Now These Same People Come To Church
In Decent Though Poor Clothing, And Behave With A Decorum Certainly Superior
To
What seems to have been the case in the time of Mr. Samuel Pepys in London.
Sunday is well observed,
And, even in localities where no missionary lives,
religious meetings are regularly held, and children and adults taught to read
by the more advanced of their own fellow-countrymen; and no one is allowed
to make a profession of faith by baptism unless he knows how to read,
and understands the nature of the Christian religion.
The Bechuana Mission has been so far successful that,
when coming from the interior, we always felt, on reaching Kuruman,
that we had returned to civilized life. But I would not give any one
to understand by this that they are model Christians - we can not claim
to be model Christians ourselves - or even in any degree superior
to the members of our country churches. They are more stingy and greedy
than the poor at home; but in many respects the two are exactly alike.
On asking an intelligent chief what he thought of them, he replied,
"You white men have no idea of how wicked we are; we know each other
better than you; some feign belief to ingratiate themselves
with the missionaries; some profess Christianity because they like
the new system, which gives so much more importance to the poor,
and desire that the old system may pass away; and the rest -
a pretty large number - profess because they are really true believers."
This testimony may be considered as very nearly correct.
There is not much prospect of this country ever producing
much of the materials of commerce except wool. At present
the chief articles of trade are karosses or mantles -
the skins of which they are composed come from the Desert;
next to them, ivory, the quantity of which can not now be great,
inasmuch as the means of shooting elephants is sedulously debarred entrance
into the country. A few skins and horns, and some cattle,
make up the remainder of the exports. English goods, sugar, tea, and coffee
are the articles received in exchange. All the natives of these parts
soon become remarkably fond of coffee. The acme of respectability
among the Bechuanas is the possession of cattle and a wagon.
It is remarkable that, though these latter require frequent repairs,
none of the Bechuanas have ever learned to mend them. Forges and tools
have been at their service, and teachers willing to aid them,
but, beyond putting together a camp-stool, no effort has ever been made
to acquire a knowledge of the trades. They observe most carefully
a missionary at work until they understand whether a tire
is well welded or not, and then pronounce upon its merits with great emphasis,
but there their ambition rests satisfied. It is the same peculiarity
among ourselves which leads us in other matters, such as book-making,
to attain the excellence of fault-finding without the wit to indite a page.
It was in vain I tried to indoctrinate the Bechuanas with the idea
that criticism did not imply any superiority over the workman,
or even equality with him.
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