to humanize their hardness; to save women and children; to deliver
all from sin; to bring them upward to the Father whom they have
forgotten, by opening to them His divine compassion in the Lord
Jesus; to make life worth living for, because it is the portal of
a heavenly life for ever: this has been the purpose and this the work
of our faithful brethren for fifty years. Other men have gone there
with very different aims. When once the missionary had made it safe,
the trader followed with his muskets and powder, his exciting
firewater; with his brilliant beads, his gorgeous chintzes, his
convenient cutlery; he followed with sugar, and coffee, and tea,
which he was willing to exchange for karosses and deer-horns, and
cattle; for teeth and tusks of ivory. Aids to civilization such
things might prove; but standing alone how could they elevate, when
powder fed the wars; when the drink prostrated chief and people; and
even Englishmen encouraged the sale of slaves.

True civilization springs from pure religion. Where grace touches
the heart of a man, it quickens all his powers.

"The transformation of apostate man
From fool to wise, from earthly to divine,
Is work for Him that made him."

Among a barbarous people the gospel effects changes in one generation
which ages without its grace have failed to secure. "In coming back
to the station on the Kuruman," says Livingstone, "from the tribes
in the interior, I always felt that I had come back to civilization."
It is the Gospel which has made the Kuruman; and what it is, other
stations are already beginning to be. Apart from its christian church
and christian community; apart from the many who have lived a holy