Dr. Oscar Lenz, the African explorer, who has just travelled
from the Stanley Falls to the Zambesi, via the great lakes, though himself a philanthropist who has "never fired a shot," and who never quarrels with the natives, discredits missionary enterprise in Africa. He says the statistics sent to Europe by the missionaries are all false, for that they never mention relapses, and that a relapsed Negro is usually a criminal. That Negroes relapse more than other races seems to be true, and it is quite possible that those who relapse become criminals, as relapse from a lofty creed to a low one is usually a suppression of the inner conscience ; but Dr. Lenz, like every- body else, forgets that our evidence about Negro conversions is rather large. There are four millions of Negroes in America whose fathers were converted, and, after being converted, suffered extreme oppression. Nevertheless, by the consent of all who know them, the emancipated Negro slaves are far in advance of Africans, and owe most of what is good in them to the way in which they have adopted emotional Christianity. That they are good Christiana we do not assert ; but remember- ing what converted Greeks were like, that does not strike us as wonderful, or even a fact peculiar to Negroes. As to relapses, has anybody been hanged in England for the last quarter of a century who was not, as far as his faith in dogma went, a Christian ? Why is it more wonderful that a convert should turn criminal than that an educated Christian should ?
Previous page
