On the other hand, and in sharp contrast with all this, is the rapid progress of Mohammedanism in Africa.  This progress has been noted by the modern explorers, but has been recently brought more distinctly to the attention of Europe and America.  Dean R. Bosworth Smith, in the Nineteenth Century for December, 1887, thus states the extent to which Mohammedanism covers Africa:  “It is hardly too much to say that one-half of the whole of Africa is already dominated by Islam, while, of the remaining half, one-quarter is leavened, and another is threatened, by it.  Such is the amazing, the portentous problem which Christianity and civilization have to face in Africa, and to which neither of them seems as yet half awake.”

The causes of this rapid spread over Africa are easily discernible.  The Mohammedans, though they appeared at first as conquerors, became at length Africans by their permanent residence on the soil, and they went forth afterwards in propagating their faith, not as warriors, but as fellow-citizens and brothers.  They resembled the natives in color, manners, and modes of thought, and readily assimilated with them by marriage ties and the affinities of home life.  Their converts among the native races were even more naturally welcomed, as friends and brothers.  They, of course, found no difficulty with the climate, for in it they were born.

While we repudiate emphatically the idea that Mohammedanism can be a substitute for Christianity in civilizing Africa, yet it is only just that we should admit that Islam brings with it some influences for good into that benighted land—­influences that strongly appeal to the higher instincts and aspirations of the people, and are, therefore, an elevating power.  First of all, the One True God of Islam tends to lift the African above his idols, his fetich, his witchcraft and his cannibalism.  Then, the prohibition of wine and strong drink snatches the people from what threatens to be the vortex of their ruin—­intemperance; while Christian nations are now, to their shame and infamy, swelling the floods and increasing the velocity of that vortex by larger importations of intoxicating liquors.  Then, too, the followers of Mohammed are using the school of the prophets in the preparation of their missionaries.  The great training school, the Old University of Cairo, is said to number at times as many as ten thousand students of the Koran, a number which may well challenge a comparison with the Protestant Theological Seminaries of Europe and America, not only by their numbers, but by the astonishing success of their pupils as missionaries.  They run where we halt, they win where we fail.

It is now in order to ask if the Freedmen of America can be fitted to take a special part in the evangelization of Africa.  There are strong reasons for believing that they can be; they have race advantages similar to the Mohammedans, and they can readily obtain the acquired advantages of the white missionary.  In the first place, they are numerous—­eight millions now, and increasing rapidly.  In physical proportions they are stalwart and vigorous, inured to toil and capable of great exertion.  Their mental powers are quick and susceptible of wide culture.  Their capacity to acquire learning, even in the higher branches, has been abundantly proved in the schools they have attended.