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BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA 
Perhaps in the morning you awake ill with threatened fever. Sick, dazed, 
and trembling, you attempt to dress, but your host, who is learned in the 
treatment of such maladies, insists on your returning to bed where for days 
to come you toss and rave, while the vulture Death approaches in ever-narrowing 
circles, until by patient nursing, thoughtful care, unwearying attention the 
missionary and his wife have conquered the disease and restored you to health. 
Or, more probably, the first night’s quiet rest under a rain-tight roof, the good 
food and cheering kindness of your evening’s entertainment at the mission, have 
successfully dispelled the incipient malady, and at the clanging of the school- 
bell you awake from slumber, to find yourself light-hearted and full of energy, 
braced by this little interlude of comfort to face with stout determination the 
solitude of the wilderness. 
Your host and hostess are loth to part with you, and before you go, you 
must in very grace inspect the church or chapel and the schools ; listen while 
the school children sing a simple English glee, and “ God Save the Queen look 
over their specimens of hand-writing; and give them easy problems to solve 
in mental arithmetic. You may find it hard to take an interest in or suppress a 
repugnance for the hulking youths or plump girls, who instead of being—as they 
ought to be—engaged in hard wholesome manual labour, are dawdling and 
yawning over slate and primer, and in whose faces sensual desires struggle 
for expression with hypocritical sanctimoniousness; but the little children, 
the little, naked, bright-eyed children just captured from the village, and 
now demurely ranged in rows, solemnly picking out and wrongly naming 
cardboard A’s and B’s and C’s—you surely can find no difficulty in loving 
them, and saying something to encourage the missionary’s wife, whose pets 
they are? The school inspection over, you yield to very pressing invitations 
and stay to an early luncheon, after which your host starts you on the right 
road to your next destination, and your hostess slips some dainty package 
of eatables into your satchel. 
The foregoing sketch illustrates perhaps the commonest type of missionary 
household in Central Africa, for the bulk of our missionaries are Protestants and 
married. Most missionary societies distinctly encourage their agents to marry and 
take their wives out to live with them in Africa. 1 only know of one Protestant 
mission where celibacy is approved. That is the Universities Mission which 
is mainly supported by the High Church party in England, and the way 
in which its work is carried on is very similar to that of the Roman Catholic 
missions. In some respect the system of the Anglicans and Roman Catholics 
has much to recommend it. In their establishments there are separate com¬ 
munities of men and women who lead a life which is monastic only in its 
best features, and who not being troubled by any family affairs, can devote 
themselves to the work of the mission as long as health permits. But then 
it must be remembered that these celibate missions are to some extent served 
by picked men and women, who are mostly volunteers and receive no salary 
for their services, and are merely lodged and boarded at the expense of the 
mission. This system of celibacy undoubtedly does not suit the British 
missionary as a rule. Given an average man, young and in the prime of 
manhood, who is sent to work in Africa unmarried, unsolaced by the company 
of a wife, you will find him prone to be restless and discontented, or to find 
a consolation which arouses scandal. Married to a wife of his own nation 
and rank his whole career may be different. He is happy, contented, pure- 
