The profit-bearing transactions of the Basel Mission cannot be much under £150,000, which on the moderate basis of 8 per cent. net profit would provide the Mission Exchequer with a sum of £12,000 per annum. Government grants-in-aid of educational work amounted in 1910 to £240. There are also periodic collections in aid of Mission funds; the native Church at Nsaba, for example, collected £240 last year. The whole expenditure of this Mission must be almost, if not completely, covered by its income from the various operations.
Whatever the actual financial position of this Mission, its general business operations, splendid educational institutions, its devoutly spiritual atmosphere, combine in forming one of the greatest—if not the greatest—force for progress in the Gold Coast colony. But the price has to be paid, for, according to the report of the Acting Governor, “The highest death-rate was again amongst the missionaries!”
DANGER AHEAD
The future of Christianity in West Africa is hopeful but it has its dangers. First its very success may lead to disastrous consequences. In the early years the mission work was almost entirely in the hands of the extreme evangelical section of the Church, who subordinated everything to the actual work of preaching. We understand and sympathize with the fiery zeal that believes in doing all the preaching, but the native thinks the preacher a strange being, and frequently does not understand two sentences of Anglicized Bantu, or worse still, his Bantuized English! Circumstances have broadened the outlook and men are beginning to realize the value of training the native to do the preaching, contenting themselves with an apparently more restrictive sphere in the class-room and study. The native preacher thus prepared is zealous to a degree, and that he is ready to suffer incredible hardships and even torture, we know from the romantic history of the Uganda Mission. He is willing and able to carry his message further afield than the white man could ever hope to do; he is, moreover, able to present his message through the medium of a complete mastery of the native tongue. The results of this form of propaganda are becoming almost startling. Christian evangelists from one territory are meeting those of far distant regions and in this manner the whole of the riverine systems of Central Africa are coming rapidly under the influence of Christianity. It is in this respect, rather than in tabulated statistics, that one sees the onward march of the Christian Faith. The bush native no longer clings to and prides himself in paganism; if he is not a Mohammedan, he will tell you he is a Christian, even though his life and conduct would shut him out of the formal communion of any Christian Church.
This condition of affairs may lead to a grave situation, for already in several colonies the natives are restive under an inadequate white control or leadership. Educated in the principles of liberty, but without much respect for, or belief in, the nobler tenets of the Christian Faith, they are breaking away from Christian government and forming themselves into Christian communities in which personal desire is never allowed to conflict with accepted standards of ethics. One day I visited a leading “Christian” in a certain colony; he showed me round the district, took me over his delightful little farm, pointed out his model dwellings, machinery houses, and so forth; then I inspected a building with three compartments and was informed that one section was used as a “gin store,” the middle section for prayer meetings, and in the third the man kept his wives! All this he boldly asserted could be justified by reference to the Scriptures. I was not prepared to contest the assertion, because my host claimed his own conscience as the final arbiter of interpretation. The extent to which these secessions may go can be gathered from the fact that one such seceding church in West Africa claims a membership of over 10,000 adults.
THE LIGHT ETERNAL
The missionary societies, unable to supply sufficient men to cope with these vast areas, are forced to leave the movement almost alone and thus it spreads, and will continue to spread, until Central Africa is completely brought under the influence of a form of Christianity which for many years will be a caricature of the religion of Christ. The only hope, and happily a probable development, is that the religious wave, which is now moving irresistibly across the central regions, will be followed by an ethical wave which will give the “Light eternal” to the Dark Continent.