Part 10 (1/2)
In 1868 the missionary staff at that station consisted of Robert Moffat and his son John Moffat. The former had now more than completed the three-score years and ten allotted to man as the duration of human life, and unlike the great leader of G.o.d's chosen people, of whom it is said, ”his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated,” Robert Moffat felt the infirmities of age creeping very rapidly upon him. Yet he held on his way for two years longer. A short and constant cough during the winter months aggravated his natural tendency to sleeplessness, and at last he felt himself reluctantly compelled to accept the invitation of the Directors to return finally to England.
Going home to England it could hardly be called, his home was with his loved Bechwanas, with those for whom he had toiled and prayed so long.
The ashes of his son Robert, and of his devoted daughter Mary reposed beneath the sands of Africa; his early and later manhood had been spent beneath its scorching sun. The house he was to leave had been the birthplace of most of his children, and his home for more than forty years. Yes, it was hard to leave; and the expectation had become very real to him that his body and that of his faithful partner would be laid side by side in that little burial-ground in the bushy dell, marked by a few trees, at Kuruman. But the final determination had been arrived at, and with slow and hesitating steps, as though waiting for something, even then, to prevent their departure, preparations were made for leaving the station for ever.
Of the general aspect of affairs at the Kuruman during these last two years we have a graphic description from the pen of the Rev. John Moffat, who in a letter to the Directors dated 12th October, 1868, wrote as follows:--
”The public services on the station are a prayer-meeting at sunrise on Sunday; preaching in Sechwana, morning, afternoon, and evening, with the Sunday school twice, and a juvenile afternoon service. The early prayer-meeting is left entirely to the natives, the three preaching services entirely to the missionaries, and the Sunday school, with the juvenile service, to my sister. There is also a Wednesday evening service, a monthly missionary prayer meeting, a church meeting, and a prayer meeting on Thursday afternoon. This last is in the hands of the natives. No native takes any part in the preaching on the station, except in extreme cases, when it is regarded as a makes.h.i.+ft. My father and I share the preaching between us. Occasionally, say once in three weeks, one of us rides to two villages to the north-west, holding services at each; they are respectively eight and twelve miles distant.
My custom at home, in the regular way, is to give New Testament reading in the morning, a topical sermon in the afternoon, and Old Testament exposition in the evening. On Monday evening I have a young men's Bible cla.s.s, which is to me the most interesting work I have to do, more especially as I have much encouragement in it.... On the Monday evening, also, my sister and I hold a practising cla.s.s for the purpose of trying to improve the singing. On Tuesday evening I meet male inquirers, on Wednesday, before the service, I have a Bible cla.s.s for women, on Thursday we have an English prayer meeting, and on Friday evening I meet female inquirers. I need not mention the school conducted by my sister and three native a.s.sistants.”
Speaking of the place and people he continues:--
”The population is small and scattered. On the spot there must be a good many people, and also at the villages to the north-west; but otherwise the district contains only small villages of from twenty to one hundred huts. It extends fifty miles west and north-west, and about twenty-five miles in other directions.
”The people are poor and must remain so. The country is essentially dry.
Irrigation is necessary for successful agriculture, and there are few spots where water flows. There is no market for cattle, even if they throve abundantly, which they do not. I despair of much advance in civilisation, when their resources are so small, and when the European trade is on the principle of enormous profits and losses. Two hundred per cent, on Port Elizabeth prices is not considered out of the way.
[Ill.u.s.tration: MAIN STREET IN PORT ELIZABETH.]
”Heathenism, as a system, is weak, indeed in many places it is nowhere.
Christianity meets with little opposition. The people generally are prodigious Bible readers, church-goers, and psalm-singers, I fear to a large extent without knowledge. Religion to them consists in the above operations, and in giving a sum to the Auxiliary. I am speaking of the generality, There are many whom I cannot but feel to be Christians, but dimly. This can hardly be the result of low mental power alone. The Bechwanas show considerable acuteness when circ.u.mstances call it out.
”The educational department of the Mission has been kept in the background. On this station the youth on leaving school have sunk back for want of a continued course being opened to them. The village schoolmasters, uneducated themselves, and mostly unpaid, make but a feeble impression. The wonder is that they do so much, and where the readers come from. It is hard to say that the older missionaries could have done otherwise.... I cannot tell you how one thing presses on me every day: the want of qualified native schoolmasters and teachers; and the question: how are they to be obtained?”
On Sunday, 20th March, 1870, Robert Moffat preached for the last time in the Kuruman church, and on the Friday following the departure took place. ”Ramary” and ”Mamary,” as Mr. and Mrs. Moffat were called, had completely won the hearts of the natives. For weeks past messages of farewell had been coming from the more distant towns and villages, and now that the final hour had arrived and the venerable missionary, with his long white beard, and his equally revered wife, left their house and walked to their waggon they were beset by crowds of people, each one longing for another shake of the hand, a last parting word, or a final look; and, as the waggon drove away, a long pitiful wail rose from those who felt that their teacher and friend was with them no more.
After a rough but safe journey of eight weeks, Robert and Mary Moffat reached Port Elizabeth on the 20th May, 1870, and received a hearty welcome from a large number of missionaries and other Christian friends, who had gathered to meet them. Making a brief stay they embarked in the mail steamer _Roman_ and landed at Cape Town on the 2nd of June. Here they were entertained by the Christian community at a public breakfast.
A few days later they embarked in the steams.h.i.+p _Norseman, en route_ for England.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
CHAPTER X.
CLOSING SCENES.
In the Chronicle of the London Missionary Society for March, 1870, the following notice appeared: ”Our readers will be glad to hear that there is now a definite prospect of welcoming again to England our veteran missionary, the Rev. Robert Moffat. He may be expected, with Mrs.
Moffat, about the month of June. Mr. Moffat no longer enjoys his former robust health. In his last letter he writes: 'What to me was formerly a molehill is now a mountain, and we both have for some time past begun to feel some of the labour and sorrow so frequently experienced by those who have pa.s.sed their three-score years and ten.'”
The _Norseman_ reached Plymouth on the 24th of July, and next day Robert and Mary Moffat landed at Southampton, thus returning to their native land, to leave it no more, after an absence of over fifty years; during which time they had visited it only once before.
On the 1st of August he was welcomed by the Society, at an influential meeting, convened for the purpose, in the Board Room of the Mission House, in Blomfield Street. At that meeting, alluding to his previous visit in 1839, and to the printing of the New Testament in Sechwana, he stated as follows:--
”When I came to the Cape, previous to my first visit, I brought a translation of the New Testament, which I had translated under considerable difficulties, being engaged a portion of the day in roofing an immense church, and the remainder in exegetical examinations and consulting concordances. I was anxious to get it printed, and I brought it down to the Cape, but there I could find no printing-office that would undertake it. The Committee of the Bible Society very kindly--as they have always been to me, I say it with pleasure--forwarded paper and ink to the Cape expecting I should get the work done there. As I said, there was not a printing-office that would undertake it. Dining with Sir George Napier, the Governor, I informed him of the difficulty. He said, 'Jump on board a s.h.i.+p with your translation and 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 said, 'I have become too barbarous; I have almost forgotten my own language; I should be frightened to go there.' 'Oh stuff!' he said.
”Some time after he met me in the street: 'Well, Moffat, what have you determined upon?' 'I am waiting the return of Dr. Philip.' 'Don't wait for anybody; just jump on board a s.h.i.+p. Think of the importance of getting the New Testament put in print in a new language!' He invited me to dinner again and said, 'Have you come to a conclusion? I wish I could give you mine. I feel some interest in the extension of the knowledge of the Word of G.o.d. Take n.o.body's advice, but jump on board a s.h.i.+p for England.' He spoke so seriously that I began to feel serious myself.
[Ill.u.s.tration: MARY MOFFAT.]