ished the first dissenters from an established
church,--the Donatists. They were the Separatists and
Puritans of the early Church.

Their struggle was long, severe, but useless. They were
condemned, not convinced; discomfited, not subdued; and the
patient, suffering, indomitable spirit they evinced shows
what power there is in a little truth held in faith.

Christianity had reached its zenith in Africa. It was her
proudest hour. Paganism had been met and conquered. The
Church had passed through a baptism of blood, and was now
wholly consecrated to the cause of its Great Head. Here
Christianity flowered, here it brought forth rich fruit in
the lives of its tenacious adherents. Here the acorn had
become the sturdy oak, under which the soldiers of the cross
pitched their tents. The African Church had triumphed
gloriously.

But, in the moment of signal victory, the Saracens poured
into North Africa, and Mohammedanism was established upon
the ruins of Christianity.

The religion of Christ was swept from its moorings, the
saint was transformed into the child of the desert, and
quiet settlements became bloody fields where brother shed
brother's blood.

Glorious and sublime as was the triumph of Christianity in
North Africa, we must not forget that only a narrow belt of
that vast country, on the Mediterranean, was reached by
Christianity. Its western and southern portions are yet
almost wholly unknown. Her vast deserts, her mighty rivers,
and her dusky children are yet beyond the reach of
civilization; and her forests have been the grave of many
who would explore her interior. To-day England stands by the
new-made grave of the indomitable Livingstone,--her
courageous son, who, as a missionary and geographer spent
his best days and laid down his life in the midst of Africa.

For nearly three centuries Africa has been robbed of her
sable sons. For nearly three centuries they have toiled in
bondage, unrequited, in this youthful republic of the West.
They have grown from a small company to be an exceedingly
great people,--five millions in number. No longer chattels,
they are human beings, no longer bondmen, they are freemen,
with almost every civil disability removed.

Their weary feet now press up the mount of science.