64 WANT AND BOERS. 



ceives them. It is a wild, cruel scene. It is the law of extrem- 

 ity to be cruel. The Bakwains are kind until they suffer ; so 

 are people generally. Want is lawless. Through all of their 

 extremity Dr. Livingstone was treated kindly and wrought 

 diligently for their enlightenment and salvation. The work of 

 saving men is independent of their condition ; men need the 

 gospel all the time. Dr. Livingstone recognized the difficul- 

 ties. He knew that the uncertainty, the anxiety about the 

 things that perish, the lawful solicitude about food, was indeed 

 a mighty hindrance to his success. He did not suspend his 

 work, but he gave the sufferers his sympathies. It will, indeed, 

 be well when the Christian churches awake thoroughly to the 

 importance of seeking directly the improvement of the heathen, 

 not only in knowledge and in their social life, but in the condi- 

 tions of bodily comfort and happiness. 



The life of Livingstone is a lesson. He was a Christian. 

 He was a missionary. He determined to open a way that the 

 world might enter Africa ; that the enlightened might lift up 

 the benighted ; that the Church might address the people who 

 have been aided, who are stronger and happier for the coming 

 of the Church. But there was an obstacle to be confronted by 

 our missionaries among these tribes harder to overcome than 

 prejudices, than customs, than wants. That obstacle was living. 

 It called itself civilized; it called itself human. It was in 

 human shape ; it was encouraged by outside civilization. The 

 Cashan Mountains, just north of the Bechuanas, were occupied 

 by the Boers. There are people known as Boers in Cape 

 Colony; they are a very industrious, honorable class. These 

 are not like them. The mountains were formerly occupied by a 

 cruel Caffre chief; he had been expelled. The Bechuanas re- 

 joiced too soon when the Boers came in his place. They had 

 too much confidence in white skin. The Caffre had been 

 "cruel to his enemies and kind to the conquered. The Boers 

 killed their enemies and enslaved their friends." They had 

 settled in Africa out of antipathy to the African. They culti- 

 vated their farms with unpaid labor. It was compulsory labor; 

 they were heartless in their methods of securing slaves. They 

 would murder men and women and burn a town to make cap- 

 tives of the children ; the children grew up accustomed to the 



