and defrauded if these are not duly rendered.
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.