This condition of affairs may lead to a grave situation, for already in several colonies the natives are restive under an inadequate white control or leadership. Educated in the principles of liberty, but without much respect for, or belief in, the nobler tenets of the Christian Faith, they are breaking away from Christian government and forming themselves into Christian communities in which personal desire is never allowed to conflict with accepted standards of ethics. One day I visited a leading “Christian” in a certain colony; he showed me round the district, took me over his delightful little farm, pointed out his model dwellings, machinery houses, and so forth; then I inspected a building with three compartments and was informed that one section was used as a “gin store,” the middle section for prayer meetings, and in the third the man kept his wives! All this he boldly asserted could be justified by reference to the Scriptures. I was not prepared to contest the assertion, because my host claimed his own conscience as the final arbiter of interpretation. The extent to which these secessions may go can be gathered from the fact that one such seceding church in West Africa claims a membership of over 10,000 adults. [Sidenote: THE LIGHT ETERNAL] The missionary societies, unable to supply sufficient men to cope with these vast areas, are forced to leave the movement almost alone and thus it spreads, and will continue to spread, until Central Africa is completely brought under the influence of a form of Christianity which for many years will be a caricature of the religion of Christ. The only hope, and happily a probable development, is that the religious wave, which is now moving irresistibly across the central regions, will be followed by an ethical wave which will give the “Light eternal” to the Dark Continent. PART V I.—The Map of Africa re-arranged. I THE MAP OF AFRICA RE-ARRANGED For some months past eminent publicists in Europe have been busily engaged in rearranging the map of Africa in the interests first of one Power, then of another, but the unfortunate native has found scant place in these arguments. The only question which seems of any significance is the “price” this or that Power will pay for a given slice of the African continent. It would be rather interesting surely to know what the natives themselves think of the proposed change. Some of them have strong views upon the morality of disposing of other people’s rights, to say nothing of treaty obligations which they obtained when agreeing to European sovereignty.