Читать книгу Mission to Kilimanjaro - Alexandre Le Roy - Страница 7

The pages you are about to read contain the report of a voyage of exploration to Kilimanjaro (East Africa). The voyage was undertaken in 1890 in order to study then-unknown nations so as to found new centers of evangelization.

Written for the Catholic Missions of Lyon, these pages first appeared as serial articles in that journal; they were then put together into one volume (Mame, Tours). That edition quickly ran out, but demand continued.

Truth to tell, Africa, still a closed continent only yesterday, is quickly transforming itself through European action. It thus serves some purpose to recall, albeit in ramble souvenirs, the way this great continent became open. This simple story of the founding of a Catholic mission was written for benefactors, associates, and friends; it appears today just as then published. The only change is in the last chapter, where the author, surprised to be still alive when so many of his confreres and friends have gone to the Master, indicates what became of the Catholic attempt at penetration into the interior, specifically into Kilimanjaro. And this would be for the serious reader—that is, for you all—the principal interest of this report, a report that never thought of becoming a book, and having become one, did not hope to again see the light of day.

One can see colleges, sponsors, seminaries, apostolic schools, boarding schools, and parish libraries finding readings of this genre as interesting as many others equally instructive and wholesome. In the past, such readings even inspired missionary vocations. They still can do so. May God be praised! May this prove to be so!

Alex. L. R.