age into
which he was translating the sacred oracles, in a new region
larger than France. Sebituane, at the same time, rooted out
hordes of bloody savages, among whom no white man could have
gone without leaving his skull to ornament some village. He
opened up the way for me--let us hope also for the Bible.
Then, again, while I was laboring at Kolobeng, seeing only a
small arc of the cycle of Providence, I could not understand
it, and felt inclined to ascribe our successive and prolonged
droughts to the wicked one. But when forced by these, and the
Boers, to become explorer, and open a new country in the
north rather than set my face southward, where missionaries
are not needed, the gracious Spirit of God influenced the
minds of the heathen to regard me with favor, the Divine hand
is again perceived. Then I turned away westward, rather than
in the opposite direction, chiefly from observing that some
native Portuguese, though influenced by the hope of a reward
from their Government to cross the continent, had been
obliged to return from the east without accomplishing their
object. Had I gone at first in the eastern direction, which
the course of the great Leeambye seemed to invite, I should
have come among the belligerents near Tette when the war was
raging at its height, instead of, as it happened, when all
was over. And again, when enabled to reach Loanda, the
resolution to do my duty by going back to Linyanti probably
saved me from the fate of my papers in the 'Forerunner.' And
then, last of all, this new country is partially opened to
the sympathies of Christendom, and I find that Sechele
himself has, though unbidden by man, been teaching his own
people. In fact, he has been doing all that I was prevented
from doing, and I have been employed in exploring--a work I
had no previous intention of performing. I think that I see
the operation of the Unseen Hand in all this, and I humbly
hope that it will still guide me to do good in my day and
generation in Africa."

In looking forward to the work to which Providence seemed to be calling
him, a communication received at Quilimane disturbed him not a little.
It was from the London Missionary Society. It informed him that the
Directors were restricted in their power of aiding plans connected only
remotely