20 General History of the Present-day Mission.

not permitted to do much, for a notice was posted in prominent places prohibiting missionary work, and warning all against attempting to change the religion of the people by talking in the streets or opening schools for such a purpose. The restrictions continued in force for some time, and in July, 1901, in response to a memorandum from the Committee on the subject, signed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Vice-Patron of the Society, and Sir John Kennaway, the President, Lord Lansdowne, then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, declared that it was ‘impossible to indicate any time when the restrictions now in force on the labours of missionaries in the Soudan could with safety be removed.’ Meanwhile an excellent site for a missionhospital had been obtained on the river-front at Omdurman, and there Dr. A. C. Hall, who had succeeded Dr. Harpur, had a quiet but increasing medical work; while at Khartoum, whither Mr. Gwynne had proceeded with the Committee’s consent as chaplain to the troops, a Coptic school was being carried on. At length, in 1902, the missionaries received permission to admit Moslem children, provided that religious teaching should not be given to them if their parents objected to it, and also to speak to Mohammedans about Christ in private conversation; public evangelistic efforts, however, were still forbidden.

The Call to the Southern Soudan.

The minds of the Committee now turned to the Southern Soudan, which General Gordon had called upon them to enter, and where the Government authorities had repeatedly expressed their desire that missionary work should be set on foot. That desire received fresh and emphatic expression in a letter written by Lord Cromer in December, 1904, in which he offered the Society a large sphere of work; and the Committee issued an appeal for men and money, bearing the title, ‘A New Call from the Heart of Africa.’ The call met with a prompt response, and in December, 1905, in the presence of nearly all the leading officials of the town, a party of six missionaries left Khartoum for the Southern Soudan under the leadership of Mr. Gwynne, who had been appointed Archdeacon of the Soudan and had consequently resigned his connexion though not his sympathy with the Society. The party eventually began work at Melwal, upwards of 1,000 miles south of Khartoum, among a pagan tribe