UVINGSTONE AND THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 63$ 



connected only remotely with the spread of the Gospel, 

 and that the financial circumstances of the Society were 

 not such as to afford any ground of hope that it would 

 be in a position, within any definite period, to enter 

 upon untried, remote, and difficult fields of labour." This 

 has been explained since as an effusion caused by tem- 

 porary financial depression ; but feeling perfect confi- 

 dence in my Makololo friends, I was determined to 

 return and trust to their generosity. The old love of 

 independence which I had so strongly before joining the 

 Society, again returned. It was roused by a mistaken 

 view of what this letter meant, for the Directors, imme- 

 diately on my reaching home, saw the great importance 

 of the opening, and entered with enlightened zeal on the 

 work of sending the Gospel into the new field. It is to 

 be hoped that their constituents will not only enable 

 them to begin, but to carry out their plans ; and that no 

 material depression will ever again be permitted, nor 

 appearance of spasmodic benevolence recur. While I 

 hope to continue the same cordial co-operation and friend- 

 ship which have always characterised our intercourse, 

 various reasons induce me to withdraw from pecuniary 

 dependence on any Society. I have done something for 

 the heathen, but for an aged mother, who has still more 

 sacred claims than they, I have been able to do nothing, 

 and a continuance of the connection would be a perpetua- 

 tion of my inability to make any provision for her 

 declining years. In addition to ' ' clergyman's sore throat' ' 

 which partially disabled me from the work, my father's 

 death imposed new obligations ; and a fresh source of 

 income having been opened to me without my asking, I 

 had no hesitation in accepting what would enable me 

 to fulfil my duty to my aged parents as well as to the 

 heathen. 



If the reader remembers the way in which I was led, 

 while teaching the Bakwains, to commence exploration, 

 he will, I think, recognise the hand of Providence. 

 Anterior to that, when Mr. Moffat began to give the Bible — 

 the Magna Charta of all the rights and privileges of modern 

 civilization— to the Bechuanas, Sebituane went north, 

 and spread the language into which he was translating the 

 sacred oracles, in a new region larger than France. Sebi- 

 tuane, at the same time, rooted out hordes of bloody 

 savages among whom no white man could have gone, 



