190 
PKESENTS AND TEADING. 
Chap. IX. 
for leave to form part of our company, knowing tliat Mr. Oswell 
would no more trade than myself, and that the people of the 
lake would be disappointed if they could not dispose of their 
ivory, I willingly granted a sanction, without Avhich Ins people 
would not at that time have ventured so far. This was surely 
preferring the interest of another to my own. The return I got 
for tliis was, a notice in one of the Cape papers, that tliis man 
was the true discoverer of the lake !” 
The conclusion I had come to was, that it is quite lawful, 
though perhaps not expedient, for missionaries to trade; but 
barter is the only means by which a missionary in the interior 
can pay Iris way, as money has no value. In all the journeys I had 
previously undertaken for wider diffusion of the gospel, the extra 
expenses were defrayed from my salary of 100/. per annum. 
This sum is sufficient to enable a missionary to live in the interior 
of South Africa, supposing he has a garden capable of yielding 
corn and vegetables; but should he not, and still consider that 
six or eight months cannot lawfully be spent, simply in getting 
goods at a lower price than they can be had from itinerant traders, 
the sum mentioned is barely sufficient for the poorest fare and 
plainest apparel. As we never felt ourselves justified in making 
journeys to the colony for the sake of securing bargains, the most 
frugal living was necessary to enable us to be a little charitable 
to others; but when to tliis were added extra travelling ex¬ 
penses, the wants of an increasing family, and liberal gifts to 
chiefs, it was difficult to make both ends meet. The pleasure 
of missionary labour would be enhanced, if one could devote his 
life to the heathen, without drawing a salary from a society at 
all. The luxury of doing good, from one’s own private resources, 
v/ithout appearing to either natives or Europeans to be making 
a gain of it, is far preferable, and an object worthy the ambition 
of the rich. But few men of fortune, however, now devote 
themselves to Christian missions, as of old. Presents were 
always given to the cliiefs whom we visited, and nothing accepted 
in return; but when Sebituane (in 1851) offered some ivory, I 
took it, and was able by its sale to present his son with a number 
of really useful articles of a liigher value than I had ever been 
able to give before to any cliief. In doing tliis, of course, I 
appeared to trade, but, feeling I had a right to do so, I felt per¬ 
fectly easy in my mind; and, as I still held the view of the inex- 
