722 LIGHTER MATTERS. 



must be careful instruction and consistent living. Particularly 

 must there be a clear and striking contrast in these respects be- 

 tween the Christian missionary and the Arab, whose name has 

 become a synonyme for selfishness and deceit. 



We cannot contemplate the noble heart which seems to open 

 before us as we read these pages, recalling as we read them the 

 consecrated life which underscores every word, emphasizing their 

 truthfulness and importance, without a conscious reverence for 

 the noble, devoted man, who with so much toil and self-denial 

 comes before us with wise and earnest counsel. And may God 

 grant that this noble life may dwell in the minds of men, an 

 undying testimony and appeal, until all Africa is radiant with 

 the light of the knowledge of God. 



But there were lighter matters woven into the life at Unyan- 

 yembe, relieving these more serious thoughts as they relieved 

 the wearying calculations and perplexing guesses. Now and 

 then the dulness was broken by fragments of information from 

 various parts of the country. Sometimes the incidents of the 

 household afforded a brief entertainment. Nothing escaped his 

 notice. In his journal for these months we find a most remark- 

 able range of subjects, while his mind was absorbed by the great 

 questions which come prominently before us in reading his life. 

 He had infinite delight in the sports of the birds about his door ; 

 the peculiarities of the tiniest insects, the sports of children 

 with their diminutive bows and arrows, the frivolities of 

 his servants, their petty jealousies and ambitions, the most 

 trivial matters of trade, the little incidents and remarks among 

 the Arabs with whom he exchanged visits, were all noticed. 

 One day he tells how he settled a quarrel between his two 

 women cooks ; another time of the loss of a favorite cow ; 

 somewhere else of bringing about a marriage for Susi. Then 

 he is absorbed in the raid some tiny sparrows were making on 

 a spider's web ; a thousand things of the sort sharing his atten- 

 tion with the gravest problems. 



No man comes more readily before us than himself when we 

 read his own thoughts most casually expressed as follows : 



"All the great among men have been remarkable at once for 

 the grasp and minuteness of their knowledge. Great astrono- 

 mers seem to know every iota of the Knowable. The great 



