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, I 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. I am 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, 



