Page 169 - LD215 History of the Church in Africa A4 final

Nineteenth-Century Challenges and Progress

ritual, fear, and war. He partnered with CMS missionaries to establish
the Niger Mission in Nigeria. As Groves notes,

The first Christian baptisms in Abeokuta took place on Sunday,
February 6, 1848 before a congregation of some 250 people. Two
men and three women, of whom Samuel Crowther’s aged mother
was one, were received into the Christian Church. (2:57)

The work continued to grow and in 1851 Crowther was called to
England for consultations, after which he returned to provide leadership
for the expansion of Christianity to other areas. In 1854, two more
Africans were ordained for the ministry. After taking the gospel up the
Niger River in 1856, Crowther reported:

The reception we met with all the kings and chiefs of the countries
was beyond expectation. I believe the time has fully come when
Christianity must be introduced on the banks of the Niger: the
people are willing to receive any who may be sent among them.
(quoted in Groves, 2:74)

As a result, Crowther and J. C. Taylor, an African pastor from the Ibo
tribe, were commissioned to take the gospel up the Niger River.

Henry Venn made a bold proposal to the Church Missionary Society:
Crowther should be made Bishop in the Anglican Church and assigned
the leadership of West Africa. As a consequence, he was consecrated at
an historical session of the Anglican Church in Canterbury Cathedral on
June 29, 1864. Groves adds: “The University of Oxford had previously
entered his name on its roll of divinity graduates by conferring upon
him an honorary doctorate” (2:78).

When Crowther returned to Nigeria, he settled at Lagos and led
the expansion of the Niger Mission. He was instrumental in planting
churches in Brass and Bonny. Later, his son, who followed the
footsteps of his father, was ordained and placed in leadership at Bonny.
According to Hildebrandt, “There was persecution and in 1875 the first
Christian was martyred” (103). However, Crowther and his companions
persevered and were successful in introducing Christianity to slave
trading centers.

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