to be prepared and made meet for receiving the very fire of love from the altar; to BEAR THE LORD WITHIN US; to have our hearts enkindled at the source of Light; and if not to speak, at least to weep before the Lord that made us, and in the silence of the heart to feel what neither words nor lips of man may e'er unfold! END OF CHAPTER IV. OF THE NAVE OF THE CHURCH. Feast of the Translation of the Relics of MOFFAT'S SOUTHERN AFRICA.* THE Kat River is that fertile district which, as our readers will remember, was wrested from the unbelieving Kaffres, and given to the Hottentots in reward of their faith. Hence it is to the Kat River that we should look for the largest amount of exterior conformity to a creed so profitable unto salvation. The last year's report, however, exhibits only 500 members of the Church, and 912 scholars, while the missionary anticipations of liberal returns for their disinterested labours have been grievously belied by the result. (Ibid.) Of Kaffraria our author gives us no better hopes than we expressed in our former article. He is ominously silent. True it is that there are missionaries many; Wesleyan, Congregationalist, and Scottish. But he merely says. that their endeavours" bid fair" to do some good, "if they receive the Divine blessing,"-although " for a season Satan may prevail" against them. (Ibid. p. 48.) As to the Bushmen, they appear to have scorned all the exhortations that have been addressed to them. "Can we wonder that the Bushmen missions should upon the whole prove a failure?" (Ibid. p. 62.) Surely not!-As to Afrikaner's Kraal in ** Missionary Labours and Scenes in Southern Africa. By Robert Moffat. Snow, Paternoster Row, 1842. 66 a Namaqualand, we have very inconsistent accounts. It suits the purpose of Messrs. Moffat, Campbell, and Backhouse, to represent the conquest of the Gospel as complete. "Mr. Ebner's labours were blessed," says Mr. Moffat; " Afrikaner, his two brothers, with a number of others, were baptised." (Ibid. p. 93.) But we have already seen what the value of these baptisms really was; and the very next sentence to the foregoing shows up Afrikaner himself, as conniving with a runaway slave, in robbing the very man who had baptised him, and in menacing him with death if he resisted. Moreover, Ebner, who knew them best, startled Mr. Moffat, by describing these sweet conquests of grace as wicked, suspicious, and dangerous people, baptised as well as unbaptised." (Ibid. p. 103.) In fact, brother Ebner gave him so different a story of them to that which he courted the public to believe, that he was voted very indiscreet for his pains, and "not what Mr. Albrecht desired, nor the man Mr. Campbell would have sent." At any rate, the Namaqua mission is no longer a matter of glory. After the death of Afrikaner himself, David and Jacobus, his brothers, had only a "select few" to help them "to keep the lamp of God alive." But Jacobus was, as we have seen, afterwards shot by some Griqua children of his own missionaries. Jonker, Afrikaner's son and successor, turned to his father's old career of freebooting, and other wicked courses, “though he had been," says Mr. Moffat, "a promising youth." (Ibid. p. 114.) With the wilder, or more distant Namaquas, the missionaries had never any chance of success. They perfectly confounded Mr. Moffat's " "preconceived notions about innate and intuitive ideas, and what some term natural light." The little glimmering that some had, they had picked up at Bethany, a station of missionaries, or as they happily termed them, "the people that talked about GOD." Afrikaner obliged him to return homeward, to avoid the risk of bloodshed; a relative from the north giving but a sorry account of the country in that direction. (Ib. pp. 127-7.) In truth, all the influence ever possessed by the missionaries in Namaqualand expired with Afrikaner. His conversion, so to call it, is attributed by Mr. Moffat to the superstitious impression made on him by a dream. It is admitted, that but for this dream-(whose class it puzzles our author to determine, whether as human, satanic, or divine), he would have dismissed religion for ever from his thoughts. But he awoke a Christian, and a faithful adherent of European missionaries. Others saw angels behind bushes,-others beheld the Saviour, and told his form,―others heard heavenly voices, others went to the third heaven, viâ Jerusalem, and returned the same night. (Ib. p. 184.) But upon none of these was an impression made, so useful to the missionaries, as upon Afrikaner. His death was the signal for their expulsion, and the destruction of their dwellings. The congregationalists have long ago abandoned in despair all thought of a second; but Mr. Backhouse waggishly describes the Methodists, who have recently penetrated into that country, as reaping the harvest sown by the Congregationalists. (Ibid. p. 188.) In Griquatown, a mission of about forty-three years has ended by producing only five hundred and twenty church members, and an unenumerated body of scholars, pursuing knowledge under difficulties, according to Mr. Moffat. (Ibid. p. 205.) Of their mental and spiritual amendment, we have our doubts. Our author admits that the accuser, against whom he maintains it, "ought to have a tolerably correct knowledge of the state of the northern frontiers." Now this person has said, that "all the chiefs in the country, with only one exception, are heathens and marauders." (Ibid. p. 210.) Not that Mr. Moffat differs from him in the main upon all occasions. The "professors," who rob and murder, very often appear in the book before us, but are very rarely styled Griquas. Bergenaars is the name our author prefers to give them. A convenient name,— sounding like that of some foreign tribe, while it only means mountaineers, after all;—that is, Griquas who have gone out to rob on the mountains! Hence, with the exception of the Koks, Waterboer, and Berend, we doubt not that we are perfectly of accord with our author, in his estimate of the Griqua converts. With the Bechuanas we enter upon the more recent of the Protestant missions. Mr. Moffat boasts of his successes among that nation; and why? Because forsooth "our schools, as also our printing-presses, are at work to supply the increasing wants of a reading population; and we hear Macedonian voices saying, 'Come over and help us."" (Ib. p. 242.) Leaving these generalities, however, he proceeds to tell us a very different story. So averse were the Bechuanas to talk upon religion, that it was a treat to meet with one to discuss the subject, even though with derision and scorn." They would not spend even their idle time in hearing the missionaries, unless they were paid for it in tobacco or other equivalents. They would make a trade, by telling them that they had been wonderfully directed in prayer, and that their prayers had been providentially answered on the spot. To questions how they liked the Gospel, "replies were very cheap;" and for years afterwards the merriment of savage circles was excited by the gullibility of the missionaries. Not a trace of the instructions they received 66 remained upon their otherwise tenacious memories. Most of those who made "professions to please," died as they had lived, in deepest ignorance. The king's aged uncle explained the feelings of all, in explaining those which he entertained towards the missionaries. "Your customs may be good enough for you, but I never see that they fill the stomach," putting his hand on his own. "I would like to live with you, because you are kind, and could give me medicine when I am sick. Perhaps you may be able to make the children remember your customs." (Ib. pp. 245-7.) For hours after the missionaries had endeavoured to impart to them the simplest truths, as for instance the existence of a GOD,-the confusion and ignorance of the hearers testified that they themselves were incompetent, because unlawful teachers. The only remark they would often elicit, was the question, "What is it you wish to tell me?" And, when this difficulty was overcome, and the doctrine fairly represented to the intelligence of the savage, the teachers would be told that certainly those fables were very wonderful, but not more so than their own. Or there would be "a burst of deadening laughter," and the teacher would be begged "to say no more on such trifles, lest the people should think him mad.” (Ib. pp. 266-8.) Five years after the commencement of the Bechuana mission, while the time of the missionaries had heen engrossed in labouring for the meat that perisheth," the savages had become on their side "perfectly callous and indifferent to all instruction, except it were followed by some temporal benefit." There were "no conversions, no enquiry, no objections. Indifference and stupidity formed the wreath on every brow; ignorance, the basis of every action;-the great subject of the soul's redemption appears to them like an old and ragged garment. We preach, we converse, we catechise, we pray, says a contemporary letter, but without the least apparent success. Only satiate their mendicant spirits by perpetually giving, and we are all that is good. But, refuse to meet their demands-their praises are turned to ridicule and abuse." (Ib. pp. 284-6.) They would indeed enter the meetinghouse, but it was only to see what preacher was in the pulpit, that they might go to his house and rob it. Messrs. Hamilton and Moffat, when they met at night, had always some tale of losses, never any of gains. Sometimes, on returning from preaching, a stone would be found in the pot, considerately left there instead of the boiled meat on which the preacher had hoped to dine. (Ib. pp. 288-90.) Audiences were only to be collected by the chiefs of the tribes, and these were only to be won by presents of tobacco, of which the missionaries were believed to have measureless stores furnished them by government. They had to carry it with them, whenever they travelled on a mission. "When we happened to forget it, we were frequently told to go back first, and bring the tobacco." When the chief delayed to call the meeting until the sun was hot, it afforded the hearers "no little satisfaction and enjoyment" to see the teachers hopping in their shoes from tuft to tuft, to cool their glowing feet. The Batlaros were thought more satisfactory, though for our lives we cannot tell why. "I had scarcely begun," says Mr. Moffat, of his sermon (Ib .pp. 296-8), "when the greater part of them took to their heels." In like manner the Barolongs, another of these tribes, when he addressed them at a later period, only sympathised with Mr. Moffat for the afflicting foolishness of his well-meant sermons. (Ib. p. 458.) Years continued to pass in this manner. For ten years, 66 our labours," says Mr. Moffat, "had been carried on without any fruit; but even this was a state of peace and pleasure, compared with the past." (Ib. p. 478.) In after years, his prospects were less discouraging. The diplomatic and mercantile influences had done their work. The chiefs and people began to emulate the humanising influences of European society. The missionaries were welcomed as the representatives of that society. In 1829, therefore, six of them made their profession, and received baptism, in the presence of fifty Griquas, who were on a hunting party. This event produced forsooth a salutary impression upon their minds, for they were on the eve of being thrust out of the fold for their backslidings; and their jealousy of these Bechuana converts was the means of keeping them in. (Ib. pp. 498-9.) This was "a great change," says Mr. Moffat; but we still rejoiced with trembling." Six converts in thirteen years! These were in so awful a state of excitement about "beasts of prey," "lions' dens," and "calabashes," that the missionaries feared "it would prove only like the morning cloud and early dew, and therefore found it necessary to exercise great caution in receiving members into the little church." (Ib. p. 508.) Mahura, the Bechuana king, refused to receive their Gospel into his heart, but strongly recommended its application to temporal purposes; thereby showing what his estimate was of missionary usefulness. (Ib. p. 514.) Nor were the converted subjects of the king very slow to perceive that there was no good in being righteous overmuch. Before 1829 was well ended, the "strong excitement which prevailed in the early part of it had subsided." Progress, however, was made in other things, of purely secular concern. (Ib. p. 559.) The fruits of that mission, in fact, are no longer to be 66 |