Fruits of Toil in the London Missionary Society

by Unknown

All over the southern groups of Polynesia, this is the work which missionaries have been doing. This is the influence which they have exercised, and these are the fruits of their devoted toil. It is not merely Admiral FITZROY, and Captain ERSKINE, and Admiral WILKES, who testify to the reality of such results; but to these Christian islands, where sailors were once afraid to land, hundreds of whalers run gladly every year to get the refreshment which their hard toil renders so grateful. From icebergs and boundless seas, and heavy gales of wind; from the exciting chase, the capture, the boiling down of their huge prey; and from all the filthy, weary work of whaling life, they now run north to New Zealand and Samoa, to Tahiti and Rarotonga; not only to refit their vessels and to replace their broken gear, but to buy fresh meat and vegetables and coffee; to get medicine for their sick; to revel in oranges, plantains and water-melons; to feast the eye on green mountains and cultured valleys; to walk among white cottages and flower gardens and groves of palms; to attend Sabbath services, and be reminded of their Christian training and their Christian homes. Where have unaided men, however wise, produced a moral change like this? With us the GOSPEL alone has done it, and to GOD we give all the praise.

IX.—SOUTH AFRICA.

In the course of their revision, the Directors found that the SOUTH AFRICA Mission needed at their hands an unusual amount of attention and care. Owing to peculiar circumstances, it had been to a considerable extent lost sight of for several years. At the outset of the inquiry, several questions of vital importance presented themselves for settlement. While the mission numbered on its staff thirty-five European missionaries, no less than twenty-one of these brethren were labouring in the christianized portions of the colony; where the native population has grown thinner rather than more numerous; and where the ministers and missionaries of other Societies have considerably increased. Only fourteen of the Society's missionaries were labouring in the heathen territories, in Kafirland and among the Bechuana tribes.

The six mission estates, termed INSTITUTIONS, which for a series of years proved a valuable refuge to the Hottentot labourers, and trained them in habits of industry, have changed their character, with the improved position of public opinion and public law. They have long since accomplished their special work; and socially, in recent years, some of them have been doing evil rather than good. Again, the close relation subsisting between several of the missionaries and the Native Churches of which they were pastors, has operated much to the disadvantage of these brethren during the years of drought; and the system required readjustment without delay. The incomes of all the missionaries, especially of those within the Cape Colony, were insufficient, and the education of the young was in general very imperfectly provided for.

After careful consideration of the whole case, the Directors found themselves able to meet the numerous difficulties which it presented, and to shape out a system of management which may duly provide for these missions in the future, on definite and healthy principles. A series of RESOLUTIONS was passed by the Board, embodying that system; and these were conveyed to the brethren in the mission, with a DESPATCH which contained a full explanation of their views.

In considering the future of the Mission, the Directors remember that many christian agencies have been set at work in the Colony, in addition to their own, since they took up the cause of the Native tribes, and successfully fought the battle of their freedom. Some of these agencies have given especial attention to the European Congregations, to which the Society has never devoted its substantial strength; but amongst them the Natives also, especially in the eastern parts of the colony, have found pastors and friends. The time has therefore come to shift the Society's labours more decidedly to those districts of South Africa which are still occupied by heathen tribes, and which have but few instructors. In the western parts of the colony our churches are few. In the neighbourhood of PORT ELIZABETH there is a cluster of important stations, which have exercised great influence for good over the Native races, and have brought many of their people into the Church Of Christ.

In KAFIRLAND, in districts within the English dominion, the Society has five stations, in most of which there is fair access to a population still heathen. In each a Christian Church has been gathered; the members are nine hundred in number, and the congregations contain nearly four thousand persons. Four English missionaries have charge of these missions, and a Native Pastor, the Rev. A. Van Rooyen. These missions, however, are surrounded by the agencies of other Missionary Societies; and they have not that full scope for development which is desirable, and which they possessed in earlier years. It is among the Bechuana missions, that enlargement is most practicable.

For twenty years the Mission Station at the KURUMAN, with its immediate neighbours, stood forth, the last of the border lighthouses on the shore of that wild sea of savage life and savage wars, which stretched northward without a break to the unpeopled Sahara. Then for nine years Livingstone maintained a station beyond it among the Bakwains. In 1859, in two bands, our brethren entered the wilderness, to found new Missions among the Makololo and the Matebele. Strange disasters broke up the first. The second was established successfully at INYATI, and has grown in strength and influence. Two others have since been fixed at intermediate stations between the Kuruman and Inyati: and thus a chain of Missions, at intervals of three hundred miles, has been carried onwards into the centre of savage heathendom, and to the neighbourhood of the Victoria Falls. Amid powerful difficulties our brethren have not laboured in vain. They have had to contend with inveterate prejudices; they have been preaching lofty truths to minds which, in religion, are on the level of childhood, yet, in wickedness, have the experience of age. Still they have held on. In perils of journeys; in perils of sickness; in perils of the wilderness; in abundant labours; in privations; in loneliness; they have lived on, if by any means they may save some.

The death of MOSELEKATSE is no common event among the South African tribes. His career has had a terrible effect upon their numbers, their position and their history. Leader of a tribe of Zulu Kafirs, about 1816 he was driven from his own country by the anger of Chaka, the savage head of the nation, and began to carve out an inheritance for himself in new lands. Brave, bold, and shrewd, he knew how to grasp opportunities, to make use of the right men, to reward fidelity generously, and summarily to stamp out opposition. Throughout life he had a wonderful influence over both nobles and people. His army was disciplined; and its courage was stimulated by stirring songs. In the little court-yard of this African lion, the yells of battle, the cries of the wounded, the shouts of victory were imitated, and the stories of brave deeds were told by rude minstrels, as effectively as, in old days, in Scandinavian halls. His rule was despotic in the extreme; its barbarities were unparalleled. His warriors were rewarded by slaves and plunder, and their warlike expeditions have been incessant to the last. Bursting upon the Bahurutse tribes beyond the Zulu territory, myriads of lives were flung away. The tribes were crushed, destroyed, and scattered. The remnant fell upon their neighbours; or fled into the desert; or escaped, like the Makololo, to a new land. For twenty years the country was a sea of war, in which Mantatees and Bergenaars, Barolongs and Bangwaketse, Bakwains and Matebele, were flung upon one another, until the storm spent itself, and but a remnant was left. Often did the Matebele themselves suffer terribly. Often did the stratagems of Scythians and Libyans in ancient days reappear in this modern warfare. The refugees decoyed their terrible enemies into the desert, and left them to die miserably of thirst. Driven to the northward by fear of Dingaan, in the Makololo and their brave chief, Sebituane, the Matebele found their match. But on the weaker tribes, to the banks of the Zambesi, they have waged incessant and successful war.

What a mighty need is there of the Gospel here! In no field of the Society's efforts is that need so strikingly manifest. The incessant wars, the shocking inhumanity, the indescribable vices, the universal degradation, all attest the depth of sin and misery in which millions of our race pass their lives. Acuteness, bravery, manliness are not wanting; right and wrong are not unacknowledged; the future world is not unknown. Even tenderness is not unfelt; the sorrows of children could touch Moselekatse's heart to its very core. But how appalling their ignorance, their misery, their SIN! Is it true that they are responsible—that "they are without excuse"? Is it true that "the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men"; that "neither thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God"; that "the fearful, the abominable, murderers, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the second death"? How loud the call upon us to save them; to waken them from their sleep of evil, and proclaim with tenderness and power, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world"! For all this wrong and all this misery the Gospel is a perfect remedy, and we have only to apply it fully. To enlighten these degraded souls by knowledge; to humanize their hardness; to save women and children; to deliver all from sin; to bring them upward to the Father whom they have forgotten, by opening to them His divine compassion in the Lord Jesus; to make life worth living for, because it is the portal of a heavenly life for ever: this has been the purpose and this the work of our faithful brethren for fifty years. Other men have gone there with very different aims. When once the missionary had made it safe, the trader followed with his muskets and powder, his exciting firewater; with his brilliant beads, his gorgeous chintzes, his convenient cutlery; he followed with sugar, and coffee, and tea, which he was willing to exchange for karosses and deer-horns, and cattle; for teeth and tusks of ivory. Aids to civilization such things might prove; but standing alone how could they elevate, when powder fed the wars; when the drink prostrated chief and people; and even Englishmen encouraged the sale of slaves.