A PLEA FOR THE NATIVE 403 
struggle between England and France for the mastery in 
Africa, swept them along to deeds they could not avoid 
doing, to the attainment of ends they could not have fore- 
seen. They held Uganda nobly for England, but that is 
a very different matter from winning the Waganda for 
Christ. Religious politics and political religion come near 
ruining the country. 
Apart from political considerations, from which mission- 
ary effort in East Africa may perhaps now be hoped to be 
free, there remains the matter to be taught to the natives. 
In this there is, 1 am persuaded, a permanent hindrance to 
missionary success. An effort is put forth to make the 
native what he cannot be, a black man with a white man’s 
mind. lam far from pessimistic as to the native’s capacity 
for development, but he is too far behind, his whole habit 
of mind is too foreign to that of the white man, to make 
it possible for him to benefit by the usual doctrinal teach- 
ing which missionary customs, rules, and standards impose. 
He has been for ages without any religion at all. He cannot 
suddenly accept, understandingly, those forms of religious 
thought and belief which have only been formulated even 
in his teacher’s mind as the result of ages of conflict, elimi- 
nation and absorption. What can the doctrine of the Trinity 
mean to him? Miracles of a certain kind he will readily 
accept, his profound belief in the witch doctors’ power 
makes such acceptance both natural and of no value. On 
the other hand, when such a miracle as “‘the virgin birth”’ 
is insisted on, as it is unfortunately almost universally 
insisted on by missionary England and America, a very 
real difficulty at once arises. Faith, in its true sense, he 
knows nothing of. He is of necessity a materialist, and to 
ask him to believe something beyond his reason, is to ask 
him to do what the very best impulses within him rebel 
against his doing. Again and again, in conversation with the 
most intelligent men of my sefari, who were Mohammedans, 
