Human Development in Africa.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 466, 26 April 1890, Page 6

Human Development in Africa.

From every point of view Africa, which has long been the ‘dark continent,’ must be looked upon as a vast laboratory of the most profoundly interesting problems of advanced human physiology and elementary sociology. It is a fact of striking significance that the introduction of Christianity, a recent event, seems to have given an impetus to mental development without parallel in the previous history of Central Africa. The'inhabitants of that ‘ vast unknown, who, until within the last fifty years, seem to have been content with what was practically a mere animal existence, have all at once begun to manifest qualities which distinguish the rational and moral human creature. They have received general principles, they have acquired convictions, they have developed a sense of duty and responsibility; and so strong and reliable are these new attainments that their possessors are not only willing to fight for them, but to endure deprivation, cruelty and death. The letter of Mr Stanley. published in the newspapers last week, shows that these people have now possessed themselves of a creed which to them is a common rallying point. Each of them, believing in it, is able to trust his fellow believer; and each of them, having acquired what he holds to be a divine charter of rights and liberties, refuses any longer to submit to the irresponsible violence and tyranny of a being lower in the scale of mental evolution than himself. Now these are facts. They are outside the region of dialectic and historical criticism. No German professor in his Weissnichtwo garret can explain them away under a cloud of tobacco smoko. The fact remains, on the authority of the greatest of African explorers, that the native Christians have begun to think, to combine, to destroy tyranny, and to insist upon a government suited to rational and moral creatuies. Is this result of high and rapid mental evolution the natural fruit of an understoodand honestly accepted ’ Christianity ? We believe it is.