10 BAPTISM OF SECHEIX 



Sechele continued to make a consistent profession for 

 about three years ; and perceiving at last some of the 

 difficulties of his case, and also feeling compassion for 

 the poor women, who were by far the best of our scholars, 

 I had no desire that he should be in any hurry to make 

 a full profession by baptism, and putting away all his 

 wives but one. His principal wife, too, was about the most 

 unlikely subject in the tribe ever to become anything else 

 than an out-and-out greasy disciple of the old school. 

 She has since become greatly altered, I hear, for the better ; 

 but again and again have I seen Sechele send her out of 

 church to put her gown on, and away she would go with 

 her lips shot out, the very picture of unutterable disgust 

 at his new-fangled notions. 



When he at last applied for baptism, I simply asked 

 him how he, having the Bible in his hand, and able to 

 read it, thought he ought to act. He went home, gave 

 each of his superfluous wives new clothing, and all his 

 own goods, which they had been accustomed to keep in 

 their huts for him, and sent them to their parents with an 

 intimation that he had no fault to find with them, but 

 that in parting with them he wished to follow the will of 

 God. On the day on which he and his children were 

 baptized, great numbers came to see the ceremony. Some 

 thought, from a stupid calumny circulated by enemies 

 to Christianity in the south, that the converts would be 

 made to drink an infusion of " dead men's brains," and 

 were astonished to find that water only was used at bap- 

 tism. Seeing several of the old men actually in tears 

 during the service, I asked them afterwards the cause of 

 their weeping ; they were crying to see their father, as 

 the Scotch remark over a case of suicide, " so far left to 

 himself." They seemed to think that I had thrown the 

 glamour over him and that he had become mine. Here 

 commenced an opposition which we had not previously 

 experienced. All the friends of the divorced wives became 

 the opponents of our religion. The attendance at school 

 and church diminished to very few besides the chief's own 

 family. They all treated us still with respectful kindness, 

 but to Sechele himself they said things which, as he often 

 remarked, had they ventured on in former times, would 

 have cost them their lives. It was trying, after all we 

 "had done, to see our labours so little appreciated ; but 

 we had sown the good seed, and have no doubt but it 



