XVIMISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS[1]

The “untutored child of nature” whom we meet in the pages of Rousseau and Cooper, the “noble savage” of sentimental fiction, is not the savage of missionary literature.

Henry George, while repudiating the sentimental view, contrasts the personal independence of the savage with the dependence of the labourer of civilization whose skill is specialized until his labour becomes but an infinitesimal part of the varied processes which are required to supply even the commonest wants. The following is Mr. George’s attractive picture of the savage:

“The aggregate produce of the labour of a savage tribe is small, but each member is capable of an independent life. He can build his own habitation, hew out or stitch together his own canoe, make his own clothing, manufacture his own weapons, snares, tools and ornaments. He has all the knowledge of nature possessed by his tribe—knows what vegetable productions are fit for food, where they may be found; knows the habits and resorts of beasts, fishes and insects; can pilot himself by the sun or the stars, by the turning of blossoms or the mosses on the trees; is in short capable of supplying all his wants. He may be cut off from his fellows and still live.”[2]

2.Progress and Poverty, p. 256.

SEVERAL STRIDES TOWARD CIVILIZATION.A Group of Bulu.

This personal independence is a fact and it is one that appeals strongly to the imagination of those who see the savage at a distance and who think of him only asprimitive, instead of savage. His state seems closely akin to that social condition, described by an ancient poet, in which law, commerce, literature, science and religion are not specialized, but implicit in the daily life of each individual. Man loves the exercise of liberty for its own sake, regardless of aim and consequence. It seems to be a condition of manhood—of moral spontaneity and development. But the personal independence of the savage (when we see him not with the imagination but with the eyes) is the expression of his brute selfishness. Even his wife has no share in it; nor anybody else if he can help it; for the desire for liberty is but a step from the desire for power. There is no word in his vocabulary to express the idea of justice. And when we pass from his social condition to the inward man, himself, we find him the victim of a thousand abject fears and cruel tyrannies that enslave him.

Mr. George L. Bates, a naturalist, who spent several years among the Fang and gave me both sympathy and assistance in missionary work, tells a story of a Fang feud, the last incident of which took place a few months before I left Africa. I repeat the story told by Mr. Bates, almost in his own words:

Nzwi Amvam, a man of the Esen clan, had been killed by Bibane, chief of the Amvom clan, the enemies of the Esen. After some days a palaver was held to divide the dead man’s estate and decide to whom his seven widows should be given. These seven women were seated on the ground, in the middle of the street, while the assembled company, a miscellaneous crowd from that and surrounding villages, were seated on either side of the street in the shade of the low projecting palm-leaf roofs. The important men of the clan sat in the open palaver-house at the end of the street. After much oratory it was agreed that Ngon, eldest son of Nzwi Amvam, should receive two of his father’s wives, the other five being distributed amongthe near relations. Then the palaver broke up to be followed in the evening by a great dance with much drumming.

When young Ngon lay down that night he considered that he had become an important man. Before his father’s death he had one wife; now he had three. He had also received from his father’s estate a store of iron rods and spearheads sufficient to purchase another wife. And, besides, he had a gun—the only one in his town—which, it is said, had come from the land of white men, beyond the great sea. He was in a fair way to become a great man. But Ngon was not happy. He was thinking of the man who killed his father; he was thinking of Bibane, and a passion stronger than the desire for wealth and greatness took possession of him. He feltolun, that isshame,grief,rage, an intolerable thirst forrevenge—he feltolun.

Many moons Ngon waited his opportunity. Many times he had his men conceal themselves along the forest paths that led to the village of the Amvom; but the enemy was too wary for them. At length, the day came that Ngon levelled his gun from behind a tree at the son of his enemy, who was passing alone and unsuspecting, and sent a rude fragment of an iron pot tearing into his chest. The wound was mortal. In a few hours they heard the wailing of the women of old Bibane’s village. Then the death-drum of the Amvom boomed through the forest and Ngon heard it with fierce delight. Theolunwas removed from his breast. And, besides, he was now a great man beyond question, for he had killed an enemy with his own hands.

In Ngon’s village, however, when the shouting was over they reflected that Bibane was a man to take revenge with interest; and the Amvom were a powerful clan. It was the beginning of a period of alarms. Often at deadof night the whole town was terrorized when the cry was raised, “The Amvom are coming!” For many moons the women never went to the plantations except when armed men went before and behind them in the path. Ngon himself usually headed the company. He also kept strict watch of the gloomy border of the forest surrounding the plantation while his wives dug cassava and filled their baskets, or cut bunches of plantains and bananas to carry home. But as time passed and the Amvom did not appear Ngon began to keep less strict watch.

One day his most faithful wife, young Asangon, went to a plantain grove under her care, far from the village, and came back reporting other enemies to be watched besides the Amvom. The plantain stocks were twisted and eaten off and all the bushes around trodden flat. Elephants! A few nights and their depredations would cause famine in the village. So with some of his young men, Ngon went to the place, built a booth of palm branches, prepared a bed, gathered fuel for a fire, and returned to the village. At dusk he set out for the plantain grove, accompanied by his wife, Asangon, and their little son, whom Asangon carried astride her right hip, sitting in a wide strap of monkey-skin which was slung over her shoulder. Ngon walked ahead with his gun and a gum torch lighted to show the way and to frighten evil spirits in the dark forest. They were going to sleep in the booth among the plantains for the purpose of scaring away the elephants. As he set out his white-haired mother cautioned him to look out for the Amvom. “They’re a crafty lot,” she said, “and want to cut your throat and eat you.” But the young man declared that Bibane’s people were far away on a hunt.

Four nights they slept among the plantains and scared the elephants away. It was noticed also that Asangon seemed to enjoy going out thus, and spending the nightwith only her husband and her baby. It had probably never occurred to her to form a distinct wish to be Ngon’s only wife, but her happiness in the present arrangement was none the less keen, and was made all the keener by the apprehension that it would not last long.

The fourth morning, as they went through a bit of uncleared forest, suddenly at a turn in the path a spear whizzed past Ngon, and he saw among the trees the face of Bibane and the Amvom. He raised his gun and pulled the trigger; but the white man’s weapon failed him this time. The powder flashed in the pan and that was all. At the same moment hearing a cry behind him, he turned to see his little son pierced with the spear that had missed himself, and dying in his mother’s arms. The Amvom sprang out upon him; and it was all he could do to break from them and escape into the forest, leaving his wife a captive and his son dead. It was now in the Esen villages that the wailing was heard; while there was dancing and drumming among the Amvom.

But Ngon Nzwi again feltolun. In the dusk of the following morning while the people were still in their beds, his voice was heard in the street, rousing them from their sleep.

“People of this village,” he cried, “descendants of Ndong Amvam, who first came from the east and founded this settlement, I am Ngon Nzwi, son of Nzwi Amvam, son of Amvam Ndong, son of Ndong Amvam; I am head man of this village. Bibane of the Amvom killed my father, Nzwi Amvam, and now he has killed my child, captured my wife, and tried to take my own life. May that man of the family of Amvam who fails to help me in my revenge see his own people dead corpses! And my revenge will not be complete until I have eaten the flesh of the arm that threw the spear yesterday.”

The gruesome threat was literally fulfilled. Manyseasons passed before the opportunity came; but it came at last and the dead body of Bibane lay at his feet. His wives knew what was to be done with the right arm and they prepared the feast for Ngon. Some of his closest friends joined him in it, but there was no dancing or story-telling, and not many words were spoken about it by his people. For the memory of it weighed upon their spirits.

The personal independence of the savage does not constitute thesimple lifeof our idealizing imagination. There still are foes without andolunwithin,—not to speak of hostile spirits and the fear of witchcraft.

Guizot in hisHistory of Civilizationdefines civilization asprogress, the progress ofsociety, and the progress ofindividuals; the melioration of the social system and the expansion of the intellectual and moral faculties of man. And these two elements, according to Guizot, are so intimately connected that they reciprocally produce one another. When we speak of the authority of example and the power of habit we admit, perhaps unconsciously, that a world better governed, a world in which justice more fully prevails, renders man himself more just.

That is true; but society is moralized by ideas; and ideas must work through the brains and the arms of good and brave men. Therefore Christianity addresses itself primarily to the individual; though it does not ignore social conditions. It is easier to love men, especially alien men, in the mass than to love them individually. Rousseau, it is said, loved mankind but hated each particular man; and there are those among us who would fight for the freedom of the Negro race but would not walk a block with an individual Negro. The love of Jesus is an aggregate of individual and personal loves. It wasone sheepthat went astray whom the shepherd followed weary and footsore till he found it; it isonesinner over whose returnthere is joy in heaven. The missionary is first of all an evangelist, not a social reformer. Christianity aims at the redemption of man, first in his individual character, and then in his associate life.

Christianity is so intricately interwoven with our own civilization, its influence upon our characteristic institutions is so subtle, that it is not easy to say where its beneficence begins or ends; and many among us are constantly attributing its social effects to other causes. But introduced into Africa its power as a social force at once becomes obvious. It comes in contact with a social condition which presents the extremest contrast to that of our civilization, a condition which is hostile at almost every point to the spirit of Christianity and that has remained unchanged probably for ages; it comes as an evangelistic agency, not working directly for social reforms; but within the lifetime of one man society is transformed almost beyond recognition by the abolishment of social evils, the implantation of institutions of education and philanthropy, and the beginning of all that is highest and best in our civilization.

Let us not exaggerate the difference between civilization and savagery. It is always necessary to check the dramatic instinct, which for the sake of a telling contrast would set the worst aspects of heathen barbarism over against the best or even ideal aspects of Christian civilization. Civilization is still far from perfect and savagery is not wholly savage.

The interval between civilization and the savage state is never so great as that between the latter and an animal state. No animal uses fire; though I recall that Emin Pasha declared that he had witnessed a procession of African monkeys carrying torches;—but we didn’t see it. No animal cooks its food; no animal wears clothing; no animal makes either tools or weapons; no animalbreeds other animals for food; no animal has an articulate language. Moreover without a certain degree of order, intelligence and justice, human society, even that of the savage, could not continue to exist.

But one going from America to Africa is impressed only by the contrast; and he necessarily reflects upon it and seeks to define it.

The first contrast between civilized society and that of Africa which impresses one is that ofinterdependenceandindependence. I lived very simply in Africa, and yet the whole world contributed to my simple fare. On my table there was butter from Denmark, milk from Switzerland, rice from India, sugar from Cuba, coffee from Brazil, dates from Arabia, other fruits from France or from California, vegetables from England, meats from America—and so forth. I did not even know where the wheat was grown from which my bread was made; nor whether the cattle that supplied beef had first grazed in Argentina or on the prairies of the Canadian Northwest. It was the same with the materials and furnishings of the house I lived in and the clothing I wore. The whole world contributes to the material well-being of each civilized man. In contrast to this the native African—before conditions are modified by civilization—supplies all his own needs. He has the assistance only of his wife and he could dispense with that. The entire provision for his material well-being is furnished within the area of his visible horizon or within the radius of an hour’s walk from his village. There is no regular buying or selling and no money.

In this social condition men are very much alike, and there is a close approximation to equality. Each man possesses all the knowledge of his tribe and can do what any other man can do; there is no “differentiation of function,” and no interdependence. There is only nature’sown difference of male and female; the only real society is that of the family. The village is an enlarged family the maximum size of which depends upon the necessity of combining against a common foe. African society, therefore, beyond the family, has scarcely more coherence than a herd of gregarious animals. It is not an organism but a mere aggregation of individuals.

The interdependence of civilization is largely the result of man’s increasingconquest of nature; and this is the next contrast between civilized society and that of Africa. The difference between the canoe and the steamship is typical. Improved means of transportation, beginning with the use of steam, has made possible the exchange of products between remote countries. The ever-increasing knowledge of nature, resulting in mechanical inventions, has made near neighbours of the nations. We read the news of the world each morning. Money contributed in New York to-day for the relief of a famine in China is distributed there to-morrow. The whole world is embraced in our daily thought and interest. The African, unless he lives by a river, knows nothing of the world beyond the farthest village to which he has walked. Not even the invention of the wheel has reached him. The civilized man has made nature supplement himself; has made himself swifter than the swiftest of animals and stronger than the strongest, and has multiplied a thousandfold the product of his labour. In order to disseminate the benefits of this increasing conquest of nature there arises a demand for skilled labour; and upon the principle that a man can do but one thing in a lifetime and do it well, different classes appear, performing different functions in the social body, dependent upon one another as the various organs of the body depend upon one another, and society becomes an organism developing from simplicity to complexity.

Theintellectual developmentof the civilized man as compared with the savage—his knowledge of the world in which he lives, and of man himself—his science and philosophy, his refining enjoyments of literature and music—all that is embraced ineducationcreates even a greater difference than that of material well-being. As steam and electricity have annihilated space so the printing-press has annihilated time. The knowledge and the wisdom of the past are recorded for our benefit. A pigmy standing on a giant’s shoulders (Macaulay observes) can see further than the giant; and a schoolboy of our times knows more astronomy than Galileo. Each generation stands upon the shoulders of the preceding generation. There is nothing in any way corresponding to this in Africa. There is no increase of knowledge and no expanding intelligence. The intellectual stagnation, the stifling mental torpor of an African community must be experienced in order to be realized.

Another striking difference between America and Africa is theauthority of customin Africa, and its resulting social immobility. Returning to America after only a few years in Africa one is surprised and somewhat bewildered by the changes that have taken place. It takes considerable time to adjust oneself to altered conditions. In Africa there is no trace of any change in customs, or any alteration of methods, from time immemorial. Conduct, even in its details, is governed by custom. Nobody questions its authority; nobody violates it. The appeal to custom is final.

For instance, the rite of circumcision is universally practiced and rigidly regarded, but nobody knows why. There may be a good reason for it—I believe there is—but they have forgotten it. Or, to give an example of its authority even in trivialities, the slavers in the old days trained the men of the Kru tribe to work on ships andthereafter finding them useful allies persuaded them to put a distinguishing mark upon themselves so that none of them might be taken and enslaved by mistake. The mark is a tattooed band running down the middle of the forehead to the tip of the nose. With the suppression of the slave-trade the usefulness of this ugly disfigurement of course became obsolete; but the fashion was meanwhile established and to this day every Kruman is thus tattooed. He has forgotten its origin. If you ask him the reason for this mark he thinks that he gives a perfect explanation when he says: “It be fashion for we country.” To ask him the reason for the custom is equivalent to asking why right is right. The finality of the appeal to custom is like our appeal to the ten commandments. Of course the authority of custom in Africa serves to check personal tyranny and to modify the principle that might is right. It thus prevents society from going backward; but it also prevents it from going forward; a thousand years are as a day. Mobility is a condition of progress.

A more radical difference between the civilized man and the African than any we have yet mentioned is that ofwork. It is not merely a contrast between actual work and idleness, but a contrast of attitudes that constitutes this difference. “Use, labour of each for all,” says Emerson, “is the health and virtue of all beings.Ich dien, I serve, is a truly royal motto. And it is the mark of nobleness to volunteer the lowest service, the greatest spirit only attaining to humility. Nay, God is God, because He is the servant of all.... All honest men are daily striving to earn their bread by their industry. And who is this who tosses his empty head at this blessing in disguise, and calls labour vile, and insults the workman at his daily toil?”

This is everywhere the sentiment of the truly civilized man. He may be lazy but he still recognizes the dignityof labour. But the African recognizes only the dignity of idleness and deems it the true badge of superiority. Work is not so obnoxious to his laziness as it is to his self-respect. It is the brand of inferiority. It is notexertionthat he hates: he exerts himself in war and in hunting. It is when work assumes the form ofservicethat it offends him. Manhood, he believes, consists in self-assertion as contrasted with self-sacrifice. His ideal is not to minister but to be ministered unto. Therefore work is relegated to women, who are weaker and cannot resist the imposition.

It is only necessary to point out one more difference between Africa and civilization; and in this last, it seems to me, we have before us the difference that is really fundamental: it istrustworthiness.

Civilization depends upon this quality in men. To the entire social structure of civilization each individual contributes strength or weakness according to his trustworthiness. In New York it has sometimes been found, upon investigation, that in the steel frame of certain high buildings many of the rivet holes were filled with soap and putty instead of rivets. In the same city not long ago, in the family of a prominent physician, the maid who had the care of the children went calling on a friend and found that in the friend’s home there was scarlet fever. The maid considered only that she had already had scarlet fever and was therefore safe from it. So she made the call, but she carried the fever back to the physician’s home and his children died from it. Such exceptions prove the rule, namely, that trustworthiness is the social cement of civilization.

A Fang village of a hundred persons can hold together constituting a society; but as soon as it grows to a group of about two hundred it goes to pieces and forms new villages. The men of the smaller village are more closelyrelated, are brothers, and affection, a sentiment of brotherhood, insures a certain amount of honesty in their mutual relations. As the relationship widens this sentiment weakens and distrust takes the place of confidence. And the worst of it is that they distrust each other because they really know each other; because they areuntrustworthy. Distrust is the dissolution of society.

Some years ago at Batanga the white traders introduced a “trust system,” whereby a quantity of goods were entrusted to a native, that he might go to the interior and trade with the expectation of paying for the goods with ivory or other trade produce upon his return to the coast. This simple arrangement was regarded by the trader as extremely satisfactory. He charged enormous prices in ivory for his goods, and besides—theoretically—he got the ivory, which otherwise was difficult to procure. He did not worry about the payment; for the German governor, being an obliging gentleman, and wishing to stimulate trade, threatened long imprisonment and lavish flogging to any and every native who should betray his trust; who, for instance, would spend the goods in buying a number of wives for the time being, in giving large presents to all his relations, or in making merry with the whole community and wasting his substance in riotous living. The iron hand of the Kaiser would prevent all that, and the trust-system would soon make Batanga a centre of commerce and civilization. Of course all the enterprising young natives hurried to get goods that they did not have to pay for until some other time, realizing only the foolishness of worrying about the future, and that possession is ten-tenths of the law in Africa.

Well, after a great while they all came back accompanied by the Kaiser’s soldiers. When the old matter of the goods was mentioned to them and a longing for ivory was expressed, the response was uniform: “Dem goods?Dem goods you done give me? Why, mastah, all dem goods done loss.”

At the very earnest appeal of the missionaries, reinforced by the limited capacity of the jail at Kribi, a law was finally passed abolishing the trust-system in that particular form.

It was not fair. The poor native’s sense of moral responsibility was unequal to the demand made upon it. For the same reason a high form of civilization cannot be superimposed upon a morally degraded people. Their moral responsibility would not be equal to its demands; it would bear too hard upon them even as upon children; it would crush them.

In thus recording the successive contrasts between civilization and the savage state, I am not conscious of exploiting a theory, but have rather recorded the differences that impressed me in the course of actual experience in Africa; and I have recorded them somewhat in the order of their importance, passing from outward and manifest differences to those that are less obvious and more fundamental. But we find that we have gradually passed from social conditions to individual qualities and that the fundamental difference ispersonal character.

A short time after the organization of a church among the Fang, theAyol Church, I held a communion service in which about sixty persons, some of them from distant towns, sat together at the “Lord’s Table.” Let the reader imagine himself at that service with me; and let us consider briefly the social energy of the new moral forces represented by that service.

The very first thing that we observe in contrast to the surrounding heathenism is that both men and women are partaking together of this symbolic feast. The Fang man does not eat with his wife; so here immediately a custom is violated and the equality of woman is recognized.This same principle has abolished polygamy, and there is not a polygamist at this table. The authority of custom in its chief stronghold is challenged and overthrown by a divine law that judges all customs, however ancient, and which is henceforth the highest authority. The sacred institution of the family is purified. It is not by ecclesiastical enactment that polygamy is abolished; the enactment would be ineffective but for the higher estimate of woman which Christianity has introduced by exalting those qualities in which she especially excels, and establishing a mutual relation as incompatible with polygamy as with polyandry.

We also observe that these sixty persons represent many various clans of the Fang, and even different tribes, for there are two Mpongwe women present. The heathen Mpongwe despise the Fang. And between the different clans of the Fang themselves there are ancient feuds and relentless hatreds. But the very meaning of this service isfellowship.

The heathen Fang have no salutation, and need none; their instinct is to hide rather than to meet. But the people who meet at this service salute each other with the wordmonejang—brother, orsister. And they did not learn this salutation from me; for I had never used it thus; but where the Spirit of Christ is, there is the instinct of brotherhood. This Christian society, therefore, although scattered far and wide, and having no material interests in common, is yet drawn together by an invisible bond which is already stronger than all the disintegrating forces of the savage state. When the population of a Fang village reaches the number of two hundred its dissolution is imminent. But each member of this Christian society has pledged himself to the conversion of others; and as the society grows its coherence increases.

In their worship also, as well as in their fellowship, we find certain principles of social energy. Their view of God and of the world makes possible theconquest of nature, which is the basis of our material civilization. These men and women have all parted with their fetishes. That means that they have defied the multitude of evil spirits in whom they once believed and have definitely committed themselves to faith in one God, the Father of all, in whom mankind are brothers.

But it means more than this. The spirits of evil in whom they believed were localized in the objects of nature and to their presence all natural phenomena were due. Nature was therefore lawless and hostile. But these demons have all been cast out by the presence and power of God in nature. They now thank Him for the fruitfulness of their gardens and they pray to Him in the midst of the storm. One mind, a divine intelligence, presides over nature and the world is not run by magic, but governed by law. They do not comprehend the full content of their faith; neither do we. But they are fundamentally right and education will do the rest. They already have that knowledge upon which theconquest of naturedepends.

We observe that many of those present in this service have books. The books are the Gospel of Matthew and the book of Genesis, which have been translated into their own language—the first Fang books. Nearly all the younger persons present and some of those who are old have learned to read that they might read these books. We are never quite prepared for the thirst for knowledge, the intellectual awakening, incident to their spiritual birth. They live in a new world; they are citizens of a world-wide kingdom and they want to know all about it. Poor as they are they will soon be giving of their slender means for the spread of the Gospelamong people whom they have never seen. We are bound to respond to this desire for knowledge and to encourage it to the utmost. Education is not a mere expedient by which the missionary obtains the good-will of the people and secures a hearing for the Gospel; it is a demand created by the Gospel itself and henceforth the necessary adjunct of evangelistic work. Many, like myself, have gone to Africa intent upon evangelistic work, and before long have chosen to spend most of their time in the schoolroom.

Again, in this service, they celebrate, in the death of Christ, aself-sacrificing service; and to this same spirit of self-sacrifice as against self-assertion, they all are solemnly pledged. This attitude of mutual service is another strong factor of coherence. It constitutes not only the best society possible, but also the most progressive, and it is, for our purpose, especially significant in that it implies an altered attitude towards work. They still have to contend with natural laziness, but they are no longer the victims of a false ideal. Service is not a disgrace, but a duty.

In the organization represented in this service, as well as in its fellowship and its worship, we shall find principles of social progress; we shall find this Christian society a model of organization for all the social institutions and native governments that progress may in the future demand.

Guizot, speaking of legitimacy in government, says:

“The conditions of legitimacy are the same in the government of a religious society as in all others. They may be reduced to two: the first is, that authority should be placed and constantly remain, as effectually at least as the imperfection of all human affairs will permit, in the hands of the best, the most capable; so that the legitimate superiority, which lies scattered in various partsof society, may be thereby drawn out, collected and delegated to discover the social law,—to exercise its authority. The second is that the authority thus legitimately constituted should respect the legitimate liberties of those whom it is called to govern. A good system for the formation and organization of authority, a good system of securities for liberty, are the two conditions in which the goodness of government resides, whether civil or religious. And it is by this standard that all should be judged.”

And to this standard the government of this mission church conforms. The two elders who officiate in this service have been chosen by the members of the church themselves, and for no reason whatever except their moral worth and wisdom. One of the elders is Mb’Obam, a noted chief, a man of wide influence even among the heathen. The other, Okeh, is in all, except moral worth, the opposite extreme from Mb’Obam; diminutive and weak in body, he is useless for war and non-combative in disposition, the kind of a man whom the heathen despise and ridicule—but so kind, so pure in heart, so humble, that none was more worthy to be exalted and these Christians proved themselves by their perception of his worth. The progress of this African community, implied in the choice of such a one as Okeh for leader, has leaped across uncounted centuries.

The man whom the Mpongwe church has recognized as pastor for many years—though he was never ordained—was born a slave. The place of highest authority is attainable to those in every rank; no class is especially privileged; no privileges are hereditary; there is no such thing ascastewithin this society; and therefore it is more likely to be progressive and not stationary. In short, superiority, wherever found, is recognized, drawn out, and invested with authority to govern.

For thesecurity of libertyit is only needful to mention the Bible, the authoritative word, to which all have equal access. But there is another factor. This government uses no force. It declares that temporal and spiritual authority are essentially different and must be kept forever separate; that physical force has rightful authority only over the actions of men, but never over the mind or its convictions. This declaration of theliberty of conscienceis the parent of civil and political liberty.

It is difficult for the American, accustomed to the separation of spiritual and temporal power, to realize the utter confusion in the African mind—and in heathen minds elsewhere—of moral authority and physical force. Tyranny is the inevitable consequence of this confusion. It is easy to object that Europe at one period in her history had to contend against the Church itself for this very principle of separation and the liberty of conscience which it involves. But at an earlier period, it was the Church which first instructed Europe in this principle by insisting upon the separation of the two authorities, and which implanted the idea of liberty; and when it became obscured it was by rebellion within the Church that it was recovered. The Church is not repeating on the field of missions the mistakes of its history in Europe; and therefore as a social force it progresses with accelerated velocity.

Such then are the forces of social progress which are inherent in this Christian society, forces which are altogether new and strange in Africa, forces which place this society in the line of continuous and indefinite progress towards civilization.

A FASHIONABLE WEDDING IN KAMERUN.

Already we may see the beginning of civilization in material things. The first thing that emerges from the inchoate society is the home. I have already spoken of the abolishment of polygamy; but a home also implies a house. The houses of a Fang village are built on either side of one narrow street, under one continuous roof, and consist of a single room separated from the next dwelling by a half-open bamboo partition. But the Christian wants a better house, because he is a better man. It is noticeable that the Christian man separates himself from this common village life and builds a single house of several rooms for himself and his family. All Christians do not immediately do so; but the tendency is sufficiently marked to insure the certainty that the idea of the home will prevail. These better houses have windows, and doors on hinges, and sometimes even a board floor. There is therefore a demand for carpenters and other skilled workmen. Here is where the industrial school responds to an exigent need and is both an adjunct and a direct result of evangelization. Here also is the beginning of a division of labour and that interdependence which characterizes civilization.

The Fang Christians are all clothed; for decency is a Christian instinct. The cloth which they now wear is imported from England and America. They pay for it with the produce of their gardens. For this purpose they raise more than they need for their own consumption. Their gardens are therefore much larger than they used to be, and both men and women work in them. Having better clothing they must take care of it; therefore they want to sit on chairs, instead of on the ground. Neither can they keep their clothing decently clean if they eat their food with their hands. Knives and forks and plates and tables are soon added to the household furnishings. One thing demands another; each added comfort requires more work. Those men now expend in productive labour the energy which they formerly wasted in conflict.

Such is the general course of development towards asocial community having intercourse with the civilized world; receiving much, and adding its increment to the material welfare of the race and the sum of happiness.

All the constitutive elements of civilization may be summed up in two things: a condition of interdependence in material things, and a sentiment of human brotherhood. But we have seen that the progressive interdependence of civilization is based upon an increasing knowledge of nature, and that this knowledge of nature becomes possible to the African through the Christian view of God and the world. We have seen that faith in Christ effects a mental and moral regeneration of the individual from which springs a sentiment of brotherhood and spirit of mutual trust which is the coherence of society without which it becomes a heap of sand. The saying is reasonable, therefore, that civilization is but the secular side of Christianity; and all the good which social progress comprehends is embodied in the prayer which these Fang Christians unitedly offer:Ayong dia nzak—Thy kingdom come.

Commerce and government in our day are making the claim that they are the all-sufficient forces of civilization throughout the world. But however much they have accomplished that is beneficial, we cannot forget the evils which have attached to them; that in Africa and elsewhere commerce is responsible for the sale of rum and for other evils as degrading; and that government by the civilized powers, despite such grandiloquent phrases as “the onward march of civilization,” has consisted very much in taking territory from those to whom it belonged, because, forsooth, “they have a darker complexion or a flatter nose.” Both commerce and government are invaluable adjuncts of Christianity; but it has within itself the potentialities of both.

That prayer,Thy Kingdom Come, is being offered dailyin every land and in every language of the world and everywhere it has the same meaning. It means that all those who sincerely offer it, however great the contrast of their history and traditions, are a community, united by the stronger bonds of aims and ideals. It means that they have a vision of a united race of mankind; a vision of all nations drawn into one common brotherhood in commerce, government and religion, and that they believe in the abounding adequacy of the Gospel of Christ for its realization. Society resounds with the cry of the oppressed and the dissonance of human passion; but still they cherish the vision of unity and peace; and they believe that thiskingdom of Godis the end towards which all social progress moves.

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