, R.E. Willoughby Middle row: Rev. V.S.Wright, Mrs. Ingham,
Bishop Ingham, Mrs Darwin Fox, Rev.
James Johnson, Rev. J.W.Dickinson Front row: Rev.F.W.Dodd, Rev. W. Darwin Fox Conversion of the "heathen" Yoruba was helped by similarities or analogies between
Christianity and the traditional
Yoruba religion. In 1878 Phillips wrote of an old woman who became convinced that "prayer is more efficacious than sacrifice" after her husband and her brother recovered from illness. On the other hand, Phillips reported that "the generality of our Lagos young men begin to think that polygamy is not opposed to the principles of Christianity". In the 1870s there were several outbreaks of
smallpox. In July 1879, a
Sango priest from out of town called on Phillips, and cynically described how he had accepted gifts to suppress the disease, which would not in fact happen until it had run its course and destroyed all the witches and charm-makers in the country. Later Phillips lost three of his four children to smallpox. He noted that some of the believers of the traditional religion attributed the disease to tolerance of Christianity by the Yorubas. His son
Thomas King Ekundayo Phillips, born in 1884, would become for many years organist and Master of the Music at the Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos. In 1885 a visiting mission reported that the Rev. Phillips at times served as an interpreter for CMS preachers at Yoruba services in Lagos. Towards the end of the
Yoruba Wars, the Lagos administration, acting through
Samuel Johnson and Charles Phillips, arranged a ceasefire in 1886 and then a treaty that guaranteed the independence of the Ekiti towns. The British House of Commons recorded its appreciation of the work that the two Yorubas had done for their country.
Ilorin refused to cease fighting however, and the war dragged on for several more years. ==Bishop of Ondo==