he gives his impressions of the field, and unfolds an
idea which took hold of him at the very beginning, and never lost its
grip. It was, that there was not population enough about the South to
justify a concentration of missionary labor there, and that the policy
of the Society ought to be one of expansion, moving out far and wide
wherever there was an opening, and making the utmost possible use of
native agency, in order to cultivate so wide a field. In England he had
thought that Kuruman might be made a great missionary institute, whence
the beams of divine truth might diverge in every direction, through
native agents supplied from among the converts; but since he came to the
spot he had been obliged to abandon that notion; not that the Kuruman
mission had not been successful, or that the attendance at public
worship was small, but simply because the population was meagre, and
seemed more likely to become smaller than larger. The field from which
native agents might be drawn was thus too small. Farther north there was
a denser population. It was therefore his purpose, along with a brother
missionary, to make an early journey to the interior, and bury himself
among the natives, to learn their language, and slip into their modes of
thinking and feeling. He purposed to take with him two of the best
qualified native Christians of Kuruman, to plant them as teachers in
some promising locality; and in case any difficulty should arise about
their maintenance, he offered, with characteristic generosity, to defray
the cost of one of them from his own resources.
Accordingly, in company with a brother missionary from Kuruman, a
journey of seven hundred miles was performed before the end of the year,
leading chiefly to two results: in the first place, a strong
confirmation of his views on the subject of native agency; and in the
second place, the selection of a station, two hundred and fifty miles
north of Kuruman, as the most suitable for missionary operations. Seven
hundred miles traveled over _more Africano_ seemed to indicate a vast
territory; but on looking at it on the map, it was a mere speck on the
continent of heathenism. How was that continent ever to be evangelized?
He could think of no method except an extensive method of native agency.
And the natives, when qualified, were admirably qualified. Their warm,
affectionate manner of dealing with their fellow-men, their ability to
present the truth to their minds freed fro
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