Historically, from the fact of its colonization by white men from the sea, Southern Africa has been linked in men's minds rather with Europe than with the rest of the African continent, and the truly African character of its inhabitants, even of the Whites, has been too easily forgotten, in spite of the use of the name Afrikaner (meaning merely African). In recent years, however, largely owing to the war and consequent movements of troops and population, the average white inhabitant of Southern Africa has become much more conscious of his relationships with the rest of the continent and with its aboriginal inhabitants, and aware of his responsibilities and the opportunity there is for him to play a decisive part in the future of Africa south of the Sahara, now in a state of rapid social, economic, religious and political development. This new awareness, long latent in the land-consciousness of the Afrikaans-speaking population, and now making itself felt among all sections of the people, is given utterance in the words of Field-Marshal Smuts used as a title to this article, and may be traced in many recent items of news from South Africa.

It is necessary, in order to avoid misconceptions, to preface a few statements of fact about the area of which we are speaking. Southern Africa differs from the rest of Black Africa in being the only part in which a people of European origin have made a home, though it can be doubted whether this colonization will be permanently successful much further north than Pretoria or Durban or in the arid western parts of the region.

What I wish to do here is to touch upon some points in the intellectual and cultural situation in South Africa. This means that I must confine myself to a picture of what Europeans are doing, since the disadvantages under which non-Europeans are labouring have not made possible for them much acquisition of the natural goods. The Church in South Africa is above all an African church. Europeans, and especially European Catholics, are in a minority. Hence I shall be dealing with a minority which has largely monopolised the privileges of education and which must therefore be held peculiarly accountable for the use of the treasure which it has appropriated. My further reason for thus confining my field is the large part being played in the conversion of South Africa by the Dominicans who are so well versed in grafting the Faith upon the higher activities of the natural man.

In estimating the influences which have formed the mind of South African Europeans one must be careful to give full weight to the positive contribution of Calvinism, especially the Calvinism of the Dutch Reformed Church. The original colonists were Dutch and French Protestants, and the great majority of their descendants still hold to that confession, seriously and conservatively, as a rural population will. It is a tradition which has fostered Bible-reading, a strong and genuine family life, and the virtues enjoined by the Decalogue. It has been favourable to the formation of a legalistic and patriarchal temper of mind, and has kept alive a strong antipapist animus. It is not within my province to estimate the religious situation, but rather to call attention to certain repercussions in the cultural sphere.

Being asked to describe native mission work is rather like being asked to describe children. Each mission, like each child—or like each angel—is unique. There is only one member in each species; and it is this that makes the fascination of the world. Every missionary has to build according to his own circumstances—meeting his own problem. In visiting a mission one sees what that missionary has made of those circumstances; and one is liable to think how poor it all looks, and how much better it might have been. Which is frequently perfectly true. I shudder to think what my successor here will say and think when he takes over my job some day. Yet, in fact, many such missions are almost miracles of progress—in those circumstances.

Missions may be divided into various types—like children. There is the mission in a town which has no industries, where the natives are mostly domestic servants; and there is the country mission where there are no adjacent towns and the natives are farm labourers. Both of these have a fairly settled population. There is the industrial centre mission—as in Johannesburg—where there is no country and hardly any settled population. Then there are the missions in the tribal areas, which are again quite a different order of work.

The mission I am describing is one that embraces a country town and its surrounding district. There are no important industries apart from farming—and even that is scarcely important, for the yield on the whole is poor.

An African becoming a Christian in South Africa passes through a remarkable experience of two complete worlds; two religions wholly contradictory, two social systems as different, and two methods of church organisation adapted to the separate social systems. Most natives are still born in tribal circumstances, either in the Reserve Territories, Zululand, Basutoland, Swaziland and the others in which natives are under their own chiefs and ancient tribal laws; or at least they are born on European farms on the veldt, where their immediate family and social life is the tribal one, although they are not within a tribe.

Let us suppose a heathen becoming a Christian, for most of our adult Christians are still first-generation Christians, and consider his experience.

He is born into a wide sunlit land, an awe-inspiring creation whether it is the limitless, treeless sweeps of the veld or the great black barren ‘Dragon’ mountains. He lives in some sort of an oasis, valley or riverside or near water on the veld. He lives under a burning sun the year round, but with tremendous cold at night in winter, violent short rains and hailstorms, peril of crops and beasts. The earth is not friendly as in temperate climates. Insects are dangerous. There are snakes. It is not a land to rest on the grass, or splash in the water. But it has a stirring beauty, vastness, stillness, wonderful fruits, sudden grass and flowers after a brief rain, a light that is polished and air like wine. You may see red hills in South Africa and a green cloud; it is exotic, and the brown men who live in it love colour.

I once knew a charming lady, somewhat top heavy with titles, who had a delicious assurance that all things she desired were hers by the right of desiring. As we walked down Bond Street she would glide through shop doors, ordering whatever took her fancy. Because of the titles the goods were sent without question. Much later she would be astonished and dismayed by following bills. With cries of distress she would rally those friends to her side whose cognomens were less rare but whose view of life included the inevitability of payment.