In spite of the formidable obstacles against which, as we have seen, the Catholic missioners in Equatorial Africa had to struggle, the labours of the White Fathers of Algeria had met with splendid and almost unhopedfor results. The missions were extended and formed into four districts, viz., the two Apostolic Vicariates of Nyanza and Tanganyika, and the two Provicariates of Unyanyembe and the Upper Congo. Over the Vicariates Mgr. Lavigerie placed two bishops chosen from among his first subjects; the charge of Tanganyika was given to Mgr. Charbonnier, in the place of Father Deniaud, the former head of the mission, who, as related above, fell a victim to the poisoned arrows of a savage tribe; whilst Father Livinhac, who had been one of the first who reached the shores of the Nyanza, was raised to the episcopate, and received jurisdiction over the district lying around the lake.

It was in 1884 that Father Livinhac was summoned to Algeria to receive episcopal consecration at the hands of Cardinal Lavigerie. At first he declined the dignity, entreating that it might be conferred on one more worthy, and that he might be permitted to remain in obscurity amongst his beloved catechumens in Uganda. He was, however, constrained to yield; and the ceremony of consecration took place at Carthage, in the Chapel of St. Cyprian, of which we shall presently speak; on the spot which was formerly the scene of the combats and triumphs of the early martyrs.