In The Hope That Others Would Be Induced To Join Him In His Attachment
To Christianity, He Asked Me To
Begin family worship with him in his house.
I did so; and by-and-by was surprised to hear how
Well he conducted the prayer
in his own simple and beautiful style, for he was quite a master
of his own language. At this time we were suffering from
the effects of a drought, which will be described further on,
and none except his family, whom he ordered to attend, came near his meeting.
"In former times," said he, "when a chief was fond of hunting, all his people
got dogs, and became fond of hunting too. If he was fond of dancing or music,
all showed a liking to these amusements too. If the chief loved beer,
they all rejoiced in strong drink. But in this case it is different.
I love the Word of God, and not one of my brethren will join me." One reason
why we had no volunteer hypocrites was the hunger from drought, which was
associated in their minds with the presence of Christian instruction;
and hypocrisy is not prone to profess a creed which seems to insure
an empty stomach.
Sechele continued to make a consistent profession for about three years;
and perceiving at last some of the difficulties of his case,
and also feeling compassion for the poor women, who were by far
the best of our scholars, I had no desire that he should be in any hurry
to make a full profession by baptism, and putting away all his wives but one.
His principal wife, too, was about the most unlikely subject in the tribe
ever to become any thing else than an out-and-out greasy disciple
of the old school. She has since become greatly altered, I hear,
for the better; but again and again have I seen Sechele send her out of church
to put her gown on, and away she would go with her lips shot out,
the very picture of unutterable disgust at his new-fangled notions.
When he at last applied for baptism, I simply asked him how he,
having the Bible in his hand, and able to read it, thought he ought to act.
He went home, gave each of his superfluous wives new clothing, and all
his own goods, which they had been accustomed to keep in their huts for him,
and sent them to their parents with an intimation that he had no fault
to find with them, but that in parting with them he wished to follow
the will of God. On the day on which he and his children were baptized,
great numbers came to see the ceremony. Some thought,
from a stupid calumny circulated by enemies to Christianity in the south,
that the converts would be made to drink an infusion of "dead men's brains",
and were astonished to find that water only was used at baptism.
Seeing several of the old men actually in tears during the service,
I asked them afterward the cause of their weeping; they were crying
to see their father, as the Scotch remark over a case of suicide,
"SO FAR LEFT TO HIMSELF". They seemed to think that I had
thrown the glamour over him, and that he had become mine.
Here commenced an opposition which we had not previously experienced.
All the friends of the divorced wives became the opponents of our religion.
The attendance at school and church diminished to very few besides
the chief's own family. They all treated us still with respectful kindness,
but to Sechele himself they said things which, as he often remarked,
had they ventured on in former times, would have cost them their lives.
It was trying, after all we had done, to see our labors so little appreciated;
but we had sown the good seed, and have no doubt but it will yet spring up,
though we may not live to see the fruits.
Leaving this sketch of the chief, I proceed to give an equally rapid one
of our dealing with his people, the Bakena, or Bakwains.
A small piece of land, sufficient for a garden, was purchased
when we first went to live with them, though that was scarcely necessary
in a country where the idea of buying land was quite new.
It was expected that a request for a suitable spot would have been made,
and that we should have proceeded to occupy it as any other
member of the tribe would. But we explained to them that we wished to avoid
any cause of future dispute when land had become more valuable;
or when a foolish chief began to reign, and we had erected
large or expensive buildings, he might wish to claim the whole.
These reasons were considered satisfactory. About 5 Pounds worth of goods
were given for a piece of land, and an arrangement was come to
that a similar piece should be allotted to any other missionary,
at any other place to which the tribe might remove.
The particulars of the sale sounded strangely in the ears of the tribe,
but were nevertheless readily agreed to.
In our relations with this people we were simply strangers
exercising no authority or control whatever. Our influence depended
entirely on persuasion; and having taught them by kind conversation
as well as by public instruction, I expected them to do what
their own sense of right and wrong dictated. We never wished them to do right
merely because it would be pleasing to us, nor thought ourselves to blame
when they did wrong, although we were quite aware of the absurd idea
to that effect. We saw that our teaching did good to the general mind
of the people by bringing new and better motives into play. Five instances
are positively known to me in which, by our influence on public opinion,
war was prevented; and where, in individual cases, we failed,
the people did no worse than they did before we came into the country.
In general they were slow, like all the African people
hereafter to be described, in coming to a decision on religious subjects;
but in questions affecting their worldly affairs they were keenly alive
to their own interests.
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