The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1930, Page 35

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

35

a native girl could be persuaded to cover her naked-
ness with a “cotton gown and hold the child for
a little while, but it was not altogether safe if she
became offended, and more than once the future
wife of David Livingstone was thrown at her
mother’s head across the room by some angry native
girl, who would run off, cotton gown and all, leaving
nothing behind but streaks of red paint and insolent
words. And yet, in such surroundings children
were reared in this home of Moffat’s, and well
reared, too.”
Mrs. Moffat’s Courage.

Even Moffat sometimes became utterly dis-
couraged at the unpromising outlook. “Mary, this
is hard work,” he one day remarked to his daunt-
less helpmate. Her prompt answer was: “It is
hard work, Robert, but do not lose courage; souls
will be given us for a prey.” “But think, dear,
how long we have been working among these people,
and as yet no fruits have appeared.” The undis-
couraged wife replied: “The Gospel has not yet
been preached to them in their own tongue, where-
in they were born.” From that day Moffat applied
himself as he had never done before to the learning
of the language of the natives.

The.Moffats Go to Kuruman.

In 1824 the station at Lattakoo was abandoned,
and a new station was opened at Kuruman, where
there was the famous Kuruman Fountain, an ever-
flowing spring of pure, cold water.

‘At first Moffat found his work here just as un-
promising as it had been at Lattakoo. He applied
himself to learning the language and reducing it
to writing. Then he taught the natives the mys-
teries of spelling, reading, and writing. He also
spent much time in teaching the natives some of
the arts of civilization.

Meanwhile a long drought, extending over years,
visited the region and destroyed all plant life. In
one whole year only one very light shower fell upon
the parched earth. To the drought came the depre-
dations of neighboring tribes, who carried off the
little that was left. Then, however, came abundant
years, and the earth was soon covered with rich
verdure. But there came great swarms of locusts,
which devoured every green thing that came in their
way. However, the natives promptly decided that
they, in turn, would eat the locusts. Moffat writes:
“We could not feel otherwise than grateful for
this visitation on account of the poor; for as many
thousands of cattle had been taken from the natives
and gardens to an immense extent destroyed, many

hundreds of families, but for the locusts, must have
perished of hunger.”

The locusts would settle on the ground at night,
two inches thick, and could be gathered up by
ox-loads in the morning. They were thrown into
hot water, scalded, spread out, and partially dried,
when they were winnowed like wheat to clean them
of wings and legs; then they were dried more per-
fectly and stored away. Moffat relates that the
natives ate them whole, with a little salt if they
could obtain it; or they pounded them in a wooden
mortar, and when they had reduced them to some-
thing resembling meal, they mixed them with water
and made a kind of cold porridge. He says of the
locusts: “They are, on the whole, not bad food
and, when hunger has made them palatable, are
eaten as a matter of course. When well prepared,
they are almost as good as shrimps.”

Sowing in Hope.

When Moffat came to Kuruman, he found the
people almost utterly destitute of all religious ideas.
The missionaries’ words concerning Christ’s atone-
ment for man’s sin, and what they had to tell them
of the resurrection of the body, seemed wholly in-
credible to them. But though they refused to ac-
cept Moffat’s teachings, they liked him personally
very much and were willing to do almost anything
to please him. Their personal devotion to him
brought them to the services, since they saw that
it made him unhappy to see them stay away. One |
day he preached to them of the final destruction
of the world on the Last Day; but the only im-
pression his sermon madé’ on them was the thought
that this would mean the loss of thousands of cattle.
His efforts to interest them in heaven and plant in
them a desire to go there were futile for a long,
long time. When, one day, he asked the more
thoughtful among his hearers what they most de-
sired, the prompt answer was, “A great fire covered
with potfuls of meat!” Who will deny that these
experiences must have been most disheartening to
the missionary? In other respects also his lot was
not the most pleasant. About his opportunities to
study he writes: “My situation was not very well
suited for study among a noisy rabble and a con-
stant influx of beggars. Writing was a task of great
difficulty owing to the flies crowding into the ink-
horn or clustering around the point of the pen and
pursuing it on paper, drinking the ink as fast as
it flowed. ‘The night brought little relief, for as
soon as the candle was lighted, innumerable insects
swarmed around it to put it out.”