Two conferences of some significance took place shortly before the First World War: the World Missionary Conference at Edinburgh in 1910, and the Kikuyu Conference, held at a Church of Scotland mission station at an out-of-the-way place in East Africa in 1913. In an Ecumenical Age, the fame of the former is likely to endure, the notoriety of the latter to be forgotten. Yet it was the controversy raised by the second conference which caused Lord Morley to remark that the ‘cacophonous’ name of Kikuyu might one day rival in fame that of Trent. Another grand claim was made for Kikuyu by the Bishop of Zanzibar—one with which The Times agreed—that ‘there has not been a conference of such importance to the life of the Ecclesia Anglicana since the Reformation’.
The Mules are Splendid Company: One Man's Experience of WWI Africa
