CHAPTER XV 
A PLEA FOR THE NATIVE EAST AFRICAN 
AND HIS MISSIONARY 
HE native in East Africa is untold thousands of 
years younger than Abraham, untold thousands 
nearer the monkey, than were Abraham’s Pheenician 
kinsfolk. Yet Christian missions have too often in the 
Negroes’ case, as in that of other far more enlightened 
peoples, set themselves the hopeless and impossible task 
of offering this neglected laggard of our race the complex 
and contradictory theological conclusions that matured 
mankind has only accepted after years of discussion and 
conflict, and which reverent and thoughtful men to-day 
are everywhere modifying or casting aside. 
If Christian missions are not succeeding in East Africa 
it is not because the missionaries themselves are lacking in 
ability or self-sacrifice. No braver or more consecrated 
men and women ever went forth to the doing of a thank- 
less task than they. These men and women who have 
left home and friends in order to bring life and hope and 
freedom to the oppressed and exploited people of the earth, 
have especially here, in this continent of death and lone- 
liness, “‘not counted their lives dear unto themselves.” 
None ever faced a more dangerous task than they. Few 
ever faced any task more bravely. But they have not 
succeeded as they should, and they will not succeed as they 
might, because to take what they bring, to do what they 
demand, to believe what they exact, is beyond the present 
power of the undeveloped East African’s intelligence. He 
can love and follow his missionary bwana and he does. 
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