* / 
 
 \ 
 
 \ 
 
 
 THE 
 
 LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY 
 
 in 
 
 SOUTH AFRICA: 
 
 A RETROSPECTIVE SKETCH 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN MACKENZIE, 
 
 Twenty-five Years Missionary in Bechu an aland ; 
 
 Late Deputy-Commissioner of Bechuanaland ; 
 
 Author of “ Austral Africa : Losing it or Ruling it,” etc. 
 
 PRICE TWOPENCE. 
 
 Xon&on: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY, 
 
 14, BLOMFIELD STREET, E.C. 
 
 <4 
 
 
 i 
 
 1888. 
 
\ 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every * 
 creature,” was a command given by our Lord to believers 
 and followers as such, and not to any class or order of 
 Where an individual Christian is not enthusiastic about 
 his religion and anxious] that others should understand it and be 
 blessed by it, his Christianity is stunted and defective, and not 
 according to the mind and will of the Master. It needed, however, 
 the iron hand of persecution to impress this duty upon the first 
 Christian Church; and the churches of the Reformation were over a 
 hundred years old before they bethought them that they were all 
 without at least one essential lineament of a true Church of Christ, 
 and one which was possessed by the Church from which they had 
 separated—that of a propaganda or missionary function. It was, 
 perhaps, to be expected that a National Church would satisfy itself 
 with work for the nation; that bishops would content themselves 
 with the work of their bishoprics; and that parish clergymen would 
 consider that their duties were confined to their own parishes. But to 
 the extent that Christian churches and Christian men were influenced 
 by this isolating sentiment, to that extent were they and their church 
 system radically defective. Both in Europe and in America there 
 arose among Protestants in the end of last century and the beginning 
 of the present a growing sense of responsibility as Christians for the 
 fulfilment of the last command of their Saviour; and definite efforts 
 were commenced to evangelise the pagan nations. Something akin to 
 the primitive faith in the power of Christ and of Christianity took 
 possession of many Christian people in Britain, America, and the 
 
 Christians. 
 
2 
 
 Continent of Europe; and “ the Missionary Society, commonly called 
 tlie London Missionary Society,” was one of the earliest fruits of the 
 new movement which really completed the symmetry of the churches 
 of the Reformation by providing them with a propaganda. The 
 missionaries were of various denominations and different nationalities. 
 They agreed in having one Lord, one faith, and one baptism; and one 
 common and vigorous belief that all men were capable of being blessed 
 by Christ, and that Christ was both able and willing to bless men 
 without respect to race. 
 
 
 f 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 South Africa as a Mission Field Eighty Years ago. 
 
 One of the fields in which the “Missionary Society” put forth 
 its new zeal for the old Gospel was the remote and little thought- 
 of region of the Cape. A more trying or difficult field for Christian 
 work could hardly he conceived than was presented by South Africa 
 at the time of the commencement of missionary work there. It is 
 true that there were always a few of the better portion of Cape 
 European society who approved and welcomed the missionaries; 
 but in the minds of the great majority of the white community 
 their presence was not to be endured, and their work was simply 
 execrated. A large portion of the white population were steeped in 
 the grossest ignorance, and had almost entirely ceased to have contact 
 with outside civilisation. Their clothing was chiefly the dressed skins 
 of the animals which they had killed in the chase. Their houses were 
 often mere hovels; indeed, in numerous instances they had no house 
 at all, but lived in tents or wagons, moving from place to place with 
 their flocks and herds, “which,” says a South African historian, “had 
 become with them, as with the Hottentots, their sole source and 
 representative of wealth.” 
 
 With reference to the native races among whom the missionaries 
 commenced their labours, the Cape slaves were a mixed people, but 
 chiefly captured from Madagascar and the south-east coast of Africa. 
 There was also a Malay (Mohammedan) element, introduced into the 
 country by those who were at once masters in the Indian Archipelago 
 and at the Cape. As to South African races, the reader will please to 
 note carefully that, philologically, there are only two families of 
 natives in all South Africa—the Gariepine, or yellow and oblique-eyed 
 people, and the Bantu people, who are of a more dusky hue. The 
 Gariepine*' family include the Hottentots, Hamaquas, Ivorannas, and 
 
 * Gariep is a native ’name for the Orange River. 
 
4 
 
 Bushmen. They were found by the first Europeans in possession of 
 the south-west portion of the continent, and at the commencement of 
 the present century the Hottentots spreading eastward came into 
 contact with the Bantu Kafirs in the district of Grahamstown, who 
 were then spreading westward. The Gariepine people were pastoral 
 in their habits, and preferred the banks of rivers for their flocks and 
 herds. Like some of the tribes of North Asia, whom they otherwise 
 resemble, they made huts with mats spread over slender bent poles. 
 When they wished to move they folded up their mats and slender poles, 
 and carried them on the backs of oxen to their next grazing ground. It 
 was chiefly among the Gariepine people in the Colony and on its 
 northern border that the London Missionary Society carried on its 
 early labours. 
 
 The Bantu family include many clans or tribes, such as the (Ama)- 
 zulu, (Ama)pondo, (Ama)xosa, (Ba)suto, (Ba)tlaping, (Ba)rolong, 
 (Ba)kwena, (Ma)tebele, (Ma)shona, &c. The Bantu people inhabit 
 Africa from its south-east coast up to and beyond the Equator. The 
 missions in the Lake Begion and on the Congo are carried on among 
 clans of this great family of mankind. Comparative philology shows 
 that the Bantu people are more closely allied to the islanders of the 
 South Seas than to the Gariepine people, who are their neighbours in 
 South Africa. With the latter people the Bantu family have no 
 affinity either in language, religion, or customs; the only thing which 
 they have in common is their woolly hair. 
 
 The learned and accomplished Dr. Van der Kemp, of Leyden and 
 Edinburgh, accompanied by three other missionaries of the London 
 Society, landed at the Cape in March, 1799. They had been pre¬ 
 ceded in South Africa by the Moravian Brethren. As early as 1737 
 George Schmidt had opened a mission at Genadendal, among the 
 Hottentots. Success crowned his Christian efforts, and after some 
 nine years forty-seven converts had been baptized and a school for 
 children had been begun. Such was the vehemence of the opposition by 
 the white population at this time to the instruction of the Hottentots, 
 that Schmidt was forced to leave the country; and it was not till 
 1792 that the repeated prayers of the Brethren in Germany prevailed 
 with the Council of the East India Company in Holland, and 
 permission was given to recommence the mission at Genadendal. 
 
5 
 
 Great political changes took place in South Africa at this time 
 which demand attention, as they directly affected the work of the 
 missionaries. The Dutch East India Company had occupied the Cape 
 since 1652 as a place of call for their fleet on’its way to and from their 
 East Indian possessions. Although the mixed European population 
 at the Cape had spread considerably, and had been enriched by the 
 arrival, in 1688, of a number of French Huguenots—refugees from 
 the oppression of Louis XIY.—the peculiar arrangements of the 
 Dutch Company repressed the growth of the Colony, and imposed 
 galling restraints upon the people. Indeed, the appearance of the 
 English in 1795 saved the Dutch Company from facing serious 
 difficulties at the Cape at this juncture, as disaffection had given place 
 to open rebellion, and the rebels had proclaimed their independence in 
 two different parts of the country. It is well also to state clearly another 
 fact in Cape history which ought to be generally known. The Cape 
 was first conquered by the English in 1795, but was handed back to 
 Holland at the Peace of Amiens in 1802. As is well known, this 
 peace was of Bhort duration, and in 1806 the Cape was again taken 
 by the English after an engagement with the Dutch troops, the object 
 on both occasions being to prevent a first-class naval station from 
 falling into the hands of the French. The twice-enacted conquest 
 was succeeded by a settlement after the termination of the European 
 war in terms of which the Dutch Government ceded to England, 
 among other things, its supremacy in South Africa; while England 
 paid to Holland the sum of six millions sterling. So far as European 
 politics are concerned, therefore, our supremacy in South Africa dates 
 from the European arrangements which were come to at the conclusion 
 of the Xapoleon wars, and rests not merely on conquest, but on friendly 
 and peaceful settlement. 
 
 It thus happened that while the Moravians in 1792 recommenced 
 their mission under the Dutch East India Company, the efforts of the 
 London Missionary Society were begun under English auspices in 1799, 
 and were carried on in the interval during which General Janssen 
 had charge of the Colony as Governor—not under the East India 
 Company, but under the Dutch Republic. It is said that the Boers 
 earnestly proposed to General Janssen that Yan der Kemp and the 
 other missionaries should be expelled; but the Governor indignantly 
 
 2 * 
 
6 
 
 refused to do this, and in his general arrangements for the administra¬ 
 tion of justice on the frontier, as well as his open encouragement of 
 missionary effort, this able officer showed that he had at heart the 
 interests of every class of the people. His conduct showed also that 
 he had great confidence in Dr. Van der Kemp and the other mis¬ 
 sionaries. One has all the greater pleasure in mentioning this 
 circumstance, inasmuch as afterwards the teaching of the coloured 
 people was usually advocated by the English, and opposed by a party 
 among the Dutch-speaking people; whereas on this occasion the 
 enlightened Governor of the Colony and the accomplished missionary 
 at Bethelsdorp were both natives of Holland. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Garieitne Missions—Missionary Instiiutions. 
 
 Within the Cape Colony, for many years, the missionaries had to 
 contend with the gigantic obstacles of serfdom and slavery. The 
 Hottentots, it is true, were not reduced to slavery by the Dutch; but 
 the position of serfdom which they occupied had probably little to 
 make it more desirable than actual slavery. It was recognised by law 
 that if a Dutch master formally gave a piece of meat to the child of 
 his Hottentot servants, and the child accepted it at his hand, the 
 child became there and then indentured to his parents’ master till he 
 should reach the age of twenty-five. In one matter only were the 
 serfs more favourably placed than the slaves—the latter could be 
 separated and sold ; the serfs were never saleable. 
 
 As to the condition of the slaves at the Cape in connection with 
 Christianity, I shall quote the following sentences from Mr. Theal’s 
 “ History of South Africa ” :— 
 
 “According to the Dutch law no baptized person could be a slave, and this 
 law, which was intended to raise Christian bondsmen to the position of free men 
 effectually prevented the propagation of Christianity among them. The act of 
 baptism being made equivalent to an act of manumission, it was to the owner’s 
 interest to keep his slave in ignorance ; and thus a law made to encourage 
 Christianity actually prohibited it.” 
 
 It is not easy for us now, either in Britain or in the Cape Colony, 
 to realise the circumstances in which the early work of the mission¬ 
 aries was carried on at the Cape. AVTiile some masters were kind and 
 just to their slaves, and even took steps for their education and that of 
 their children, the majority of the slave-holders resented the work of 
 the missionary as a gratuitous and even dangerous interference with 
 those over whom the law gave them power. Perhaps the disturbing 
 action of Christianity in such a state of society cannot be better brought 
 out than by reciting an anecdote given in the life of Mr. Campbell, 
 and connected with the early labours of Mr. Bakker, the missionary 
 working among the serfs and slaves at the colonial village of 
 Stellenbosch. Mr. Campbell having been sent by theLondon Missionary 
 
8 
 
 r 
 
 T 
 
 Society in 1812 to inspect their stations and report on the work in 
 South Africa, visited the Mission at Stellenbosch, near Cape Town, 
 and attended Mr. Bakker’s slave meeting on the Sunday. Mr. ICicherer 
 preached, and one of the slaves present attracted the notice of Mr. 
 Campbell. On inquiry, he was informed that the slave in question 
 had long been an excellent Christian. At first he had attended the 
 Christian meetings secretly, and without his master’s permission. 
 One day his master called him into his room and threatened him with 
 a severe flogging if (be ever went to the Christian meetings again. 
 The slave replied to this, in [all gentleness: “I must tell the Lord 
 that,” and quietly left his master’s presence. So great was the 
 impression made on his master by this reply, that he allowed all his 
 slaves to go to the meetings; and when Mr. Campbell visited the 
 meeting in Stellenbosch this slaveholder and his wife were among 
 those present. This story shows very clearly the incompatibility of 
 Christianity and slavery, and it reveals to us the religion of Christ 
 establishing in Stellenbosch similar relationships between master and 
 slave to those which it induced between the slaveholder Philemon and 
 his slave Onesimus. 
 
 Owing to the circumstances of the country, the efforts of the 
 missionaries became concentrated in colonial towns and in certain 
 “ institutions” or native villages where freedom was enjoyed, on the one 
 hand, to teach Christianity, and on the other to exercise the rights of 
 personal freedom and responsibility. The first of these institutions 
 was established at Bethelsdorp, and it was succeeded by others at 
 Paealtsdorp, Zuurbrak, Kat Eiver, Oxkraal (Hackney), Hankey, and 
 TTniondale. Practical industry, as well as spiritual and intellectual 
 training, was aimed at in establishing these institutions. Mr. Camp¬ 
 bell says of the gardens of the people of Bethelsdorp, which were at 
 some distance from the village, that they were the most extensive 
 which he had seen on his landward journey from Cape Town to 
 Bethelsdorp. At Hankey, the missionary, Mr. "William Philip, eldest 
 son of Dr. Philip, of Cape Town, successfully accomplished an engi¬ 
 neering work of considerable magnitude, by which, having tunnelled 
 through an intercepting hill, he was able to lead out a stream of 
 water from the Gamtoos Biver at such an elevation as to bring into 
 cultivation and irrigation a large extent of good land, on a farm 
 
 
9 
 
 which had been purchased by the Society in 1822. The Kat River 
 Settlement was established in 1828 in a fruitful and well-watered 
 region, where it was possible to apportion garden-lots of land as well 
 as village grazing-lands. The district was called Stockenstrom, after 
 Sir Andries Stockenstrom, who made this suggestion on behalf of the 
 Hottentots, and also in the hope that they would form a barrier 
 between the warlike and restless Kafirs and the Colonists. This 
 expectation was fully realised in the wars of 1835 and of 1845. The 
 Hottentots were then of the very utmost service to the Colonists; and 
 as the Kafirs had counted on their help, they took every opportunity 
 to wreak their vengeance upon the people of Kat River. In the war 
 of 1851, however, a defection among the Hottentots took place, some 
 joining in the movement which it was confidently anticipated by the 
 Kafirs and the more ignorant natives was to drive back the white man 
 into the sea. Notwithstanding the ruin produced by war, considerable 
 prosperity has attended the Kat River Settlement, the people of which 
 have shown liberalityin supporting and extending Christian work. Some 
 twenty years ago they were able to support their own missionary. 
 
 So long as serious disabilities rested upon the coloured people who 
 were not slaves, these missionary institutions were more or less places 
 of refuge as well as of Christian instruction. "When all disabilities 
 were removed before the common law, one reason for maintaining these 
 institutions was taken away ; and when to this was added the increased 
 number of churches for coloured people in the colonial villages, the inha¬ 
 bitants of missionary institutions gradually sought the higher wages 
 which they could obtain in towns and villages, without sacrificing either 
 their personal freedom or their religious privileges. Such institutions 
 continue to be of permanent value when they become centres of 
 higher education and industrial training, as is the case in the Lovedale 
 Institution, and as the Society hopes may be the case at Kuruman. 
 Especially are they of value when they become the sources for the 
 supply of native ministers, on whose instrumentality so much depends 
 with reference to future work in the districts to the north. 
 
 It is not given out that slavery at the Cape was worse than it was 
 elsewhere. On the contrary, it was probably milder than in many 
 other places. The jealousy of the slave- and serf-holders was quite 
 equalled in other countries. From the first, as we have said, there 
 
10 
 
 were always some who sympathised with mission work, and the old 
 South African Missionary Society was supported by those friends of 
 Evangelical effort. As education spread in the country, however, the 
 Dutch Church itself embarked in mission labour, not only in colonial 
 villages where European missionaries were not at work, but also and 
 more recently in missions to the heathen people beyond the 
 Colony. There could be no higher tribute to the work of the early 
 missionaries than this, that those who first opposed it are now engaged 
 in it in their own villages and outside the Colony—sending their own 
 sons and daughters to the work, and supporting them in it by a 
 mission fund raised within the Dutch Reformed Church of the Cape 
 Colony. Thus, too, the Cape Presbyterian Church has attained to 
 the symmetry of a true Church of Christ by possessing a propaganda 
 or missionary function. 
 
 The Gariepine people—Hottentots, Bushmen, and Korannas—were 
 a very degraded race of men when Christianity first came to them. 
 It would be difficult to conceive of a people lower down or more 
 abject. At this time, too, they were fast dying out. But after the 
 advent of Christianity, which was contemporaneous with the estab¬ 
 lishment of the English Government in the country, the decrease came 
 to an end, and a steady increase has since taken place. At the com¬ 
 mencement of the century the Hottentots did not number 15,000. In 
 1836 they were estimated at 32,000 ; in 1865 they numbered 81,961 ; 
 and in 1875 they numbered 98,561. "With reference to this increase 
 great credit is due to the English Government; but had there 
 been no mission work among the serfs and slaves, and no righteous 
 men to plead their cause, the decrease of the last century would 
 never have been interrupted. We have here a case of Christianity 
 taking hold of the most degraded and lifting them up; for it 
 may be said that the Gariepine people at the Cape are now all 
 professing Christianity. 
 
 The Missions to the Griquas, or half-caste Hottentots, in the countries 
 now known as Griqualand West and the Free State, were begun as 
 early as 1801, and were carried on with marked success. In both 
 I countries the people reached a high degree of education and of outward 
 
 prosperity, both at Griquatown and Philippolis, the Dutch language 
 being that chiefly used. The Chief Waterboer ceded his jurisdiction 
 
 k 
 
11 
 
 to Her Majesty’s Government soon after the discovery of diamonds; 
 but the difficulty and expense connected with securing personal titles 
 to their farms and holdings under the British Provincial Government 
 acted prejudicially upon the native landowners, some of whom were even 
 forced to sell the land itself to pay the court expenses connected with 
 securing their title to it. By the advice of Sir George Grey, the Griquas 
 under the chief Adam Kok sold their lands in the Philippolis district, 
 and an unoccupied district, since called East Griqualand, was given 
 to them under Her Majesty’s protection. This is now part of the 
 Cape Colony. This scheme was a very favourable one to the Free 
 State; hut it was also advantageous to the Griquas, and shows what 
 can he done by tact and resource by a Central Government in a country 
 where there is so much unoccupied land in one part, and occasionally 
 so much pressure for land in another. The Griquas of Philippolis 
 were, twenty years ago, supporting their own minister and school¬ 
 master, and continue to do so in Griqualand East under Mr. Dower’s care. 
 The Griquas and other natives of Griquatown district are now under 
 the care of the Dutch Beformed Church. The majority of the people, 
 however, are in Kimberley or on the Yaal Iliver, employed indifferent 
 ways in connection with diamond mining. Many of them are under 
 the care of Mr. Ashton, Barkly AVest; others are members of the 
 native churches on the Diamond Fields. 
 
 In Bushmanland, as the northern part of the Cape Colony was then 
 called, mission effort was put forth at the beginning of the century 
 in behalf of the Bushman and Hottentot branches of the Gariepine 
 people. Ho permanent Bushman station was ever formed, but 
 individual Bushmen coming under the influence of Christianity settled 
 with Hottentots and other natives at mission stations. AVe find that so 
 early as 1803, Mr. Kicherer, one of the Society’s missionaries in the 
 Orange Biver district, who had been born and educated in Holland, 
 visited Europe, accompanied by three Hottentot converts. Kramer, 
 Anderson, and Helm carried on the work in the Orange Biver region, 
 and were the founders of the Griqua Mission. 
 
 Beyond the Colony, in Hamaqualand, Mr. Albrecht, a German, 
 commenced a mission in 1806. He was followed in 1811 by Mr. 
 Schmelen, who laboured there for many years, and in 1830 printed in 
 Cape Town his translation of the Gospels in the Hamaqua language. 
 
12 
 
 One of the early difficulties of the Namaqua Mission was the 
 opposition of Africaner. This chief was a fierce and resentful man, 
 sparing neither native village, mission station, nor Colonist’s steading 
 in his work of destruction and plunder. It would seem Africaner was 
 first impressed with a letter and message from Mr. Campbell, in which 
 reproof and warning accompanied earnest advice. These impressions 
 were deepened and developed by the instructions of Mr. Ebden and 
 Mr. Moffat, whose first mission was in Namaqualand. No story of 
 Christian work in any part of the world is more impressive than Mr. 
 Moffat’s account of his journey with Africaner, now clothed and in 
 his right mind, through the farms of the astonished Colonists, to Cape 
 Town, where he presented this trouhler of the border to the Governor 
 —a welcome trophy of the new mission. 
 
 It is now twenty-five years since the Society ceased to he formally 
 connected with the churches which it planted and watered for many 
 years among the Gariepine race and the slave population in the Cape 
 Colony. Some churches have become connected with the Dutch Re¬ 
 formed (Presbyterian) Church of the Colony. The flourishing church at 
 the Paarl is an instance of this. The work at Colesberg has come under 
 the auspices of the Episcopal Church. One of the churches planted 
 by this Society at Granamstown has joined the United Presbyterian 
 Church; the other is connected with the Congregational Union of 
 South Africa. The majority of the mission churches of the Society 
 have formed themselves into a Congregational Union. At first it was 
 an Evangelical Union, which included Presbyterians. The Presby¬ 
 terian ministers withdrew, perhaps under outside, old-world pressure. 
 At Lovedale there is a Congregational professor uniting with Presby¬ 
 terian colleagues in the training of Christian pastors. In all new 
 countries the exact pronunciation of the word Shibboleth is not 
 regarded as of any importance; and this broad-mindedness has been 
 largely taught by the catholic methods of the London Missionary 
 Society. There is probably not a Christian congregation of any size 
 from one end of the Colony to the other where the work of the Society 
 is not in some way represented. To it many of the leading men of the 
 Colony of the present time owe early instruction and impulse for good. 
 And this is true without in any way minimising the great work 
 accomplished in the Colony by other societies and churches. 
 
 L 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 Bantu Missions. 
 
 Dr. Yan der Kemp commenced mission work in Kafirland, under 
 the Chief Gaika, in 1799. After teaching and preaching for 
 more than a year, this Jpioneer missionary was induced by the 
 disturbed state of the country to retire into the Colony and com¬ 
 mence his labours among the Gariepine people. In 1816 Mr. Joseph 
 Williams commenced a mission on the site on which King Williams- 
 town now stands, but died in 1818. It was in 1826 that this mission 
 was established by Mr. Brownlee, who, with Mr. Moffat, arrived 
 in South Africa in 1817. Mr. Brownlee had a distinguished career 
 as a missionary and pioneer of civilisation. During his long period of 
 service he never returned to England; but his influence was very 
 great in the wide district where he was well known. He laboured 
 with much diligence and success, and died at his station in 1871 ; 
 having been joined in 1868 by Mr. John Harper, the present minister 
 in charge of the Kafir congregation at King Williamstown. Its 
 membership is large (over 500), but its work is carried on amidst great 
 difficulty, chiefly arising from the fact that a large European town 
 now stands on what was at first a mission station. It 1884 it was 
 formally reported to the Society that the Europeans were using every 
 means to get the natives removed altogether. Mission work in Kafir¬ 
 land was, at first, frequently interrupted, owing to the constantly 
 recurring Kafir wars. Still, in 1836 the work was extended by the 
 formation of a new mission at Knapp’s Hope, where Mr. Kayser, of 
 the University of Halle, carried on a mission for many years. Mr. 
 Henry Calderwood and Mr. Richard Birt still further pushed on the 
 evangelistic work on the Kafir frontier. At Peelton, where Mr. Birt 
 has been labouring since 1848, an extensive educational as well as 
 evangelistic work has been carried on. The work of female educa¬ 
 tion here has been vigorously and successfully pursued by Miss 
 Sturrock since 1864. 
 
r 
 
 14 
 
 But in South-east Africa the labours of the London Missionary 
 Society have been abundantly followed up by those of other societies. 
 "Without referring to the early labours of the Glasgow Missionary 
 Society, the United Presbyterian Church, the Wesleyan Church, the 
 Free Church, and the Episcopal Church have all sent earnest workers 
 among the warlike Kafir tribes. The Rhenish Missionary Society and 
 the Berlin Missionary Society have for many years successfully 
 laboured both in the Colony and beyond its borders. The Paris Mis¬ 
 sionary Society has long carried on a vigorous mission in Basutoland, 
 and has lately found itself in a position, aided by Basuto converts, to 
 carry the work into the region of the Zambesi. The Kafir churches 
 of the London Missionary Society are doing a good deal towards the 
 support of their missionaries; but the difficulties connected with earn¬ 
 ing money by the natives, and the low rate of wages, are mentioned as 
 reasons why the burden of self-support should not be prematurely 
 pressed on them. 
 
 The tendency of recent Colonial legislation at the Cape is not such 
 as to call forth the approval of Christian people. It may be generally 
 described as tending to reduce the power formerly exercised in the 
 Cape Parliament by the natives as voters, and to remove all obstacles 
 to the free sale of strong drink throughout Kafirland. By the one 
 movement several educated Europeans who are members of the 
 Colonial Parliament, and who owe their seats largely to the native 
 vote, will probably be outvoted at next election. The removal of 
 all restrictions in the manufacture and sale of spirits by the 
 Colonial Government, and the remitting of the revenue which 
 every other civilised government derives from the taxation of the 
 manufacture and sale of strong drink, leads one gravely to doubt 
 the steadiness with which the present Cape Government has kept 
 before its mind the well-being of the community as its supreme object. 
 Their recent steps have been met with earnest remonstrances on the 
 part of Christian workers in Kafirland, and by many influential 
 Christian people elsewhere. 
 
 The Bantu Mission in Bechuanaland was commenced in 1817 by 
 Mr. Robert Hamilton and Mr. Read. As in the case of the Mission in 
 Kafirland, the disturbed state of the country interfered much at first 
 with the progress and the permanence of the Mission. The two men, 
 
 L 
 
15 
 
 John Brownlee and Robert Moffat, who were destined to give per¬ 
 manence to Christian work among the Bantu people in Kafirland and 
 in Bechuanaland, sailed to South Africa in the same ship, and both in 
 early youth had followed the same healthy life of gardeners, a train¬ 
 ing which helped them much in their efforts to teach agriculture and 
 gardening to the natives. In 1820 Mr. Moffat, who was now with¬ 
 drawn from the Namaqua Mission, was accompanied to Kuruman by 
 Mr. Campbell, who had previously visited Bechuanaland, and obtained 
 the consent of the Chief Mothibi to the settlement of missionaries 
 in his country. Mr. Hamilton laboured in this mission till 1851, 
 when he died at Kuruman. Kuruman was a centre from which 
 itinerating work was carried on among the surrounding towns and 
 villages, and Mr. Hamilton was a diligent and frequent visitor at 
 these preaching stations. 
 
 Mr. Moffat gave early attention to the language of the Bechuana 
 tribes, which is spoken over an extensive region. Portions of Scrip¬ 
 ture were first printed, and reading lessons. Then the Hew Testament 
 and Psalms were printed in one volume during Mr. Moffat’s visit to 
 England in 1839-43, along with a hymn-book in Sechuana, and the 
 “Pilgrim’s Progress.” Besides preparing his well-known “Labours 
 and Scenes,” Mr. Moffat, by his eloquent descriptions of native life, 
 imparted additional interest to the mission work in the minds of the 
 Christian public. Mr. Helmore joined the Bechuana Mission at 
 Likatlong in 1839. Mr. Ashton accompanied Mr. Moffat, on his 
 return to Kuruman, taking charge of the native press and assisting 
 in the work of translating the Old Testament. In 1841 Dr. 
 Livingstone and Mr. W. Boss joined the Mission. Mr. Boss settled 
 at Taung, and afterwards, for a time, at Mamusa and Likatlong, in 
 South Bechuanaland, where he laboured till his death in 1863. Mr. 
 Boger Edwards accompanied Dr. Livingstone on his first journey into 
 the country north of Kuruman. The station which these pioneers 
 first occupied was at Mabotsa, where they resided together. After¬ 
 wards Dr. Livingstone joined the Bakwena tribe under the Chief 
 Sechele, and laboured among them as a missionary for some fifteen 
 years. Mr. Edwards carried on a mission among the Bakatla at 
 Mabotsa, and in 1846 was joined by Mr. Inglis, who laboured among 
 the neighbouring Bahurutse at Linokana. These missions now formed 
 
16 
 
 a chain leading into North Bechuanaland and the regions beyond, 
 which were then a terra incognita. 
 
 The Society now met with a repulse from the Transvaal Boers, 
 who, having secured their independence by a treaty with Her 
 Majesty’s Government in 1852, signalised their freedom from restraint 
 by breaking up the stations of Dr. Livingstone at Kolobeng, Mr. 
 Edwards at Mabotsa, and Mr. Inglis at Linokana, as well as the "Wes¬ 
 leyan station with the Barolong at Setlagole. Dr. Livingstone went to 
 the north to open up regions for Christian missions, where his operations 
 would be undisturbed by the Boers. Driven away as an evildoer by 
 the Boers, Mr. Edwards proceeded to Port Elizabeth, where he worked 
 among the Bantu labourers who are employed there; and so highly 
 esteemed was he by his fellow-townsmen, and so much was his work 
 thought of, that at his death the Colonists built a native church in his 
 honour, called the “ Edwards Memorial Church.” Mr. Inglis went 
 to Canada, where he laboured with acceptance till his death as a 
 pastor of the Presbyterian Church in that Colony. 
 
 The links which were thus rudely broken by the action of the 
 Transvaal were not replaced for some time, but in 1858 a mission 
 was despatched to the Matebele country under Mr. Moffat, and 
 one to the Makololo, on the Zambesi, under Mr. Helm ore, after 
 the retirement from the Society of Dr. Livingstone. The attempt 
 to establish a mission to the Makololo led to the death of Mr. and 
 Mrs. Helmore and two children, and of Mrs. Price and her child; 
 and the Directors of the Society appointed the remaining missionaries 
 to occupy Shoshong and Molepolole, thus filling up the links of 
 the chain again. The Mission to the Matebele was successfully in¬ 
 troduced by Mr. Moffat to the old chief, Moselekatse, who appor¬ 
 tioned to the missionaries the station of Inyati, which has long been 
 the most distant of the Society’s missions in those regions. 
 
 The Mission to the warlike Matebele Zulus has not yet succeeded 
 in forming a church of converts. The unspeakable moral degrada¬ 
 tion of the people, as well as the military constitution of the tribe, 
 are the formidable obstacles which the missionary has to contend 
 with. In Matebeleland Christianity means revolution ; and to be a 
 Christian a man would be regarded as directly abjuring the chief. 
 A considerable change, however, has taken place in the social con- 
 
17 
 
 dition of the tribe. The constant teaching and preaching of mis¬ 
 sionaries for so many years has raised the tone of the people, 
 although “ superior physique and special moral and spiritual degrada¬ 
 tion ” would, alas, still adequately describe the Matebele. The foolish¬ 
 ness of preaching will yet, however, doubtless conquer in Matebeleland. 
 
 Reinforced in their number from time to time the Bechuanaland 
 Mission has grown steadily, and now occupies the field from south to 
 north, the enterprise of Mr. Hepburn and the Christian Church at 
 Shoshong having led to the evangelistic work among the people at 
 Lake Ngami—the chequered history of which has recently been pub¬ 
 lished. The Society is happy to have the assistance of the Wesleyan 
 Mission to the Barolong at Mafeking, being a branch of their work at 
 Thabanchu, which, again, was connected with their earlier work at 
 Boetsap. With this exception Bechuana missions may be said to 
 be in the hands of the London Missionary Society, and through 
 Bechuanaland, and by means of Bechuana evangelists, the work must 
 be pursued to the north. Mr. Wookey has recently visited the Kala¬ 
 hari Desert, which he finds to contain inhabitants and already a 
 few Christians, who have picked up a knowledge of the Gospel in 
 Bechuanaland. 
 
 The work of training native ministers in Bechuanaland was under¬ 
 taken first at Shoshong in 1873, and afterwards at Kuruman, where 
 the Moffat Institution has been erected. Mr. Price and Mr. T. Brown 
 have charge of the Society’s educational work at Kuruman. Already 
 a good many native ministers have left the Institution, and engaged 
 in work among their fellow-countrymen. Indeed, at the present time 
 every town and village in Bechuanaland may be said to be possessed 
 of its village church, which is usually its schoolroom during the week. 
 Higher education and industrial training have been aimed at for some 
 time in Bechuanaland, but have not been secured, on account of the 
 disturbed state of the country in recent years. Permanent peace has 
 now been established in South Bechuanaland; and it is to be hoped 
 that the Society will soon find itself in a position to prosecute its work 
 in this direction with vigour and success. 
 
 i 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Incidental Results op Missions. 
 
 In obeying the command of Jesus Christ to spread His Gospel, 
 missionaries in South Africa, as elsewhere, have found themselves 
 incidentally not only the teachers of a new religion, but the pioneers 
 of European civilisation, and the makers of fresh pathways for peaceful 
 commerce. Much of our information in England concerning South 
 Africa has been furnished by missionaries. Eor many years the 
 Secretaries and Directors of the Missionary Society were probably 
 better informed about South Africa than anyone else in England. It 
 was a missionary who first followed the course of the Orange River ; 
 it was missionaries who first crossed the difficult country between the 
 western and the central parts of the continent. Hamaqualand and 
 Damaraland were first described by missionaries. The “Travels ” of 
 Mr. Campbell in Bechuanaland, the “ Researches” of Dr. Philip, the 
 “ Scenes and Labours ” of Dr. Moffat in Bechuanaland, the Transvaal, 
 and Matebeleland, and the “ Missionary Travels ” of Dr. Livingstone, 
 describing his journey from the Cape to the Zambesi, and from the 
 Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, made important additions to the infor¬ 
 mation of the civilised world. Livingstone said that “ the end of the 
 geographical feat was but the beginning of the missionary enterprise.” 
 But it would, perhaps, have been more correct to say that the 
 geographical feat in his and in other cases was part of the missionary 
 enterprise. 
 
 The presence of Christian missionaries on t e north of the Cape 
 Colony, in 1823, no doubt saved the Colony from an invasion of some 
 50,000 savage warriors. Mr. Moffat and Mr. George Thompson, 
 author of “Travels and Adventures in South Africa,” both relate how 
 Mr. Moffat, hearing of the advance of the Mantatees, rode from Kuru- 
 man to Griquatown to request the aid of the Griquas, now a civilised 
 people, and settled under the rule of the Chief AVaterboer. The Griquas 
 met the advancing host at Thakong (Lattakoo) ; and the power of 
 mounted men possessed of fire-arms over footmen armed only with the 
 assegai was fully shown. The divided and defeated enemy were com- 
 
19 
 
 pelled to flee, some directing their course to Basutoland, while others 
 made their way northwards, destroying and being destroyed, till they 
 reached the Zambesi, where we find them twenty years later 
 appearing as the friends and attendants of Dr. Livingstone in his first 
 journey across the continent. The devastation of the Cape Colony 
 was thus prevented by means of Christian mission work on its northern 
 border, and falls to be mentioned among the indirect benefits of missions. 
 
 Another and perhaps higher service was incidentally rendered 
 by certain missionaries of the London Society in South Africa. 
 Dr. Philip was appointed superintendent of the Society’s Missions in 
 South Africa in 1819, and performed numerous journeys in all parts 
 of the Colony and beyond its borders. It is not pleasant to say so, but 
 the legislation of the English Administration of the Cape about this 
 time tended temporarily to aggravate the serfdom of the Hottentots, and 
 make it more like slavery. The lands of the institutions were circum¬ 
 scribed ; able-bodied men were prevented from settling there without 
 the permission of the neighbouring landdrost; in fact, “the young 
 Hottentots were compelled to serve the farmers at wages fixed by 
 their employers.” Worse than this, a proclamation was issued, in 
 “ which the landdrosts of the several districts were empowered to bind 
 as apprentices to any farmers selected by themselves, for a period of 
 ten years, all Hottentot children of the age of eight years whose 
 parents had been in service at the period of their birth.” It thus 
 seemed that the power to enslave the Hottentots, which had never 
 been 'conceded by the Dutch East India Company, was about to be 
 granted by the Government of England. Having first acquainted 
 himself with the facts of the case, Dr. Philip sought to obtain redress 
 for the oppressed serfs at the hand [of the Cape Government; but so 
 strong was local prejudice, ignorance, and injustice, that he failed to 
 influence those in power in South Africa. Proceeding to England, 
 however, his representations had complete success. Some of the 
 noblest men of the day supported his demands, with the result that 
 the Cape Government, hearing what was taking place in England, in 
 1829 issued the well-known Fiftieth Ordinance, which placed all 
 natives who were not slaves on the same footing as Europeans before 
 the oommon law. Hot only did the English Government concede so 
 much, but it went further, and in the Order in Council an important 
 
20 
 
 clause was added, to the effect that it should not he competent for any 
 future Colonial Administration to repeal any of its provisions. This 
 “Fiftieth Ordinance,” as it is often called, has also been termed the 
 Magna Charta of the aboriginal races of South Africa. It was cheer¬ 
 fully granted by the British Parliament, hut not until information and 
 argument had been copiously supplied by Dr. Philip and the eminent 
 men who were his fellow-workers. It is all the more important to 
 recall this Ordinance to mind at a time when, as is well known in the 
 Colony, there is an openly expressed wish on the part of a certain 
 school of Cape politicians to rescind or nullify it. 
 
 I may not omit from this brief retrospect another and still greater work 
 of the same nature. The emancipation of her slaves by Great Britain in 
 1838 was the directly and clearly traceable result of the revived evan¬ 
 gelistic work of the English churches in our colonies and throughout the 
 world. What took place in South Africa occurred in other colonies, 
 where there were slaves and slaveholders. The New Testament is the 
 charter of human freedom. Education and an open Bible turn chattels 
 into men, and slave-owners into brethren in the common Lord. These 
 results flow from Christianity as daylight follows the rising of the 
 sun. The English Christians who had sent out missionaries to our 
 colonies not only taught Christianity to the slaves in these colonies, 
 but became themselves, through the letters of their missionaries, 
 correctly informed as to what slavery really was in practice. Some of 
 these able missionaries, in the course of time, returned from these 
 countries of oppression, and described on hundreds of English platforms 
 what they had seen and heard of the horrors and inhumanities of slave¬ 
 holding ; and what their own experiences had been at the hands of 
 enraged masters, whose Christianity had been crusted over by a callous 
 and hard-hearted love of gain, and who were able to give a number of 
 plausible reasons why the royal law of Christianity did not extend 
 to Africans—at least, not to those who were their purchased property. 
 Not the least able of those who gave information on this great question 
 was Dr. Philip, who, on this occasion, was accompanied by Mr. Read 
 and by natives of South Africa. The emancipation of her slaves by 
 England, and the voluntary remuneration of the slaveholders out of the 
 taxation of the country, were actions dictated by the public conscience 
 of a nation which never before so well merited the name of Christian. 
 
2t 
 
 At the Cape, as elsewhere, at the time of the emancipation of the 
 slaves, the Christian teaching of past years bore fruit in another 
 way. That no riot or outrage took place at the Cape, when on one 
 day 35,000 people found themselves free, must be largely ascribed to 
 the religious teaching which they had received. 
 
 Just as the commerce of England and its political and administrative 
 status have incidentally, but largely, benefited by the labours of mis¬ 
 sionaries in every part of the world, so, in this matter of the freeing of 
 her slaves, it is easy to see that England was not the loser, but the 
 gainer, by her unselfish Christian action. Well had it been for the 
 United States—both South and North—had Christian principle there 
 asserted an equally powerful sway over American public policy at any 
 period between the Declaration of Independence and the breaking out 
 of the Civil War. What the English nation paid in money—accom¬ 
 panied with much excitement and Christian repentance for a huge 
 wrong long persisted in—that our American children paid in their own 
 best blood, shed by one another, before their Government allowed the 
 oppressed to go free. So much does England owe to the revived 
 evangelistic movement of the present century. The best policy and 
 the truest diplomacy are never apart from righteousness. 
 
 South Bechuanaland is now under the sovereignty of the Queen, and 
 the people of that country have a recognised position under their 
 own vine and under their own fig-tree. In connection with the past 
 history of South Bechuanaland, it does not overstate the truth to say 
 that the presence in it of the London Missionary Society saved it, by 
 means of the tact of Sir George Grey, from being overrun and seized 
 by the Transvaal in 1858. It is equally true that both England and 
 the Cape Colony owe their present open trade road into the interior of 
 the country to the mission work of the London Missionary Society; it 
 is one of the incidental results of that work. And possibly, and still 
 in an incidental way, the Society may lay Her Majesty’s Government, 
 and both natives and Colonists, as well as British merchants, under 
 further obligation; only unhatched chickens should not be counted. 
 Enough has been said to show that the old Missionary Society has 
 done good work, directly and indirectly, in South Africa, and that it 
 is worthy of the fullest support and confidence of all Christian men. 
 
 Alexander & Sh-epheard, Printers, 27, Chancery Lane, W.C. 
 
 
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