Missionary Labours and Scenes in Southern Africa (Classic Reprint)

Book excerpt: Excerpt from Missionary Labours and Scenes in Southern Africa The writer offers the following pages to the churches of his country as an humble contribution to their stock of knowledge relative to heathen lands. It contains a faithful record of events which have occurred within the range of his experience and observation, and supplies much that may serve to illustrate the peculiar attributes of African society. It may, he ventures to hope, tend materially to promote the study of the philosophy of missions. It will furnish both the Sage and the Divine with facts for which perhaps they were not prepared, and exhibit phases of humanity which they have not hitherto observed. It will further show that, amid circumstantial differences, there is a radical identity in the operations of human depravity, in Asia, in Polynesia, and in Africa; and that while the Gospel is the only, it is also the uniform, remedy for the distress of a world convulsed by sin, and writhing with anguish. It will present striking examples of the complete subjugation of some of the fiercest spirits that ever trod the burning sands of Africa, or shed the blood of her sable offspring. The Writer has indulged but slightly in philosophical disquisition, as he deemed it his province principally to supply facts. He leaves it with men of leisure and reflecting habits to analyze, compare, and deduce from those facts such doctrines as they supply. Indeed, little in this way can be added to the luminous works of Drs. Campbell and Harris, and Messrs. Hamilton, Noel, and others, by whom the subject of Missions has been so learnedly and eloquently illustrated. He hopes no apology will be deemed necessary for any imperfections which may appear in the preparation of his Narrative. The collocation of terms, and the polish of periods, have made but a small part of his studies. Such pursuits, he conceives, were not the objects for which he was sent to Africa, and they would have but ill comported with the circumstances in which he spent a large portion of his arduous life on that benighted continent. He feels confident that lettered men will look into the pages of an African Evangelist for things far more substantial and important than the graces of composition - an accomplishment which the Author much admires, but to which he makes no pretension. He makes his present appearance before the British public less in the capacity of an Author than of a Witness, who most earnestly desires to establish and to enforce the claims of perishing, and helpless, and all but friendless millions, for whom he has hitherto lived and laboured - whom he ardently loves, and with whom - all black, barbarous, and benighted as they are - he hopes to live, labour, and die! Inured to active habits, and unaccustomed to sedentary pursuits as the Writer has been, he has found the preparation of the present volume, in addition to the translation of the Scriptures and of other books, and the almost unremitting labours of the pulpit and the platform, an arduous undertaking. This task has been attended with a multiplicity of mental exercises have been solemn and painful, others sweet and soothing. He has been led to retrace the windings of a long and chequered pilgrimage, and to live over again much of his by-gone life. The review has, in many parts, been deeply humbling, but in all highly profitable. It has been refreshing to recount the mercies of the God whom he serves, which have been abundantly vouchsafed to him and his household in distant climes, and amid savage men. He has also ofttimes rejoiced in spirit, when he called to mind the displays of divine grace which have attended his very imperfect efforts to save the lost, and to benefit those who had no benefactor. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com