Thinking black; 22 years without a break in the long grass of Central ...

*' GREAT WHITE LAKE" 407
the soul of a man. Loneliness is at his heart like a
knife, and now is the time to push the right royal claims
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Far too long have good folks
in England sheered off delicately when these subjects
are approached, but only by facing them can we con-
ceive what a trap Africa is to a newcomer. Arriving as
many young men do in this land wholly unawakened
to the graver issues of life, the first glance they get
amounts to a moral slap in the face. Perchance even
the scarce Missionary he meets is of a sour, mournful
type, who has missed a glorious deed of helping this
newcomer. Too often it is a fact that this Africa robs
a Christian man of his victor's song and leaves him a
broken-spirited jumble of distraction. But the fact is, a
mere Missionary in Africa is lost in its vast mileage,
a poor pin-point in the immensity, and the lonely
Europeans are long miles apart. Then he wakens up
to find what an elegant fiction is that loose talk in
England about the joys and manliness of a " man being
alone on his own feet." Fleeing from cities and the
*' fight for bread" of congested towns, he soon discovers
the value of dear old English ways. Even the starchy
fads of fashion are seen in a new and almost favourable
light. At sundown his thoughts, like homing pigeons,
travel fast and far across the seas to his native land.
He dreams of the old dainties and decencies of life
and longs to be there. He drops that nonsense about
a clerk in an English office being *' chained to his oar-pen
like a galley-slave." Finally and comprehensively he
25