hospitals in Africa, and a manual training
school that is teaching the youth of the land how to become prosperous
and constructive citizens. Under its inspiration the population of Luebo
has grown from two thousand in 1890 to eighteen thousand in 1920.

The two fundamental principles underlying this splendid undertaking
have been well summed up as follows: "First, the attainment of a Church
supported by the natives through the thrift and industry of their own
hands. The time is past when we may merely teach the native to become a
Christian and then leave him in his poverty and squalor where he can be
of little or no use to the Church. Second, the preparation of the native
to take the largest and most influential position possible in the
development of the Colony. Practically the only thing open to the
Congolese is along the mechanical and manual lines."

[Illustration: WASHING OUT GRAVEL]

[Illustration: DONALD DOYLE (LEFT) AND MR. MARCOSSON]

One of the noblest actors in this American missionary drama was the late
Rev. W. M. Morrison, who went out to the Congo in 1896. Realizing that
the most urgent need was a native dictionary, he reduced the
Baluba-Lulua language to writing. In 1906 he published a Dictio