A LETTER PAM, AFTtICA \ FROM THE REV. JOHN PHILIP, D. D. SUPERINTENDENT OF THE MISSIONS OF THE LONDON SOCIETY AT THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, &c. TO THE SOCIETY OF INQUIRY ON MISSIONS, IN THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, PRINCETON, ]V E W "JERSEY# PRINCETON: PRINTED BY JOHN GRAY. 1833 . c V ADVERTISEMENT. As the following - interesting communication from the Rev. Doct. Philip, to “ the Society of Inquiry on Missions, in the Theological Semi¬ nary at Princeton, N. J.” may fall into the hands of some persons who may not be acquainted with the nature and object of this Society, I beg leave to state for the satisfaction of such, that it has existed from an early period of the history of the Seminary. The plan was borrowed, I be¬ lieve, from a similar institution in the Theological Seminary at Andover. It is a Society which originated with the students, and has been kept up for nearly twenty years, by their voluntary association ; and the whole business is conducted without any interference of the professors. The Society of Inquiry holds its regular meetings on the first day of each month, during term-time; except, when the month begins on the Lord’s day, in which case the meeting is held on the following day. The object of this Society, as its name imports, is to collect missionary intelligence from all quarters, and to promote a spirit oi missions among the members. In pursuance of this object, a correspondence has been opened with foreign missionaries in all parts of the world, and an inter¬ course by letters is kept up with other similar societies, in this country and Europe. This correspondence has been increasing in interest, every year, and has been the vehicle through which much important intelli¬ gence has been obtained, and communicated to the Christian public ; of which the following communication from the Cape of Good Hope, is a striking example. It may not be improper for me to observe, that, in my opinion, no part of the exercises in the Theological Seminary has been attended with more manifest good effect than those which appertain to the proceedings of this Society : and there can be little doubt, that some of those who are now labouring successfully among the heathen, received their first mis¬ sionary impulse from the ideas suggested, the intelligence received, and the solemn scenes, which they here witnessed: and when the thoughts of those who have been removed for years from the place of their Theolo¬ gical education, revisit these sacred walls, there is probably nothing which is remembered with deeper interest, than the transactions of the first day of the month. It will scarcely be necessary for me to state, that the Rev. Dr. Philip, the author of the following deeply interesting communication, is an able and distinguished minister of the gospel, who has resided for many years in South Africa ; and is the Superintendent of all the missionary stations in that region, which are in connexion with the London Mis¬ sionary Society. Dr. Philip has, in a particular manner, distinguished himself as the able advocate and undaunted defender of the interests of ADVERTISEMENT. rw the Aborigines of South Africa, against the oppressive measures of the government and people, of the European colony, at the Cape. In con¬ sequence of some publications in which the cruel treatment of these peo¬ ple by the colonial government was laid before the British public, he was subjected to a legal prosecution, and to a heavy pecuniary mulct. It is believed, however, that by the generosity of his friends in England, he was relieved from the embarrassment which this fine must have produced in his affairs. He is evidently a man of talents, possessing a bold, ener¬ getic mind, and highly qualified for the arduous station which he occu¬ pies. During the last year, as appears from the letter now published, he employed no less than seven months in a visitation of all the missionary stations in South Africa which are connected with the London Missionary Society. His opinions and suggestions respecting missions to the conti¬ nent of Africa, contained in this paper, are highly deserving of attention as being the result of much experience, at this time, when the attention of the Christian public is so particularly directed to that continent, and is occupied with plans of colonization, and of missionary establishments in that dark region. Princeton, N. J. Sept. 7, 1833. A. ALEXANDER. A LETTER, &c. Cape. Town , (Cape of Good Hope,) May 2d, 1833. My dear sir*- I deeply regret that it has not been in my power to give you a more early reply to your very interesting communication of 16th March, 1832. On the 15th of August, last year, I left Cape Town to visit our missionary stations in the interior. My tour occupied me nearly seven months, and it was not till towards the end of that period, your letter reached me. I am much delighted with the object of your society. It is long since I considered such a society a desideratum in Europe, and without knowing that such a society existed in America, I endeavoured some years ago to get a similar one formed in England, but I was unsuccessful in my attempts. I augur much good to the cause of mis¬ sions over the world from the establishment of such a society in America, and from the spirit in which it appears to be conducted. I have had many letters from Europe, inquiring as to the success with which our missionary labours have been attended, but your letter is the first I have seen confessing ignorance as to the manner in which such labours should be conducted, and at the same time praying for information on the subject. The most painful trial I experienced on my late visit to England was, that I found that on this subject I could not make myself understood. This state of mind at home has been attended with the most pernicious effects upon our foreign missions; and till the evil is remov¬ ed, our success will be far from bearing a proportion to the means, which will be expended on the object we have in view. Nothing can be more dissimilar than the state of things in Africa and in England; and yet the generality of the friends of missions in England have no idea that African missions are any thing different in their nature from their city or country missions at home. The con¬ sequences of this error have been and are highly prejudicial; and it will be no small satisfaction to me, if I can, by any thing I may be able to communicate to you, guard the friends of missions in America against so fatal a mistake. For the sake of brevity in my reply to the queries contained in your letter, I shall answer them as they occur to my mind while I am writing, without naming them. So far as my observation extends, it appears to me that the natural capacity of the African is nothing inferior to that of the European. At our schools, the children of Hottentots, of Bushmen, of Caffers, and Bechuanas, are in no respect behind the children of European parents : and the people at our missionary sta¬ tions are in many instances superior in intelligence to those who look down upon them, as belonging to an inferior caste. The natives beyond the colony live in a world of their own, and they know little of our world, but we know less of theirs than they do of ours. In point of abilities and good feelings, I consider the Caffers on the borders of the colony as most decidedly superior to that por¬ tion of the refuse of English society that find their way to this country. I * The letter was addressed to Mr. John B. Pinney, who had written in the name of the Society, and who was then contemplating an exploring tour to Africa. He has since visited Liberia and the adjacent country as a missionary of the Western Foreign Missionary Society, and is now in this country, making arrangements fora permanent settlement there. have never seen any thing in civilized society like the faculty those people have in discerning the spirit and character of men. When Englishmen go among them, they will discover more of their visitors in a few minutes than some of their own countrymen may have been able to find out in them by an acquaint¬ ance of years. We have at this moment a young Caffer Chief at one of our missionary stations, who is vindicating the character of his countrymen, and ex¬ posing the cruelty and injustice with which they have been treated, in our pub¬ lic journals, with an ability superior to that of any of his numerous and virulent assailants within the colony. Contemplated through the medium of their own superstitions, or that of their general condition, we might hastily pronounce them to be inferior to the white race; but on those points they lose nothing by a com¬ parison with our own European ancestors. From the peninsula on which Cape Town stands, in S. lat. 34, to De la Goa Bay, which is in S. lat. 26, and from the eastern to the western coast, the people in this country are anxious to have missionaries. During my last journey I had people who came four and five days journey to request me to send them mission¬ aries. We cannot suppose for a moment that this desire to have missionaries among the savage and barbarous tribes of South Africa, arises from any sym¬ pathy which they can have with us in the great end of our missionary labours, the conversion of the heathen to God, and the salvation of their souls. This would suppose a state of sociely among the ignorant heathen of which we have hitherto had no example in the history of the human race. But it shows that the missionaries, wherever they settle, impart certain advantages to those among whom they labour, that those around them can appreciate: and for this reason, among others, they become valuable auxiliaries to us, inasmuch as they soften down the prejudices of the heathen against the truth and doctrines of Christian¬ ity, and procure for us a favourable reception and hearing. On one of my jour¬ neys into the interior of Africa, I met with one tribe of Korannas, which had been three weeks on the road, by which I was to pass, expecting me, to request me to send them missionaries. When they understood I could not then send them a missionary, they requested me to send them an instructed native from one of the missionary stations; that by his superior advantages they might be se¬ cured against the frauds and impositions practised upon them by the tradersfrom the Colony. Inquiring as to the office or station such a person would be called by them to fill, they replied that they would make him a chief. On the ground that their chieftainships were hereditary, and descended from father to son, I asked them how they could raise a person of no family to that rank. Their an¬ swer was curious and amusing. To get over this difficulty they proposed that the stranger should be married to a daughter of their chief. According to their usages, it appeared that a connexion with one of their great families conferred the rank of a son upon a son-in-law; and it was very gravely added, that by this means, and the approbation of the counsellors and the people, the stranger would have a preference granted to him above any other member of the chiefs family. About fifteen days journey N. E. from our missionary station at Philippolis, on the Great River, there is a tribe of Bechuanas, that have been very much ha¬ rassed of late years by a plundering horde of Korannas, who have been very much corrupted by the Colonial Traders, who have been in the habit of sup¬ plying them with brandy, guns and gunpowder, which they have received in exchange for the cattle they have stolen from the more remote and defenceless tribes. This Bechuana tribe had never been visited by a missionary; but they had heard of our missionary stations among the Griquas from their country¬ men, who had found protection at them, and the chief set out on a journey to find out Dr. Philip, taking a thousand head of cattle with him to purchase a mis¬ sionary. Shortly after this event he was visited by a respectable man from Phi¬ lippolis, to whom he related the above circumstance, and that his old enemies, the Korannas met him on the road, and robbed him of his cattle. What this chiefs motives were, in being so desirous to have a missionary, I cannot pre- 7 cisely state, but it was stated by the individual to whom he related the cir¬ cumstance, that he entreated him very much to procure a missionary for him; and he added, that if he did not send him a missionary, that the next time he came to see him he would detain him, and make him his missionary. The natives can scarcely be said to have any religion among them. They have no Priests nor Temples, nor any form of religious worship to oppose Chris¬ tianity. But they have sorcerers, and rain-makers, and they are believers in witchcraft. The chief difficulties the missionaries have to contend against in their endeavours to bring them over to the truth of the Bible, are—their igno¬ rance, their superstitions, and the plurality of wives which obtains among them. I have never been able to learn that they had any notions of a future state, which they have not derived from the missionaries. The resurrection of the body is a truth as strange to them when first brought to their ears, as it was to the polite Athenians; and they have no idea of any man dying except by the following causes—hunger, the sword, or by witchcraft. Speaking to a Caffer chief one day upon the second coming of Christ, turning suddenly round, he asked—“ Where is the promise of his coming ?” He at the same time enume¬ rated his ancestors for thirteen generations, naming each of them: and added— “ Do we not see that since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were ?” So far as the success of our labours in South Africa is concerned, I shall as much as possible allow the facts to speak for themselves. For the state of the Hottentots before the missions of the London Missionary Society commenced among them, I must refer you to the Transactions of the London Missionary Society, Barrow’s Travels, and my “ Researches," published when I was lately in England, pleading the cause of the Hottentots. Till the missions commenced, nothing had been done in South Africa for the improvement of the coloured population; and the shortest and best view that can perhaps be given of the beneficial effects of the missions upon the Hottentots, may be given in the words of a Hottentot belonging to the Missionary Institu¬ tion of Bethelsdorp, in reply to the question put to him by I. T. Brigge, Esq. and Major Colebrooke—“ What have the missionaries done for the Hottentots?” The name of the Hottentot to whom the question was put was Jantjes Spielman ; and to the above question his reply was —“ What have the missionaries done for the Hottentots?—When the missionaries came among us we had no clothing but the filthy sheep skin kaross ; now we are clothed in British manufactures. We were without letters; now we can read our Bibles or hear them read to us. We were without any religion; now we worship God in our families. We were without morals; now every man has his own wife. We were given up to licen¬ tiousness and drunkenness; now we have among us industry and sobriety. We were without property; now the Hottentots at Bethelsdorp are in possession of fifty wagons and a corresponding number of cattle. We were liable to be shot like wild beasts; and the missionaries stood between us and the bullets of our enemies." Were the same question to be asked the same person or any other Hottentot now, he might greatly enlarge the catalogue. At that period the Hottentots and free people of colour had no protection except at the missionary institutions; and even there, in spite of the efforts of the missionaries, they were subject to the most cruel oppressions from the local authorities of the colony.— The condition of the Hottentots in general was much worse than that of the slaves. They were obliged to be in service ; the local authorities of the district in which they resided, had their services at their disposal. They were a kind of perquisite of office; they might give them to whom they pleased; under the pretext of providing for their children, they could take them from their parents, and give them away to any one they chose for ten or 15 years. They could not appear in any place at a distance from their master’s premises without a pass, and not be liable to be apprehended and punished; and they were liable to all 8 the degrading punishments to which the slaves were subjected, without any of those securities against cruel treatment which the slave has, in the interest his master has in him. From the struggle we have had to sustain, in our attempts to protect the Hottentots from the cruel oppressions to which they were exposed, the Hottentots, and indeed all the people of colour within the colony (the slaves excepted,) are now under the protection of the same laws with the other inha¬ bitants of the colony, whether Dutch or English. The missionary institutions belonging to the London Missionary Society within the colony are,—Caledon Institution, Pacaltsdorp, Hankey, Bethelsdorp and Theopolis. And what has been said of the change effected upon the Hot¬ tentots at Bethelsdorp, is applicable to all of them. Besides the missionary in¬ stitutions, we have missionaries for the white people and people of colour at the following towns—Paarl, Port Elizabeth, Uitenhage, Grahanrs Town, and Graaf Reinet. To the above enumeration we may add the new territory called the Kat River. But of this interesting settlement, and of the success of our la¬ bours among the people, I shall have occasion to speak more fully, when I come to speak of the importance of a Native Agency. To our missionary stations within the colony we must also add Ivomaggas and Steinkopff, on the western coast of Africa, near the mouth of the Orange or Great River. Of these two stations I shall have occasion to speak when I come to notice the principle on which missionary stations should be selected. Our missionary stations in' Caf- fraria, on the eastern side of the colony, are Macoma’s Kraal and Buffalo River. On the N. and N. E. side of the colony they are—the Bushman station on the Caledon River, Philippolis, Campbell, Griqua Town, and Kuruman, or Lat- takoo. The Griqua mission includes Philippolis, Campbell, and Griqua Town. Our missions among the Griquas present at this moment a scene of very deep interest. When Mr. Anderson began his mission among that people, they were in as bad a state as the Hottentots when Dr. Vanderkemp began his labours among them. He wandered about with them five years before he saw any fruit of his labours, or could prevail upon them to lay aside their wandering habits, and locate themselves in the country where they are now settled. Their history is a very interesting one, and full of instruction to missionaries and missionary societies: but I cannot do more than notice a single feature or two of it at pre¬ sent. This people may be about 4000 in number: they are governed by the chiefs of Campbell, of Philippolis, and of Griqua Town: they are situated on the northern bank of the Great River; their territory extends about 250 or 300 miles in length by 140 miles in breadth; and they have under their protection and subject to them 5000 Korannas, 1000 Bushmen, and perhaps 25,000 Bechu- anas. The Korannas fear them, and acknowledge their superiority ; and the Bushmen and Bechuanas look to them for protection. The greater part of the Bechuanas who are living under their protection, are the Bechuanas who were plundered of their cattle by those people to whom I have already adverted, as hav¬ ing been excited to these deeds of mischief by the colonial traders and others, who have been in the habit of furnishing them with brandy, &c. in exchange for their stolen cattle. At the Missionary station at Philippolis these people (the Griquas) have 35,000 sheep, 3,000 head of oxen, and 500 horses. On the last two Sabbaths I spent at that station, a place of worship that contains nearly 500 people was very well filled; the people were as well dressed as any country congregation I have seen within the colony; and there were 32 family wagons at the church doors. Andreas Waterboer, the chief of Griqua Town, is a very superior man; he is truly pious and very activ*e; and the cause is in a very flourishing state at that station. Ever since the Griqua mission commenced, the Griquas have been the bulwark of the colony on the northern and north-eastern frontier: and they have saved the colonial government the expense of at least 500 soldiers ; 9 they would have been obliged to employ them to protect that part of the colony, but for the Griquas. All the sensible part of the Boers acknowledge that they could not enjoy a sound night’s sleep if it were not for the Griquas, who they consider as placed between them and danger. On my late journey I was empow¬ ered by the Griquas to solicit that their country should be taken within the co¬ lony. They have rendered the greatest services to the colony; they are at this moment of the greatest importance to the colony, as the peace and order of that part of the frontier is dependent upon them. They are willing to pay taxes like the other colonists, and to be subject to the laws of the colony as they are, on the ground that their lands are secured to them. Andyet I am sorry to say that the colonial government declines the proposal. There are many here that would rather destroy the people and take their country, than see them under colonial laws, and their country forming a part of the colony. It is not long since a pe¬ tition signed by 1800 Boers was sent to the colonial government, requesting the government to put them in possession of the' Griqua country about Philippolis. The Griqua country has as good a right to be considered a Christian country as the colony of the Cape of Good Hope; and we see here by the labours of our missionaries a new country brought within the pale of Christianity. In the success of the gospel and the efficacy of our schools among the Griquas, we see what we owe to Christianity; and how the gospel spread in past ages over the nations of Europe. The Griquas at the commencement of our missions among them were as ignorant and defenceless as the Korannas, the Bushmen, and the Bechuanas around them, and under their protection, and such is the condition to which this handful of people have been raised by the elevating influence of Christian doctrine and Christian education, that while the people under their protection are perhaps five times their own number, their strength and courage and discipline is an occasion of jealousy with the colonists, while they are at the same time its defence along a frontier about 300 miles in extent. Thisstatement will show you that we are not to estimate the success of the labours of our missionaries by the numbers that are received into Christian fel¬ lowship at our missionary stations. The principles upon which our missionaries go, in their admission of converts from among the heathen to the Lord’s Table, exclude a large proportion from that ordinance that would be received under another system. There are not perhaps 150 Griquas who are admitted to the Lord’s Supper ; and yet the whole of the people bearing that designation, to the amount of 4000, have renounced polygamy, bear the Christian name, and disco¬ ver an acquaintance with Christianity, and have generally speaking an out¬ ward conduct not less worthy of the Gospel of Christ than any portion of an English or Scotch peasantry of the same extent, in any of the most favoured parts of Scotland or England with which 1 am acquainted. Whatever may be said in favour of strictness in the admission of members to the Lord’s Table in England or America, has with us a double weight. The heathen have scarcely any other method to enable them to judge of the nature of genuine religion, if the criterion which arises from the Christian character in those we receive as fellow Christians from among themselves, is taken from them. This is a standard they can appreciate and feel, if they are incapable of understanding or feeling any thing else that may be said to them on the subject. The great body of the Bechuanas in the Griqua country we have not yet been able to do much for : but something is doing for them at Griqua Town. About 16 of them have lately made a credible profession of the truth, and have been received into the churoh at that station. The Kuruman, or Lattakoo, is the only mission we have in what is properly speaking the Bechuana country. Mr. Moffat and his fellow labourers had to wait long for any appearance of fruit: but the Lord has been pleased of late B 10 to bless their labours, and a church consisting of about 24 members has been re¬ cently formed. The Kuruman is about 40 miles south of what is called Old Lattakoo, and about 8 or 9 miles from New Lattakoo, the place to which Mateebe removed for greater security from the invasion of the Mantatees. It was chosen on account of a fine stream of water, which the missionaries have by great labour turned to account, by employing it for the purpose of irrigating the valley through which it. flows. By going to reside in this valley, the missionaries separated themselves in a measure from the great body of the tribe among whom they were labouring: but it was expected that the people would all follow them, and take up their residence beside them, when the ad¬ vantages of the situation should be seen. Owing to various causes, this expecta¬ tion has not been fully realized: but I consider the missionaries justified in what they did in this affair. Perhaps it might have been better, if like An¬ derson with the Griquas, they had remained with the chiefs and the body of the people, till the power of religion had been felt as it was among the Griquas, befoiethey had decided on the commencement of the plan on which they acted. In accordance with your wishes I shall now attempt to give you a brief view of the Bechuana country, and of the country in general beyond the Colony, and the Griqua country; that you may be able to judge how far it may present to you an inviting field for your missionaries to assist us in cultivating. When Mr. Campbell visited Lattakoo and the country beyond it, he found the country, as far as he travelled, inhabited by 8 or 9 separate tribes bearing the general designation of Bechuanas. For any particulars as to the state of the Bechuanas at that period, I must refer you to Mr. Campbell’s journals, including both tours. Till 1823 those tribes, speaking the same language and having the same customs, appear to have been possessors of the country they then inhabited, from a period so remote that they had no tradition among them of any other people having possessed the country before them. They had never had the Christian volume to expand their minds; and any knowledge they had of Divine things or of science was indigenous. The state of civili¬ zation among them accorded with the advantages and disadvantages of their situation, and had arrived at that pitch, beyond which it was impossible per¬ haps in their circumstances (supposing them to have remained shut out from the rest of the world as they then were) to carry it. On the south they had the Bushman country, the Korannas and the Great River, and the Griquas, between them and the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope. On the West be¬ tween them and the coast by the great Calagary desert. On their northern boundary lies a great lake which they describe as unknown as to its extent, and having waves like the sea. And on the south and south-east lie the Zoo- lahs, a people we shall soon have occasion to notice more particularly. To strangers this people were always remarked as kind and hospitable; the re¬ ception our missionaries have received from them gives a favourable view of their character: and the French Missionaries, Lemue, Rolland, and Pelissier, who lately went to settle among the Baharutsi, a tribe of Bechuanas who re¬ sided about 15 days journey south-east of Lattakoo, spoke of the prospect of their mission in very flattering terms. Respecting the vices and virtues of this people I cannot at present say much; but with the vices common to people in their circumstances they had many good points, which I cannot now dwell upon, in their general character. Like other nations or tribes in Africa they had their wars among themselves; but their wars appear to have been carried on with very little bloodshed. In their battles they never came to close quarters; and in stealing cattle from each other, they depended more upon their dexterity in thieving than upon their courage in open conflict. In 1823 the country of this people was invaded by a nation, who to the number of per¬ haps 80,000, was precipitated upon them en masse, and who bore down every thing before them, and moved onward till they were met by the Griquas be- longing to our missionary station, by whom they were repelled and driven back. When this people first made their appearance in the Bechuana country, it was unknown from whence they proceeded: but we have since then become acquainted with their history, and we have found that they proceeded, not from the north, as was then supposed, but fromthesouth and southeast; and that when they came into the Bechuana country they were retreating before Dingaan, a powerful Zoolah Chief, who exercises his authority over (he eastern coast of Africa from Port Natal to De la Goa Bay. The people called Zoolahs are subject to two powerful chiefs, Dingaan and Mosalekatsi. Chaka, the late brother of Dingaan, appears to have extended his authority over all the other chiefs of that people.—But on the death of Mosalekatsi’s father, the young man by the advice of his counsellors threw off all allegiance to Chaka: and so far as I have been able to obtain information, the territory of Mosalekatsi appears to extend from behind De la Goa Bay, to the 23d or 22d degree of latitude, immediately behind the Portuguese territory in that quarter. The Zoolahs are originally from the same stock with the Bechuanas; they speak the same language, and have many of the same cus¬ toms; but they resemble their brethren the Gaffers on the eastern frontier of the colony more than the tribes farther in the interior. Like the Caffers they go naked, and they are the most warlike and courageous people we have heard of in Africa in modern times. Mosalekatsi was visited by Mr. Moffat and Mr. Pellissier, and both speak of him as an extraordinary man. To an address the most mild and winning he unites great capacity for war, great ambition, and like many other ambitious conquerors, he shows none of that weakness which allows any feelings of compassion to come between him and the attainment of his object. His mode of government is as peculiar as any other feature in his character. His ambition is to be a great king, he has 32 African kings or chiefs under him. When he subdues a nation or tribe, he takes full possession of the country, and divides it among his warriors. The old people he generally destroys; the young he preserves for future service; the boys are sent to his cattle posts or military camps to be trained up for war: the girls he disposes of in a similar manner, to be kept as rewards to his young soldiers. Every acre of land, every head of cattle, and every man, woman, and child in the country are the property of the king. The young women go perfectly naked till they are given in marriage, no one can have a wife till the king is pleased to give him one; before marriage no intercourse is allowed between the sexes; to attempt the chastity of a young woman is to incur the penalty of death, and to be accused is to be found guilty. The young men are allowed to see the } r oung women, but that is all; and when they are exhibited to them before they go out to battle, they are reminded that those are the rewards that Mosalekatsi confers upon the brave. No young man can have a wife from the king till he has distinguished himself in battle ; and when he receives a wife from the hand of the king, he has cattle and land allowed him with her as her dowry. Every subsequent display of courage in battle is rewarded with an additional wife, and an addition of cattle. With some little variation the same practice is said to obtain among the Zoolahs under Dingaan. Whether the Zoolahs have improved upon the Mahomedan paradise, or whether Mahomed borrowed his idea on that subject from the ancestors of the Zoolahs, it may be difficult to determine, but the Zoolah chiefs, particularly Mosalekatsi, exhibit the system in greater perfection than it was in the mind or the power of Mahomed to show its workings. The false prophet promised his followers their paradise beyond the grave, but Mosalekatsi holds it up to them as a reward which they are to en¬ joy in the present life. To the most powerful motive that any tyrant could place before the human mind in the embruted state of human nature as it is found without religion, Mosalekatsi adds another, as terrible by its restraining, as the one we have noticed is in its impelling force. He allows none of his soldiers to desert his post, he must conquer or die. Last year the soldiers of this tyrant invaded the Bechuana country ; and the unwarlike Bechuanas fell before them like sheep under the knife of the butcher* The whole of the Bechuana has been desolated as far as Lattakoo, which is yet untouched; and the people of Mosalekatsi possess the country. When I arrived at Lattakoo on my late journey, I found the people, subjects of Mahuri, and the remains of the Barolongs and the Baharutsi, who had escaped the slaugh¬ ter of Mosalekatsi’s bands, in the most distressing situation. The remains of the destroyed tribes were suffering by famine, and the whole of the people were (to use their own expression) “like dead men,” from an apprehension that they might be visited by Mosalekatsi and destroyed the next hour, as the other Bechuana tribes had been. I had intended to visit Mosalekatsi: but although I had no apprehension as to my own personal safety, I could not be sure that my journey would protect the helpless thousands around me, who were looking to me for assistance, as if I had had an army at my command. After com suiting with the chiefs and the French missionaries, who had retreated to this place on the approach of Mosalekatsi, I returned to Griqua Town, accom¬ panied by Mr. Lemue, and followed by the chief Mahuri, to consult with Waterboer, the chief of Griqua Town, about the means of preserving what re¬ mained of this people. The plan formed was, that they should all fall back to the number of perhaps 20,000, on the territory of Waterboer, that he might be able to throw his shield over them, should they be attacked by Mosalekatsi. If any one is disposed to ask—What has Christianity done for Europe? or what will it do for the native tribes of Africa? we refer such an inquirer to the spectacle now before us. Before the Griquas embraced Christianity, they were as helpless as the Bechuanas; and such is the difference now between the Griquas and the Bechuanas, that we see perhaps 30,000 Bechuanas looking up to the Christian chief of Griqua Town, who cannot perhaps muster more than 200 horsemen, as their sole dependence and their only safeguard against the overwhelming and ferocious band of Mosalekatsi. It is an interesting fact, that not only are the Korannas and Caffers and Be¬ chuanas in the country around the Colony desirous of having missionaries with them, but even Dingaan and Mosalekatsi unite in expressing the same de¬ sire; and we have not the slightest reason to suspect that missionaries would be less safe with them than among the other more peaceable tribes around us. The Societies now in operation in South Africa, cannot do any thing efficiently for these two powerful Chiefs and their people. And on this ground should the churches of America think of assisting us in South Africa, I would strongly recommend that they should send a mission to them. The country oc¬ cupied by Dingaan, which stretches from the neighbourhood of De la Goa Bay to Port Natal, presents a noble field for missionary labour, and in many respects deserving the preference to any other field of labour connected with the south¬ ern portion of the African continent. From the fertility of the land, and the contiguity of Port Natal and De la Goa Bay, the labours of efficient missiona¬ ries in that country might in course of time give rise to a civilized community, which might be of the greatest importance to the eastern shores of this continent. Some years ago some adventurers from the eastern part of the co.lony, visited Port Natal with a view to establish themselves there. With this view they ob¬ tained permission'from Dingaan to locate themselves there; but the settlement has not yet obtained the sanction of the British Government; and as it has been hitherto conducted, it is more likely to deteriorate than to improve the natives. The greatest difficulty which missionaries would in all probability have to en¬ counter, would be from the vices of that settlement. Those difficulties do not, however, present asufficient barrier todiscourageyour missionaries from engaging irt this undertaking. American ships sometimes touch at Port Natal; and any ship passing to the eastward of the Cape of Good Hope might easily land them there. Whatever views the few English at that place might entertain of the object of the missionaries, they would not offer them any violence ; and if they could not do them any good, they might pass on from them to the chief, who would at once receive them. Dingaan is acquainted with the power and cha¬ racter of the American nation. Not long since an American captain made him a present of an article and he sent it to the English settlers, asking them if the English could make him as handsome a present. There is now a communica¬ tion by land between this colony and Port Natal, but should any of your churches think of sending missionaries there, I would recommend in preference that they should go immediately there by water. If you resolve upon a mission to that country, the sooner it is undertaken the better. To give you any estimate of the population of this country I find very diffi¬ cult. The Colony of the Cape of Good Hope is very thinly peopled. A great part of it is covered with mountains and barren plains; but the taste of the people for grazing farms has contributed more than any other disadvantage it labours under, to keep the people at a distance from each other. And so long as they are allowed to spread themselves, taking possession of the territories be¬ yond them, when more grazing farms are required for their children, this evil will not soon be remedied. This system has been attended with the most bane¬ ful effects to the natives. Deprived of their country and of the means of sub¬ sistence by the encroaching spirit of the colonists, offences on their part were unavoidable, and those offences have been too frequently followed by extermina¬ tion; and now immediately beyond the borders of our colony little remains but what our missions have preserved. The Commando System pursued on our frontiers is perhaps the worst system imaginable, and must while it is persisted in, render the countries around our colony deserts. This great abuse is one of the evils I hope to see remedied by our Reformed Parliament. Those parts of eastern Africa nearest the coast are the most fruitful, and the most thickly peopled. Our European colonies have a fatal influence on the po¬ pulation in their immediate neighbourhood. This is in a great measure where the people are not saved by the labour of the missionaries, the inevitable conse¬ quence of the introduction of brandy, guns, and gunpowder among them. In my late journey into the interior I was made acquainted with the names of se¬ veral traders, who are in the habit of carrying these articles to the native tribes, and of exchanging them for the cattle they had sent them out to steal from the more defenceless tribes farther in the interior. The Government declares those articles to be contraband ; but as no means have hitherto been employed to make examples of the offenders, the law is a dead letter. This is another evil, which it is to be hoped will be cured by our Reformed Parliament. I need scarcely mention the slave trade as another cause of the thinness of the population. Mosalekatsi has never himself traded in slaves, but the constant wars in which he has been engaged with the slave-traders on the coast may account for the ferocity of his people, and their superiority in war over the tribes they have lately subdued. The country of the Zoolahs is the most thickly peopled of any of the countries with which we are acquainted in South Africa. The Bechuilnas have of late years suffered more from famine than from any other cause. Being wholly dependent upon their cattle, when they have been robbed of them they have no alternative but to rob others, or'clie of hunger, and many of them die in this way.—One of the chief arguments we have heard urged in defence of polygamy has been, that it is favourable to population. Yet such is the fact, that the increase in Africa is much greater where the law allows one wife only, than it is where polygamy obtains. The prevalence of polygamy and the number of children that die in infancy from peglect and want of proper nourishment, must be allowed to have a considerable share in the scantiness of the population in many of the districts on this continent. If Commodore Owen’s opinion is correct, (and no man had ever better opportuni¬ ties or was better qualified for forming an opinion on the subject,) that there are SO,000 slaves transported every year from the eastern and western coasts of Afri¬ ca, and that 4 or 5 perish for every individual that is shipped on board the slave vessels, the loss of human beings to Africa by that infernal traffic, must be sen¬ sibly felt in keeping the population, particularly in those parts of the continent where it is most actively carried on, at a low standard. But those that are killed and captured by this traffic, are nothing in comparison of those barriers that are thrown in the way of the increase of the population, by the state of society which it occasions over the whole continent, and the numbers that perish by the famines it occasions. There is no part of this continent free from the baneful effects of this traffic. It penetrates from shore to shore to the very centre of Africa, dashing to pieces every fragment of society, before those frag¬ ments can have time to unite into any thing like a regular government. Most of the famines which sweep off so many of the inhabitants of Africa arise from this cause. People will never cultivate the ground to great advantage, where they have little chance of reaping a harvest. And as the slave-traders seize the cattle as well as the people of the tribes they conquer, the desolation occasioned by the capture of the former must be greater than that which arises from the latter. For one who may perish immediately in those conflicts to which the slave-trade gives rise, many perish by the attempts of the plundered tribes to supply themselves with cattle for those they have lost, and that indif¬ ference to human life and that state of universal disorder, which it is the tend¬ ency of the system to generate. In discussing the merits of Africa as a missionary field, we must before quit¬ ting this subject say something respecting the other parts of this continent on which you ask my opinion. I say nothing of the advantages America may gain from the new colony of Liberia, or of the advantages the people of colour may gain from becoming citi¬ zens of this new country. 1 leave such questions to be settled by the citizens of the United States, who are by their local knowledge better qualified than I am to decide them. But so far as our plans for the future improvement of Africa are concerned, I regard this settlement as full of promise to this unhap¬ py continent. Half a dozen such colonies, conducted on Christian principles, might be the means under the divine blessing, of regenerating this degraded quarter of the globe. Every prospective measure for the improvement of Africa must have in it the seminal principles of good government; and no better plan can be devised for laying the foundations of Christian governments than that which this new settlement presents. Properly conducted your new colony may become an extensive empire, which may be the means of shedding the blessings of civilization and peace over a vast portion of this divided and dis¬ tracted continent. From some hints 1 have seen in some of the English papers, I perceive that you will have some difficulties to encounter in the prosecution of your present plan. It is the fate of every good plan for the melioration of the human race to be opposed, particularly at its commencement; and the viru¬ lence of the opposition is generally in proportion to the excellence of the plan proposed. But we have this to encourage us in our endeavours to persevere in the pursuit of a good object that it must in the end triumph. I cannot for a moment suppose that ever America will force the poor people of colour to go to Liberia. Such a mode of proceeding would neither accord with the liberties or good sense of your countrymen. And if every slave proprietor in the United States offer to make his slaves free, and the slaves are willing to accept their freedom on the condition that they will exchange America for Liberia, I can see nothing in such an arrangement to excite or nourish a spirit of hostility against your new settlement. Care should be taken, however, that the slaves 15 liberated on this principle should not be the worst slaves on an establishment, or slaves of bad character. If your new settlement should ever come to be crowded with persons of such a description, disorder, despotism, and ruin must follow, or at least must be in danger of following. As I do not see any Ame¬ rican publications at the Cape of Good Hope, and as all the information I have of what is doing on your side of the water, is from the scanty notices of Ame¬ rican affairs I can glean fiomthe English papers, what I say on this subject is to be understood as spoken under correction. But. with the information 1 have I would suggest, whether it would not be well to give the whole of the under¬ taking a religious character, and to invite the religious and benevolent portion of the black people to unite in it for the purpose of evangelizing and civilizing Africa. If your new settlement is to be so conducted as to answer the expecta¬ tions to which it has given rise, the Committee or Board which may have the management of its affairs must keep in operation an efficient gospel ministry, and an efficient system of education. The natives immediately around ( the new settlement should be at once supplied with missionaries. Missionary sta¬ tions should be formed at convenient distances from each other, so as to admit of a communication between them. And with a faithful and able missionary at each station you should have schoolmasters and mechanics, with all the ap¬ paratus necessary for the attainment of the object you propose. In this way you may evangelize and civilize one circle after another, till you have brought a vast portion of the African continent within the pale of the Christian church and the civilized world. This is what we are doing in South Africa, and would soon be able to do to a great extent, were not the generality of our white people more partial to the old system of seizing the country and then the pro¬ perty of the people, and then the people themselves for their own use, than they are to any plan which has for its object the destruction of caste, and the eleva¬ tion of the aborigines of the country to an equal participation with themselves in the blessings of liberty and civilization. 1 have read with attention the travels of Captain Clapperton and the journals of the Landers. They have made an important discovery, and it is upon that discovery that their friends must be content to rest their claims to public grati¬ tude. It would be unjust and cruel to decide their merits by the composition of their journals. They did not, go to Africa to write books, but to discover the Niger, and in that they have succeeded. Allowing them then that high merit to which they are entitled, I shall not be blamed for undue severity, if I find fault with some of their sentiments. They were evidently very deficient in the talents necessary to enable them to give a correct view of the state of society in those places they visited. One feels grieved at the charges of idleness, &c. &c. which they bring against a people who have not, according to their own account, a single motive to industry, beyond what was necessary to supply their present wants. It would be highly absurd to expect industry among a people, or indeed any thing but indolence and listlessness among a people, who had been so long under the withering curse of the Slave Trade, and who might be plun¬ dered or murdered with impunity by any wretches who bore the livery of their Chiefs, or those who held them in subjection. Missionaries will have two difficulties to encounter in this country, the demo¬ ralized state of the people, and the zeal of the Mahomedans among them In an incidental manner our travellers have furnished us with facts, the importance of which they did not seem to be aware of, which clearly show that the Apos¬ tles of the Koran are numerous and indefatigable on the banks of the Niger. There is a something in the doctrines of the Koran exceedingly favourable to the dominion of its votaries in such a country as Africa. They raise the savage to the condition of the barbarian; but as there is nothing in them to raise them above a semi-barbarous state of society, and there is something in them to prevent a higher rise in the scale of civilization, a Christian community 16 in the centre of Africa, keeping up a constant communication with America,, would soon gain the ascendency in that quarter. Could you plant another co¬ lony like that of Liberia on the banks of the Niger, it might be the means of rolling back the tide of Mahomedanism which appears to have set in with so strong a current from the north, and of establishing a Christian state in the centre of Africa. If this is impracticable, a mission may be undertaken on or¬ dinary principles; but the conducting of it should not be left to ordinary men; and those who are to engage in it should go forth in numbers, and with resour¬ ces at their command, from which a great impression might be soon expected. A solitary individual may do much among a reading people, and who hold many principles in common with himself, to which he can appeal in his ad¬ dresses to their understandings and to their hearts. But in such a country as Africa we must concentrate our strength, and keep firm possession of every inch we have gained, and make use of the resources we may be able to raise upon it for the further extension of our conquests. It was long a prevalent no¬ tion in England, that we might plant missionaries in Africa as a man majr in the fertile lands of the United States plant acorns, and leave them to the rain and to the climate to spread themselves into forests. But our experience has shown the folly of that notion, and taught us if we would succeed in our object, that a more expensive and laborious system of cultivation is necessary. Like the trees of the field, the greatest difficulty is in rearing the first plantation; and when that has risen to a sufficient height to afford shelter, every new seed or young sapling should be planted within the range of its protection. In making choice of a situation for a missionary station, a country that would repay the cultivator of the soil, and having if possible a water communi¬ cation with the rest of the world, is to be preferred to an inland desert. The in¬ habitants of the rock and the dwellers in the wilderness are not to be forgotten, as the one are to shout for joy at the glad tidings of the gospel, and the other to bow down before the Saviour of men. But the most crowded parts of Afri¬ ca are first entitled to our attention, and our object in following the other should be to induce them to exchange their wandering habits and their barren soil, to locate themselves on spots of the earth where they can cultivate the soil, and enjoy in Christian communities the social blessings of Christianity and civiliza¬ tion. The desert is unfavourable to the fruits of Christianity : and after repeated trials we have found that they never can be brought to perfection, or cultivated to any extent, unless they are literally planted by rivers of water, where they may rise into families and tribes. The ark of the Lord was carried into the wilderness: but it would not have remained long with Israel if the people had been allowed to choose the wilderness as their final abode. The civilization of the people among whom we labour in Africa is not our highest object; but that object never can be secured and rendered permanent among them without their civilization. Civilization is to the Christian religion what the body is to the soul; and the body must be prepared and cared for, if the spirit is to be retained upon earth. The blessings of civilization are a few of the blessings which the Christian religion scatters in her progress to immor¬ tality; but they are to be cherished for her own sake as well as for ours, as they are necessary to perpetuate her reign and extend her conquests. Because multitudes in England and America have lost their religion, to which they are indebted for their civilization, many pious people make light of civiliza¬ tion as connected with the labours of missionaries: but it should never be lost sight of that if men may retain their civilization after they have lost their reli¬ gion, that there can be no religion in such a country as this without civiliza¬ tion; and that it can have no permanent abode among us, if that civilization does not shoot up into regular and good government. The importance of education, and particularly of early education, begins only to be felt by many of our missionaries. The preaching of the gospel is the great 17 agency ordained by God for the conversion of the world; and it must precede and accompany every other agency that has this object in view. In the first age of the church, and more particularly in the first part of that age, the preach¬ ing of those employed in this part of the ministry, and the conversation and ex¬ ample of the primitive Christians were the means, I may say the only means, which could be employed to evangelize the world. The instruction of the rising generation was however of such obvious importance, that it never could have been for a moment overlooked in Christian families ; and while the parents were engaged in training up their children like young Timothy, who was taught to read the Holy Scriptures from a child, the Pastors and Elders of the primitive churches appear at an early period to have cared for the lambs of their flocks. How far the general education of the people around them was then a subject of deep interest with the churches of Christ, we are not informed : but as the boun¬ daries of the churches were enlarged, and many were added to them who could not themselves read, and for that reason could not teach their children, provision was made by the churches for their instruction. When civil governments arose, professedly Christian, so long as they manifested any thing of the spirit of Christianity, more or less was done to furnish the poor with the means of instruc¬ tion. I shall here confine myself to one aspect of the subject—the importance of raising up in savage or barbarous countries, with the least delay that is possi¬ ble, a Native Agency. You may as well think of supplying all the continent of Africa with bread or corn from Europe, as to supply it with teachers and the means of instruction from Europe. The seed-corn may be furnished; but it never can become gene¬ ral, unless it shakes, and stocks the country to which the first handfuls are car¬ ried. This great object has hitherto been too much neglected in missionary work. The work of God in the conversion of the world has never been carried on to any extent without a native agency; and that work has always prospered in proportion as that agency has been numerous and effective. The Apostles preached the gospel within the pale of the civilized world, ordained Bishops and Elders in every city in which churches had been formed, and left the newly ap¬ pointed office-bearers to carry on and extend the work of God, while they em¬ ployed themselves in preaching the gospel in the regions beyond them.— Even at the period of the reformation, the reformers could have done nothing without the sympathies of the people, and without a native agency. In coun¬ tries which have been civilized by Christianity, agents are easily found in a great measure prepared, and what is wanting is easily supplied. But in savage and barbarous countries, we can only look for a native agency by the general education of the people. I say general education ; for we have found by expe¬ rience that we must raise the community itself to a certain level, before such an agency can be found as will prove to be of any efficiency in the general spread of the gospel. When the power of religion is first felt in its quickening influ¬ ence at a missionary station, the change is so marked, that the individuals thus awakened are frequently the means of communicating what they have felt to others; but in persons of this description there is so much ignorance mixed with their new light, so much of the old leaven remaining, and the fancy is so much more powerful than the judgment, that they constantly stand in need of their teachers to watch over them; and few of them indeed can be appointed as au¬ thorized teachers of others. To raise such a community or people in the state I have described by educa¬ tion, the work should be begun as soon as possible. If the children of parents in such a state of society are not put under instruction till they are 7, 8, or 9 years of age, after all the education which can be given them they will differ very lit¬ tle from their parents. Conducting our schools on this plan, generation after generation will pass away under the most discouraging circumstances to the C 18 ordinary observer. In 1819 education had made little progress among the Hot- tentots. Something had been done, but nothing in proportion to what might have been expected, or that could be turned to any account; and many engaged in the missionary work assured me that I should never be able to raise up a na¬ tive agency to assist us in the work among the Hottentots. Such a prophecy under such circumstances could not fail to insure its own accomplishment; for I have invariably found where a missionary despairs of improving the condition of the natives, he as invariably fails to effect the object. But we had at that time an example of a native boy at Pacaltsdorp conducting a small school to my sa¬ tisfaction : and it was evident to me that there was no solid ground for the objec¬ tion : and that if we failed in this object, our labour would prove in vain in the end. The.schools then at Bethelsdorp and Theopolis were in a very low state. The parents felt no interest in the education of their children ; the attendance was very irregular; indolent habits had been contracted before the scholars came under instruction; and it was difficult to say from the appearance of the schools, whether the children or the masters found their books the most irksome. From the want of labourers, and other business of paramount importance upon my hands, nothing could be done to improve the schools till 1821. From that period, through the means which were adopted, the schools were better attended, and a degree of life and animation was thrown into them, which encouraged our hopes. About this period my arduous conflict with the local authorities and the colonial government commenced; and the attention of the missionaries was withdrawn from the schools, being almost entirely occupied in correspondence with the constituted authorities of the colony, and executing their commands; which were often multiplied with no other apparent view but to annoy them and drive them from their stations. During that struggle the importance of the schools was not, however, lost sight of, but owing to various causes I need not enumerate, much less was done than I wished to see effected. As an illustration of the principle I have laid down, I shall give you a brief account of the state of things now at the Kat River settlement, on the borders of Caffraria. This settlement was begun in 1829. It was in that year that the Caffers were expelled from it; and the peopling of it with Hottentots appears to have been an after thought. The plan was suggested to the colonial govern¬ ment by Captain Stockenstrom, the Commissioner General on the frontier dis¬ trict; and it was urged by that gentleman on sound political views, which were acceded to by the colonial government. When the plan was arranged and agreed to, the Commissioner General visited Bethelsdorp and Theopolis, two of our missionary stations; and by his persuasion 144 families, including the most respectable families at those institutions, went to settle in this new territory.— The plan was, to settle the Hottentots in small villages, and to give them a pro¬ perty in the soil. The families from our institutions were soon joined by others who had never been at any missionary institution, and of this latter class there are now between 3 and 4000 in the district. I visited this people early in 1830, and I then viewed with pleasing surprise their industry, the spirit of hope by whichthey were actuated, their anxiety for a religious teacher, and their deter¬ mination to have education for their children. One woman 1 found surrounded with 50 children, in a place where they were literally wedged together, so that one could not move without disturbing the whole mass; and with the leaves of a New Testament, which were all the lessons she had to set before them. At all the other locations where I found Hottentots from our institutions, I found the same desire for the instruction of the rising generation. But it was not till Mr. Read (who is now the missionary settled in that district) went among the peo¬ ple, that we could do any thing efficiently to aid them in the desire manifested by them for their own improvement and the improvement of their children. On my late visit to that district in 1832, the expectation excited by what I saw in 1830 was in every respect more than realized. The exertions the people had macffe to lead out the water, of which they have an excellent supply, for the pur¬ pose of irrigation, the lands they had brought under cultivation, the houses they had erected, and the decent clothing in which they appeared, with the improve¬ ment I remarked in their habits of thinking, in their address, and in the self- respect they discovered—evinced a general improvement that afforded me the most exouisite pleasure. At Philipton, the location at which the missionary resided, there was an infant school, very ably conducted, and a sewing school, by the Miss Reads, and a school on the British system taught by a Hottentot boy, including both together about 140 children. At one location where the whole of the party had been Bushmen, and were in a state of nature when they settled in the district, I found a Hottentot schoolmaster who belonged to Bethelsdorp, and a Christian people. This man was introduced among them by Mr. Read; he had been the means of bringing most of the old people to the knowledge of the truth; he kept Divine service among them, except, on the first sabbath of the month, when ail that could travel so far went to Philipton to the Lord’s Supper; and he had a day school in a flourishing condition. On this visit I established several infant schools, which are conducted by young people formerly at the missionary stations, and who have been instructed in the infant system by the Miss Reads. The people have plenty of food, and it is surprising to see how well they are clothed ; but they have not yet money in general, and cannot therefore do every thing they wish to do. The plan I adopted in estab¬ lishing schools among them was as follows:—The people furnish the teachers with land and plough, and sow and reap it for them, or they supply them with food: and I allow each teacher Is. 6d. or 2s. a week, to purchase clothing for j them. On this principle eight schools were established in the district on my last visit to it. The economy and the means by which we are enabled upon this system to multiply the means of instruction, are too obvious to require fur¬ ther illustration. Many of these native teachers fill their spheres of labour with as much efficiency as many persons we get from Europe might do, and we can with the salary of one European teacher employ 20 or 30 such teachers. Besides the number of such teachers that we can employ instead of one, we have no expense of out-fit, passage money, and their widows and orphans are no charge to the society. Looking at the scenes this district presents, and par¬ ticularly at the schools, with the pleasure they were calculated to inspire, my pleasure was not without some regret. Had I been warmly supported in my views 7 or 8 years ago, and had I met with that cooperation I wished for, instead of 8 or 9 schools conducted on this principle, we should have had five times the number. The religious aspect of the district was not less encouraging than the thirst of the people for the education of their children. The public ordinances off the Gospel are on the Sabbath well attended. The Rev. W. Thomson and Rev. J. Read are the ministers of the district, and they hold service at two different locations apart from each other. The sabbaths I was at Philipton the congregations might be about 1000 people, and I do not know that ever I was more affected than on seeing this people on the sabbath morning coming from the different locations in groups, well dressed, and in the most decent and orderly manner, at the sound of the church bell. In conversing with the people the leading feature of their piety appeared to be gratitude to God, which was often manifested by tears, when they contrasted their former bondage and wretchedness with their present prosperous condition. To enter into their feelings, and to form! a proper estimate of what has been done for them by the instrumentality of the missionaries, it was necessary to keep in mind what they were before the mission-, ariescame among them. We now compare all we see among them with nothing. When our missions commenced among those people, they were in a condition much worse than that of common slavery; they were without any religion, without morals; without one yard of cotton or woollen cloths, and I may sayj naked, without property, living in licentiousness and drunkenness, and without any desires excepting such as terminated on beastl} 7 gratifications. The morality of this district cannot be omitted in our present estimate; and to illustrate this it is necessary only to say, that they have a magistrate of their own nation, and there has not one offence occurred in the district that it has been necessary to bring before the circuit court of justice. To illustrate the importance of a Native Agency, it is necessary only to say that the work of God among the people and in the schools is carried on chiefly by the people who were from Bethelsdorp and Theopolis. They are the leaven which is leavening the whole lump. At each of the locations where these people are placed they are active in schools, and in bringing others under the means of grace. From the church at Philipton several of the office-bearers and other gifted individuals visit on the sabbath the distant locations, and many of them preach, perhaps with much more effect to their own countrymen than persons of superior education would do, and who from the nature of their very education, and their ignorance of the customs and modes of thinking among the people, might not have the same access to their understandings and their hearts. While education of the people as a whole is pursued as of paramount import¬ ance, the Christian minister is not to allow himself to sink into the mere schoolmaster. Those who are advanced beyond childhood, and who may never be taught to read, are to be objects of his Christian solicitude, and are to be brought under the influence of Christian principles for their own sakes, and for the influence they have over the rising generation. And it is by the oral instruction of the missionaries, any reasonable hope can be entertained of bring¬ ing them within the pale of the Christian church. The instructions given to them need not occupy much of the missionary’s time in the usual mode in civilized countries of preparing sermons and addresses for them. Provided he can speak to them in their own language, the simpler, the shorter, and the more familiar his addresses are, the more effective they will be. Conversation and a conversational mode of preaching, is the best suited for their condition: and the missionaries who have followed this plan have been the most successful. In raising up and keeping in operation an effective agency, the public mi¬ nistrations of the word of God are necessary. When religion has made some progress among a savage or barbarous people, it is under the public administra¬ tion of the word of God they receive those elevated sentiments and accessions of Christian zeal, which exercise their benevolence to their fellow men, and pre¬ serve alive in their minds those spiritual energies which carry them forward in the exercises and labours of Christian love. The efficient ministry of the gos¬ pel in public, and in the social meetings of the people is like the action of the heart to the human body, it is from it, that health and life are diffused over the whole body. But the missionary will do very little good who considers his duty at an end when he has done preaching to the people. It is not enough for him to say : I have preached the gospel to the people: I have set, before them'the words of life and death: I have told them what to shun and what to practice. He must ascertain whether the gospel is received, whether the evils against which he has warned them have been shunned, and whether the duties he has enjoined upon them have been put in practice. lie may not im¬ mediately see the signs of conversion, and in many cases he may have to wait long for them. But there is a diversity of means besides preaching, that he must employ in his work; to all these he must be attentive, and into all these he must be constantly breathing a spirit of life. In training up an effective agency, the gifts and graces of the different members must be called forth into exercise, and it is when they are thus emplojmd that he fits them for being use¬ ful to each other; and it is from those that make the greatest improvement that he is to select individuals for special purposes. An efficient agency will be looked for in vain, if suitable means are not thus employed to secure it. By the blessing of God upon the ordinary means employed to evangelize the heathen, men who have never been taught to read may be very usefu) in the church, and to those around them; but without the education of the rising generation this kind of agency can never be extensively useful: teachers cannot be raised up to continue the work of God in a heathen country: and after all the money which may have been expended upon them, the cause is in danger of perishing, and in such places it may ultimately die awa}'. From what has been said, one thing is clear, that to carry on and extend the missionary work we must have Native Agency; and that to procure that agency the work of education among the heathen cannot be begun too soon, nor carried on too ex¬ tensively. We come now to the importance of Infant Schools. If Miss Hamilton’s opinion is correct, (and I fully agree with her in it,) that, generally speaking, the character is formed by the time a child is seven years of age, the propriety of beginning education at an earlier period than what has been customary, particularly among the heathen, is obvious. Ur. Fanderkemp, remarking the debilitating effect of the manners and conversations of the parents upon the minds of the children, had his mind for some years before his death occupied with the plan of an Orphan Asylum. The scheme miscarried for want of sufficient funds, and that sympathy with it in England necessary to raise them. This is not to be regretted; as it never could have been carried to that extent which would have answered his expectations. The Infant School system at our missionary Institutions supplies this deside¬ ratum in a manner so complete that it scarcely leaves any thing to be wished for. There is in the system a power of expansion which has no narrower limits than the ignorance and incapacity of its conductors. Even if the chil¬ dren are left to live with their parents, before they even are capable of being injured by the parents, it brings their minds under a new influence which shields them from harm; and while it calls forth and invigorates their intellectual pow¬ ers, it sheds a softening and subduing influence over their dispositions and man¬ ners, and impresses upon the heart at the most favourable season those religious and moral lessons, which it is to be hoped will grow with their growth, and by this means give rise to a state of improvement in one generation, which it would require many generations to accomplish on the old system. I am not now theorizing on this subject without data. Short as the time has been that our Infant Schools have been in operation, the effects they have already produced, justify all that we anticipate from them. The children at our Infant Schools are remarked by every stranger for the gentleness of their manners, the intelli¬ gence which beams in their countenances, the delight they take in their school exercises, as exhibiting a contrast to their elders in the upper schools. They keep always by themselves; they can scarcely be brought to associate with the other children ; they are even when at play out of doors engaged in their school exercises; at the same time children of three and four years of age are making more rapid progress in acquiring their letters, than boys and girls of nine and ten years of age do in the other schools. While with their parents their minds are so filled with their school exercises, that instead of listening to their pa¬ rents they become their teachers. And while the pleasure they have in these schools draws them to them, (a matter of great importance among the heathen, the reluctance of the children to attend the schools being one of the greatest discouragements the missionaries have to contend against.,) the happy effect these schools have upon the minds and tempers of the children, secures the ready co-operation of the parents, who (as is customary among savages or bar¬ barians,) seldom cross the inclinations of their children. It is a singular fact, and it does not say much for the superiority of the white man, that the system is much more cordially received, and much more highly appreciated by the Hottentots and other people of colour in this colony, than it is by the generality of the ruling class, and it has not been without a mixture of strong emotions, that I have often contrasted the enthusiastic feelings of the one, with the in¬ difference of the other. We have no difficulty in introducing Infant Schools among any of the tribes of South Africa. Wherever they have been intro¬ duced they have been regarded by the natives as presenting the most attractive scenes; fathers and mothers, often crowd about the window^ of our Infant Schools to hear and observe the children; and when the little things have been repeating that lesson ,—“ We love our sisters and brothers—we love our fathers and mothers,” &c. I have often seen them turn away their heads to hide their tears. My sentiments relating to the relative importance of the ministration of the word of God and the education of the rising generation, have been so distinctly expressed that I hope they cannot be mistaken. I do not place them in oppo¬ sition to each other; and if I have enlarged more upon the importance of early education than upon the importance of preaching to the people, it is because too many good people, and too many missionaries regard the latter as every thing, and the former as of little importance; and because the duties of the one are more agreeable to the fancy, to the indolence, and to the vanity of the hu¬ man mind, than the other. All men love to work upon large masses, and wish to see every thing done by mere speaking; but we have as yet found out no royal road to the result we labour to effect. The gospel never can have a per¬ manent footing in a barbarous country, unless education and civilization go hand in hand with our religious instructions. On any other principle we may labour for centuries without getting a step nearer our object—the conversion of the world to God—than that which may have been attained in the first 10 or 12 years of our missions. And if your missionaries go to labour in any part of Africa with different views than those I have expressed, and persist in their error, they will probably die closing their days in regretting their mistake. Long as this communication already is, I cannot conclude it without advert¬ ing to another most important feature of the subject, which has hitherto been too much overlooked in England—the qualifications necessary in missionaries designed for Africa. Down to a very late period, and even now, this error is very common among religious people in England, that missionaries unfit for India and other places, will do very well for Africa. To this part of the sub¬ ject I cannot at present do justice, but 1 cannot avoid calling your attention to it, and marking it out to you as a delusion that the missionary societies in America must be on their guard against, at the very commencement of their missionary operations on this continent, if they would avoid in their course of proceeding, much useless waste of money and of time, and see their labours and their wishes crowned with success. I know of no situation upon earth that requires a greater knowledge of the world, and more of the philosophy of religion and human nature, than are required in the mind of the man who has to begin and conduct the affairs of an African mission. What Richard said,— “A kingdom for a horse,” 1 am sometimes disposed to apply to a missionary. To render his labours efficient, he has, from the moment the first germ of civili¬ zation is imparted by the effects of the gospel on the hearts of the people, till the desert shall begin to blossom around him, and the blossoms to ripen into fruit,—one of the most difficult processes to conduct, that can occupy the atten¬ tion of a human being. While his character and judgment must be such as to secure the full confidence of the society to which he belongs, and the ascen¬ dency of his mind such as to make those around him and engaged with him in the same work, look up to him, (for the mere ensign of authority is nothing, so far removed from the control of the parent society,) he must be able to per¬ ceive what the people want, and to supply a thousand influences to carry on the civilizing’ process, which are not required in a minister of the gospel among a civilized people. Among a jsavage or barbarous people, who are without civil government, the missionary or missionaries have to supply this deficiency; and they have nothing to supply it but the confidence the people have in their wisdom, their integrity, and their disinterestedness. At our missionary institu¬ tions during the first stages of our missions, the missionaries have all the secu¬ lar as well as the religious affairs of the people upon their hands; and at our missions beyond the colony the prevalence or prevention of domestic and foreign broils among neighbouring chiefs frequently depends upon the conduct of the missionaries. The most critical of all periods in the history of missionary labours, is that when the people become ripe for civil government. If Providence has not pro¬ vided a governing and master-mind among our missionaries at that period or stage of the process, all will be in imminent danger of being lost. I shall men¬ tion one fact to you,—but avoid names, because all the parties are alive to illus¬ trate this sentiment. We had at one station beyond the Colony, a succession of excellent men, men of great piety, and who were useful among the people up to the point I have noticed. The first conducted the people from a savage state to the agricultural state, and among the old people, generally speaking, to whom he had been made useful in their conversion to God, he maintained his authority. Others at different periods entered with him into his labours, and the young people were generally taught to read, and some of them could write and cipher. The profession of Christianity was now universal among them; every man had one wife only, and the children were baptized and taught the Christian faith. Some¬ thing like a civil code was extracted from the New Testament, and when the society was in an infant state it was submitted to by the old people. As regu¬ lations for the government of a Christian church, all was proper, but all the people on the station, though they professed themselves Christians, were not Christians. Many joined them and conformed to their regulations, who were far from being religious men; and the young people grew up, and as few of them had tasted the grace of God, and had received but a very imperfect edu¬ cation, the 3 r became troublesome under the regulations which they considered too strict for them. Vexed with the troubles which now arose, and finding that they could not manage the people, they left the station, one after another in despair, abandoning all that had been done. In this distressing predicament, and when nothing but utter desolation was looked for, I turned my eyes to one missionary, who readily entered into my views, and immediately repaired to the deserted station. On his arriving among the people, he found them all divided among themselves. The first Sabbath he preached to them, he had not a dozen people to hear him; and so much injured had their minds been by their divi¬ sions, that the majority even of that small number, looked upon him with indif¬ ference. The fruit of the labours of many years seemed suspended upon a sin¬ gle hair; but that hair soon became a thousand; and the dozen with which he commenced his missionary labours at this station multiplied into hundreds; and there is not at this moment in Africa, a more flourishing missionary station, or one where love and union prevail more. After all that can be said about the perfection of any one system, or the supe¬ riority of one system over another, our success must under the blessing of God depend upon the character of our agency. The missionary in a country like this, in addition to piety and disinterestedness, requires to be a man of resources. On my last visit to the Kat River settlement, I visited a party who had been till they came there all their lives in the bushes; and were what are called in South Africa wild Bushmen. When they were permitted to settle on the Ivat River three years ago, they had literally nothing but the old sheep-skin karosses about their shoulders. They had not so much as one iron tool, they had no seed corn, they had nothing to give in exchange for any. With a borrowed hatchet they 24 made a wooden plough, which had not about it one iron pin. From one Hot¬ tentot they borrowed two oxen, with which they ploughed their ground: from another they borrowed seed corn. By the first crop they were enabled to repay their seed-corn, and purchase some bullocks and some iron. To get a more per¬ fect plough they must use their iron; and to do this they substituted a skin for a bellows, which they worked with their hands. The second plough had an iron coulter; and is a very 'respectable instrument; and the second year’s crop put them in easy circumstances. When I saw them on my late journey, they had not only made a wagon for themselves, but they were making and repairing wagons and ploughs for the neighbouring locations. From this little anecdote you may see what kind of men we need as missionaries in Africa. We do not want men that must have situations made to their minds, before they can work in them with pleasure or profit; but men who come here to make easy situations for their successors, men who know not what difficulties mean; of creative minds, and of governing minds; who by faith in God, and confidence in the efficacy of means, can subdue all things before them ; men like your Beecher, who can be¬ lieve practicable what all the world declares to be an impossibility. It is amaz¬ ing what men of this description, by the divine blessing, can effect. Academi¬ cal acquirements are desirable; learning is desirable; but these are nothing with¬ out mind. Give me a man deeply imbued with the spirit of thegospel, with the practical mind of your own Franklin, if he has never had a Latin book or a Greek Testament in his hand: and if that man be thrown on any part of the African Continent, with nothing but the Bible and his common sense to guide him, that man will do more as a missionary than ten feeble-minded men with all the learning of the schools. I have seen half a dozen of educated men despair and do nothing in a sphere in which they were succeeded by a man, under whose labours in the course of a short time the desert has become as the garden of the Lord. Let it be remembered, that I do not speak against learning; it is desirable, and the superior mind is greatly elevated by it. I do not speak against a talent for languages: without this the languages of the natives are not to be acquired. But I wish to impress upon you the necessity of mind in an African missionary along with education; and the superiority of mind over education, when you are left to choose between the two. You will not suppose that I mean any re¬ flection upon the missionaries who have gone from America to the heathen world. Ho far as I have had the means of judging, I believe, generally speak¬ ing, that the American missionaries are in some important points superior to our own. A remark of your Judson, at the commencement of the Burman mission, and before I thought of being a missionary, attached me to the man, and raised him still higher in my estimation, since I have seen its force more fully unfolded to me in this missionary field. The following is the remark to which I refer:-— “Keep us from pious, well-meaning, wrong-headed men: for one man of this description will do more harm in a situation like this, than a missionary in his whole life will be able to remove.” I would add to the above remark a prayer, that the Lord would keep our directors from sending us useless men; for if this evil is not guarded against, we shall soon have all the funds of our societies ab¬ sorbed doing little or nothing. What is emphatically designated the gospel of Christ must be the soul of all missionary operations ; but with those that are the instruments of imparting the quickening spirit, there should be at all our missionary stations individuals who know the connexion between soul and body, and who know what must be done to the body to keep the soul healthy, and the body a fit habitation for the soul. When the principles of Christianity take possession of the heart, there is a prin¬ ciple of life: but the developement and direction of the powers and tendencies of this life, from its first germination among barbarians, till it pervades the sur¬ rounding mass, and gives rise to all the forms of civilization and government, is 25 an arduous process, and one that requires mind and devotedness to the cause to conduct. Till civil governments arise among the tribes of Africa, (and this can never be the case but by the labours of our missionaries,) there can be no public virtue; in other words, there will be no checks upon individual selfishness; and there can be no end to the desolating wars, which families and small tribes wage against each other. Christianity has not yet put an end to the wars of civilized nations, on this simple principle, because it has not yet raised the common people bv education to that elevation to which it is fast raising them, and from which they will see the folly as well as the wickedness of war. But the wars of civilized nations and those of barbarous tribes differ so much in their character and effects that they cannot be brought into comparison. The great object of the missionary is to impart to savages or barbarians the principle of a new life ; and in doing this, and in doing what is necessary to cherish, strengthen, and propagate this prin¬ ciple, and aid it in the developement of its powers, and preserve those that re¬ ceive it in peace and security against wicked and unreasonable men, he will du¬ ring the first years of his labours have much to do; but if he or some one with him is not at hand to supply the want of the rising community, and to guide them in their civil affairs, it is vain to expect that his labours will be attended with any permanent fruits upon earth. Heaven may receive from his prayers and labours a few souls ; but he will scarcely be removed from the sphere of his labours when the field he had cultivated will return to its former state. The traveller may pass over it in a few years without any one to tell him where the missionary lived; and instead of the captivating scene described (and faithfully described) in the pages of the Missionary Journal, he may find nothing but a moral desert. We have at this time before us in Africa examples of the evil we deprecate; and we have, through mercy, examples of a different description. By the blessing of God upon the labours of our missionaries, a new country has been brought within the pale of the Christian church; and at the general request of the people, we are now soliciting the government to receive it as a part of the colony. We have the prejudices of a powerful class against us, who would rather have the country than see the people recognized as forming part of the colony; but I do hope that God will ultimately secure to them the peace¬ able possession of their fountains and lands, and defeat the designs of their ene¬ mies. I am the more inclined to hope that this will be the case under one form or another, as the only objection which was made to the plan the other day, when I was urging it upon our present governor, Sir Lowry Cole, is not one that is insurmountable. When I had stated to the governor the intelligence and the civilization of the people, the great services they had rendered to the colony, having defended it upon its northern boundary along a line of 300 miles, without having cost the government any thing, and the evils that would arise were the defence removed ;—he remarked, that the government at home was always sus¬ picious of governors in colonies enlarging their boundaries; that it appeared to him that civilization would in this manner proceed into the interior of Africa: and that if the government were to take into the colony every new district civi¬ lized beyond its boundaries, he asked, where the limits of the colony would end ? The next question which occurs to me, and which I shall answer as briefly as possible, is as to the manner in which we may expect the gospel to proceed in its advances over this vast and benighted continent. Reasoning from the circum¬ stances of this colony, from what is to be learned of the progress of Christianity from history, arid from what has come under my own observation, my decided opinion is, that the progress of Christianity in Africa must be slow; that its light must radiate from certain well chosen positions; and that the districts in the neighbourhood of the first position chosen, should be enlightened ; and that eve¬ ry new missionary establishment must keep what has been gained, while it is extending its conquests in the regions beyond it. The growth of Christianity 26 in such a country should be like that of an empire; which is enriched and strengthened by every inch of new territory, which extends the line of its fron¬ tier. What is gained is by this means secured; and out of the materials accu¬ mulated in this manner, the conquests still to be made, become easy and rapid. Every new village brought within the pale of the church increases her resources, and adds to the efficiency of her native agency. By this means, in going forth to fresh conquests she becomes to her enemies “ bright as the sun, clear as the moon, and terrible as an army with banners.” Every aid should be afforded by your missionary societies to your new and Interesting settlement. By an efficient ministry and due attention to the schools of Liberia, the foundation of a future empire may be laid in that settlement, that may in a short time do much to evangelize the surrounding country to a great extent. When the government of that country has gained the confidence of the nations beyond it, multitudes of those nations will put themselves under its protection, and among such people you will find employment for a large body of missionaries. My views on this subject cannot be more happily expressed than they have been by one of your own countrymen, the late Rev. Sam. J. Mills, in the follow¬ ing extract:—“If by pursuing the object now in view, a few of the free blacks of good character could be settled in any part of the African coast, they might be the means of introducing civilization and religion among the barbarous na¬ tions already there. Their settlement might increase gradually, and some might in a suitable time go out from that settlement, and form others, and prove the occasion of great good.” The memoirs of that interesting man did not come into my hands till a few days ago, and till I had written my own sentiments upon this subject. Men¬ tioning to a friend that I was very anxious to see something respecting the settlement of Liberia, the memoir of Mr. Mills was put into my hands, and in perusing it I was very much struck with the largeness and comprehension of Mr. Mills’ views. There is so exact a correspondence between his views as to the best mode of evangelizing and civilizing Africa, and my own, that the one seemed to me as if it were a copy of the other. From the first notice I had of your settlement of Liberia I contemplated it under the same aspects as those under which Mr. Mills appeared to have viewed it, when he was sacrificing his health and life for its establishment. And I cannot help feeling surprised that Mr. Mills with his opportunities should have arrived so soon at the just conclusions to which he had come on this subject. The whole of Mr. Mills’ memoirs, (which I have perused at one sitting) convinces me that from your intercourse with the native tribes of America, or some other cause, that you have much more enlarged views on this subject, than are, generally speaking, to be found in England. But however far you may have got before my countrymen on this point, you will not be displeased to find that the fruit of 14 years experience which I have had in Africa, goes to con¬ firm all the views of your own enlightened and lamented countryman. The details I have already given of the history of the Griquas, while they illus¬ trate the elevating power of Christian principles, and Christian education, confirm what I have said as to the manner in which you may expect the gospel to be pro¬ pagated by means of your new and interesting colony on the African continent. There is another lesson which is taught by them, that I must notice in this place. They point out to us the wisdom of making choice of proper sites on which to commence our missionary operations. A sea-port on the coast of Afri¬ ca is preferable, if it can be obtained, to an inland situation. The only real danger that the Griquas are in at this moment, arises from their contiguity to the Cape Colony, and their entire dependence upon it for all the supplies to which their civilization has given rise, and without which they cannot now 27 maintain their civilization. Their services to the colony have been great; and their removal from their present situation would be the greatest misfortune that ever happened to this colony. And yet all those services and all their civiliza¬ tion, have not been able to eradicate the prejudices of the colonists against colour. The following anecdote will illustrate to jrnu my meaning. Some time ago the Griquas presented a petition to the colonial government, setting forth the injuries they received from the Boers coming over the river, and depasturing the country, &c., &c., and they requested that if this practice was to be continued, the Boers might be directed by the colonial government to make application to the local authorities among the Griquas, who would show them where they might pasture their herds and flocks, without trespassing on the property of in¬ dividuals. In a newspaper in which this petition is*recorded, and on the mar¬ gin of the paper opposite to the humble request which concludes the above extract, some one has written, “Matchless impudence!”—Handing the paper to a gentleman standing by, and at the same time directing his attention to the request of the Griquas over against it, he remarked.—“The writer has express¬ ed only the general feeling with which such a request from such a people must be regarded.”—Had the Griquas been situated at Port Natal, or at any other place similarly situated; what might we not have expected ? I will not point out to you the difference to the continent of Africa between colonies of civilized white men and civilized black men. There appears to be existing in this day a prejudice in the breasts of white men against black men, which nothing short of a divine power can remove, and till black men are civilized, and till they rise to a level with us, we have no reason, in the present state of human nature, to expect white colonists will either tfegard or treat them as fellow creatures. Contempt, the parent of so much cruelty and injustice to the coloured people, appears to have arisen with the practice of making slaves of black men exclusively, and it gives us a frightful view of human nature, that the injuries we have done to that race of men should be the ground of our hatred against them: and that that hatred should be evident, in proportion to the cruelty and injustice they have suffered at our hands. The evil is not, however, incurable. The first step to reconcile white men to men of colour is to endeavour to raise the latter above that degraded state to which our injustice has reduced them: and as our sons, it is to be hoped, will be more innocent with regard to crimes such as have been committed against Africa, than we are, it is to be hoped that they will cherish towards them a more kindly feeling than we do. There were no prejudices against colour when Egypt was the cradle of literature and science, nor even in the days when the Grecian and Roman republics were in their glory, and those prejudices will most certainly pass away, as the principles of the Gospel become more ef¬ fective on the minds of white and black men. If any man were to ask me the question. What is Christianity doing for the world that Infidelity is not doing? I would point to Mills & Burgess, and the friends and zealous supporters of the Liberian settlement; and ask another question in reply.—Whether there was any difference between the men I have named and the abettors of slavery, and the captains of slave ships? Africa, the present state of the continent of Africa, from one extremity to the other, furnishes the best answer to that question. On the one hand we see men agree¬ ing in their hatred of vital religion, pouring their contempt and scorn upon every thing that bears the name evangelical , using the word saint as a term of bitter reproach; like so many birds of prey hovering over Africa, and ready to destroy all those that would throw a protecting shield over the victims they have marked out for destruction :—and on the other hand we see men of the same complexion, of the same nation, perhaps belonging to the same families, spending their means, sacrificing their health and comfort, enduring the con- 28 tumelies and scorn of their fellow men, and risking and even giving up their lives, to save and protect from destruction the helpless objects the others are im¬ patient to devour. Can we conceive of a greater contrast under heaven ? Can we conceive of a greater contrast in the invisible world than this picture pre¬ sents to our view—You have probably seen by this time, through the medium of some of our English periodicals that we have done something in Africa to¬ wards the establishment of Temperance Societies. The opposition we have had to encounter, and still have to contend against in this good work, has been very great, and it can scarcely be said to be lessened. But the partial success that has attended our humble endeavours is matter of great thankfulness. The Pharisees and Sadducees among us, like their prototypes of old, reject all these things; and the despised Heathen (a designation given to all people of colour, for in this colony we allow none but white men to be Christians) receive them. Our Infant School system, and the cause of the Temperance Society have their warmest friends among the very highest, and what are called the lowest grades of society. The Governor and his lady, and a few others at the head of our Society, and the Hottentots, agree in thinking Infant Schools and Temper¬ ance Societies most excellent things. But the intermediate grades among the white population, w T ith the exception of a few individuals, see nothing in them that they themselves or their children stand in need of to improve them. “ We are all sober people here” said a merchant at our last public meeting of the Temperance Society—“we stand in no need of Temperance Societies: I drink as much as my neighbours, and I do not drink more than six bottles of claret after dinner.” At our missionary institutions we have found Temperance Societies to be what a person at one of our mission stations called them, John the Baptists> “They are (said he) sent to prepare the way for the kingdom of God.” Our missionaries have found them to be the most valuable auxiliaries in promoting the cause of God that we have ever had in Africa. We have Temperance So¬ cieties at each of our missionary stations, and I believe there are very few of our people that do not belong to them, and conform to their rules. At the new set¬ tlement of the Kat River, we have 1400 members belonging to the Temperance Society established in that district. I shall if possible get you a copy of the speeches of the Hottentots at the last anniversary meeting of the Temperance Society at that place ; which will give you a better idea of the benefits the Tem¬ perance Society has conferred upon that people than any thing 1 can say. If the greatness of an individual is to be estimated by the mass of mind on which he operates, and the benefits he is enabled to confer on mankind, perhaps Dr. Beecher may be considered as the greatest of all your great men. Whatever doubt there may be in America on this point, this much is certain, that the Hot¬ tentots in South Africa know of no greater man than Dr. Beecher, and consider him as entitled to one of the first places in the list of their benefactors. During my late journey, I was some months beyond the Great River, without any communication with my family. But my wife had taken care to forward your letter to me, that I might receive it as soon as possible, and while I was travelling among our missionary stations on my way to Cape Town, my long absence from home and the business which I had at Cape Town pressing my in¬ stant return, prevented me from having it in my power to reply to it then, but l took the opportunity of reading it to the people at the different missionary sta¬ tions on my road; and it was the occasion of much refreshing to the missiona¬ ries and to the people. The poor Hottentots were greatly rejoiced at the accounts you have given us of the success of the Gospel in America; and it was deeply interesting to observe how their countenances brightened up, when I read to them that passage in which you give an account of the Temperance Societies in America, and make it a question, “ Whether it would not be possi¬ ble to introduce them among the Hottentots ?” 29 The great danger in commencing a mission or missions in Central Africa, will be in attempting to do too much at once, and to spread jour energies over too wide a field. Men of lively fancies, and many sober minded men, in the commencement of a great work, disdain to have their views confined within narrow limits. They would illuminate the banks of the Niger with the light of Divine truth as the people in London illuminate the banks of the Thames with gas lights. Disgusted with the difficulties and slowness of the process at home among the lower orders of the people in London and in other large cities, or in many parts of the country, their minds sweep over hundreds and thousands of miles at once ; and they expect from single and solitary missionaries, what thousands and tens of thousands of clergymen and ministers of different deno¬ minations, together with 100,000 active Christians, are not able to effect among a scanty population compared to the Heathen world. The machinery necessary for the introduction and preservation of civilization among a people is elaborate and expensive. Judges, magistrates, prisons, police¬ men, lawyers, schoolmasters, printing, and all the vast apparatus of a civilized country, require pecuniary resources, and resources of that nature cannot exist without government, and where there is no civilization there can be no govern¬ ment favourable to religion and virtue. In Africa the people have to be formed, before they can be brought together into civilized communities; the resources necessary to begin, to carry on, and complete the civilizing process, have to be created ; a new world must be opened to them, and a new class of motives must be brought to operate upon their minds; the most inveterate of all habits must be rooted out, and new habits imparted, before the natives of Africa can have primers, school lessons, and schools and bibles, and the stated ministrations of an Evangelical ministry, fixed among them. If we cannot get our friends in Eu¬ rope to see the importance of such an apparatus for securing the effects of the gospel among a people, how are we to expect this enlargement of mind from a people just emerging from a savage or barbarous life ? When the power of the gospel is seen in England in raising a brutish mind to a concern for the sal¬ vation of the soul, do we expect that this concern will be at once attended with all the fruits of the Spirit, and that it will at once supply all the defects arising from an imperfect education, or from what may have been a state of brutal ignorance? It may be asked then, On what principle is it expected that savages and barbarians are to rise up all at once, with those tastes and views to enable them to form themselves into societies, that will unite in themselves all those qualities and regulations, which are the richest fruits of an advanced civi. fixation? It is a curious fact, that the native converts in Africa, who have the fewest artificial wants, are the least useful to us in our.churches; and that we never expect that they will be at much expense to promote the cause of God, till their tastes and benevolence are improved by the increase of their own social comforts. It is not our object merely to raise up single institutions in Africa, and to cultivate a few individuals as specimens of what may be done with Africans; but to diffuse abroad over the whole continent the blessings of reli¬ gion; and this never can be done unless the body of the people among whom we labour shall be raised in the scale of intellect and morals, by the application of a judicious system of means. From the period I first became acquainted with my condition before God, and the adaptation of the religion of Christ to my moral necessities, I was satisfied that the spirit of the Gospel was a missionary spirit: and that without this spirit we could have no sympathy wdth the spirit of the New Testament. Under the influence of this principle I considered it my duty, from the commencement of my Christian progress, to lend my assistance to the cause of missions But while I was actively employed in promoting the interest of the cause of mis¬ sions at home, I sought in vain in the publications of the day, for a satisfactory knowledge of the real character of this work among the heathen, and more 30 particularly in savage and barbarous countries. I could never reconcile in tfty own mind the difficulties which had in all ages attended any attempts to civilize barbarous tribes and the slow progress of society, with the ideas generally pre¬ valent in Great Britain among many of the warmest and most intelligent friends of the missionary cause, as to the qualifications necessary in missionaries to human beings in this state of society. The notion which every where pre¬ vailed was, that provided men have piety, it was not of importance what the talents of missionaries were, designed for Africa. I was satisfied that if our missionary societies were labouring under an error on this subject, that that error might prove the prolific source of many other errors, which might ultimately oc¬ casion the failure of all our benevolent plans, and the destruction of all our prospects. My apprehensions on this subject were greatly strengthened by the occasion which called for the visit of the Deputation: and the consolation which supported me under the sacrifice I had to make in leaving an important and much loved sphere of usefulness at home, was the hope, that if I should do no more by visiting Africa than bring home correct views on this subject my labours and sufferings, and even the loss of life itself would be amply repaid by the evils I might be the means of preventing. Were I at this moment in England or America, I should be most anxious to have this subject freely and fully discussed in all the public journals; and it is my decided opinion, that should your Society do no more than call the public at¬ tention to it, it will be the means of doing the greatest service to the cause of missions. To heal the wounds of Africa—to remove the evils generated on this unhappy continent by the nefarious slave trade—to raise minds long embruted by the avarice and cruel selfishness of civilized nations—to cover Africa with Chris¬ tian churches and Christian schools—and to conduct the process of civiliza¬ tion from the first germination of the seed in the mind of individuals, till it shall cover with its shade and enrich with its fruits the moral wastes of this deso¬ lated quarter of the globe—is an undertaking worthy of the zeal and benevo¬ lence of your churches. And as much of your future success will, under the blessing of God, depend on the character of the agency you may employ, and the wisdom of the measures you may adopt, you cannot do me a greater plea¬ sure than to make any demands upon my experience you may choose to call for. Question me freely on every point on which you wish for additional illus¬ tration or information. Let me have all the objections which the intelligent friends of missions have to urge against my views. State fully all the difficul¬ ties you may suppose one in Africa alone or in company with other missionaries, would have to encounter in carrying my views into practice; and I pledge my¬ self, if the Lord spare me and continue my health, to give you my sentiments upon all those subjects, and every other connected with missions, on which you may wish to have my opinions. I have the honour to be, my dear Sir, Your unworthy, and much obliged fellow labourer in the work of the Lord, JOHN PHILIP. P. S. The present communication has been got up in great haste, and is, as I am sensible, susceptible of great improvement, particularly in the arrangement; but the opinions I have ventured to give you, have been adopted after much con¬ sideration and a course of experience, now not short. My views did not come to me by intuition; so long was I in Africa before I came to my present conclu¬ sions on man}''important points, respecting the difficulties attending our attempts to evangelize Africa, and what I conceive to be the best mode of conducting those attempts, that had I returned to England after having been two years here, as was my first intention; and had 1 on my return published any thing upon this subject, I feel certain that my voyage to this place, or what I might have 31 ■written, would have been of little or no use to the church of God. My only apo¬ logy for the unwarrantable length of this letter, is, the paramount importance of the subjects and the cordial desires I feel to guard the American churches, against the evils which have resulted from the ignorance which prevails in Eng¬ land on the subject of missions to Africa, and which are not yet over with us in South Africa. It is matter of great thankfulness to see such men as Platt in the South Seas, who under God have been the means of preserving the cause among the islands in that quarter of the Globe ; but it is humbling to think how little of it is due to our directors in sending out such men, and to see the vast sums of money thrown away to no purpose in this cause in other places, for want of an efficient and wise agency. I beg you will remember me very affectionately to your Professors and to the dear young men whose hearts have been touched by the Grace of God, and who are desirous of the missionary work. Should any of your countrymen come to Port Natal, to De la Goa Bay, or to go to Mosalekatsi, and land at the Cape on the voyage, you will have the goodness to assure them, that it will give me the greatest pleasure to receive them under my roof, and to do all for them in my power. J. P.