IV
THE PROGRESS OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS
The day has gone by when the world could dismiss Christian missions in West Africa with a contemptuous sneer, for Christian missionary effort with its eloquent facts, definitely established, can no longer be ignored. Of all the forces which have made for real progress in West Africa, Christianity stands some say first, others second, but none can place it last. To it belongs primarily in point of time at least, the economic prosperity of the Gold Coast. To it belongs, almost entirely, the credit for the native clerks and educated men on the coast. To it the natives owe their knowledge of useful crafts. To one section of the Christian Church at least belongs the honour of having on the spot saved the Congo natives from extirpation.
Whilst all missions have much in common, the investigator cannot but observe the fact that administrators and commercial men alike will, in the majority of cases, hold in a measure of contempt the Protestant missionary, whilst they esteem highly his Catholic brethren. One searches for a reason for this attitude, which can neither be found in the devotion of the missionary—for heroes abound in both sections—nor is it to be found in the character and success of their respective missionary labours, for in this particular both sections are witnessing encouraging results. The only answer which the administrator and trader will give is that Father O’Donnell is “a good fellow.” It is difficult to escape from the conclusion that the good father is more “diplomatic” than his bluff and somewhat puritanical Protestant confrère. The Protestant missionaries with greater freedom than that allowed to the Catholic Fathers, criticize administrations, report abuses, and generally give any form of oppression or iniquity a quick, even reckless exposure. The colossal crime of the Congo was exposed on the spot almost entirely by the Protestant missionaries, although far outnumbered by the Catholics. In the French Congo are established several Roman Catholic Orders, yet hardly a priest has raised his voice against the atrocities committed there. The slavery of Angola and San Thomé has been exposed primarily by Protestants, the priests standing by and for the most part content to witness the traffic in human beings without a protest. I do not condemn, but merely state facts. I know too well how the sufferings of native tribes have appealed to generous members of the Roman Catholic Church, but no review of Christian missions in West Africa would be honest or complete without some reference to this fundamental difference between the two great sections of the Christian Church.
MISSIONARIES AND ABUSES.
My chief reason, however, for calling attention to this feature is that the antipathy towards Christian missionaries is hardly likely to become less marked in the near future. The great changes which are taking place may precipitate a grave situation within the next twenty years. The attitude of administrators is no longer the benevolent tutelage of native races. There is an increasing autocracy in most colonies; the martial spirit with its harsh regulations and rigorous discipline, so out of place in nature’s calm paradise, is permeating every department of affairs. This spirit brooks no opposition, knows no sympathy, and sometimes even forgets justice. It blows hot or cold, where and when it listeth, but it tends always towards menacing native peace and progress. High-minded Christian men must be driven by this restless spirit into an increasingly resolute defence of their native communities.
Commercial methods, too, are undergoing a still more far-reaching change. As I have already pointed out, the old-time merchant is giving place to the highly organized syndicate, which possesses neither heart nor conscience and is generally strong enough in influence at home and power abroad to menace any administration, and, if necessary, threaten the various Governments in two, three and even more countries at one time. The missionary, bold in his isolation, knowing no higher earthly authority than his highly tempered conscience, willing, if need be, to suffer any extremity, is bound to find himself more and more in conflict with the exploiting energy of these vigorous dividend seekers. This conflict is of course an excellent tonic for the Church, but it makes the lot of these isolated men and women in Central Africa very much harder to bear.
The forces of Christianity have not yet made much headway in the far hinterland of the Sierra Leone Protectorate, the northern territories of the Gold Coast, nor in Northern Nigeria. In the Sierra Leone colony, where slaves liberated during a period of fifty years were dumped down as they were released by British battleships, Christianity has permeated fairly completely the life and habits of the people; nearly two-thirds of the population are nominally Christian, whilst the Mohammedans number less than one-tenth. In the Gold Coast the traveller may witness some of the most effective missionary work in West Africa. The Basel Mission alone has over 30,000 adherents who find about £5000 a year towards mission expenses. Another notable fact is that the natives have invested in the Mission Savings Bank over £23,000, a sum considerably in excess of the amount deposited with the Government. As was the attitude towards the Quaker bankers of Puritan England, the Christian community of the Gold Coast is regarded by the natives as the safest repository for the wealth of both worlds.
CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMEDANISM
In Southern Nigeria Christian missionaries find themselves confronted with a firmly entrenched Mohammedan community. Something over fifty per cent. of the population is Mohammedan, and that of a most attractive order. None can meet the leading Mohammedans of that colony without being impressed with their simple piety and their tenacity to what they regard as their invincible faith. Officialdom opposes the advance of the emissaries of Christianity in the more northerly territory, on the ground of trouble with the Moslem community. This attitude is regarded by most Mohammedans as anything but a compliment to their religious faith, holding firmly as they do that the Koran is powerful enough to withstand all the assaults of another creed. Below Nigeria, that is south-east of the Niger delta, Mohammedan influence is left behind, and Christianity is confronted with simple paganism. Not the bloodthirsty and strongly entrenched barbaric paganism which confronted Livingstone in East Africa, Ramseyer at Kumasi, Hannington in Uganda, and Grenfell in the Congo, but a paganism so broken by the forces of civilization, so rent and riven by internal mistrust, that the masses of the people are crying out: “Who will show us any good?”
Efforts to win West Central Africa to Christianity divide themselves into two periods. The first effective efforts were made by the Portuguese and Dutch settlers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The first period was almost exclusively due to Roman Catholic zeal, which, under the blessing of the Pope, regarded the tropics as a preserve of the Vatican. The nineteenth century witnessed but little advance, until Livingstone’s enthusiasm and his romantic career lighted a flame which spread throughout the civilized world, and Protestantism, awaking to its opportunity, began to pour missionaries into the tropical regions of West Africa. The Basel Mission attempted the Gold Coast, and its first missionaries perished to a man; the Church Missionary Society pushed on its work from Sierra Leone away up the Niger, where men and women did little more for a time than replace the dead and dying; the Methodists, never behind any other denomination in enthusiasm, began work in Sierra Leone, Calabar, and the islands of the Gulf of Guinea; the Baptists established an excellent mission in the Cameroons, where they were “elbowed out” by the Germans, and at a later date commenced their great work in the Congo.