"RUIN OF THE NATIVE."

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 395, 2 January 1909, Page 13

"RUIN OF THE NATIVE."

MR. MEYEIt ON THE PROBLEMS -OF . SOUTn AFRICA. ' •;The Rev. F. B. Meyer recently niet the directors of the Colonial Missionary' Society, at .tho Memorial Hall to impart some of the gs.thored! by him during hi'B • South African tour.'-. He spoke, in the highest ... the self-sacrifice of the agents* with many of whom he came into personal contact, ■ an «'pleSdbd for tho'.fet men in'this -country to be sent out as taissionarios. Incidentally, Mr. Meyer suggested that leading ministers in Great Britain, shoiild exchange 1 apjioint- . ments for twelve months with colonial miriisW<> " < sfind Mr, Silvester Home'to Johan-

nesburg for a year," ho said. "Ho would turn the place upside downand put it right end up." (Cheers.) The coloured people, Mr. Meyer considered, would, in'the course of two-or three generations) bocomo an important factor in the life of the country. As for the Zulus and Kaffirs," ho said, " Ihave completely lost my hoart to them;. I am not speaking of those in the looatipnsy but of those in their native kraals. ; I- fancy that we • may loarn some-' thing from tliem in respoot to morality. They have a eoloran reverence for the sanotities of marriage.- It is. our so-called civilisation that is ruining thorn. God help the native girls,. and m6n, too, who'come in contaot with tfto Britisher -in; the- locations.: ■ For 1 heaven's: sake keep tho:.brandy frdm them and some things that are even worse than brandy.,: ?. "a-moan to .tackle this iniquity in two or three years' time, when -1 have worked' Off some of my engagements. The ruin of the' native by'drink; and-vioo is burning into ray soul. I mean to go out and-show them something of the.'best.'side o f.'English life.' .At present thoyiohly see-the.worst type of .the: Britisher." -. - . " ■