[207] Mr. Froude's passing on from matters secular to matters spiritual and sacred was a transition to be expected in the course of the grave and complicated discussion which he had volunteered to initiate. It was, therefore, not without curiosity that his views in the direction above indicated were sought for and earnestly scrutinized by us. But worse than in his treatment of purely mundane subjects, his attitude here is marked by a nonchalant levity which excites our wonder that even he should have touched upon the spiritual side of his thesis at all. The idea of the dove sent forth from the ark fluttering over the heaving swells of the deluge, in vain endeavour to secure a rest for the soles of its feet, represents not inaptly the unfortunate predicament of his spirit with regard to a solid [208] faith on which to repose amid the surges of doubt by which it is so evidently beset. Yet although this is his obvious plight with regard to a satisfying belief, he nevertheless undertakes, with characteristic confidence, to suggest a creed for the moralization of West Indian Negroes. His language is:—
"A religion, at any rate, which will keep the West Indian blacks from falling back into devil-worship is still to seek. In spite of the priests, child-murder and cannibalism have re-appeared in Hayti, but without them things might have been much worse than they are, and the preservation of white authority and influence in any form at all may be better than none."
We discern in the foregoing citation the exercise of a charity that is unquestionably born of fetish-worship, which, whether it be obeah generally, or restricted to a mere human skin, can be so powerful an agent in the formation and retention of beliefs. Hence we see that our philosopher relies here, in the domain of morals and spiritual ethics, on a white skin as implicitly as he does on its sovereign potency in secular politics. The curiousness of the matter lies mainly in its application to natives [209] of Hayti, of all people in the world. As a matter of fact we have had our author declaring as follows, in climax to his oft-repeated predictions about West Indian Negroes degenerating into the condition of their fellow-Negroes in the "Black Republic" (p. 285):—
"Were it worth while, one might draw a picture of an English governor, with a black parliament and a black ministry, recommending, by advice of his constitutional ministers, some measure like the Haytian Land Law."
Now, as the West Indies degenerating into so many white-folk-detesting Haytis, under our prophet's dreaded supremacy of the Blacks, is the burden of his book; and as the Land Law in question distinctly forbids the owning by any white person of even one inch of the soil of the Republic, it might, but for the above explanation, have seemed unaccountable, in view of the implacable distrust, not to say hatred, which this stern prohibition so clearly discloses, that our author should, nevertheless, rely on the efficacy of white authority and influence over Haytians.
In continuation of his religious suggestions, he goes on to descant upon slavery in the [210] fashion which we have elsewhere noticed, but it may still be proper to add a word or two here regarding this particular disquisition of his. This we are happy in being able to do under the guidance of an anterior and more reliable exponent of ecclesiastical as well as secular obedience on the part of all free and enlightened men in the present epoch of the world's history:—
"Dogma and Descent, potential twin
Which erst could rein submissive millions in,
Are now spent forces on the eddying surge
Of Thought enfranchised. Agencies emerge
Unhampered by the incubus of dread
Which cramped men's hearts and clogged their onward tread.
Dynasty, Prescription! spectral in these days
When Science points to Thought its surest ways,
And men who scorn obedience when not free
Demand the logic of Authority!
The day of manhood to the world is here,
And ancient homage waxes faint and drear.
. . . . . .
Vision of rapture! See Salvation's plan
'Tis serving God through ceaseless toil for man!"
The lines above quoted are by a West Indian Negro, and explain in very concise form the attitude of the educated African mind [211] with reference to the matters they deal with. Mr. Froude is free to perceive that no special religion patched up from obsolete creeds could be acceptable to those with whose sentiments the thoughts of the writer just quoted are in true racial unison. It is preposterous to expect that the same superstition regarding skin ascendency, which is now so markedly played out in our Colonies in temporal matters, could have any weight whatsoever in matters so momentous as morals and religion. But granting even the possibility of any code of worldly ethics or of religion being acceptable on the dermal score so strenuously insisted on by him, it is to be feared that, through sheer respect for the fitness of things, the intelligent Negro in search of guidance in faith and morals would fail to recognize in our author a guide, philosopher, and friend, to be followed without the most painful misgivings. The Catholic and the Dissenting Churches which have done so much for the temporal and spiritual advancement of the Negro, in spite of hindrance and active persecution wherever these were possible, are, so far as is visible, maintaining their hold on the adhesion of those who belong to them.
[212] And it cannot be pretended that, among enlightened Africans as compared with other enlightened people, there have been more grievous failings off from the scriptural standard of deportment. Possible it certainly is that considerations akin to, or even identical with, those relied upon by Mr. Froude might, on the first reception of Christianity in their exile, have operated effectually upon the minds of the children of Africa. At that time the evangelizers whose converts they so readily became possessed the recommendation of belonging to the dominant caste. Therefore, with the humility proper to their forlorn condition, the poor bondsmen requited with intense gratitude such beneficent interest on their behalf, as a condescension to which people in their hapless situation could have had no right. But for many long years, the distinction whether of temporal or of spiritual superiority has ceased to be the monopoly of any particular class. The master and employer has for far more than a century and a half been often represented in the West Indies by some born African or his descendant; and so also has the teacher and preacher. It is not too much to say that [213] the behaviour of the liberated slaves throughout the British Antilles, as well as the deportment of the manumitted four million slaves of the Southern United States later on, bore glorious testimony to the humanizing effects which the religion of charity, clutched at and grasped in fragments, and understood with childlike incompleteness, had produced within those suffering bosoms.
Nothing has occurred to call for a remodelling of the ordinary moral and spiritual machinery for the special behoof of Negroes. Religion, as understood by the best of men, is purely a matter of feeling and action between man and man—the doing unto others as we would they should do unto us; and any creed or any doctrine which directly or indirectly subverts or even weakens this basis is in itself a danger to the highest welfare of mankind. The simple conventional faith in God, in Jesus, and in a future state, however modified nowadays, has still a vitality which can restrain and ennoble its votaries, provided it be inculcated and received in a befitting spirit. Our critic, in the plenitude of his familiarity with such matters, confidently asks:—