souls of men! On no part of earth's surface, in no state or condition of mankind, can we find a parallel to thy woes! Thy skies have been obscured with smoke from towns in flames! Thy lovely, sunny groves transformed to lions' dens! Thy burning deserts bedewed with the agonizing tears of bereaved mothers! And thy winds have re-echoed back to thy blood-stained soil the orphan's cry, the widow's wail! Such is Africa! How long, O Lord, how long? "Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered? But thus saith the Lord, Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered; for I will contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I will save thy children." Yea, her day is dawning, and her redemption draweth nigh. Already her ransomed sons in our western isles are raising their hearts in songs of blest anticipation. Yes, Africa is stretching forth her hands unto God! We have heard of gods many, and lords many, and idols innumerable in heathen lands, let us now hear a voice from the interior of Southern Africa, where he who addresses you has spent the greatest portion of his life. During that period, he has had innumerable opportunities of witnessing the state, and investigating the real character and condition of many interior tribes. His lot was cast beyond the line of demarcation which separates Christendom from kingdoms wide that sit in darkness; and at all times in a situation where he could take his stand, and look to an interminable distance, covered with innumerable tribes, all, all, without exception, dwelling in the land of the shadow of death! No temples, no altars, no sacred groves there; no shasters, no koran, no holy relics there; not one solitary idol there; neither "the likeness of any thing in the heavens above, or in the earth beneath," to represent a sacred being; no idea in the minds of the multitude that there is any thing greater or more powerful than mortal man. Their thoughts never scaled the skies, nor sought to pry into the wonders infinite with which they are surrounded. Among the thousands and tens of thousands inhabiting those regions, there is not the shadow of an idol god, nor the slightest belief remaining that there is a Creator, Preserver, or Governor of all things! As the last rays of tradition have sunk beneath their intellectual horizon, the invisible things of God from the creation are no more seen and understood by the things which are made. Every traditionary account of what was, or who is, in relation to God, having become extinct, they bear ample testimony that it is not in nature alone to lead to nature's God. However startling this may be to you, and however some may doubt of my ability to prove these assertions, they are as notorious as they are humbling to man; for it only proves what the Scriptures affirm, that man, by nature, is like the wild ass's colt, wise to do evil, but to do good, he has no knowledge; and thus man is only a religious creature in proportion to the knowledge he possesses of divine things. Whence cometh knowledge and understanding? Surely not from the corrupt and degraded minds of the children of wrath, who love darkness rather than light. If man has sunk to such a depth in ignorance, and wandered to so awful a distance from the source of light and life, during the space of four thousand years, what would his condition be if permitted to wander on a few thousand years more? I am aware that some do not take this view of the subject; for I have often read and heard that the idea of a Supreme Being under some character or name exists in every nation; and that every human mind, in whatever land or clime, retained some notions of the necessity of an atonement. Leaving opinion, however, let us turn our attention to a few facts relative to the mental and moral condition of the tribes in southern Africa, some of which are incontrovertibly the most degraded and ignorant of the whole family of mankind. We have heard of the praying mantis of the Hottentots, and it has been said that they yielded some kind of homage to that insect. To what extent this homage prevailed among that people, and what was its nature, I have never been able to learn, as I have never met with one of that people who knew any thing on the subject. The Namaquas and Corannas, who lie far beyond the Hottentot tribes, and who are the same people, having the same customs and possessing the same nondescript language, know nothing of such a worship. B During my stay among the Great Namaquas, beyond the Great Orange river, where the Hottentot nation may be seen in its original and unmixed state, I have often taken up the mantis in my hand and put the question to the gentle, the simple, the wise and the unwise; but the reply invariably was, We never heard of such a worship. The name, and the only name which these tribes have for God, is Tsuikuap, which, in its etymological derivation, signifies neither more nor less than a sore, or wounded knee. How this appellation was applied to the Divine Being I cannot conceive; for all that is known of this great Tsuikuap, or wounded knee, is, that he was a great sorcerer, or perhaps, with more probability, a chief of ancient renown.* The only instance of superstitious fear that I ever witnessed among the Great Namaquas was at a village where I was sojourning. During the night the village was attacked by lions, and the women were loud and long in their cries and complaints against the sorcerer, who, they maintained, had entered into the lion to revenge their ingratitude to him for some services which he considered were not sufficiently awarded. The Kafirs on the south-east coast have adopted the same Tsuikuap, or Utiko of the Hottentots, which evidently shows that their language, a good index of the mind, did not possess a name to denote the Divine Being.† *See Note A. † See Note B. The Bushmen, again, descended, as I presume, from the Hottentot tribes, are, of all the inhabitants of South Africa the most wretched and degraded. They are the common pirates of the desert, and, in many instances, they have been compelled to become so by the cruelty and avarice of those who have taken possession of their lands, their game, and their wild honey. They have neither house nor hall. Their most delightful home is in the unfrequented desert, or secluded recesses of a cave, or ravine. They remove from place to place as convenience or necessity requires, when a few branches and a little grass constitute the materials of their humble domiciles. They have neither flocks nor herds, and their earthly all the females carry on their backs. Though shrewd in their minds and active in their dispositions, they have no name nor knowledge of a Divine Being.* When the Missionaries commenced their labours among the Bechuanas, a people distinct, and in many respects superior to those tribes we have just been describing, did they find among them any thing like idolatry, religion, or religious awe? No, they found a nation of infidels! They possessed a copious language, a social and patriarchal government, and manners and customs indicating that they had descended from generations farther advanced in knowledge than the present. But was there any thing like legends among them, or altar * See Note C. |