THE YORUBA MISSION.

(Continued from p. 157.)

M

the

EANTIME army of Dahomey attacked town after town all round Abeokuta, and came nearer and nearer to the city walls. The Christians met day after day to pray that God, Who had before been their Refuge, would save them again out of the hands of their enemy. Their prayer was heard. When Badalung had all but reached Abeokuta, he turned away with all his army and went back to his own country, without even attempting an attack. He returned once more, two years later, but his army was beaten back and defeated even more thoroughly than in 1851.

Thus God's servants were kept in safety from enemies outside Abeokuta, but there arose enemies within the city walls who were even more dangerous. A change came over the Abeokutans, and the heathen began to show less kindness to their English friends.

They thought themselves insulted because the English Government had protected tribes in the Yoruba country who were their enemies, and they would not understand that the missionaries at all events had nothing to do with the matter. There was NOVEMBER, 1874.

another reason why they cared less to be friendly with the English. They made an alliance with a slave-hunting tribe, and, strange as it seems, many of the Abeokutans, whose fathers only forty years before had themselves fled from slavery, followed the example of their fierce allies, and began to think slave-trading was far more manly and honourable than peaceful trading in palm-oil and cotton, which the English had encouraged them to carry on. Shodeke

and Sagbua, and other chiefs, whom Mr. Townsend had found in Abeokuta when he first visited the city, were wise men, who tried to rule the people for their good, and they were willing to learn the white man's ways, when these seemed to them better than their own; but a very different class of men had followed them, who were selfish and ignorant; they wanted the people to go back to the old customs, and were anxious to get rid of the English and their teaching.

The chiefs did not openly turn against the missionaries, but reports were heard from time to time that they would not be allowed to stay much longer; and the Mohammedan slave-traders would say mysteriously, "there was only one thing they wanted in Abeokuta, and they hoped soon to get it." Sometimes it would be rumoured that no one would be allowed to dress like the Europeans, and Mr. Townsend noticed that though the chiefs did not seem unfriendly, they did not consult with him as they had so often done before. The native Christians watched very anxiously to see what all this could mean. They dreaded to lose their Christian teachers, and they hoped the feeling of their fellow-townsmen against the English might pass away. This trying state of things lasted for some time; the services were carried on as usual, and the Christians were allowed to attend the churches without any questioning, till at last one Sunday morning all the anger and ill-will that had been gathering in the hearts

of the heathen broke out into a storm of rage in every part of the city, and the Church in Abeokuta went through the hardest of all the trials it had yet had to bear.

XIII." IN PERILS IN THE CITY."

You must know that the Christians were accustomed on the Sunday, before the morning school, to hold a service in the church about six or seven o'clock. They received the first warning that a plot had been formed against them after this early service on Sunday, October 13th, 1867. The bell had rung for morning school at Ake, and the scholars, old and young, were collecting at the door, when Mr. Wood, the missionary at that station, heard that a party of men sent by the chiefs were standing in the mission yard. "What was their message ?" he asked, and he was told that they were come to forbid the Christians attending the church and school. To avoid, if possible, any disturbance, Mr. Wood told his people that they had better return quietly to their homes, and that they must be careful to give no offence to the chief's messengers.

There was much wonder as to the meaning of the order given by the chiefs. They had not interfered with the services since the sad days of persecution in 1849, and the hearts of the Christians sank at the thought that even heavier trial might now be before them, for then many of the chiefs had been on their side, but this time all the heathen in Abeokuta seemed to have turned against them. There was clearly a general rising all over the city, for reports reached Ake that every church had been closed; still no tidings of worse treatment were given till three o'clock in the afternoon, when Mr. Faulkner, the missionary at Igbein station, came to seek shelter at Ake because his church and home had been destroyed. It ap