Such was the beginning of the life of the Bull family in Sisa-Land,
not an encouraging beginning, it will be admitted, though no worse and
perhaps much better than that which many missionaries and their families
are called upon to face in various regions of the earth. What horror is
there that missionaries have not been called upon to endure? St. Paul
tells us of his trials, but they are paralleled, if not surpassed, even
in the present day.

Missionaries, however good, may not always be wise folk; the reader
might even think the Rev. Thomas Bull to be no perfect embodiment of
wisdom, sympathy or perhaps manners, but taking them as a class they are
certainly heroic folks, who endure many things for small reward, as we
reckon reward. In nothing perhaps do they show their heroism and faith
more greatly than in their persistent habit of conveying women and young
children into the most impossible places of the earth, there to suffer
many things, not exclusive, occasionally, of martyrdom. At least the
Protestant section of their calling does this; the Roman Catholics are
wiser. In renouncing marriage these save themselves from many agonies,
and having only their own lives and health at stake, are perhaps better
fitted to face rough work in rough places.

Even Thomas Bull, not a particularly sensitive person, was tempted more
than once to arrive at similar conclusions during his period of service
in Sisa-land, although neither he nor his wife or child was called upon
to face the awful extremities that have confronted others of his cloth;
for instance, another Thomas, one Owen, who was a missionary in Zululand
at the time when Dingaan, the King, massacred Retief and his Boers
beneath his eyes.