ABSTRACT
THE isolationist position in which James Johnson found himself in Sierra Leone over the African Church proposal and the West African University scheme was to some extent his own making; he made no conscious effort to organise a followership. It is doubtful whether, had he made an attempt, he could have got a sizeable number of fellow-Creoles to share in toto his extremism and views on moral, spiritual and nationalist affairs. It should be stressed that although Holy Johnson had a few life-long friends the basis of his friendship with them was more personal than ideological. As has been noted, for instance, Samuel Lewis, one of these few friends, was opposed to the Native Pastorate grant; G. J. Macaulay (later Archdeacon of Sierra Leone Church) with whom he usually stayed on subsequent visits to the Colony, was never infected with the Johnsonian quixotism in Church and State; T. J. Sawyerr, the publisher of The Negro, was attracted to James Johnson partly because of the Ijesha blood they had in common. Even Henry Johnson, nicknamed Jerusalem or Powerful Johnson and who later became an Archdeacon in the Niger Mission, was never ideologically or doctrinally a thorn in the side of the C.M.S. Authorities.
