the greater number have sunk into the grave, and not a few of those who followed long after have also been gathered to their fathers. The number of those who can say of any part of the mission field, "I knew the days of darkness before the light had entered," is rapidly diminishing; and a few years hence, perhaps those who have to speak even after fifty years of service will have to say, "We were men who entered into the labours of others."

Mr. Moffat's term of service runs along the entire line. He did not find "another man's line of things made ready to his hand." In a region of the deepest darkness and ignorance all had to be begun, and begun, too, under circumstances of difficulty and discouragement almost without parallel. In the Kuruman, with which his name will always be associated, he found the Bechuanas at their lowest. Their language was a kind of guttural croak, very hard to catch, and harder still to be reduced to writing. Their habits were filthy and degraded in the extreme, their disposition was savage and cruel. In war they were like voracious wolves, plundering and despatching wounded men, and butchering women and children with their spears and war-axes. There was not a trace of civilization to be seen amongst them; they did not possess a single wagon, plough, or agricultural implement of any kind. Going to war, hunting, watching the cattle, milking the cows, was the work of the men ; while the women had the far heavier task of agriculture, building the houses, fencing, bringing firewood, and, heavier than all, the charge of rearing a family. When on one occasion Mr. Moffat stood near the wife of one of the grandees, who with some female companions was building a house, and making preparations to scramble by means of a branch on to the roof, he remarked that they ought to get their husbands to do that part of the work. This set them all into a roar of laughter. Mahuto, the queen, and several of the men, drawing near to ascertain the cause of the merriment, the wives repeated what they considered his strange and ludicrous proposal, when another peal of mirth ensued. Mahuto, who

was a shrewd woman, stated that the plan, though hopeless, was a good one, and wished he would give the men medicine to make them work.

It was a remarkable fact that the Bechuanas had no reli

gious system. There was no idolatry; not a fragment remained, as was frequently the case amongst other heathen tribes, to show that their ancestors ever loved, served, or reverenced a being greater than man. Mr. Moffat sought in vain to find a temple, or altar, or a single emblem of heathen worship; and he could make no appeals to legends, or "to an unknown God," or to ideas kindred to those he wished to impart. "They looked on the sun with the eyes

of an ox. To tell them, the gravest of them, that there was a Creator, the Governor of the heavens and earth, of the fall of man, or of the redemption of the world, the resurrection of the dead, and immortality beyond the grave, was to tell them what appeared to be more fabulous, extravagant, and ludicrous than their own stories about lions, hyenas, and jackals. To tell them that these were articles of our faith would extort a grunt of surprise, as if they were too absurd for the most foolish to believe. Our labours might well be compared to the attempts of a child to grasp the surface of a polished mirror, or those of a husbandman labouring to transform the surface of a granite rock into arable land, on which he might sow his seed."

While, however, they were without superstition of any kind, they were only too thoroughly versed in all the vices of the most repulsive heathenism. They would rob, murder, lie, and exchange wives with impunity. No matter how disgraceful an action might be, it would be supported by deceit, prevarication, and oaths. Mr. Moffat was sometimes per. fectly astounded to see individuals, whom he had supposed to be amiable and humane, when brought into certain positions, wallow in crimes which he expected they would naturally shudder to perpetrate.

Such were the people of whom the heroic missionary, after long labours among them, had to narrate such wonderful

things, when he visited this country eight-and-twenty years ago. He threw the charm of imagination over a simple, yet sublime narrative of facts, and strong men as well as children wept as he told of the power of the Cross over people the most debased and lawless. To the young he was the picture of what a missionary should be. They were never tired of looking upon his sun-browned complexion, of watching his kindling eye; and he did what he liked with their tears, when with irresistible pathos he told stories, "all true," of African life and adventure. Here was a man who had been among lions and tigers, hyenas and jackals, serpents and crocodiles, giraffes and buffalos, zebras and baboons, seacows and rhinoceroses, locusts and wild dogs, sorcerers and rain-makers. He had been with people who were so frightened at a bit of writing, because it seemed able to "speak" to the person to whom a letter was carried, that they would only carry it on the point of a spear, and quite expected to hear it "cry" when the spear pierced it.

To do these poor people good he had endured sufferings and privations, the recital of which took one back to the days in which, amidst much patience, afflictions, necessities, distresses, watchings, and fastings, the apostles declared the unsearchable riches of Christ to the heathen. On his missionary journeys he would be frequently without bread, and his tongue would cleave to the roof of his mouth for want of water. Sometimes, to stay the cravings of hunger, he would tie a band tightly round his stomach, and preach with what he called his "fasting girdle" on. He would take a journey "of only a few weeks," he would cheerfully say, through a plain of deep sand, where the choicest fruit was the watermelon, bitter as gall, on the bare chance of finding an eligible situation for a mission station. He would travel slowly all day, having had for his breakfast a draught of milk, and in the evening, hungry as a hawk, reach the spot for which he was bound, to find vultures and crows perched on a bush or rock, but no food. Betaking himself to sleep, to forget the pangs of hunger, he would not unfrequently be dis

turbed by visits from hyenas, jackals, and sometimes the lion himself.

"I had frequently long fasts. On one occasion I have shouldered my gun and gone to the plain or the mountain brow in search of something to eat, and, when unsuccessful, have returned, laid down my piece, taken the word of life, and addressed my congregation. I never liked begging, and have frequently been hard put to; but many a time has an unknown friend placed in my hut a portion of food, on which I have looked with feelings better conceived than described. The contents of my wardrobe bore the same impress of poverty. The supply of clothes which I had received in London were, as is too often the case, made after the dandy fashion, and, I being still a growing youth,' they soon went to pieces. There were no laundry maids there, nor anything like ironing or mangling. The old woman who washed my linen, sometimes with soap, but oftener without, was wont to make one shirt into a bag, and stuff the others into it, and I just took them out as they were; and more than once have I turned one, to feel the comfort of a clean shirt. My dear old mother, to keep us out of mischief in the long winter evenings, taught me both to sew and knit; and when I would tell her I intended being a man, she would reply, 'Lad, ye dinna ken whar your lot will be cast.' She was right, for I have often had occasion to use the needle since. I remember once she showed me how a shirt might be smoothed, by folding it properly, and hammering it with a piece of wood. Resolving one day to have a nice shirt for the sabbath, I folded up one, and having prepared a suitable block, I laid it on, not a smooth hearthstone, but fine granite, and hammered away in good earnest. This was one way of smoothing a shirt; for, on holding it up to view, it was riddled with holes, some as large as the point of my finger. When I left the country, I had not half a dozen shirts with two sleeves apiece."

These were some of the stories we used to hear nearly thirty years ago, but always in connexion with the wonders

which God had wrought by blessing the gospel message. We heard of the conversion of the celebrated chief Africaner, who, from being the terror of the colonial border, became one of the most docile of Christ's disciples. We heard of churches being established, and of people becoming civilized in districts long the habitations of cruelty. We heard of Mr. Moffat patiently listening to the unmusical croak of the people, taking it into his ears and memory, making a language of it, and translating the New Testament into it. We heard that he would have not come to England, but for the fact that he could not get the printing done abroad. He took his translation of the New Testament into the Sechuana language with him to the Cape; but no printer there would undertake it, although the Bible Society had very kindly forwarded paper and ink for the purpose. Dining one day with the governor, Sir George Napier, the missionary informed him of his difficulty. "Jump on board a ship with your translation, Moffat," was the governor's advice; "get it printed in England, and you will be back again while they are thinking about it here. Print a New Testament among a set of Dutch printers! Why, I can't even get my proclamations printed. I feel some interest in the extension of the knowledge of the word of God; take nobody's advice, but jump on board a ship for England."

The advice was acted upon, and while his translation was being printed in this country, Mr. Moffat went up and down amongst us, showing how in Africa savage life had given way to the power of the gospel, and how men in that land, who were once scarcely worthy of being called human, had learned to love the Lord Jesus Christ, and were ready and willing to proclaim the good news to others.

The veteran missionary has now returned a second time to his fatherland, and, much against his will, he has quitted the scene of his many years' labour for ever. Very cheering, however, must be the reflection that his son, Mr. John Moffat, who, according to the testimony of all who know him, is the right man in the right place, will take charge of