Although today in the late twentieth-century Josiah Mapumulo seems to have been completely forgotten in South African intellectual and cultural history, a perusal of Ilanga lase Natal from its inception in 1903 to the late 1930s indicates him to have been a dominant intellectual voice on its pages, a dominance whose brilliance was possibly challenged by 'Amicus Homini Gentis' who was contemporaneous with him. It was for this reason that at the autumn of Mapumulo's life, the young Benedict Vilakazi at the beginning moment of his spectacular intellectual career, praised him in the following manner: "Now I can say the Ilanga is dominated by the opinions of Mr. Josiah Mapumulo. Several times I have made mention of the name of this gentleman in this and other journals. We, who are writers for the Ilanga should copy this from this gentleman: To read and pore on books, and absorb knowledge from newspapers both old and new and never to say that we are grown old and tired of reading and reproducing. Many a time have I envied his quotations and wished I would turn a burglar to search his library of old books of history of many mission stations, both Protestant and Catholic" ("What Writers Has This National Paper?", Ilanga lase Natal, March 17, 1933). In contrast to many intellectuals of the New African Movement who were profoundly influenced by the New Negro modernity from W. E. B. Du Bois to Richard Wright, Mapumulo together with A. H. Ngidi were more culturally enamored with the Roman era of Terence, Italian Renaissance and the history of the Catholic Church: they indirectly counterposed their Old Europeanism to the New Negroism of the others. Here it can be mentioned that the making of African modernities was due to the confluence of, or at the intersection between, Europeanism, Negroism and traditionalism. Mapumulo was touched and moved by Vilikazi's praise, for a few months later he responded with these words: "Mr. B. Wallet Vilakazi, in his artile of March 17, 1933, among other things, said: . . . . This  undeserved tribute is, indeed, gratifying coming as it does from a Catholic adherent" ("Working of Christianity Universal", Ilanga lase Natal, May 5, 1933). The role of Catholicism in the formation of African modernities in Natal still needs to be evaluated. The influence of Josiah Mapumulo on younger Natalian intellectuals such as H. I. E. Dhlomo, Jordan Ngubane, Vilakazi himself, Martin L. Khumalo, V. H. S. Mdhuli and others,  cannot be overestimated. Josiah Mapumulo was at the center of many continuities and legacies. Two examples will suffice. Although the last piece by Mapumulo in Ilanga appeared on June 20, 1942 ("Modern Ethiopia"), the last appearance of his column, 'Gleanings from By-Ways of Literature', on February 5, 1938, coincided with the debut of Jordan Ngubane with his column "Gleanings From Life'  on April 23, 1938 written under the pseudonym of 'Jo the Cow'. The continuation of an intellectual tradition is evidently apparent. Whereas Mapumulo had principally concentrated on the intellectual structure of the West, particularly the ethical systems of the Christian Church, in making African modernities possible, Ngubane confined himself to observing the lived experience of Africans in the urban environment of modernity. Second, in the same way that Mapumolo dominated the first three decades of Ilanga (1910s, 1920s and 1930s), H. I. E. Dhlomo dominated the decades of the 1940s and the 1950s. It is interesting and strange that neither Ngubane nor Dhlomo  mentioned him in the their voluminous journalism or intellectual reflections. In fact, when Jordan Ngubane wrote on the three famous jornalists he knew (i.e., those who had had the most pronounced influence on him), he mentioned John L. Dube, Ngazana Lithuli and R. V. Selope Thema ("Three Famous Journalists I Knew", Inkundla ya Bantu, respectively in June, Second Fortnight; July, First Fortnight; July, Second Fortnight 1946). Writing under the same theme, at the invitation of Jordan Ngubane as editor of Inkundla ya Bantu, H. I. E. Dhlomo choose his brother R. R. R. Dhlomo as one of these journalists, and unfortunately the other copies of the newspapers in which the other two were mentioned have been lost ("Three Famouus Journalists I Knew: R. R. R. Dhlomo", August, Second Fortnight, 1946). His imprint on their imagination is beyond doubt. When he made his first contribution to the newspaper on June 24, 1904 in a form of a Letter to the Editor (John L. Dube) insisting that the education for Africans should be similar to and be on par with that for Europeans, no one would have predicted that it was the beginning of an original intellectual voice that was to exercise its sharpness for nearly four decades. This long duration in commitment to literary journalism within the New African Movement is comparable to that of either R. R. R. Dhlomo or Allan Kirkland Soga or H. Selby Msimang. It would seem that the fundamental intellectual preoccupation of Josiah Mapumulo was the examination of the relationship between Christianity and African modernities. More than the other New African intellectuals, Mapumulo wanted to trace the historical consequences of this relationship. In this edeavour, he has left an enormous legacy to future generations. A monographical study of this enigmatic and fascinating intellectual would be a major contribution to the nature of South African modernity.