‘The Government had learned to know
the use of missionaries in East Africa. In all departments of life, the
missionary there was essential to progress.’— The
Marquis of Salisbury.
THE Mont Aux Sources in the
Drakensberg still retains the name given to it by Gosselin, one of the
earliest of the French missionaries and the first white man who discovered
it, or, at least, made it known. It is the ‘many-fountained,’ to use
Homer’s phrase, and the well-head of the great African rivers. From the
Tugela to the Orange, from the Vaal to the St. John’s, all are replenished
from its bountiful and perennial springs. Had they speech, they might say
to that mountain, ‘All my well-springs are in thee.’
Christian missions guide us to the
Mont Aux Sources of those influences which have largely made South Africa
what it is to-day. All these are the offspring of one sweet spring on a
hillside in Galilee, though many who prize the ever-flowing streams forget
the source.
After Livingstone, Stewart has
probably had as large a share as any other man in creating and guiding
these influences. A brief review of the social development of the land may
be welcome to the reader, as Africa is now probably the most interesting
part of the globe. Out of this wonderland will come another new surprise
to him who studies this subject.
While the missionary plants one limb
of his compass at the centre, which is Christ, he makes a very wide sweep
with the other limb till his circle encloses everything fitted to make the
native a Christian man, a manly Christian, and a good citizen. We have
seen that Stewart wished this circumference to embrace every part of the
native’s life. In South Africa more than in any other land have
missionaries been directly and indirectly empire-builders and moulders of
national history. In these directions Stewart has had a large share, and
it will probably appear greater in the future than it does to-day.
The missionaries are like modern
chemists who, when manufacturing one article, have also, to their surprise
and joy, produced other precious articles, which they call by-products.
Stewart’s whole heart was given to the winning of the natives to Christ,
but he appreciated as much as Dr. Chalmers did, the widespread civil and
social benefits which accompany and flow from pure religion and undefiled.
One hundred years ago the Kafirs had
no written language. Who reduced it to writing? Who published the first
grammar and text-books?
An Indian civilian tells us that he
has been examined
in three native languages, in which the only printed books were the Bible
and the Pilgrim’s Progress, and that missionaries were the only
qualified examiners.
About four hundred languages have
been reduced to writing in recent times. It would be interesting to know
how much of this great work has been done by men who were not
missionaries. Max Muller says: ‘I date the beginning of the science of
language from Pentecost.’
As several by-products have been
mentioned in Chapters XIX., XX., XXI., XXII., and xxv., we shall specify
the one which bulks most largely in our country, and which has had
incalculable effects. The expansion of South Africa is in great measure
the work of the missionaries. ‘We owe it to our missionaries,’ the
Times wrote, ‘that the whole region (South Africa) has been opened up.
. . . The progress of South Africa has been mainly due to men of Moffat’s
stamp.’ Some of the earliest main roads were known as the ‘Missionary
Roads,’ and many place-names preserve the names of missionaries. The
heralds of Christ have been the great pioneers and pathfinders in this
land. In these enterprises Stewart had an honourable share.
Dr. Philip, the doughty champion of
the natives, was the trusted adviser of successive Governments, and had a
very great share in the liberation of the slaves. He called attention to
their position, and secured the sympathy of British philanthropists. One
by-product of this activity was the great Boer Trek in 1836, and the
founding of the Transvaal Republic.
Livingstone’s influence as a
benefactor of Africa can scarcely be measured. The history of British
Central Africa begins with him. It has been said that he did more for it
than all the other men of his century put together. It was he who unveiled
bleeding Ethiopia and laid her on the heart of Christendom, and so
accomplished the very greatest results by the simplest, noblest, and
purest means. It was he who put a stop to the slave-trade.
The Bechuana missionaries did yeoman
service to the Empire by keeping the northern route open.
John Mackenzie, ‘South African
missionary and statesman,’ ‘multiplied the significance of his life by
promoting the expansion of the British Empire over the regions Livingstone
explored. He thus saved native states from annihilation by the Boers, and
ensured the best colonial rule in the world to vast stretches of Africa’
(Daybreak in the Dark Continent, by Naylor, an American). He
happily influenced our policy, and was Deputy-Commissioner of
Bechuanaland. ‘Hereafter,’ the Pall Mall Gazette says, ‘he will
live in the annals of our Empire, for at a grave crisis he saved Africa
for England.’ We are told that if his advice had been followed, there
would have been no Boer war.
Newmann, in his Matabeleland and
How We Got It, says: ‘A treaty of friendship with the Matabeles
through the Rev. J. S. Moffat (son of Dr. Moffat) secured the land for us.
This is called the "Moffat Treaty," and was made in 1888. But for this
Rhodesia would not have been.’
It was Sir Bartle Frere’s
oft-expressed opinion that if in South Africa the missionaries had gone
first, we should have had none of the nine Kafir wars.
The by-products of mission-work are
found in many places. Four years ago the contractors for the Victoria
Bridge over the Zambesi had great difficulty in finding riveters. Boys
from mission schools were trained to help in the work. They earned two or
three shillings a day, while their fathers could earn only threepence or
fourpence. Some of the boys were employed as interpreters.
The two most remarkable of the
by-products of missions have yet to be mentioned. They will convince us
that the romance of Imperialism is a part of the romance of missions.
In the Life of Coillard of the
Zambesi it is said: ‘The French mission has given two new spheres of
labour to the Church of God, and, indirectly, two new provinces to the
British Empire.’ The first of these two provinces is Basutoland, the
Switzerland of South Africa. The Basuto king, Moshesh, was the ablest
native ruler South Africa has produced. He governed with a cabinet of
French missionaries, and usually took their advice. In 1852 the Basutos
inflicted a severe defeat on our troops. Moshesh, as advised by the
missionaries, sent to the British Governor ‘the most politic document that
has ever been penned in South Africa.’
[It is as
follows:-
‘THABA Bosigo, Midnight, 20th
Dec. 1852.
‘YOUR EXCELLENCY, - This day you have fought
against my people and taken much cattle. As the object for which you have
come is to have a compensation for Boers, I beg you will be satisfied with
what you have taken. I entreat peace from You have chastised; let it be
enough, I pray you; and let me be no longer considered an enemy to the
Queen. I will try all I can to keep my people in order in the future. O my
master, I am still your man, I am still the child of the Queen. I am
ashamed of what happened yesterday. Let it be forgotten. —Your humble
servant, MOSHESH.’]
The African statesman thus gained a diplomatic victory
and completed the work of the African soldier. In 1868 Basutoland was
placed under the protection of our Government on the most favourable
terms. ‘The nation has now,’ to quote Bryce, ‘under the guiding hand of
the missionaries and latterly of the British Government also, made greater
progress in civilisation and Christianity than any other Kafir race.’
This simple French mission, with a purely spiritual
aim, has ‘largely changed Basutoland from a heathen to a Christian
country.’ Imports of the Basuto, who had no use for a yard of calico when
the missionaries found them in 1833, amounted to £289,790 in 1903.
Barotsiland is the other province which the French
mission has given to Great Britain. In 1890-91 it
became a British Protectorate by the earnest desire of King Lewanika. It
is now known as NorthWestern Rhodesia, and covers nearly two hundred
thousand square miles. It is about the same size as the whole German
Empire. Not one shot was fired for its annexation. The story of it is one
of the highest compliments ever paid to our nation.
Coillard had gained the complete confidence of Lewanika,
king of Barotsiland. The missionary said that as he was a Frenchman he
would naturally wish to see Lewanika in alliance with France. He told the
king that he must be under the protection of some nation, and that Great
Britain would treat him better than any other nation would. ‘My father,’
Lewanika replied, ‘you have given me many advices. Sometimes I have taken
them, and sometimes I have not. When I have not accepted your advice, I
have found that I had made a mistake, and so I will take your advice this
time.’ This is how in the scramble for Africa the Barotsi nation was saved
amid the break-up of all the surrounding tribes. His biographer is
justified in saying that Coillard ‘influenced the map of South Africa, and
the natives, far and wide.’
Stewart, as the founder of Livingstonia, stands in the
front rank of real, though unintentional, empire-builders. As is shown in
Chapter viii., through the influence of Livingstonia, North-Eastern
Rhodesia became a part of our Empire. Two missions have thus added to our
Empire two territories, each of which is as large as Germany, and contains
vast mineral wealth. They tell us that England might be hid in this new
territory, and that the explorer might search long without finding a trace
of it. ‘Thus,’ writes Stewart, ‘the territory that forty years ago was an
utterly unknown land of wide area, with a great inland sea, has been added
to what is slowly taking shape in that continent, a great British African
dominion. For this great change the way was prepared by an easy transition
from a state of social and civil chaos through the missionary occupation.
That occupation was also just in time. It took place ten years before the
great partition of the continent. It was thus explained, not by a
missionary magazine, but by an influential political paper at the time of
the proclamation of the British Protectorate.
‘The founding of the missionary establishments had an
important political effect, for it enabled Her Majesty’s Government to
successfully resist the claim of the Portuguese Government to the whole of
that territory, to demand the free navigation of the Zambesi, and to
justify the claim for the British Empire, not only to the Shire Highlands,
but generally speaking, to the best parts of the Nyasa region.
‘This is true, and may be legitimately stated, even
though it is not the territorial but the spiritual conquest of the land
which is the aim of the mission. The date when Christianity enters any
country begins a new era in its history; and from that date the life of
its people begins to be slowly revolutionised. This is what is being done
now by the Livingstonia mission, which first planted Christianity on the
western shore of Lake Nyasa.’ Cecil Rhodes told the representatives of the
Scots missions in Central Africa that he owed them something, as the
action of the British Government at their suggestion and on their behalf
encouraged him to believe that his dream about Rhodesia would be realised.
‘We owe all that land (Rhodesia) to you Scotsmen,’ he said to one of the
chief promoters of Livingstonia.
Joseph Chamberlain described himself as a missionary of
empire. But the Christian missionaries were empire-makers and creative
imperialists, and from the most unselfish motives, long before Chamberlain
advocated imperial expansion or Cecil Rhodes had dreamt of his
Cape-to-Cairo Railway. The missionaries desired only the good of Africa,
and that demanded a settled government. To all of them might be applied
the words which the administrator of North-Western Rhodesia (Barotsiland)
used about Coillard: ‘I think it was M. Coillard’s constant endeavour to
have as little as possible to do with political questions, and to alienate
himself from all controversy and connection with such matters.’
All these annexations to our Empire, without the firing
of a single shot or the loss of a single human life, are assets of the
highest value. If it has been our national destiny to conquer by the arts
of peace more nations than Alexander the Great and Caesar ever conquered
by war, it was chiefly by the messengers of the Prince of Peace that this
high destiny was fulfilled. The best empire-building, like the building of
the Temple at Jerusalem, has been done without noise. These bloodless
conquests are byproducts in the true sense of the word. For it was no part
of the original aim of the missionaries to enlarge the possessions of
Great Britain. They had not the ‘lust of horizon,’ nor an ambition for
personal gain or fame. They served the best interests of our Empire all
the more because they were loyal to a Kingdom ‘not of this world.’ They
have thus ennobled African history. We have here not ‘Reality versus
Romance,’ but ‘Romance in Reality.’ ‘South Africa,’ W. T. Stead says,
‘is the product of three forces—conquest, trade, and missions, and of the
three the first counts for the least, and the last for the greatest,
factor in the expansion of civilisation in Africa. Missionaries have been
everywhere the pioneers of empire. The frontier has advanced on the
stepping-stones of missionary graves.’ The last extension of our Empire in
South Africa cost our nation a three years’ war, and over £200,000,000.
The story of the growth of our Empire contains abundant
matter both for deep humiliation and fervent gratitude. It is said that
empires have been thrust upon us, and that we have been compelled to
annex, while protesting against annexation. Our annexations have
contributed largely to the weal of mankind. The Briton who visits Central
Africa has good cause to thank God for what his nation has done there in a
very short time. It is only fifteen years since Lobengula ruled at
Bulawayo, the last stronghold of South African heathenism, which
appropriately means ‘the place of slaughter.’ The field around his Great
Kraal, or Judgment Seat, was covered with the bones of those whom he had
slain for offences against himself and for witchcraft. It is only thirty
years since Sepopa, king of Barotsiland, ‘used to amuse himself capturing
children and throwing them to the crocodiles (in the Zambesi) as we should
feed ducks (Coillard, p. 270). But enormous changes are taking
place in Africa.’ The Briton who visits Bulawayo and the Zambesi may thank
God that his nation has made life and property as safe there as at home,
and that marvellous improvements have been achieved in a few years. Litia,
the heir to the throne of Barotsiland, has bad a Christian marriage, and
has made such progress in civilisation that he drives his own motor-car.
Better still, ‘he alone of all his countrymen accords to his wife the
position in which Christian marriage places her; every day they and their
child sit down to table together, European fashion.’ Young Ethiopians are
already unable to believe the stories of slave-raiding. These are
unthinkable to them now, and seem to belong to another planet.
Missions are a guarantee of peace all over the world.
True missionaries are ever peacemakers. [For the preservation of peace
between the colonists and natives, one missionary is worth a battalion of
soldiers’ (Sir Chas. Warren, Governor of Natal).] In war the faithful
adherence of native Christians can be counted on. Christian Kafirs have
more than once prevented bloodshed. The life of Soga informs us that, in
the wars in his day, not one Christian Kafir took up arms against Britain,
and the native converts helped to save India in the mutiny. Both Anthony
Trollope and Sir Bartle Frere testified ‘that nothing would do more to
prevent future Kafir wars than a multiplication of such institutions as
Lovedale.’
These facts should secure a generous interest in
Foreign Missions among all classes in the land, including even those to
whom the by-products are more interesting than the chief spiritual
products. Stewart often appealed for unsalaried helpers, and his appeal
was not in vain. He offered a great and alluring field to those who wished
to share in the regeneration of Africa. Livingstone hoped that the day was
coming when rich men would not spend all their money on dogs and horses,
but would send missionaries to the most downtrodden races. Could they make
a better investment of their sympathies and money? But the appeal is not
to the rich only., The black slab on Livingstone’s grave bears the
inscription: ‘All I can say in my solitude is, may Heaven’s rich blessing
come down on every one— American, English, Turk—who will help to heal this
open sore of the world. For thirty years his life was spent in an
unwearied effort to evangelise the native races, to explore the
undiscovered secrets, and abolish the desolating slave-trade of South
Africa.’
These thirty years were added to his life by the
generous help of a minister’s wife, who collected and sent him twelve
pounds a year for a native assistant. One of the most popular pictures
some years ago was that
of the lion standing over Livingstone ready to devour him. In the corner
of the picture stands Mebaiwe, the native assistant secured by the twelve
pounds, taking aim at the lion, which at once rushed towards him. Dr.
Livingstone’s life was thus saved for thirty years, during which he did
nearly the whole of his great work for Africa. No one can tell what money
may do when it is offered in the right spirit. For our small is often
God’s great.
As African women gain grace and strength from their
burdens, so the Church of Christ would develop her fettered powers by
sharing the general burden of the heathen world. The Church in its best
estate is like the poet’s well-fashioned arch, which purchases strength
from its increasing load.
The first Foreign Mission report runs: ‘And when they
were come, and had gathered the church to-. gether, they rehearsed all
that God had done with them, and how he had opened the door of faith unto
the Gentiles’ (Acts xiv.
27). Paul and Barnabas
reported spiritual achievements and wonderful opportunities. No former age
has witnessed achievements and opportunities like those in our day, and
opportunity is the authoritative finger-post of duty. We need now to pray,
not for open doors, but for open eyes, minds, hearts, and purses.
