that such missionaries find themselves continually in want of the Divine guidance. (Ibid. p. 237.) But that they obtain it we take leave to deny. Even Mr. Moffat gives occasional utterance to lamentations over the conduct of his assistants. Professors of religion,-as they were esteemed, before they were called, in manner above-mentioned, to the ministry, their conduct afterwards was very far from being consistent with their professions. "They became," says Mr. Moffat, of some of these backsliders, "stumbling-blocks to the heathen." (Ibid. p. 291.) Elsewhere he tells us that he has experienced much evil, arising from the selection of missionaries who could scarcely read, and who did not comprehend the doctrines they preached, and who consequently spread abroad "wild notions," and " errors most difficult to eradicate." His humility, however, leads him to content himself with a good reader, having a natural understanding and prudence. Probably this was the utmost he had a right to expect. (Ibid. p. 590.)

Nor was it among the missionaries alone that he found his embarrassments. The interpreters, it seems, are a much worse set than the missionaries. There is no depending upon their fidelity or abilities, when a sermon is to be preached by one unpractised in their talk. Perhaps, indeed, the best men are not always lighted on for the purpose. And it is certainly true that Brother Vanderkemp showed less than his usual sagacity in the selection which he made. Mr. Buys, who had fled from angry Capetown creditors, was not the man we should have chosen, to interpret the Gospel to King Gaika. We do not wonder when we find him playing Giezi to his employer's Eliseus, and on the strength of a reputation for rain-making, which, unknown to the latter, he had taken care to give him, extorting cattle for himself from Gaika. (Ibid. pp. 26-30.) In another way, indeed, but almost as painful a way, we find Mr. Moffat himself victimised by those losel caitiffs. The good man tells us, how troubled he has been, at hearing of their erroneous renderings of his oracles. On acquiring their language, he has found that, of the sentences so translated on previous occasions, some had been ludicrous and laughter-moving, and others intensely horrible from their blasphemy. On such occasions much depended on the taste of the interpreter. Some would introduce cart-wheels and ox-tails into his passages, where other words occurred, having sounds remotely similar to those homely words. Thus, when the interpreter fancied that "sack" and "subject" were much alike,-in sound, if not in sense, he told the people in Mr. Moffat's name, that "the salvation of the soul was a great and important sack ;" a proposition, as he justly thinks, that was strange

indeed. Unfortunately this was not the worst part of the story. That interpreter went to Kurrechane, brought home with him a concubine, apostatised, and became an enemy to the mission;—a severe blow, says Mr. Moffat, and a great scandal to the incredulous Bechuanas. (Ibid. p. 294-5.) But the missionaries themselves were not very particular upon this last point. Mr. Pringle, their poet laureat, has celebrated in immortal verse one who married his own Hottentot neophyte. From Mr. Moffat, a most unwilling witness, we learn that the great Vanderkemp too, "with more feeling than judgment," took unto himself a wife, from among the same dwarfish, greasy, sheepskin-clad race. This marriage, however, was the death of him. Still, it was one point more in the general resemblance, which Mr. Moffat has found, between his character and that of Luther, Wickliffe, Knox, and a host of others; apart from which, they would have been like the flower, which " wastes its sweetness in the desert air.” (Ibid. p. 40.) In truth, their doctrines on the sinfulness of mortification very closely resembled those of Vanderkemp, and other modern missionaries. These gentlemen seem to hold that, in their vocation, a life of self-denial had no part. The "hungry, self-denying life," which brother Read and his great leader were obliged to lead at Bethelsdorp, makes Mr. Moffat wonder, that they staid so long upon a place, so "unsuitable for a missionary farm ;" a place where men were often without bread or vegetables. (Ibid. p. 37.) Elsewhere we are told, what a tremendous rating the directors of the missions got, from the missionaries in Great Namaqualand, who found themselves hungry and athirst there, and perplexed to think, what they should eat or drink, a sorrowful situation, which they think might have been prevented, by their worthy brethren the directors. (Ibid. p. 70.) But, how much more are we called upon to sympathise, with our author himself! At Africaners Kraal, he found himself in a barren country, with about £25 per annum, and no grain to make bread, to eat with the beef and mutton, of which he found an abundance. These circumstances, very naturally, led Mr. Moffat to "great reachings of heart," and, among the granite rocks around him, to pour out his soul in hymn-music, with the help of a second-hand violin or kit. (Ibid. p. 108.) Surely, these melancholy recollections might have inspired our author with more charity, than he has shewn for his assistants at Kuruman in after years, who would not submit to their turn of privations, "but murmured exceedingly." (Ibid. p. 444.) They thought and felt as Mr. Moffat had done before them. Nor has be much changed in this respect. Among the "difficulties, almost insuperable,” in the way

of missions to the furthest Namaquas, and to the Damaras, he gravely records the circumstance that "the agents employed will have to lead a self-denying life," for an indefinite period. (Ibid. p. 189.) All of which is a very memorable and powerful sermon, of the practical kind, upon the following passages of Holy Writ. "You cannot serve GOD and Mammon. Therefore I say to you, be not solicitous for your life what you shall eat, nor for your body, what you shall put on. Be not solicitous, therefore, saying what shall we eat? or what shall we drink? or wherewith shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the heathen seek." (S. Matt. vi. 24-32.) Alas! what a truth is here! This indifference to the good and evil things of the nether world is one of the symbols of a true vocation. The intruder upon the missionary functions presents a very different aspect. Self-denial is not for him,— not for him is that implicit reliance upon the Providence which feedeth the fowls of the air, and maketh glorious the grass of the wilderness. The promise was made, not to the usurper, but to the missionary. That the latter has not read it in vain, the most cursory glance at the Annals of the Propagation of the Faith will convince the most incredulous. It is not there that the slightest solicitude for food or raiment exhibits itself. After all these things do the heathen seek,—that is, the unbelieving of every grade, from the Pagan to the Protestant.

This truth is familiar enough to the minds of the Protestant missionaries themselves. The practice of making money, by way of traffic, is not without its plausibility, according to Mr. Moffat, although in one instance he condemns it. But that was the case of the apostate Edwards, who, "having amassed a handsome sum, and long forsaken his GOD," left the Bauangketsi to themselves, purchased a farm and slaves in the Cape Colony, and is now, or of late was, "a hoary-headed infidel." Moreover, he received, "with indignity and scorn," some ser-mons with which Mr. Moffat regaled him. No wonder that our author should find fault with the ivory and cattle trade, when carried on by such a monster as this. (Ib. p. 216.) own people, the Griquas or Bastaards, shine in the eyes of the heathen Bechuanas. Their misconduct, while hunting or trafficking in the country of the latter, and also the grievances which they inflicted upon such of them as visited Griqualand, were thrown into Mr. Moffat's teeth, he says, when he went among the Bechuanas, to convert them to his religious notions. The practices of these "professors," as he calls them, were "held up to him as the fruits of the Gospel ;" and he was warned to make his own people good, before attempting the rege

But neither did Mr. Moffat's

neration of foreigners. So frequent were these "reproaches and scorn," he tells us, that he became inured to them. (Ib. p. 327.) The heathen minds were, it seems, made up, as to the purely mercantile character of their visitants. King Mothibi's first question to Kok was, "What have you brought for barter ?”—a very natural one, we agree with Mr. Moffat, for these people to ask. Warned by the fate of his missionary father, who had perished by the hands of two Bechuanas, with whom he had quarrelled about money-matters, (Ib. p. 217) Kok declined at first to indulge the king's passion for trade. This occasioned their reception to be most comfortless; chagrin marked the royal features of Mothibi, and his chiefs exhibited strong tokens of their displeasure. Kok was obliged to follow his father's line. In the evening, the king's heart was sweetened with tobacco and beads, and his queen was propitiated with the like gifts. He was also told that one missionary worked in wood, and that another was a smith, and made hatchets. "They may come and protect me," said the king; " but they want water, much water,”—referring to their proverbial love of irrigation and tillage. He then stipulated with them, that they were not to teach the people, but merely to traffic with them, as their predecessors had done. But the people would not hear of their being there upon any terms; and, for a season, they were forced to depart," with hooting and derisive vociferation." Ultimately, however, in consideration of "a plentiful supply of articles to make him and his people happy," brother Read was able to soften down the king's opposition. The people also were won over to consent, some-to the missionaries' remaining on terms not to preach or teach;—and others, on condition that, "should an enemy invade the town, assistance would be given by the missionaries." (Ib. pp. 229-35.) This was in 1816. So far from witnessing any pourings forth of "the influences of the Holy Spirit," they had the mortification, for years afterwards, of being convinced of the evil fame their ambiguous situation gave them, by the fact that at their door were laid all the outrages and frauds practised upon them by the colonists, whom, in obedience to their white teachers, they visited for the sake of traffic. (Ib. pp. 239-41.) As to their lectures, it is said, very few attended them for the sake of instruction, Mr. Moffat witnessed similar results, in a mission of his to the Barolongs. The people were kind and fond enough, because he shot rhinoceroses for their nightly feasts, physicked them when they were ill, and made them roar with laughter at his blunders. To please him, they would even assemble on Sundays to hear him preach; but he confesses, that it was like

casting seed by the wayside or on the flinty rock. His hearers asked him, if he were really in earnest, and really believed that there was such a Being as he described to them? They turned into ridicule man's redemption and the Cross, and made sport of immortality. Of one man who looked more thoughtful than the other scorners, he had hopes; but they were soon crushed. Unfolding to him the mysteries of the Calvinistic paradise, he asked him, impressively, what was the supreme happiness, the finest sight he could desire; and the mocking savage answered him, "A great fire, covered with pots full of meat! How ugly the fire looks without a pot!" Mr. Moffat felt the hint, and gave up all hopes of ever being, among the Barolongs, more than a provider of the food that perisheth, their fire perhaps, but valued only for the fleshpots that covered it. (Ib. p. 459.) Endeavours to sap the faith of a Baharutsi fugitive ended as fruitlessly. This man was a smith, and became very sociable with Mr. Moffat, his brother in that trade. So they began to talk together, about the forge, and the bellows, and the power of knowledge exemplified in such matters. "To this he listened with great attention; but when I introduced divine subjects, man's misery, and man's redemption, he looked at me with mouth dilated, and asked, 'Art thou a rain-maker?'" In the like social converse, on which he prayed a blessing, did our author entangle the children of this coppersmith, as well as some others. "But what became of these Baharutsian families I never knew." (Ib. p. 468.) Moselekatse too, the sovereign of the Matabilis, and, however disparaged by the Calvinists,—a great and popular chief, and well worthy of our interest, convinced Mr. Moffat and his companions that it was for no spiritual ends that he desired their acquaintanceship. One day, when the king was giving vent to his strong gratitude for favours shown to two of his subjects by Mr. Moffat at Kuruman, our author seized the opportunity to offer him important news. "This was, the news of the love of GOD." The royal countenance soon changed, and betrayed a truant mind. Speedily, however, as Mr. Moffat proceeded, his eyes beamed again with delight. Alas! this was not on Mr. Moffat, but— on the droves of sleek kine that approached his capital, and "possessed charms infinitely more captivating than the topics of our conversation." (Ib. p. 538.) Not unwisely, then, had our missionaries demeaned themselves before the Matabilis, who sought them out at Kuruman. With their experience of the estimation, in which all other nations and tongues had held them, they did wisely to procure a wholly carnal title to their reverence. Every thing calculated to interest was exhibited to them;"

66