THE EFIK TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE. 549 



attention taxed for ten or fifteen minutes, they got tired, and answered at 

 random, so as to get quit of the annoyance, as they deemed it, to which we 

 were subjecting them. However, this tedious preliminary work of acquiring 

 the language and giving it a written form, was eventually accomplished — a 

 work which is done to the hands of those who may come after us, enabling 

 them to attain free intercourse with the people in their own tongue at much 

 less expense of time and labour. 



" Having done this, we set ourselves to compose books, catechisms, read- 

 ing-books, hymns, for use in school and church ; and when we had collected 

 the bulk of the language into a dictionary, we commenced the translation of 

 the Holy Scriptures. Should God spare us to accomplish this, we conceived 

 that we should have done that which would justify all the expense of the 

 mission, and would give to Calabar a gift which would secure that, whatever 

 became of us, divine truth would live and grow in the land. By the good 

 hand of Grod upon us, our prayers have been answered, our purpose accom- 

 plished, and by the kind aid of the Scottish National Bible Society, for 

 several years the people have been in the possession of the whole of the 

 Scriptures in their own tongue. The Efik translation is one of the three 

 complete translations of the Bible in the languages of the Negro race, and I 

 believe it was the first. 



" In accomplishing such work, Missionary and Bible Societies manifest 

 themselves to be the great literary societies of the world. No literary or 

 scientific society has ever given to any people an alphabet. This work, of 

 importance above all others, has been taken up by the former class of 

 societies. By them the rude speech of the savage is formed into a written 

 medium of communication, and made to utter those sacred oracles which 

 ' bring fife and immortality to light,' by revealing Christ and salvation 

 through Him. And it is well that the work is left to such agency, as thereby 

 the foundations of the literature of so many nations are laid in Christian 

 truth. 



" Thus, then, was this preparatory work accomplished — stations formed, 

 as we had agents to occupy them, with their regular means of instruction in 

 church and school ; the language acquired and written, and the Scriptures 

 translated into it. What good can now be reported as the result of all this ? 

 Much, in many respects, to the whole of the tribe, by which it is raised from 

 that utter state of barbarism in which we found it ; though but a small part 

 of it is yet intelligently acquainted with the gospel, and a part still smaller 

 has received it to the saving of the soul. In evidence of this, the following 

 beneficial changes, which have passed over the community as a whole, may 

 be named. 



" The slave-trade was abolished, as 1 have stated, before we entered the 

 country, but domestic slavery still prevails, as throughout Africa, with the 



