x PREFATORY LETTER. 



afraid to trust him: but he learnt, to his dismay, that the 

 slave- dealer — the deadly minister of evil — had in the preced- 

 ing year found his way for the first time into a district under 

 the great Chiefs authority. To arrest a deadly pestilence 

 before it had spread its moral poison through the country — 

 to teach the poor African that he might, without danger or 

 broil or bloodshed, carry on a good commerce with civilized 

 man without committing it to the brutal slave- dealer — to ex- 

 tend the ground of Christian Missions — to give a movement to 

 civilized commerce along the course of the great Zambesi, and 

 with it to stir up the honest zeal of good true-hearted men, 

 who, under Providence, might bring the light of civilization 

 and Christian truth to central Africa — these were the thoughts 

 that moved the heart and mind of Livingstone as he returned 

 southward to his home and Christian flock. 



But a black cloud was hanging over the infant Church 

 that was founded by Livingstone. Crowds of lawless Boers 

 came, during the Caffre wars, to settle on the outskirts of the 

 Bechuana country. They called themselves Protestant Chris- 

 tians; and they had learnt to cull out from the Old Testament 

 some words which appeared to tell them that the heathen 

 were their inheritance, or seemed to sanction their deeds of 

 violence and aggression against the poor African. But their 

 senses were close-shut to the teaching of the Gospel — to its 

 message of peace and love to every son of man, and to all 

 nations under heaven. Many of these Boers had been trained 

 in deeds of blood before, and during, the Caffre wars. Many 

 had been open rebels against the central authorities at the 

 Cape. All lawless men, deserters and bad spirits, were 

 drawn towards them. By a disastrous treaty (for how can 

 any compromise with ignorant and lawless rebels be other- 

 wise than disastrous ?) they gained a kind of political inde- 

 pendence. In words, indeed, they were bound to suppress 

 slavery and to give a free passage from the Cape Colonies to 

 the tribes in Central Africa: but conditions, with lawless 



