WE WOULD draw special attention to the account we print this week of the ordination of six African priests in Bloemfontein Cathedral. With the natives was one white priest, Brother Felix, who was ordained deacon at Kelham, and accompanying the Bishop were a large number of his clergy, black and white alike, the sermon being preached by one of the natives. The Ceremony itself was beautiful, complete in its Catholic and most dignified ceremonial, and, as our correspondent says, the six priests have now been sent out with their Divine commission to be, maybe, the Saint Columbas and the Saint Patricks of the Bantu people. We have several times commented with pride on the splendid courage with which the Anglican Church in South Africa is fighting for justice for the natives, disregarding misrepresentation and caring nothing for the denunciation of Boer or Briton. This ordination service seems to us the complement indeed of the speeches recently delivered at the Synod in Cape Town. The Bantu are a virile and interesting people. It is certain that they will listen more eagerly to the Faith taught them in their own language by priests of their own race than by foreign missionaries, however devoted they may be. It seems to us that this Bloemfontein ordination must bring a little nearer the realization of the ideal, “Africa for Christ!”

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