In South Africa such an experiment could not be made, for such a variety of Christian sects have followed the footsteps of the London Missionary Society’s successful career, that converts of one denomination, if left to their own resources, are eagerly adopted by another, and are thus more likely to become spoiled than trained to the manly Christian virtues.

Another element of weakness in this part of the missionary field is the fact of the missionary societies considering the Cape Colony itself as a proper sphere for their peculiar operations.  In addition to a well-organized and efficient Dutch Reformed Established Church, and schools for secular instruction, maintained by government, in every village of any extent in the colony, we have a number of other sects, as the Wesleyans, Episcopalians, Moravians, all piously laboring at the same good work.  Now it is deeply to be regretted that so much honest zeal should be so lavishly expended in a district wherein there is so little scope for success.  When we hear an agent of one sect urging his friends at home to aid him quickly to occupy some unimportant nook, because, if it is not speedily laid hold of, he will “not have room for the sole of his foot,” one can not help longing that both he and his friends would direct their noble aspirations to the millions of untaught heathen in the regions beyond, and no longer continue to convert the extremity of the continent into, as it were, a dam of benevolence.

I would earnestly recommend all young missionaries to go at once to the real heathen, and never to be content with what has been made ready to their hands by men of greater enterprise.  The idea of making model Christians of the young need not be entertained by any one who is secretly convinced, as most men who know their own hearts are, that he is not a model Christian himself.  The Israelitish slaves brought out of Egypt by Moses were not converted and elevated in one generation, though under the direct teaching of God himself.  Notwithstanding the numbers of miracles he wrought, a generation had to be cut off because of unbelief.  Our own elevation, also, has been the work of centuries, and, remembering this, we should not indulge in overwrought expectations as to the elevation which those who have inherited the degradation of ages may attain in our day.  The principle might even be adopted by missionary societies, that one ordinary missionary’s lifetime of teaching should be considered an ample supply of foreign teaching for any tribe in a thinly-peopled country, for some never will receive the Gospel at all, while in other parts, when Christianity is once planted, the work is sure to go on.  A missionary is soon known to be supported by his friends at home; and though the salary is but a bare subsistence, to Africans it seems an enormous sum; and, being unable to appreciate the motives by which he is actuated, they consider themselves entitled to various services at his hands,