EETROSPECT. 
Chap. XXXII. 
(i78 
Mr. Moffat began to give the Bible—tlie Magna Cbarta 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. 
Sebituane, at the same time, rooted out hordes of bloody savages 
among whom no wliite man could have gone, without leaving his 
skull to ornament some village. He opened up the way for me 
—let us hope also for the Bible. Then, again, while I was labour¬ 
ing at Kolobeng, seeing only a small arc of the cycle of Provi¬ 
dence ; I could not understand it, and felt inclined to ascribe 
our successive and prolonged droughts to the wicked one. But 
when forced by these, and the Boers, to become explorer, and 
open a new country in the north rather than set my face south¬ 
wards, where missionaries are not needed; the gracious Spirit of 
God influenced the minds of the heathen to regard me with 
favour; the Divine hand is again perceived. Then, I turned away 
westwards, rather than in the opposite direction, cliiefly from 
observing that some native Portuguese, though influenced by the 
hope of a reward from their Government to cross the continent, 
had been obliged to return from the east without accomplishing 
their object. Had I gone at first in the eastern direction, which 
the course of the gTeat Leeambye seemed to invite, I should have 
come among the belligerents near Tete, when the war was raging 
at its height, instead of, as it happened, when all was over. And 
again, when enabled to reach Loanda, the resolution to do my 
duty by going back to Linyanti, probably saved me from the fate 
of my papers in the “ Forerunner.” And then, last of aU, this new 
country is partially opened to the sympathies of Christendom, 
and I find that Sechele himself has, though unbidden by man, 
been teaching his own people. In fact, he has been doing all, that 
I was prevented from doing, and I have been employed in ex¬ 
ploring—a work I had no previous intention of performing. I 
think, that I see the operation of the unseen hand in aU this, and 
I humbly hope, that it will still guide me to do good in my day 
and generation in Africa. 
Viewing the success awarded to opening up the new country, 
as a development of Divine Providence in relation to the African 
family, the mind naturally turns to the probable influence it 
may have on negro slavery ; and more especially on the practice 
