A FASHIONABLE WEDDING IN KAMERUN.
Already we may see the beginning of civilization in material things. The first thing that emerges from the inchoate society is the home. I have already spoken of the abolishment of polygamy; but a home also implies a house. The houses of a Fang village are built on either side of one narrow street, under one continuous roof, and consist of a single room separated from the next dwelling by a half-open bamboo partition. But the Christian wants a better house, because he is a better man. It is noticeable that the Christian man separates himself from this common village life and builds a single house of several rooms for himself and his family. All Christians do not immediately do so; but the tendency is sufficiently marked to insure the certainty that the idea of the home will prevail. These better houses have windows, and doors on hinges, and sometimes even a board floor. There is therefore a demand for carpenters and other skilled workmen. Here is where the industrial school responds to an exigent need and is both an adjunct and a direct result of evangelization. Here also is the beginning of a division of labour and that interdependence which characterizes civilization.
The Fang Christians are all clothed; for decency is a Christian instinct. The cloth which they now wear is imported from England and America. They pay for it with the produce of their gardens. For this purpose they raise more than they need for their own consumption. Their gardens are therefore much larger than they used to be, and both men and women work in them. Having better clothing they must take care of it; therefore they want to sit on chairs, instead of on the ground. Neither can they keep their clothing decently clean if they eat their food with their hands. Knives and forks and plates and tables are soon added to the household furnishings. One thing demands another; each added comfort requires more work. Those men now expend in productive labour the energy which they formerly wasted in conflict.
Such is the general course of development towards a social community having intercourse with the civilized world; receiving much, and adding its increment to the material welfare of the race and the sum of happiness.
All the constitutive elements of civilization may be summed up in two things: a condition of interdependence in material things, and a sentiment of human brotherhood. But we have seen that the progressive interdependence of civilization is based upon an increasing knowledge of nature, and that this knowledge of nature becomes possible to the African through the Christian view of God and the world. We have seen that faith in Christ effects a mental and moral regeneration of the individual from which springs a sentiment of brotherhood and spirit of mutual trust which is the coherence of society without which it becomes a heap of sand. The saying is reasonable, therefore, that civilization is but the secular side of Christianity; and all the good which social progress comprehends is embodied in the prayer which these Fang Christians unitedly offer: Ayong dia nzak—Thy kingdom come.
Commerce and government in our day are making the claim that they are the all-sufficient forces of civilization throughout the world. But however much they have accomplished that is beneficial, we cannot forget the evils which have attached to them; that in Africa and elsewhere commerce is responsible for the sale of rum and for other evils as degrading; and that government by the civilized powers, despite such grandiloquent phrases as “the onward march of civilization,” has consisted very much in taking territory from those to whom it belonged, because, forsooth, “they have a darker complexion or a flatter nose.” Both commerce and government are invaluable adjuncts of Christianity; but it has within itself the potentialities of both.
That prayer, Thy Kingdom Come, is being offered daily in every land and in every language of the world and everywhere it has the same meaning. It means that all those who sincerely offer it, however great the contrast of their history and traditions, are a community, united by the stronger bonds of aims and ideals. It means that they have a vision of a united race of mankind; a vision of all nations drawn into one common brotherhood in commerce, government and religion, and that they believe in the abounding adequacy of the Gospel of Christ for its realization. Society resounds with the cry of the oppressed and the dissonance of human passion; but still they cherish the vision of unity and peace; and they believe that this kingdom of God is the end towards which all social progress moves.
XVII
THE CRITICS
Elsewhere I have represented the climate as the theme of the Old Coaster whom the voyager meets after leaving Liverpool, or some other European port, for West Africa. He makes free use of all the adjectives that have usually been appropriated to the characterization of sin and death.
But I may not have said that the Old Coaster has what musicians call a sub-theme. His sub-theme is Missions. The unity of his conversation is secured by the use of the same adjectives. If the missionary is coddled at home or foolishly praised, the severe and relentless criticism to which he is subjected after leaving Europe may be regarded as a providential discipline. According to the Old Coaster every evil that infests West Africa is due directly or indirectly to the missionary. I have heard him blamed for the Belgian atrocities of the Congo, and for the Hut Tax War of Sierra Leone, and even for the fatality of the climate. For, it is said, everybody knows that it is not malaria but quinine that kills the white man in Africa; the belief in quinine is simply fatuous, and its use is criminal; and the missionary alone is responsible. Rum, which is the only protection against malaria, would keep the traders alive, but sooner or later, following the example of the missionary, they take quinine and die.