From the book: The Segregation Fallacy and Other Papers by D.D.T Jabavu

The old order changeth; and so we behold today in the drama of the life of the South African Bantu a slow but sure metamorphosis from a primitive conservatism to an aggressive modernism, in both political and religious affairs. The leaders in this movement are the younger educated men who owe their training to the elementary and secondary schools originally founded by European and American, missionaries. It is therefore natural that the youth in American churches and colleges, to whom this paper is addressed, should desire to know directly from the aboriginals what is agitating the minds of their conferences in African churches and colleges in regard to Western Christianity.

When the first white missionaries arrived in South Africa over a hundred years ago, the aborigines lived in real darkness under the haunting spectre of cruel superstition. Man-hunting savages infested the hinter­land bush. The reign of the witch-doctor was everywhere supreme; he stood above correction even by the chief, virtually wielding powers of life and death over any individual or society suspected, rightly or wrongly, of mischief. The Bantu, though boasting an efficient system of communistic tribalism, led a life devoid of spiritual outlook, enslaved by tyrannical witchcraft, and harassed by the constant dread of malevolent spirits. Departed spirits controlled the affairs and destinies of living men, whom they were able to behold from some mysterious point of vantage.

Such were the circumstances and people among whom the first missionaries came to labour. They brought words of hope to the hopeless, and of knowledge to the ignorant, substituting the sure salvation by Christ Jesus for the erstwhile blind fatalism. From all accounts they were fervent Christians, sincere in their love for the people whose spiritual redemption was their concern, and deeply genuine in their social relations with them. They did not hesitate to live in the often verminous huts of wattle and daub in which dwelt their converts, eating and travelling with them, and conducting themselves as if they were spiritually, socially and politically their guides, philosophers and friends.

During wars, whether with Europeans or between tribes, the lives of missionaries were held sacred even by the most bitter foes of the white invaders. This phenomenon alone is extraordinary testimony to their friendly relationship with the indigenous people. A single quotation Prof. du Plessis will illustrate this: -

"Missionaries were the counsellors of the chiefs under whom they dwelt and laboured. In many cases, indeed, the missionary was the uncrowned king of the community, able by his personal influence to persuade a whole tribe to move to more suitable sites and richer pasturelands. The repealing of what is now the East­ern Free State is in great part due to the mission­aries, who induced wandering tribes to cease their fugitive existence or their predatory career, and to adopt the settled life of agriculturists".

The value of their work, the good they have rendered to the Bantu, the foundations they laid for the modernisation of the African, not to mention the supreme gift of the Gospel, cannot be reckoned. They have placed generations of Africans in a position of being their grateful debtors. For the missionaries sacrificed home, relations and comfort for our sake, and for the service of God and humanity. But for them and their self-denial we would never have been in a position to express ourselves through any medium such as this article. They were the first whites to establish friendly contacts with Native Africans, in contrast with their commercial fellowmen who brought the sword and dispossessed us of some of our beloved territory. They were the only friends among the white race that we could count upon for better or for worse. A mission station was always a bright beacon and a lighted window in darkness. Of the three agencies of civilization, the missionary enterprise constitutes the most important, the other two being conquest and commerce. Missionaries in Africa transformed the lives of the blacks and inculcated the principles of humility, love, obedience, peacefulness of work and honesty, of cleanliness and sanitation. They founded schools, beginning with Sunday schools and elementary schools in the 'twenties, following in the 'fifties with secondary institutions of the type of Lovedale and Healdtown, of which there are now about 30 in South Africa. These are capped by the Native University College at Fort Hare, which trains for degrees in Arts, Science, Pedagogy, Theology and Medicine. In a word, the missionaries were beneficent in the humanities and peaceful arts of civilisation.

The Dutch farmers who first settled in the Cape bitterly resented the fraternal attitude of the missionaries towards the Natives, as they held that the Bantu should not be regarded or treated as Christian brothers but rather "be kept in their place with the lower order of animals." The final result of these differences, for which there was much to say on both sides, was that the missionaries who insisted on the human rights of the Bantu commanded supreme influence with Exeter Hall and the Imperial Government. The Boers, disgusted at the political interference of the missionaries, quitted the Gape Colony, migrating to what is now known as the Transvaal and Orange Free State and Natal, where they hoped to handle the black man according to their own notions unhampered by the officious interference of missionaries. Whatever be the merits of this controversy, whatever the mistakes committed by the missionaries against the Boers, or the injustice perpetrated on the Natives by the Boer farmers, this fact stands out today in bold relief that the Cape Colony is the one province in all South Africa where the black man has been treated with sympathy and justice, and where he has attained to happiness; whilst in the three Northern provinces he has always suffered an unhappy life, groaning under the yoke of contempt and injustice.

Serious as were these hindrances from European neighbours, the missionaries further encountered difficulties arising from the nature of the Bantu pre-Christian conditions and environment. The Bantu social system and customs, the rigid authority of the chiefs and counsellors, the legacy of sensualism due to the system of polygamy and the consequent degradation of the status of women, their love of strong drink and the absence of a true sense of responsibility before God and need of a Saviour, all these constituted real hindrances to successful effort in Christian work.

As one looks back over the history of Christian missions in Africa there are apparent now some serious mistakes both of omission and commission. They omitted to supply their converts with organised leisure activities, individual and corporate, as substitutes for the - Native pastimes, which they condemned as demoralising. In primitive life the youth of Bantu Africa were accustomed to indulge in organised dances and vigorous gymnastics performed under the auspices and regulation of the parents, particularly during the harvest season. As these were inseparable from superstitious customs and were accompanied by suggestive postures and movements of the body - there was no alternative for the missionary but to condemn them. The consequence was that the children of Christian converts lost the natural safety-valve for their exuberant energy and were deprived of many harmless amusements which legitimately belong to all adolescents regardless of race or place. In the case of the African boys and girls employed in urban areas this proved often disastrous. Their evening hours from seven till nine o'clock after the day's work, and their spare time on Saturdays and Sundays being' blank, they were avidly seized upon by the devil who gives idle hands thing's mischievous to do. This neglect to build dup substances partly accounts for the gangs of ruffians so notorious in city and village that they have become a problem for both Govern­ment and missions.

A second mistake is suggested by the dissolution of the ancient customs connected with puberty rites. All the Bantu observed rites of circumcision, which officially transferred boys into the dignity of manhood, and the puberty ceremonies for girls which changed girls into women Attached to both customs was repulsive revelry. It is unjust to take the missionaries to task for abolishing such debasing orgies but in eradicating them they went to the other extreme and threw away with the evil many elements of good. These festivals were occasions for pointed exhortation by the elders, for the inculcation of noble principles governing the duties of adult age. Nothing has been supplied of a Christian type to replace this age-long opportunity of youth for receiving authoritative precepts on the code of adult conduct in a manner compatible with national tradition.

Another mistake concerns the perpetuation of denominationalism. It is regrettable that the old tribal divisions should be again cross-divided by an extraneous sectarianism with the genesis of which the Africans had nothing to do. One outcome of this religious separatism is that the indigenous races have taken these divisions more seriously than did their authors; and the unnecessary emphasis laid on them by some missionaries has produced lively antagonism among the newly-born Christians. This has made it harder to convert the heathen, because when rival mission visits these bands they inevitably ask: "How many Gods are there? Which God are we asked to believe? "

The overlapping of missionary work due to denominationalism produces some absurdities. For instance in a village like Nancefield, near Johannesburg, containing only about five thousand Natives, there are as many as thirty-four different Gospel bells or waggon-hoops ringing at eleven o'clock of a Sunday morning; and in the Pretoria Location there are sixty-five places of worship!

While missionaries have taken tender care of the souls of their converts they have not shown similar concern for their land-rights; in certain cases. today the Natives actually believe they have lost their land to the mission station. This gives colour to the accusation that the missionary is the sweet-tongued predecessor of his land-grabbing brother. It is quite common now to hear a Native tub-thumper addressing a crowd of his fellowmen and decrying Western missions on the ground that:

"They told you to close your eyes and pray, and the other whites came and took away the land from behind your back while you kept your eyes closed."

And this:

" At first we had the land and the white man had the Bible; now we have the Bible, the white man has the land."

In one of our Native reserves an obstinate Native on being asked by the missionary why he would not surrender to Christ, replied sardonically:

" If I take this religion, then yon whites will take my name down in your book, and a government Magistrate will follow and take away my land in your absence."

The attitude of Christian missions towards war has always struck the African thinker as one of enigmatic inconsistency. While the New Testament exhorts, " Blessed are the peacemakers," the missionaries pray to the God of peace for victory in war. Is war Christian or un-Christian? And ought not Christians to be examples, in attitude of mind as well as deed, of the ideal standard of Jesus?

While Natives in town and country are enjoined to observe the Sabbath and keep it holy they see many Europeans in towns like Pretoria dressed in sports clothes on Sunday going out to play tennis, cricket, golf, and to disport themselves in public swimming baths. Then the Africans naively ask:

"Why do the white ministers allow their congre­gations to desecrate the Sabbath? "

Despite all these criticism, we do not lose sight of the wonderful good done for the aboriginal Africans through the advent of Western missionaries. The good certainly far outweighs the evil mistakes. We have already acknowledged the benefits they have brought to the Bantu in politics and education. They have trained Native successors of whom they may well be proud, to carry on the Gospel in connection with every church. All our Native leaders today in every sphere of life is men who owe their education and training to some missionary school or college. Some missionaries, like the late Andrew Smith of Lovedale, have endowed scholarships for the higher education of Native youth. Certain missions have given the Natives a generous chance to develop their own indigenous church under the auspices and encouragement of the mother Western missions. Such is the " Order of Ethiopia " instituted by the Church of England and placed under the control of an aboriginal clergyman. Such also is the " Bantu Presbyterian Church," founded by the missionaries of Scotland but now placed in the hands of the Natives.

Infinite is our debt to the missionaries for reducing our languages to writing, for permanently conserving our folklore and history, for establish­ing a considerable African literature and "Bibliography of African Christian Literature" by Rowling and Wilson, as well as for directing the pursuit of African philology, sociology' anthropology, and ethnology on scientific lines.

We shall now consider the present position and such questions as: "What do young Christian Native leaders really think of Western missions? What is the relation of missions to the unhampered development of indigenous Christianity and to the future well being of the African race? What do the Africans, Christian and non-Christian, think of the character and status of organised Christianity in their midst?

In order to correct half-truths and be fair to both sides we shall state first the criticisms that emanate from modern young Native educated leaders, and consider how far they are based on facts.

The most energetic Native organisation in the country and that which gets the loudest advertise­ment in the white press is the "Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union," commonly called the " I.C.U." Its leader, Clements Kadalie, is a Native of Nyasaland who formerly attended school under white missionaries at Livingstonia. The spokesmen of this organisation form the "left wing" or the extreme section of the present day intelligent Natives; that is to say they are the most outspoken critics of the Western missions and of white exploitation, capacity, materialism, and economic strangulation. Being in intimate touch with the suffering of the depressed proletariat, and being acquainted with the godless and unscrupulous employers of labour, they poignantly feel the brunt of the inexorable present struggle for existence. In their meetings they often deliver vigorous tirades against Western Christianity and mission­aries. Their charges are usually based on the exceptional lapses of individual missionaries. But one cannot rebut their censure on the failure of Western organisations to live up to the ideals of Christianity. They attack the social snobbery of some modern missionaries. They unfavourably contrast the apparently luxurious life of modern white missionaries who travel about in automobiles with the humbleness of the earliest missionaries who lived the lowly life of Africans. They affirm that Christianity fails to mollify the essential cruelty outside missionary circles, coarseness and selfishness of the ordinary white man. All this cannot easily be dismissed as being the rancourous vapourings of disgruntled agitators injured by exclusion from church communion, as indeed these speakers are mostly non-church members.

In a concise pamphlet entitled "The Bantu and Christianity" a young African clergyman, the Rev. H. M. Maimane of Transvaal makes some striking' animadversions that are typical of the opinion of critical. Christian African workers: -

"Most Natives have abandoned the Christian life through the white men who are non-communicants, nonservice-attenders, non-prayer-sayers, because they find the whites play­ing tennis, working or strolling about the streets, watering gardens, and what not, on Sundays while Church services are going on, and they wonder! They see and hear of so much unfairness done by individual whites here and there, and then by the State officials towards the blackman that they naturally wonder why people who preach to them of a loving good God who has no respect for colour should commit such wickedness towards other human beings; so they conclude that the whole thing, Christianity, is a deceit. ... All through South Africa Natives talk of Christianity as a ' white man's religion.' I personally do not think it a white man's religion. The very failure of the whites, failure to observe religious laws should be an indication to us that this is not naturally a white man's religion."

"It is a question whether the now prevailing idea that Christianity is a white man's religion is not the direct fruit of the European presentation of the Gospel to the aborigines; That the missionaries being keen, not only to spread the Good News, but also to win the Bantu to pay allegiance to European power preached and taught blunderingly at the expense of the Bantu's good grasp of the principles of Christianity. It seems they did not present this religion in such a way that their Bantu converts could associate it with their own religion. They did not start from the known to the unknown. They went hurry-skurry in condemning all that was Bantu. In fact some did not preach Christianity as such but rather the destruction of Bantu customs and used Christianity as an effective means towards that end, threatening people with hell-fire. Speaking from a close acquaintance of the Bantu Christian's regard for, and attitude towards, Christianity, one may assert that they, as a whole, were not, and are not, converted from Heathenism into Christianity, but from the '- isms' of Bantudom into those of Europe. They were led to plunge headlong into the unknown Western civilisa­tion, leaving all they knew and vitally depended on, behind to rot. They embraced Christianity not as such but because it was an essential element of Western civilisation. Their moral standard and their moral teachings were discouraged without anything substantial being; put in their place. Bantu inventions, handicrafts, songs, and so forth were discouraged as not compatible with real Christianity. Beads were cut off from the bodies of converts as not becoming to Christians. Now that the Natives, when awakening from the sleep of ignorance, find they have been made to lose their initiative, to lose their inventive powers, which were starved to death by men who to-day scorn­fully censure them as ' of non-inventive powers,' when they know truly that they found the Bantu with their inventions, now that the Bantu have to buy these utensils dearly from a Euro­pean store, now that they see clearly how their land with their ancient iron and tin mines has been cunningly taken, from them in order to render them uninventive and to enrich the white man by making him the sole possessor of all the material resources and necessities of this life, and of the best arable land; I say, when the Natives observe all this, they feel dizzy and find themselves resenting everything that is European and Western. So, without fairly testing Christianity and comparing it with their own religion, in essence, they condemn it only because Europeans in whom they are fast losing confidence, if it is not already irrevocably lost introduced it. Though some of the destroying of Bantu customs and of the deprivation or their rights to the land, was, and is done by the State and not by the actual preachers of Christianity; and though the Bantu themselves have been to a certain extent the direct agents of the downfall of some of their customs, they are not educated enough to see all this. They blame the missionary most as he is the nearest white man whose mode of living actions they can study and be brought into direct contact with. They hear him preaching Christ Jesus but do not see him or his State acting him. They say that the State is Christian; it has sent this man to blindfold and hoodwink us with this mild religion to the advantage of the State. The missionary and the politician are brothers working in collusion for the same end."

For space reasons we forbear to quote further from many other Native writers, such as Moses Mpahlele, Gabriel Mabeta, John Manelle, Miles Mzili, who write in similar strain.

The whole trend of Government legislation during the last seventeen years has undermined the influence of Missionary enterprise. Its fun­damental laws bearing- on land-tenure, political rights, passes, farm servants, poll taxes, industrial labour, culminating in the notorious Colour Bar Act of 1936 which has astounded even the world outside of South Africa, have been both oppressive and insulting to the susceptibilities of the Bantu. The colour bar on the Transvaal tram-cars, race discrimination in law-courts and public offices, not to mention innumerable other unpleasant points of contact, are injurious to the tender feelings of black men. " No square deal for the black man until the white man is served" seems to be the tacit governing principle; and the position between Christianity in the ideal and Christianity in practice becomes arrestingly paradoxical. Never­theless it is only fair to say that vigorous efforts have been made of late by the clergy of the English Church and the Dutch Reformed Church to protest against the more outrageous anti-Native Government measures; but the activity of a few years can hardly exonerate older missionaries from the lethargy and reticence of many previous years when the Natives underwent unspeakable suffer­ings from the tortures of the 1913 Natives' Land Act.

The biggest racial stumbling block to the whites of South Africa is the word "Equality." The fons et origo mali of all our legislative troubles and Native Church separatism is the denial of equal treatment for those Natives who have advanced enough in education, civilization, character and ambition to claim and deserve an equal to satisfy their reasonable ambitions to secure the ordinary advantages and requirements for themselves and their children. Many white race seem to be determined to deny the black race the chance of getting land, and education, adequate labour wages, officials billets, and landed property rights in urban areas on equal terms with the whites. Social intermixture and miscegenation the black man does not beg nor want. But we believe that the spirit of the New Testament gives us the justification to expect from the missionaries at least, if not from the rest, an acknowledgement of the principle that in the eyes of God all men are equally precious and are by interference entitled to equality of treatment in the ordinary affairs of life even where local prejudice otherwise forbids social admixture and intermarriage. We claim equality of opportunity, nothing more or less. This is the vexed question of the "Colour Bar" by virtue of which the Constitution of the South Africa Act of 1909 lays down in Clause 26 a racial bar or stigma against the eligibility of all Non-Europeans to membership in Parliament, bar always quoted as a precedent to exclude black men from the legitimate fruits of their labour in industry and public services. It would appear to be the duty of the missionaries from the very nature of their calling to be outspoken in their repudiation of such an unchristian principle; but the young educated Africans observe that many missionaries show indecision, and sometimes approval of what we ordinary advantages and requirements for themselves and their children.

Otherwise look upon as unjust. Prof. du Plessis lays it down that: "A century of Christian mis­sions in South Africa has since proved the fallacy of the opinions held by van der Kemp as to the .... natural equality of all men."

Upholding racial exclusiveness in church or­ganisation, the same author proceeds to say that the equal status and other elements of fraternity between Native and European workers as illustrat­ed by the South African Wesleyan Methodists have been " always open to question." On the other hand he admits the advantage of such coalescence when he says: "The Anglican and Wesleyan churches, affirming as they do the principle that no distinction should be made between European and Native clergy, between white and black congregations, are easily first among the missionary agencies in South Africa in the number of their Native ministers and helpers."

Evidently the particular kind of equality dreaded by the whites of South Africa is social intermixture that goes hand in hand with intermarriage pre­sumably ending in the economic submersion and political domination of white by black. If this were the case, why apply it to other relations and confuse it with the rightful claim to equality of opportunity apart from race mixture? The African needs equality of opportunity for his own existence and service to his compatriots and to the world in which he was placed equally with other races by the inscrutable dispensation of God? It is this failure of the missionaries to raise above the ground-level of obfuscated ideas and irrational prejudice held by an un-Christian world that has called forth censure from young Africa.

To gather up our argument on the present position we may affirm: that young Native Africans gratefully acknowledge all the benefits that are being provided for them by the modern missionary; that some of our extremists have, for their own reasons, found it profitable to denounce the missionaries without restraint; that the criticisms of the type submitted by the young African preacher quoted above are not the angry ravings of an injured man but the valid, considered, and constructive views of an earnest worker who has maintained his church status with integrity working in co-operation with white missionary associates; that with regard to the government, the missionaries and the whole of organised Western Christianity have been remiss and should exert greater effort in the future to influence governmental policy along lines consistent with Christian policy; that time has come for organised Christianity to revise and define its attitude on the principle of equality among white and black Christians.

We conclude with a few constructive suggestions of missionary policy which we believe will save the future from the mistakes of the past, accelerate the evangelisation of Africa, remove the conditions that make for retardation and stagnation, and meet the legitimate aspirations of younger educated Africans.

Our strongest critics do not go the length of condemning Christianity per se as being a discredited religious system; nor do they advocate any other alternative. What they feel is that the professors of Christianity have dismally failed to live up to the standard commanded them by their Master. They" readily confess that Christianity is the best religious system they know. " Of all the religions of the earth, the Christian religion is the most uplifting and civilizing agency the world has ever produced. It is puerile to discard the religion of Christ simply because other peoples have failed to grasp its meaning."

We want Christianity because it is the only religion, which has proved adequate for all our life and spiritual ideals. It suits our psychology; and is readily assimilated with our former spriritualism and customs if only the right methods are used.

The ancient Bantu believed in the " Great Great One" whom they vaguely reverenced alongside with spirits of their departed ancestors. The Rev. Mr. Maimane rightly declares that the heathen invariably show lively interest whenever one preaches to them about the Pauline " Unknown God;" for Christianity is "a fuller revelation of God and fuller details of Him, and of man's concern with His concern with man. These ideas cannot bear good fruits if they are carefully fostered in the minds of the Bantu."

The American Board Missionary in Johannesburg, the Rev. Ray Phillips, who devotes his whole time and attention to the provision of healthy recreation for Natives, has solved the problem of amusements in a practical manner. Instead of the one missionary there ought to be over a hundred distributed over the whole of South Africa to counteract the evils that beset our young generation in the modern city and country -sided.

At this point we would venture a recommendation that missionary societies broaden their policies to permit of the setting aside of specially trained workers for the adopting of Christian social services methods to the needs of our Native people. Such activities and institutions as playgrounds, boy scout and girl scout troops, athletic leagues, community centers, women's clubs for domestic science and child welfare study, men's clubs where discussions and debates under Christian guidance may be held, community bands and choirs - all these are badly needed.

We would urge too, that missionary leaders make it their business to see that commercialised amusements such as the road-side carnival and the moving picture shows, which are exercising an increasing influence on the young, be subject to rigid censorship. Our people should have the best, not the worst, that Western civilisation has to offer.

We rejoice that the Y.M.C.A. is moving to ex­tend its activities to Bantu youth, and that the boy-scout movement is sanctioning the extension of that organisation to Native boys. Missionaries have been influential in bringing about these developments. May they continue to extend their influence in all those activities making for the growth of Christian character?

Special Evils

Among the special social evils confronting missionary work and requiring an intensive and concentrated attack from Western home bases is the problem of alcoholism in its various forms: the intemperance, illicit liquor traffic, shebeens, prohibition, local option, vested drink interests, muni­cipal saloons or canteens, and so on. It is no exaggeration to say that most of the best-educated Bantu leaders, past and present, have been lost to Africa through drink. No foreign missionary programme will ever be complete without a special department established to protect Christian Natives from this evil.

Sexual immorality, another serious evil confronting the Christian Church, is rather waxing than waning. It has derived fresh impetus from Western industrialism, civilisation, and the fatal transition period resulting from the collapse of the ancient Bantu social system, which formerly kept this evil within limits notwithstanding crude methods. Its spread is closely associated with the lack, of organised and supervised recreation for adolescents to occupy especially the idle evening hours and weekends. One solution is suggested by the activities of the Rev. Ray Phillips in establishing the Johannesburg Bantu Men's Social Centre that provides for the African progressive men just what the great Y.M.C.A. centres in the of America do for Coloured men and women. Every South African town and -Native country village sorely needs such an insti­tution, especially for the women. The present writer and his wife have attempted this in their village church but only with limited success, owing to lack of friends and outside help.

Another development causing deep concern is the breakdown of family discipline among missionised Natives, traceable also to the fatal transition away from Bantu customs. This has been accentuated by the increased poverty in agricultural districts where in many a family the real breadwinner has become the boy or girl who goes out from home to earn wages by work in the industrial centres, and who in consequence acquires exaggerated ideas of self-rule and independence. This is a vast pro­blem, which has assumed alarming proportions.

For full information on the subject of Education there are abundant records. Let it suffice to add here that we need a reinforcement of funds, endowments and scholarships to enable the more promising men and women in our secondary schools to proceed to Higher Education at the Fort Hare University College and undergo a training that will fit them as worthy leaders. It is heart-rending to see so many potential leaders being lost to Africa through lack of funds or scho­larships founded on the lines of the Andrew Smith bursary (at Lovedale) or by the English Society of Friends (at Fort Hare).

Africa offers an infinite scope for the inter-racial co-operative movement that has achieved such conspicuous success in the adjustment of race relations in the United States of America. We need more and more Travelling Secretaries like the Rev. Max Yergan provided by the Negro Y.M.O.A. (U.S.A.) to work in South Africa not only to give Christian direction to future leaders through the Students' Christian Movement in Native colleges, but also to serve as a racial link between white and black in a general effort to increase co-operation and goodwill. We need also a linking association between missionaries doing Native work and white pastors engaged with white congregations, in the purpose of mutual educ­ation in inter-racial questions and to moderate public opinion and Government circles.

We need white immigrants of Christian char­acter who will migrate to South Africa as schoolteachers and ordinary citizens to live the practical life of Christianity working as missionaries among the Welfare Societies and inspiring an under-current of Christian influence towards better racial relationship. Such a class of white Christians can be of immense service in inter-racial conference such as are being periodically held and may do much to restore the loss of confidence in Western institutions, religious and political.

Our concluding appeal to the present and future Western missionaries is this:

Young educated Africa appeals for sympathy with legitimate aspirations towards religious autonomy; for the dissemination of liberal views in press, pulpit and platform on the right of the right of the Bantu to a happy future in the land of their birth; for protection in the settlement of land questions so inseparably bound up with the principles on Native affairs in white homes, school, farms, towns, or clubs; for the kind of life that Jesus would have led had he lived as a white man today in South Africa.

To our fellow students in the colleges of North America we appeal for more intelligent understanding and co-operation that we may be enabled to grow in the brotherhood Christ Jesus, in the service of our fellowmen, and to achieve our national destiny under the providence of Almighty God.