HENRY V. PELTON. 26 



native Africans as shall make white preponderance an 

 utterly hopeless dream. In South Africa, where whites 

 and blacks dwell together, as in America, with the same 

 conditions, the social line of demarkation is never 

 broken. To the whites who dwell there it seems impos- 

 sible that it ever should be broken. 



Here is this great continent, five times as large as 

 Europe, with a soil of boundless fertility, with abundant 

 mineral wealth, and it ought to be contributing of its 

 resources to the world at large. Here is the African 

 himself, a brother-man, making claims upon mankind 

 too strong to be disregarded. Over nearly all rests the 

 pall of barbarism. Civilization, and especially Christian 

 civilization, has felt that it could not leave this land in 

 darkness, and is now, through missionaries, through trad- 

 ing companies, through governmental action, through in- 

 ternational conference, sending into it many beams of 

 christianizing light. If these have not yet served to dispel 

 much of the darkness, they have made clear the importance 

 and the magnitude of the work. Many of us have been 

 accustomed to think that to accomplish the redemption of 

 such a people white supremacy was absolutely necessary, 

 but all the evidence before us shows that the number of 

 whites there will be ra ost insignificant. Every step toward 

 peace and order which will make white occupation easier 

 will also add greatly to the numbers of the blacks. The 

 problem must be worked out with the black as the largest 

 factor. He may be taught, and guided and trained by his 

 white brother, but he must, to a great extent, work out 

 his own salvation. In other places and at other times he 

 has not been found equal to this, but surely we may 

 hope that in these new conditions and under pressure of 

 this great demand upon him, he may aspire after and 

 attain into something far higher than he has yet known, 

 and that through him, thus uplifted, upon Africa the day 

 shall dawn and the shadows flee away. 



