CHAP. IX. 
SUNDAY AT THE KAT DIVER. 
233 
visit, listened with interest and kind feeling to the complaints 
which some of the people respectfully preferred, promising 
that inquiry should be made and wrongs redressed. His 
visit seems to have left favourable impressions on the mis¬ 
sionaries and people at every place, soothing many an anxious 
spirit, and inspiring hopes of consideration and justice as 
honourable to himself as it has proved reassuring and cheering 
to the people. 
Mr. James Read, the missionary, was absent, being then 
at the Paarl; but we spent the day with Mr. Green and the 
chief men of the place, conversing on the circumstances of 
the people and the prospects of the mission, and in the 
evening attended a religious service in the church. 
Next morning by daybreak I was awakened by the singing 
of the people, who at this early hour commenced their 
Sabbath services. In the forenoon about five hundred persons 
assembled in the church, all decently clothed in European 
attire, which was the more striking when considered in con¬ 
nection with the recent calamities of the war and their 
present deep poverty. A small congregation of Fingoes met 
for worship in the old schoolroom in the afternoon, and there 
was a second large assembly in the church in the evening. 
On these occasions, however imperfect the knowledge of the 
people might be, and however uncertain the source of their 
emotions as compared with those of the members of more 
refined and educated communities, it was not easy to witness 
, scenes such as we then contemplated without being convinced 
that to these earnest people religion was something more 
than a form ; that the simple truths of the New Testament, 
as they had been taught to understand them, supplied a 
want which they deeply felt, smoothed the ruggedness of 
their path in the present life, and inspired the hope of a 
happier future. 
On the following morning we bade adieu to the children in 
