that Bechuana chief had bartered some 400 guns from traders to fight the
Boers with. The Boers sent an ultimatum requiring the surrender of
those weapons. Despite the protestation of the chief and his people that
not more than eight guns had been bartered for hunting, which had later
proved true, a commando was sent against them under Commandant Paul
Krüger, now President Krüger. Many of the natives were slain, their
villages burnt, their cattle seized, and great numbers of the tribe
taken captive for distribution as servants among the Boer farmers in the
Transvaal. That raid was further signalized by the total destruction of
Moffat's mission station--church, school buildings, and industrial
shops. These, after being looted, were all consigned to the flames, as
also the missionary dwellings, among which was that of David
Livingstone, with his furniture, books, and belongings. There are
abundant records, besides that of the Bechuana nation, that barbarous
and idolatrous peoples are amenable to Christianity without the prior
influences of civilization or individual education, or that they should
be subjugated first, as the Boers would have it. What indeed is of
immense aid for moral and economic advancement is the operation of
civilized and liberal governmental authority, repressing slavery, under
which proprietary rights and justice are equally afforded to black and
white, and where the Gospel might have a free course without constraint
and without inducements of material advantages.

It seemed that such conditions were on the eve of eventuating for the
rescue and disenthralment of darkest Africa. This is what Moffat,
Livingstone, Coillard, and many other devoted servants of the Gospel had
prayed for all their lives, what has been and still is the burden of the
prayers (no doubt all inspired) of millions of Christians. The interior
is no more a blank on the map. Much is done for the suppression of
slavery. The whole continent is parcelled out among different nations,