202 Seven Years in Central Africa. [Feb. 
Zambesi waters." To-day a dark Zambesi sinner has been 
baptized in the Garenganze waters, and it is but the beginning of 
God's kindness to us and to these people ; there are more to follow. 
Surely our God's mercy is not as a stream that comes and goes 
in volume, but as an ocean immeasurable, unfathomable. The 
joy and astonishment that fill us at every realization of His good- 
ness must ever exceed that which accompanied our faith and 
expectation, because He always exceeds our asking or thinking. 
His love is ever richer than our knowledge. When all possible 
knowledge or expectation is exceeded, surely only astonishment 
remains ! 
Until very recently the chief thought that presented itself to 
me in connection with baptism was that of death and burial ; but 
now it seems to me that the thought of resurrection and new life 
is by no means to be omitted, but rather to take the leading place. 
In I Peter iii. 21 it is directly connected with the resurrection of 
Jesus Christ, and baptism, being called the " interrogation " (or 
inquiry) "of a good conscience towards God" (R.V.), implies 
life. As the new-born babe cries, so new-born souls call upon 
Him who is the source of their life. 
FLATTERY. 
My relationship with the people, though very good from the 
first, is if anything improving. I find that both the king and his 
people make every effort to please me, and seem desirous to 
give me every encouragement to remain among them, giving 
their consent to everything I suggest, and shutting me up with 
flattery. Augustine, referring to Proverbs xviii. 21, remarked 
that "our daily furnace was the tongue of men." Paul and 
Barnabas found grace to resist the flattery of those who cried 
out that the gods had come down among them ; and afterwards 
grace to resist their slanders and stones was not withheld from 
them. Still we have much reason to rejoice and give thanks for 
a quiet and peaceable life in what is generally considered to be 
the heart of savagedom, and the haunt of every cruelty. 
HOW FAR OUGHT WE TO PLEASE MEN? 
It is often difficult to know how far one ought to go towards 
pleasing men, especially where ignorance to a certain extent is not 
