ABSTRACT
As may have been gathered from the accounts given so far of his nationalist exertions in Church and State James Johnson's behaviour was often the outcome of a process of thinking. There was never any question of his being rash. of his taking a step he was likely to regret or a stand he would be at a loss to defend or explain in rational terms. For he had a tremendous capacity for thinking. a thinking derived partly from his literary education. partly from his unique conversion. partly from his experiences in and observations of Sierra Leone. Lagos. Y oruba and Niger Delta societies and partly from his contact with different classes of Europeans. From the earliest times his thinking developed into ideas. the latter in turn crystallising into principles. It was when he applied these principles to issues. as he invariably did. that he possessed opinions and arrived at judgments that were on several occasions at variance with those of less reflecting, less principled. less dogmatic African colleagues. Hence his loneliness on the independence issue in the Church in Sierra Leone in 1873-1874 and in the State in Lagos in 1889.
