Chap. V. 
SUCCESS OF MISSIOUAEIES. 
107 
rished in their hearts ever since the emancipation of the Hottentots. 
Thus, from unfortunate ignorance of the country he had to govern, 
an able and sagacious governor adopted a policy proper and wise 
had it been in front of our enemies, but altogether inappropriate 
for our friends against whom it has been apphed. Such an error 
could not have been committed by a man of local knowledge 
and experience, such as that noble of colonial birth. Sir Andries 
Stockenstrom; and such instances of confounding friend and foe, 
in the innocent belief of thereby promoting colonial interests, will 
probably lead the Cape community, the chief part of which by no 
means feels its interest to lie in the degradation of the native 
tribes, to assert the right of choosing their own governors. This, 
with colonial representation in the Imperial Parliament, in addi¬ 
tion to the local self-government already so Kberally conceded, 
would undoubtedly secure the perpetual union of the colony to 
the English Crown. 
Many hundreds of both Criquas and Bechuanas have become 
Christians and partially civilized tlmough the teaching of English 
missionaries. My first impressions of the progress made were, 
that the accounts of the effects of the Gospel among them had 
been too highly coloured. I expected a higher degree of Christian 
simplicity and purity than exists either among them or among 
ourselves. I was not anxious for a deeper insight in detecting 
shams than others, but I expected character, such as we imagine 
the primitive disciples had—and was disappointed.* When, how¬ 
ever, I passed on to the true heathen in the countries beyond the 
* The popular notion, however, of the primitive church is perhaps not very 
accurate. Those societies especially which consisted of converted GentileS'— 
men who had been accustomed to the vices and immoralities of heathenism— 
were certainly anything but pure. In spite of their conversion, some of them 
carried the stains and vestiges of their former state with them when they 
passed from the temple to the church. If the instructed and civilised Greek 
did not all at once rise out of-his former self, and understand and realise the 
high ideal of his new faith, we should be careful, in judging of the work of 
missionaries among savage tribes, not to apply to their converts tests and stand¬ 
ards of too great severity. If the scoffing Lucian’s account of the impostor 
Peregrinus may be believed, we find a church probably planted by the Apostles 
manifesting less intelligence even than modern missionary churches. Pere- 
grinns, a notoriously wicked man, was elected to the chief place among them, 
while Eomish priests, backed by the powder of France, could not find a place 
at all in the mission churches of Tahiti and Madagascar. 
