PREFATORY LETTER. lxxvii 



themselves. Thousands will read the Missionary Travels in 

 South Africa who have not heard of this letter: but should 

 there ever be one single reader of this letter who has not read 

 the admirable Volume of Livingstone ; I can only entreat him, 

 for his own sake, not to rest contented till he has read it, and 

 felt its power. Henceforth it will be a hand-book to all 

 Christian men — be they merchants or naturalists or philoso- 

 phers or missionaries, or lovers of the works of God under 

 whatever name — who may visit South Africa, and have true 

 human sympathies for its condition. Under God's blessing, 

 may they all conspire together to raise the moral condition of 

 that basely injured country! And then we may hope that it 

 will rise rapidly in the scale of social life ; and cease to be 

 (what it is now) a foul disgrace to Christian Europe. 



There was a third object I had in view before I began 

 this letter. I wished to add my name to the long list of those 

 who have protested against slavery as a social institution — 

 believing that it is in direct antagonism with the pure lessons 

 of the Gospel ; and that every national attempt to perpetuate 

 or extend it, is an act of open war against humanity and 

 Christian truth. And honest men, whatever be their condi- 

 tion, will do well at this time to enter a protest against an 

 insidious suggestion, which might possibly lead some of the 

 great states of Europe to think of importing free labourers 

 from Africa to their western Colonies. To do this would be 

 to tamper basely with those great legislative acts which form 

 the noblest passage of European history within the limits of 

 this century — acts which are a public triumph of national 

 honour and principle over the selfish calculations of national 

 gain — an open avowal that Christian nations are bound by 

 the same laws as Christian men; and that, if they look for 

 God's blessing, they must count every gain as a loss while 

 it is procured at the cost of humanity, or the surrender of 

 one link of that golden chain that binds Christian societies 

 together in a holy and honourable union. 



