ABSTRACT
JAMES JOHNSON'S performance as a Legislator shows clearly that he was not just the "Pope" of Nigeria, wrapped up in spiritual contemplation and living far away from the madding crowd. He was not only in but of society. Unlike St. Augustine he did not regard human society as evil or secular. Ideally it was Christian and an agency for the fulfilment of the divine purpose. Nor was James Johnson's society just the one in which he lived physically. Rather it was that of mankind on the terrestrial globe. Hence the affairs of men in Europe, in Russia, in Japan, in India and in the New World came under his observation,! though-as should be expected-not as much as that of Africa in general and of West Africa in particular. Not that he felt he was a citizen of the world in the sense of the Stoics of Ancient Greece. But from his theological belief arose the idea that Man had a basic immutable nature which could not be altered by geography and accidents of history, that the human species constituted a family and that what happened to one people should be the concern of others.
