ABSTRACT
THE European adversaries who rejoiced that James Johnson was deposed from the pedestal of authority in the interior of Yorubaland were soon to discover that this had not affected his stature in the eyes of the Africans. For his superintendence had not been a failure and in several ways it had enlarged his prestige, vindicated his ability, publicised his qualities and enlarged the circle of his admirers. For never had a European missionary displayed in Lagos and in the interior his kind of ability, spiritual fervour, saintliness and sense of dedication; never had a white missionary such a vast area under his control; never had a missionary performed in effect the duties of a Bishop; never had a missionary's moral and spiritual influence and standard been as perceptibly high as that of James Johnson's in the eyes of native converts; never had any ecclesiastic attempted and succeeded to persuade the Y oruba to take Christianity so seriously and to strain their purse in the manner James Johnson had succeeded in doing between 1877 and 1880.
