I would earnestly recommend all young missionaries to go at once to the real heathen, and never to be content with what has been made ready to their hands by men of greater enterprise. The idea of making model Christians of the young need not be entertained by any one who is secretly convinced, as most men who know their own hearts are, that he is not a model Christian himself. The Israelitish slaves brought out of Egypt by Moses were not converted and elevated in one generation, though under the direct teaching of God himself. Notwithstanding the numbers of miracles he wrought, a generation had to be cut off because of unbelief. Our own elevation, also, has been the work of centuries, and, remembering this, we should not indulge in overwrought expectations as to the elevation which those who have inherited the degradation of ages may attain in our day. The principle might even be adopted by missionary societies, that one ordinary missionary's lifetime of teaching should be considered an ample supply of foreign teaching for any tribe in a thinly-peopled country, for some never will receive the Gospel at all, while in other parts, when Christianity is once planted, the work is sure to go on. A missionary is soon known to be supported by his friends at home; and though the salary is but a bare subsistence, to Africans it seems an enormous sum; and, being unable to appreciate the motives by which he is actuated, they consider themselves entitled to various services at his hands, and defrauded if these are not duly rendered. This feeling is all the stronger when a young man, instead of going boldly to the real heathen, settles down in a comfortable house and garden prepared by those into whose labors he has entered. A remedy for this evil might be found in appropriating the houses and gardens raised by the missionaries' hands to their own families. It is ridiculous to call such places as Kuruman, for instance, "Missionary Society's property". This beautiful station was made what it is, not by English money, but by the sweat and toil of fathers whose children have, notwithstanding, no place on earth which they can call a home. The Society's operations may be transferred to the north, and then the strong-built mission premises become the home of a Boer, and the stately stone church his cattle-pen. This place has been what the monasteries of Europe are said to have been when pure. The monks did not disdain to hold the plow. They introduced fruit-trees, flowers, and vegetables, in addition to teaching and emancipating the serfs. Their monasteries were mission stations, which resembled ours in being dispensaries for the sick, almshouses for the poor, and nurseries of learning. Can we learn nothing from them in their prosperity as the schools of Europe, and see naught in their history but the pollution and laziness of their decay? Can our wise men tell us why the former mission stations (primitive monasteries) were self-supporting, rich, and flourishing as pioneers of civilization and agriculture, from which we even now reap benefits, and modern mission stations are mere pauper establishments, without that permanence or ability to be self-supporting which they possessed?
Protestant missionaries of every denomination in South Africa all agree in one point, that no mere profession of Christianity is sufficient to entitle the converts to the Christian name. They are all anxious to place the Bible in the hands of the natives, and, with ability to read that, there can be little doubt as to the future. We believe Christianity to be divine, and equal to all it has to perform; then let the good seed be widely sown, and, no matter to what sect the converts may belong, the harvest will be glorious. Let nothing that I have said be interpreted as indicative of feelings inimical to any body of Christians, for I never, as a missionary, felt myself to be either Presbyterian, Episcopalian, or Independent, or called upon in any way to love one denomination less than another. My earnest desire is, that those who really have the best interests of the heathen at heart should go to them; and assuredly, in Africa at least, self-denying labors among real heathen will not fail to be appreciated. Christians have never yet dealt fairly by the heathen and been disappointed.
When Sechele understood that we could no longer remain with him at Kolobeng, he sent his children to Mr. Moffat, at Kuruman, for instruction in all the knowledge of the white men. Mr. Moffat very liberally received at once an accession of five to his family, with their attendants.