PROGRESS OF CIVILIZATION, &C. 455 
the present crisis in the Mission fields of Chris- 
tianity, is one of the brightest which has ever 
dawned upon these darkened shores. The ban- 
ner of the cross, at length in the hands of 
English churchmen, as well as other Christians, 
is being unfurled, and is shaking out her crim- 
son folds, to the Southern, Eastern, and Wes- 
tern winds of Africa; while scarcely a ship 
which sails across the Southern main, does not 
now bear to her ports, not only bales of mer- 
chandize and earthly wealth, but Missionaries 
and their families also, who go to swell the 
ranks of those already in the spreading fields. 
Education is beginning to scatter her seeds of 
knowledge far and wide. Legislation, with her 
laws, is becoming more firmly implanted, and 
more extensively known. Science is showing 
the glimmering lights of her lamp. Commerce 
is increasing, and religion and civilization, it 
is believed, are being firmly implanted and 
propagated* Thus is there a larger promise of 
peace and plenty to the land itself, and wealth 
and refracted strength held out for Britain, the 
mother-country. 
The increasing stores, also, of geographical 
knowledge of this hitherto " terra incognita" 
cannot but tend, in time, to develop the riches 
of the continent, and stimulate commerce and 
public enterprize. 
