This Feeling Is All The Stronger When A Young Man,
Instead Of Going Boldly To The Real Heathen, Settles Down
In A Comfortable House And Garden Prepared By Those Into Whose Labors
He Has Entered.
A remedy for this evil might be found
in appropriating the houses and gardens raised by the missionaries' hands
to their own families.
It is ridiculous to call such places as Kuruman,
for instance, "Missionary Society's property". This beautiful station was
made what it is, not by English money, but by the sweat and toil of fathers
whose children have, notwithstanding, no place on earth which they can
call a home. The Society's operations may be transferred to the north,
and then the strong-built mission premises become the home of a Boer,
and the stately stone church his cattle-pen. This place has been
what the monasteries of Europe are said to have been when pure.
The monks did not disdain to hold the plow. They introduced fruit-trees,
flowers, and vegetables, in addition to teaching and emancipating the serfs.
Their monasteries were mission stations, which resembled ours
in being dispensaries for the sick, almshouses for the poor,
and nurseries of learning. Can we learn nothing from them
in their prosperity as the schools of Europe, and see naught in their history
but the pollution and laziness of their decay? Can our wise men tell us
why the former mission stations (primitive monasteries) were self-supporting,
rich, and flourishing as pioneers of civilization and agriculture,
from which we even now reap benefits, and modern mission stations
are mere pauper establishments, without that permanence or ability
to be self-supporting which they possessed?
Protestant missionaries of every denomination in South Africa
all agree in one point, that no mere profession of Christianity
is sufficient to entitle the converts to the Christian name.
They are all anxious to place the Bible in the hands of the natives,
and, with ability to read that, there can be little doubt as to the future.
We believe Christianity to be divine, and equal to all it has to perform;
then let the good seed be widely sown, and, no matter to what sect
the converts may belong, the harvest will be glorious.
Let nothing that I have said be interpreted as indicative of feelings
inimical to any body of Christians, for I never, as a missionary,
felt myself to be either Presbyterian, Episcopalian, or Independent,
or called upon in any way to love one denomination less than another.
My earnest desire is, that those who really have the best interests
of the heathen at heart should go to them; and assuredly, in Africa at least,
self-denying labors among real heathen will not fail to be appreciated.
Christians have never yet dealt fairly by the heathen and been disappointed.
When Sechele understood that we could no longer remain with him at Kolobeng,
he sent his children to Mr. Moffat, at Kuruman, for instruction
in all the knowledge of the white men. Mr. Moffat very liberally
received at once an accession of five to his family, with their attendants.
Having been detained at Kuruman about a fortnight by the breaking
of a wagon-wheel, I was thus providentially prevented from being present
at the attack of the Boers on the Bakwains, news of which was brought,
about the end of that time, by Masebele, the wife of Sechele.
She had herself been hidden in a cleft of a rock, over which
a number of Boers were firing. Her infant began to cry,
and, terrified lest this should attract the attention of the men,
the muzzles of whose guns appeared at every discharge over her head,
she took off her armlets as playthings to quiet the child.
She brought Mr. Moffat a letter, which tells its own tale.
Nearly literally translated it was as follows:
"Friend of my heart's love, and of all the confidence of my heart,
I am Sechele. I am undone by the Boers, who attacked me, though I had
no guilt with them. They demanded that I should be in their kingdom,
and I refused. They demanded that I should prevent the English and Griquas
from passing (northward). I replied, These are my friends,
and I can prevent no one (of them). They came on Saturday,
and I besought them not to fight on Sunday, and they assented.
They began on Monday morning at twilight, and fired with all their might,
and burned the town with fire, and scattered us. They killed
sixty of my people, and captured women, and children, and men.
And the mother of Baleriling (a former wife of Sechele) they also
took prisoner. They took all the cattle and all the goods of the Bakwains;
and the house of Livingstone they plundered, taking away all his goods.
The number of wagons they had was eighty-five, and a cannon; and after they
had stolen my own wagon and that of Macabe, then the number of their wagons
(counting the cannon as one) was eighty-eight. All the goods of the hunters
(certain English gentlemen hunting and exploring in the north)
were burned in the town; and of the Boers were killed twenty-eight.
Yes, my beloved friend, now my wife goes to see the children,
and Kobus Hae will convey her to you.
I am, SECHELE,
The Son of Mochoasele."
This statement is in exact accordance with the account given by
the native teacher Mebalwe, and also that sent by some of the Boers themselves
to the public colonial papers. The crime of cattle-stealing, of which
we hear so much near Caffreland, was never alleged against these people,
and, if a single case had occurred when I was in the country,
I must have heard of it, and would at once say so. But the only crime
imputed in the papers was that "Sechele was getting too saucy."
The demand made for his subjection and service in preventing
the English traders passing to the north was kept out of view.
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