2. "Jesus loves me, He who died
Heaven's gate to open wide;
He will wash away my sin,
Let His little child come in.
"Yes, Jesus loves me," etc.
But, you see, the missionary had to alter the words sometimes so as to make the Sechuana lines come right for the music; and the second verse really means:
"My Jesus loves me;
He has paid my debt;
He has brought me back from where I strayed;
He has washed my heart.
Yes, my Jesus, Yes, my Jesus.
Yes, my Jesus. Mine in love."
They would learn the words off by heart because there was only the one hymn-book, and they would sing them together, Shomolekae's voice leading.
They learned them so well that sometimes when the mothers were out hoeing in the fields, or the little boys were paddling in their canoes and fishing in the marshy waters, you would hear them singing the hymns that they learned in Shomolekae's little school hut.
Then on Sunday they would have Sunday-school, and when that was over Shomolekae would gather the chocolate-faced men and women and boys and girls together—all who would come—and he would teach them to kneel down and pray to the one God, Who is our Father, and they would sing the hymns that they had learned, and then he would speak to them a simple little address, telling them of the Lord Jesus.
But Shomolekae desired always to go further and further, even though it was dangerous and difficult. So he got a canoe and launched it in the river by the village and paddled further and further up the stream, under the overhanging trees, and sometimes across the deep pools in which the big and fierce hippopotami and crocodiles lived.
He paddled up the River Okanvango, though many times he was in danger of his life. The river was not like rivers in our own country, deep and with strong banks; it was often filled all over with reeds, and as shallow as a swamp, and poor Shomolekae had to push his way with difficulty through these reeds. Always at night the poisonous mosquitoes came buzzing and humming around him. The evil-tempered hippopotamus would suddenly come up from the bottom of the river with his wicked beady eyes, and great cavernous mouth, with its enormous teeth, yawning at Shomolekae as though he quite meant to swallow him whole.