PERSECUTION AND PROVIDENCE. 67 



yoke. The tribes hated slavery, but were degraded by it. 

 It seemed inevitable. Sometimes people would sell their chil- 

 dren. The inevitable becomes tolerable. Besides the degrada- 

 tion, there was the constant trepidation and absolute insecurity. 

 The shadow of those mountains became a decree of instability. 

 This hindered the missionary work; that was Livingstone's 

 work. Christianity and the Boers were enemies. The Boers 

 were the enemies of Livingstone ; they did everything in their 

 power to prevent him in every undertaking. The missionary 

 would educate the people ; he emancipated their minds ; they 

 would become free and strong. Trade is the companion of 

 Christianity in heathen countries. Traders follow missionaries ; 

 they followed Dr. Livingstone. These traders sold guns and 

 powder. The Boers were cruel to the weak, therefore they were 

 cowardly. They dreaded the trader because they dreaded 

 powder and guns. They dreaded Livingstone because they 

 dreaded the trader. There could be no peace. And when, at 

 last, Sechele arose in self-defence and killed the first Boers ever 

 slain by Bechuanas, Livingstone was denounced as the instiga- 

 tor of their action. It was then that the Boers destroyed his 

 house, his books, his papers, his all. They were determined 

 that he should not open the country. They set him free to do 

 it, and forced him to do so by tearing up his nest. They were 

 cruel to Livingstone, but God was kind to Africa. The mis- 

 sionary could do nothing under the Boers ; he must go north- 

 ward. If he went northward or eastward or westward, the way 

 he went would become a road, and the light would stream in 

 stronger and stronger. God's Spirit had made the missionary ; 

 God's Providence was making the explorer. 



Several years had been spent battling with these difficulties. 

 The labors of Dr. Livingstone had extended several hundred 

 miles eastward from Kolobeng. He had established an inti- 

 mate friendship with Sechele, and other Bechuana chiefs, besides 

 gathering considerable information about the regions beyond. 

 But the beyond was across the desert. The desert was a diffi- 

 culty. It was a heartless difficulty, but it was not human ; it 

 was limited. There were no Boers on the other side ; there were 

 only heathen, and the Lake Ngami. This lake had long been 

 an object of anxious curiosity to people interested in African 



