Bushnell, Albert, Dd

Bushnell, Albert, D.D.

a Presbyterian minister, was born at Rome, N. Y., Feb. 9,1818. Having received a preparatory education, he entered, in 1840, Lane Theological Seminary, from which he regularly graduated. His enthusiasm for missions, especially to Africa, showed itself in the seminary, and he constructed a map of the "Dark Continent," with which he visited the churches in Southern Ohio, thrilling his hearers with his missionary appeals. On Nov. 5,1843, he was licensed to preach, and ordained by the Presbytery of Cincinnati as a missionary to Africa. He and a fellow-graduate, John Milton Campbell, sailed for Africa, on Jan. 1, 1844. When near the end of their voyage they were both prostrated by the coast fever. On March 18 Campbell died, and was buried at Cape Palmas, but Bushnell was spared to be for thirty-six years the apostle of the Gaboonregion. He was in some sense the father, and in every sense the hero, of Presbyterian missions in Africa. His visit to this country, and his appeals to the General Assembly in 1879 for a reinforcement of the mission, called forth expressions from that body of the high appreciation in which he and his work were held. On his return, he tarried three weeks at Madeira. But his heart was fixed on his beloved Africa, and he proceeded on his voyage, and in less than two weeks died, in sight of land, and was buried at Sierra Leone, Dec. 2, 1879. See N.Y. Presbyterian, Jan. 14,1880. (W. P. S.)