SUCCESS OF MISSIONAKIES. 121 



ished in their hearts ever since the emancipation of the Hottentots. 

 Thus, from unfortunate ignorance of the country he had to govern, 

 an able and sagacious governor adopted a policy proper and wise 

 had it been in front of our enemies, but altogether inappropriate 

 for our friends against whom it has been applied. Such an error 

 could not have been committed by a man of local knowledge 

 and experience, such as that noble of colonial birth, Sir Andries 

 Stockenstrom ; and such instances of confounding friend and foe, 

 in the innocent belief of thereby promoting colonial interests, will 

 probably lead the Cape community, the chief part of which by no 

 means feels its interest to lie in the degradation of the native 

 tribes, to assert the right of choosing their own governors. This, 

 with colonial representation in the Imperial Parliament, in addi- 

 tion to the local self-government already so liberally conceded, 

 would undoubtedly secure the perpetual union of the colony to 

 the English crown. 



Many hundreds of both Griquas and Bechuanas have become 

 Christians and partially civilized through the teaching of English 

 missionaries. My first impressions of the progress made were 

 that the accounts of the effects of the Gospel among them had 

 been too highly colored. I expected a higher degree of Christian 

 simplicity and purity than exists either among them or among 

 ourselves. I was not anxious for a deeper insight in detecting 

 shams than others, but I expected character, such as we imagine 

 the primitive disciples had — and was disappointed.* When, how- 

 ever, I passed on to the true heathen in the countries beyond the 

 sphere of missionary influence, and could compare the people 



* The popular notion, however, of the primitive Church is perhaps not very ac- 

 curate. Those societies especially which consisted of converted Gentiles — men 

 who had been accustomed to the vices and immoralities of heathenism — were cer- 

 tainly any thing but pure. In spite of their conversion, some of them carried the 

 stains and vestiges of their former state with them when they passed from the tem- 

 ple to the church. If the instructed and civilized Greek did not all at once rise 

 out of his former self, and understand and realize the high ideal of his new faith, 

 we should be careful, in judging of the work of missionaries among savage tribes, 

 not to apply to their converts tests and standards of too great severity. If the scoff- 

 ing Lucian's account of the impostor Peregrinus may be believed, we find a church 

 probably planted by the apostles manifesting less intelligence even than modern 

 missionary churches. Peregrinus, a notoriously wicked man, was elected to the 

 chief place among them, while Romish priests, backed by the power of France, could 

 not find a place at all in the mission churches of Tahiti and Madagascar. 



