CHAPTER II.

First Mission to South Africa-Mr. Schmidt's success Mission resumed-Mission to the Kafirs-Dr. Vanderkemp leaves Cape Town-Enters Kafir-land-Suspicions of the Kafirs-Ignorance of the natives-The Doctor's colleague leaves him-The Doctor's devotedness and humility-Gaika solicits him to make rain-His self-denial and perils-A Hottentot woman-Enmity of some colonists-Awful retribution-Kafir Mission abandoned.

THE London Missionary Society, on its establishment in 1795, directed its first efforts to the islands of the Pacific; in which the missionaries, after a long period of toil, under accumulated hardships, have witnessed triumphs of the Gospel the most signal, among a race of barbarians and cannibals, which it has ever fallen to the province of history to record. The attention of the Society was next directed to the vast and important field of Southern Africa, then wholly unoccupied, except by the United Brethren of Germany. The small Moravian church of Herrnhut sent forth her missionaries more than a century ago, first to the negroes of the West, and then to the fur-clad inhabitants of Greenland.

"Fired with a zeal peculiar, they defy
The rage and rigour of a polar sky,
And plant successfully sweet Sharon's rose
On icy plains, and in eternal snows."

In July, 1736, George Schmidt, with something of that zeal which fired the bosom of Egede, the pioneer of the mission to Greenland, left his native country for that of the Hottentots. He was the first who, commissioned by the King of kings, stood in the vale of Grace, (Genadendal,) at that time known by the name of Bavian's Kloof, (the Glen of Baboons,) and directed the degraded, oppressed, ignorant, despised, and, so far as life eternal is concerned, the outcast Hottentots, to the Lamb of God, who tasted death for them. It is impossible to traverse the glen, as the writer has done, or sit under the great peartree which that devoted missionary planted with his own hands, without feeling something like a holy envy of so distinguished a person in the missionary band. When we remember that actions receive their weight from the circumstances under which they have been called forth, how exalted a glory must such an one as George Schmidt possess in the heavenly world, where one star differeth from another star in glory, compared with a great majority of the present day, who have doors opened to them, and a host of examples before them, with the zeal and prayers of the whole Christian church to animate and support them! Though he could only address the Hottentots through an interpreter, his early efforts were crowned with success, and the attendance at the first Hottentot school ever founded rapidly increased. The Hottentots, with all their reputed ignorance and apathy, justly regarded him with sentiments of unfeigned love and admiration; and so evidently was the Gospel made the power of God, that in the course of a few years he was able to add a number of converts to the church of the first-born.

TO SOUTH AFRICA.

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In 1743, the lonely missionary was compelled 'to visit Europe, when the Dutch East India Company, actuated by representations that to instruct the Hottentots would be injurious to the interests of the Colony, refused to sanction the return of this messenger of mercy to that unfortunate people. Every effort to resume the Mission was fruitless, till the year 1792, when Marsveldt, Schwinn, and Küchnel sailed for the Cape of Good Hope. They received every attention, and went in search of the spot where, more than half a century before, Schmidt left his little band. Part of the walls of his house was indeed still standing, and in the garden were several fruittrees planted by his hands; whilst various ruins of walls, at a short distance, marked the site of the lowly cottages which were once inhabited by his affectionate hearers; and, what must have been overpowering to these followers of so good a man, one of the females whom he had baptized, by the name of Magdalena, was also found out, and appeared to have a tolerable recollection of her former teacher, though she was now about seventy years of age. She also produced a New Testament bearing the marks of constant use, which he had presented to her. This she had preserved as a precious relic, and, although now bent down with age and feebleness, she expressed great joy on being informed that Marsveldt and his companions were the brethren of her old and beloved pastor.

The Hottentots who remembered Mr. Schmidt, or had heard of his labours of love, rallied around the standard again erected; and though great and many were the trials and distresses of the missionaries, often