CHAP. IX. SUNDAY AT THE KAT EIVER. 233 



visit, listened with interest and kind feeling to the complaints 

 which some of the people respectfully preferred, promising 

 that inquiry should be made and wrongs redressed. His 

 visit seems to have left favourable impressions on the mis- 

 sionaries and people at every place, soothing many an anxious 

 spirit, and inspiring hopes of consideration and justice as 

 honourable to himself as it has proved reassuring and cheering 

 to the people. 



Mr. James Eead, the missionary, was absent, being then 

 at the Paarl ; but we spent the day with Mr. Green and the 

 chief men of the place, conversing on the circumstances of 

 the people and the prospects of the mission, and in the 

 evening attended a religious service in the church. 



Next morning by daybreak I was awakened by the singing 

 of the people, who at this early hour commenced their 

 Sabbath services. In the forenoon about five hundred persons 

 assembled in the church, all decently clothed in European 

 attire, which was the more striking when considered in con- 

 nection with the recent calamities of the war and their 

 present deep poverty. A small congregation of Fingoes met 

 for worship in the old schoolroom in the afternoon, and there 

 was a second large assembly in the church in the evening. 

 On these occasions, however imperfect the knowledge of the 

 people might be, and however uncertain the source of their 

 emotions as compared with those of the members of more 

 refined and educated communities, it was not easy to witness 

 scenes such as we then contemplated without being convinced 

 that to these earnest people religion was something more 

 than a form ; that the simple truths of the New Testament, 

 as they had been taught to understand them, supplied a 

 want which they deeply felt, smoothed the ruggedness of 

 their path in the present life, and inspired the hope of a 

 happier future. 



On the following morning we bade adieu to the children in 



