Mr. Stanley, in a letter to Mr. A. Bruce, written
on October 15th, 1889, bears the strongest testimony to the reality of the Uganda conversions to Christianity. He says :—" These native Africans have endured the most deadly persecution,— the stake and the fire, the cord and the club, the sharp knife and the rifle-bullet have all been tried to cause them to reject the teachings they have absorbed." So far from being sur- prised, we should say that the usual " note " of coloured Christians was fidelity to death under persecution. The Japanese Christians died by the hundred thousand, and the Christians of Indo-China have borne every variety of torture and painful death. But then, so did the Chinese Mussulmans who were extirpated in Yunnan, and so do many Pagan com- munities when defeated by Mahommedans,—e.g., the fire- worshippers still lingering in Persia. The truth is, while many dark men become Christians in the highest sense, they all, when assailed about their faith, fall into the mood of Sir F. Doyle's " drunken private of the Buffs ;" they will not yield, lest they should seem to themselves less than men.
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