434 THE LAND OF THE LION 
which may have been my due. But the friendship they gave 
with it, was a thing beyond purchase. 
To have known two such men, one a heathen, the other 
a Christian, both natives of East Africa, would make it 
impossible for me to be pessimistic as to the natives’ future. 
The shore recedes. I shall see those kindly dark faces 
no more. Some have a Christian hope; to more of them 
that hope means nothing at all. But surely if an Almighty 
Fatherhood looks down on all the children of men, black 
and white, then those who have striven here, with most 
unequal chances accorded them, to do what their hands 
found to do, following such light as was given them, shall 
have some not unworthy place and task assigned in “the 
company of just men being made perfect.” 
“For, like a child, sent with a flickering light, 
To find his way across a gusty night, 
Man walks the world. 
Again and yet again 
The lamp may be 
By fits of passion slain, 
But shall not He 
Who sent him from the door, 
Relight that lamp once more 
And yet once more?” 
