The present Principal is the Rev. James Henderson, formerly of the Nyasaland Mission. The Warden of the Boys’ department is Dr. Moore Anderson, a son of Sir Robert Anderson, at one time Chief of the Metropolitan Police Force. On the staff there is the famous South African astronomer, Dr. Roberts. It was good to find the daughter of one of our present South African missionaries occupying a responsible position in the Girls’ department. Words fail me to describe the great work which is being done. The Institution is an enduring memorial to the ability and devotion of Dr. Stewart. Over the grave of this great and good man, which I visited, is the simple inscription, “James Stewart, Missionary.” On the hill-top is a huge stone monument erected to his memory.
On leaving Lovedale I journeyed via King Williams Town, Blaney Junction, and De Aar to Kimberley. The railway meanders in and out amongst the hills through picturesque scenery. Great rocks are much in evidence. On the latter part of the journey I passed numerous block-houses and stretches of galvanised wire fencing reminiscent of the Boer war. Here as elsewhere the country has an unfinished look about it. Most of the buildings are of galvanised iron. Long distances were traversed without any signs of human habitation, and where such signs appeared they were not always pleasing. The wretched huts of “red-blanket kaffirs,” and the abject poverty in which they live, showed that there is still much to be done to raise the native inhabitants out of their degradation and to teach them to live decent lives.
In order to see at first-hand the conditions under which so many of the Bechuanaland Natives live in the Compounds of the great De Beers’ Diamond Mines, I visited Kimberley. Dr. Mackenzie kindly took me over the diamond mine workings and one of the Compounds. From these mines the bulk of the world’s supply of diamonds comes. I was very pleased with what I saw in the Compound I visited, where 4,762 natives were quartered. The annual death rate is only eight per thousand, about half that of London. Every provision is made for the comfort, health and well-being of the native workers. There is an admirable hospital and a well-organised store, where the necessaries of life are to be obtained at cost price. The fact that the natives are well cared for is evidenced by the popularity of the work in the Kimberley mines all over South Africa. Natives who have worked there return again and again for a further period. There can be no doubt that the restraint upon their liberty, to which they voluntarily submit while at work in the mines, is greatly to their advantage, and the facilities which exist for the remitting of wages to their families obviate, to a great extent, the risks they would run if they left the Compound with large sums of money in their possession. Nor are their spiritual needs neglected.
While at Kimberley I paid a visit to Barkly West, formerly a mission station of the Society for many years, associated with the name of William Ashton. From Kimberley I proceeded to Tiger Kloof. I shall refer to the great work which is being carried on there later in this narrative.
As one travelled through the Cape Province and visited many places, which were at one time stations of the Society in the charge of missionaries and entirely supported by funds from home, but are now independent Churches carrying on their own work, one realised the power of the growing Church in the lands which 100 years ago were in darkness. This province is still “A land of lights and shadows intervolved, a land of blazing sun and blackest night,” and some of its portals are still “barred against the light.” That light has for a century and more been beating up against “close-barred doors,” but the missionary traveller looking down “the future’s broadening way” sees many a sign that the time will surely come—
“When, like a swelling tide,
The Word shall leap the barriers, and The Light
Shall sweep the land; and Faith and Love and Hope
Shall win for Christ this stronghold of the night.”
CHAPTER II
The Light Spreading Northward
Kingdoms wide that sit in darkness,
Grant them, Lord, Thy glorious light;
And from eastern coast to western,
May the morning chase the night.
William Williams.
Up to this stage the narrative of travel has taken us through districts in which the London Missionary Society has laboured in days gone by. We shall now visit the stations where it is carrying on work at the present day.
Until quite recently the South Africa Mission of the L. M. S. might be described, from the point of view of means of locomotion, as “an Ox-waggon Mission.” The days of the Ox-waggon are rapidly passing. This slow cumbersome means of conveyance, which was formerly almost universal throughout South Africa, is giving place to the Cape cart and the Railway. The change is symptomatic of the progress in the methods of work. Greater facilities of communication have revolutionized the conditions under which Missionary work is carried on. Missionaries are no longer isolated from their fellows as they were in the days of old. Until recently they were obliged to spend a considerable portion of their time in actual travel in the ox-waggon. Now they can get about rapidly and are able to cover much more ground and visit many more out-stations in a given period of time. I was enabled to visit the Society’s stations in Bechuanaland and Matebeleland in one-fifth of the time which would have been necessary for such a visitation thirty years ago.