802 THE NILE SOUECES. 



owned of God for good, does not give it necessarily a claim to 

 perpetual support — does not prove that there may never come 

 a time when its overthrow will be a blessing. We repeat, there 

 need to be no debate about slavery in itself — about the Scrip- 

 tural warrant to hold property in man. The question is a 

 practical one — can commerce, science, philanthropy, and Chris- 

 tianity do their work in Africa while caravans are traversing 

 the country in every direction creating wars, spreading desola- 

 tion, inculcating darkest superstitions, inflaming the vicious 

 tendencies, dragging away hundreds of thousands in chains? 

 Can it be ? Then, is not Africa worth more to the world and 

 of more consequence to our Lord Christ than this trade ? Is it 

 not better to set every slave free than to leave a continent in 

 darkness and sin? The time has come, God is moving, and the 

 work will go on ; and if there are those who are touched by it 

 who receive reluctantly the command, let them remember that 

 it is not a compromise of principle to keep up with providence 

 — that is the noblest manhood and the truest Christianity which 

 subjects its theories and interests to the necessities of mankind, 

 and the demands of Christ's kingdom. 



But there are other great interests demanding our notice. 

 The great search for the Nile sources divide our attention with 

 the other claims of Africa : this is indeed the geographical ques- 

 tion of the day. This wonderful river has engaged the curiosity 

 of men from the earliest ages. It has been explored southerly, 

 through thirty degrees of latitude, and if the streams which 

 Dr. Livingstone followed with so much enthusiasm should 

 prove to be identical with it, it will have been found to extend 

 southerly more than forty degrees. However that may be, the 

 solution of the problem lies now in a comparatively small area; 

 the lakes of Baker, Speke, and Livingstone seem to hold the 

 long-sought answer between them. Baker visited all the Abys- 

 sinian tributaries, including the great Blue Nile, which had been 

 traced to its source by the celebrated Bruce, and discovered his 

 Albert N'Yanza some years ago, and announced his discovery 

 as the solution of the great problem, his theory being that the 

 equatorial lakes Albert N'Yanza and Victoria N'Yanza of Speke 

 supply the main stream, while the inundations are caused by 

 the sudden rush of waters from the torrents in Abyssinia during 



