pam. 
 
 AFRICA 
 
 Vv \ \ b 0 r\, C.NaJ. 
 
 ’ -'-J- 
 
 FROM KRAAL 
 TO CHURCH IN 
 ZULULAND 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. C. W. KILBON 
 
 $ 
 
 WOMAN’S BOARD OF MISSIONS 
 
 704 CONGREGATIONAL HOUSE 
 BOSTON 
 
 Z6*1 
 
 L 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2018 with funding from 
 Columbia University Libraries 
 
 https://archive.org/details/fromkraaltochurcOOkilb 
 
SOME HOWS IN SOUTH 
 AFRICAN MISSION WORK 
 
 I. HOW CONVERTS FIRST EVOLVE 
 FROM HEATHENISM 
 
 African heathenism is crystalized animalism. The 
 missionary’s calling is essentially spiritual. It is as im¬ 
 possible for a heathen man to apprehend at once the 
 missionary’s purpose as it is for him to understand the 
 strange language he speaks. It is just as difficult, on the 
 other hand, for the missionary to appreciate a heathen, 
 until he understands his heathenism. They, therefore, 
 come to know each other only by slow degrees. The mis¬ 
 sionary patiently applies himself to the imparting of truth 
 by every available means. The heathen auditor, ob¬ 
 livious to the spiritual meaning of the teaching, is studying 
 the man. He gradually takes in that which his compre¬ 
 hension most easily grasps, such as the apparel he wears, 
 the food he eats, the house he lives in, the implements 
 he uses, and all that is novel and new that appeals to his 
 materialized and carnalized understanding. People hear 
 of the novelty in their midst and flock to see it from far 
 and near. Interest grows until some feel an impulse to 
 become like the missionary — not in spirit but in ex¬ 
 ternals. Young men attach themselves to his establish¬ 
 ment and become horse boys or gardeners, and girls 
 become kitchen and chamber maids, in order to obtain 
 
the material means needed to ape the missionary in his 
 manner of living. The missionary and his wife turn these 
 helpers into classes for daily instruction in knowledge and 
 righteousness. Meantime each studies the other and 
 each finds much to learn in the other. After a period 
 of this mutual dissimilar understanding-—it may be two 
 years or ten—the once heathen man begins to awaken 
 to the fact that there is a radical difference between him¬ 
 self and his missionary in character. His own nature, 
 selfish and earthly, contrasts with that of his missionary, 
 unselfish and dominated by an unseen influence—that 
 of the God and Saviour he preaches. Conscience 
 awakens, his convictions are stirred, and he begins to 
 ask : “ Sir, what must I do to be saved ? ” 1 hence on¬ 
 
 ward the process is much the same as in any Christian 
 land, only slower, by reason of the long-benighted mir.d, 
 the unaccustomed spiritual activities and the heathen 
 environment. 
 
 II. HOW EVANGELISM SPREADS 
 
 Converts from heathenism naturally gather about the 
 missionary in homes of their own modeled after that of 
 the missionary. Friends favorable to Christianity join 
 them, and a community, with church and school, is thus 
 formed. This is called a Mission Station. Around this 
 station preaching places are located wherever preachers 
 from the station may be able to gather congregations on 
 
Sunday or even on a week day. As preaching and 
 teaching go hand in hand a preaching place naturally 
 develops a week-day school. Both these services may 
 at first be held under a tree, then a hut be assigned to 
 them, and later an upright house be constructed of 
 wattled sides, plastered outside and inside with mud, 
 and a thatch roof. The more enterprising or larger 
 communities will at length have a more permanent build¬ 
 ing of corrugated iron or of brick. Thus a preaching 
 place becomes a permanent center from which to 
 evangelize in its turn the surrounding district. 
 
 III. HOW CHURCHES GROW 
 
 As “the earth yieldeth fruit,” so churches grow— 
 “first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the 
 ear.” There is a period of seed sowing—long and 
 wearisome in some cases, then appears a little nucleus of 
 converts in whose hearts is a glimmering of spiritual 
 understanding and faith. 1 hese bind themselves to¬ 
 gether as disciples of Christ in a covenant of Christian 
 love and service. Being neither wise nor strong them¬ 
 selves time must elapse before they can furnish among 
 themselves suitable pastors, and meantime the missionary 
 shepherds the flock with the aid of deacons. From time 
 to time others are added of “those that are being saved.” 
 The first ordination in the Zulu Mission occurred some 
 thirty-five years after the missionaries arrived- Other 
 
ordinations followed until fifteen in all have served as 
 pastors. 
 
 1 he churches having been provided with pastors the 
 missionaries become general supervisors, endeavoring to 
 co-operate with the pastors in the internal working of the 
 church, and with the churches in their relations to each 
 other and to the unevangehzed. 
 
 The effort to build up these churches, formed out of 
 the crudest material to begin with, that they may grow 
 “into a holy temple in the Lord,” has taxed the grace 
 and strength of the missionaries, filling them with hopes 
 and anxieties by turns, continually presenting problems 
 desperately difficult until they often cry out: “Who is 
 sufficient for these things ? ” 
 
 IV. HOW EDUCATIONAL AGENCIES 
 DEVELOP 
 
 Education goes hand in hand with preaching. While 
 waiting for a congregation to gather at a given preaching 
 place the preacher busies himself with the children and 
 the primer. Thus a preaching place soon develops a 
 simple primary day school with such a low grade teacher 
 as may be available for it. A mission station has its 
 more stable school and better teacher. In time a central 
 boarding school for each sex becomes necessary in order 
 to train teachers, and a theological school is required to 
 prepare evangelists and pastors. Thus a system of 
 
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education comes into being covering these four grades, 
 viz: Kraal schools, station schools, normal schools and 
 theological school. 
 
 Both preaching and teaching demand printed helps in 
 the vernacular -Scriptures, hymn books, charts, reading 
 and other school books, and, as the reading community 
 enlarges, books for general information, newspapers, etc. 
 I hese requirements are gradually met, and the depart¬ 
 ment of literature becomes a powerful and far-reaching 
 agency, extending in all directions among Zulu speaking 
 people from the borders of Cape Colony to the shores 
 of Lake Nyassa, and from the coast to half way across 
 the continent 
 
 HOW DIFFICULTIES BRISTLE 
 
 A missionary cannot make churches to order at 
 pleasure, nor are they ideal churches when done, how¬ 
 ever made. The process, too, abounds in trying 
 problems and difficulties. Here are some met with in 
 South African work : 
 
 The missionary must always be looked upon as a 
 foreigner. His religion is regarded by the heathen 
 masses as a custom presumably good enough for the 
 land he came from but not adapted to theirs. He must 
 work and wait patiently for the sympathetic reception of 
 his message. 
 
 The conceptions of the natives are all materia! and 
 
carnal. 1 hey measure values by tangible and degen¬ 
 erate standards. Motives of expediency and policy have 
 habitually controlled their conduct for ages. How can 
 they be made to appreciate spiritual values and to be gov¬ 
 erned by spiritual motives—motives that act from within 
 rather than from without, everywhere and always—in 
 darkness as well as in the light, when alone as well as in 
 the presence of others ? The first converts were content 
 to imitate outwardly their missionary for whom they had 
 conceived an admiration and to obey him as loyally as they 
 did their chief. A spiritual motive acting from within 
 outward means a new creation. When this essential 
 principle of Christian character and of right relations to 
 God first dawns upon the native it comes as a surprise—- 
 as something he has never known, nor thought of, before. 
 
 Former practices or heaihen customs contend for 
 recognition in the church. This danger is met in every 
 age and in every land where the Gospel enters, as all 
 church history shows. What practices may be allowed 
 and what not ? 1 he missionary must discern and de¬ 
 
 cide —- the natives, with their limited experience and 
 biased vision, cannot. They have neither the foresight 
 to detect, nor the stamina to resist insidious tendencies 
 that will work spiritual disaster later. The missionary’s 
 action often appears arbitrary, but he is ever solicitous lest 
 the foundations he is laying will reveal flaws as the spiritual 
 structure grows. 
 
Belief in witchcraft stifles church discipline. Sub¬ 
 tle evil influences are appallingly omnipresent in the vision 
 of everybody and they are believed to be at the com¬ 
 mand of all for revengeful ends. No one dares charge 
 another with wrong doing, for to reveal another’s miscon¬ 
 duct would be to threaten society with quarrels, disruption 
 and even bloodshed. Thus some gross sin may exist even 
 in the church for a long time unexposed until it comes 
 incidentally to the knowledge of the missionary and then 
 the burden of exposure rests upon him. According to 
 recognized heathen sentiment the one who reveals a mis¬ 
 demeanor is more blameworthy than the culpirt himself. 
 
 Church harmony is menaced by tribal clanship. 
 Two or more tribes are likely to be represented in the 
 membership of a given church. A tribe concerns itself 
 with whatever concerns any of its members. Any mis¬ 
 understanding between members of different tribes be¬ 
 comes occasion for dispute and quarrel between the tribes 
 themselves. Difficulty between church members belong¬ 
 ing to different tribes threatens division in the church 
 pretty much on tribal lines. Cliques in the church at 
 Corinth quarreling with each other represent in a way 
 these tribal disturbances in a South African church. 
 These make the missionary sad and anxious as those 
 made the apostle. 
 
 Chiefs often obstruct mission progress. The chiefs 
 are autocratic — the people servilely loyal. The opposi- 
 
lion of a chief, therefore impedes Gospel work in his 
 tribe. Pioneer missionaries especially experienced the 
 blighting despotism of the chiefs. A small body of be¬ 
 lievers had gathered about the first missionaries in Zulu- 
 land in Dingan’s time, when one night they began 
 mysteriously to disappear. At once the work had to be 
 abandoned. In Matabeland the London Missionary 
 Society labored for nearly or quite a quarter of a cen¬ 
 tury without making one open convert, because the 
 tyrant chief held the spear of vengeance over 
 any professed convert. Chiefs still rule with 
 autocratic power, but in a greatly modified degree, 
 because of the entrance among them from without of lib¬ 
 eral and popular ideas. 
 
 The presence of civilization complicates and con¬ 
 fuses mission work. Lvil as well as good comes with 
 civilization—vicious men and vicious influences as well as 
 good men and good influences. In the eyes of the 
 natives all English-speaking people are one. They 
 speak one language and profess one religion. It is not 
 surprising if the unfledged native at first regards them all 
 as representative ideals of the Christianity that the mission¬ 
 ary preaches. For the time being civilization is graded 
 up and the Gospel is graded down to one common level. 
 Thus confusion arises in the mental discernment of the 
 bewildered people. Meantime a worse result happens. 
 The natives, ever ready for new forms of animal indul- 
 
gence, catch at the vices attendant upon civilization and 
 add them to their own. 
 
 Entire self-control in the churches is prematurely 
 assumed. The missionaries are sad and solicitous over 
 the self-confident spirit of competency to go alone. The 
 policy of the missionaries has always been to press on to 
 the natives responsibilities for the work as fast as they 
 showed themselves able to assume them, gradually doing 
 less themselves and inducing the natives to do more until 
 the latter should finally wholly support and control their 
 work. It has all along been an occasion for deep regret 
 that the natives did not respond more readily to this plan 
 and co-operate more heartily in developing this spirit of 
 self-help. But the course followed by the natives accords 
 with their own habit fixed by previous heathen training. 
 They must either lead or follow—while the missionary 
 leads they must follow, and when they become leaders 
 the missionaries must follow. The process of gradually 
 decreasing leadership on the part of one and increasing 
 it correspondingly on the part of the other they seemed 
 unable to understand or adopt. It is not, therefore, sur¬ 
 prising, although it is saddening,to have the churches some¬ 
 what suddenly insist, as they did a few years ago, on 
 divorcing themselves from missionary control. The 
 missionaries have adapted themselves to this new aspect 
 and are exerting their influence that the least harm and 
 the most good possible may result from it. God will 
 guard his own. 
 
Government restrictions hamper mission exten- 
 ■ion. The attitude of the government is easily explained, 
 even if not wholly justified from a missionary point of 
 view. An era of progress has dawned upon the natives 
 of South Africa. The native asks: Why are we in 
 leading-strings unable to do for ourselves, so unlike other 
 races ? 1 he cry is raised, Africa for Africans, and the 
 
 result is a determined forward movement on these lines. 
 It shows itself conspicuously in what is known as the 
 “ Ethiopian ” church, a body that broke away from 
 white missionary leadership a few years ago and gathered 
 accretions wherever it could, largely from ambitious and 
 discontented spirits in all mission communities. The 
 disregard of former missionary ties gave missionaries 
 greatest pain and solicitude. This body places itself 
 under the African Methodist Episcopal Church of 
 America. The spirit of determined revolt that char¬ 
 acterized the movement in the religious sphere made the 
 governments of South Africa naturally wary of its 
 possible political trend. Hence the determination to 
 check all independent native leadership among the 
 people, carrying it so far (in Natal, at least) as to forbid 
 mission extension, except where there is a resident white 
 missionary to conduct it personally. The regulation is 
 not meant to oppose the Gospel as such, but only the 
 committing of responsibility to native agents. It is to be 
 
feared, however, that this over-anxiety of the government 
 will tend to promote that which it wishes to prevent. It 
 has an unsympathetic look to the natives. Meantime 
 mission extension in Natal is almost paralyzed. The 
 very end and aim of foreign mission work,— the building 
 up of a self-managing, self-propagating native church,—• 
 is, for the time being, checked. 
 
 The race problem is baffling. The tension between 
 white and black residents in South Africa grows. The 
 antagonism can only be relieved by a policy that deals 
 sympathetically with the conditions of each by the other. 
 Meantime the missionary is in a vortex between the 
 two—the butt of both by turns. He desires to be a 
 just and considerate helper of each, but to show any 
 sympathy with the one draws the frowns of the other. 
 The best he can do, he fully satisfies neither, and he 
 can only pursue his conscientious way with calm and 
 patient confidence in God till the Prince of Peace settles 
 the strife of hearts. 
 
 It would be easy to extend still further this long list of 
 perplexities. 
 
 VI. HOW THE OUTLOOK BROADENS 
 
 All South Africa is astir. The invasion of the white 
 man to unearth the immense and varied wealth that lies 
 buried beneath the surface, and in other ways to seek 
 his fortune, has awakened the natives from their sleep of 
 
ages. They come flocking to the mining and industrial 
 centers, established by the white man, and after a brief 
 period of service return to their unenlightened homes 
 stored full of new and novel impressions to relate. Here 
 is the church’s opportunity to evangelize the masses by 
 meeting at these centers the thousands and tens of 
 thousands of natives who congregate there, and giving 
 them the Gospel to make known to their kindred and 
 acquaintances in numberless and distant localities. Form¬ 
 erly it was a laborious undertaking to visit the heathen 
 from kraal to kraal, now they “fly as a cloud and as the 
 doves to their windows.” God thus presents to us a 
 marvelous and inviting opportunity to evangelize Africa. 
 
 VII. HOW THE PAST MAY CONTRIBUTE 
 TO THE FUTURE. 
 
 The African Board has two missions in South Africa. 
 These two missions comprise 24 churches, a theological 
 school, 5 boarding schools, with numerous primary 
 schools to feed them, a medical department in each 
 mission, and a body of literature in the native language. 
 These agencies, resulting from mission effort in the past, 
 form the basis for a broader work in the future. We 
 have seen the conspicuous alluring opportunity, and here 
 we have the means at hand with which to improve it. 
 What is wanted is that measure of interest in the Amer¬ 
 ican churches at home that will provide men and money 
 
required to make effective this equipment—a base that 
 their own men, money and prayers have built up. To 
 stop here is to fail to reap the grand results of past toil. 
 Other workers are awake to this opportunity of the hour 
 for South Africa, and have established agencies at these 
 grand vantage posts. To none is the call louder to 
 evangelize the Banter-speaking people, massed at these 
 civilized centers, than to the churches of the American 
 Board who have these two bases and this equipment on 
 the spot. The small beginning already made at Johan¬ 
 nesburg, and just now also at Beira, have unlimited 
 chance for expansion. Let such prayers be offered as 
 mean, “Lord, here is my purse, and here am I,” in 
 order that the past work of the Board in South Africa 
 may have its fitting crown in the gloriously grand results 
 that are possible, by God’s blessing, through the use of 
 its present means and opportunities there. 
 
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The Taylor Press, 2 7 Beach Street, Boston