Kaffers, they fay, are a volatile race, extremely good-humoured,
but turn into ridicule all their attempts to convert
them to Chriftianity. Mr. Kicherer, a regular bred minifter
of the reformed church, and a gentleman of mild and perfuafive
manners, proceeded, alone and totally unprotected, into the
midft of the Bosjefman hordes on the ikirts of the Orange River.
He confidered, that a folitary being without arms, or any vifi-
ble means of doing injury to his fellow mortals, would be received
without fufpicion, and might enter into the fociety of
the moft favage hordes without danger. The event proved his
Conjectures to be right. He lived in the midft of a tribe, the
moft needy and wretched that he could difcover, for many
years; ihared with them every inconvenience; and fuffered a
total privation of all the comforts, and very frequently even of
the neceffaries, of life; with a weak conftitution, he braved the
viciffitudes of an unfteady climate in fcanty clothing, in temporary
huts and hovels that were neither proof againft wind
nor water, and oftimes in the open air; on deferts wild and
naked as thofe of Arabia; he learned their language; inftruCted
them in the benevolent doctrines of Chriftianity; and endeavoured
with enthufiaftic zeal, to affuage their miferable lot in
this life, by alluring them that there was “ Another and a
“ better w o r l d i n a word, he became fo much attached to
this moft indigent and deplorable race of human beings, who'
poffefs nothing they can call their own, but live from day to
day on the precarious fpoils of the" chaee, and commonly on
the fpontaneous products of a barren foil, that it was not without
difficulty, and great diftrefs to his feelings, he muftered re-
folution to tear himfelf from his little flock: lingering under a
difeafe
difeafe that threatened to terminate in a confumption, he could
not be prevailed upon to defert them, when urged by his
friends to accept of a vacant living of one of the colonial
churches, which was offered to him by the government.
When one reflects for a moment on the toils and hardihips, the
dangers and the difficulties, that thefe religious enthufiafts voluntarily
undergo, without any profpeCt of reward, or even reputation,
in this world, it is impoffible to withhold admiration at a
conduCt fo feemingly difinterefted, and whofe motives appear to
be under an influence fo, different from that by which moft
human actions are governed. Whatever degree of merit may
be due to this clafs of miffionaries, the practical philofopher
will, unqueftionably, give the preference to the plan of the
Moravians, which unites with precepts of religion and morality
a fpirit of ufeful labour; and whofe grand aim is to make their
difciples comfortable in this world, as a token or earneft of that
which is to come. But after all the toil and anxiety which the
worthy character above mentioned cheerfully underwent in
the caufe of fuffering humanity, what muft his feelings be, if
he ftill be living, and happens to perufe the following letter, to
find that his only reward is that of being confidered by the vile
people of the Cape as the abettor of murder, and that he has
been with others the innocent caufe .of fifteen of his inoffen-
five difciples being inhumanly butchered in cold blood by thofe
remorfelefs colonifts who dare to call themfelves by the facred
name of Chriftians. This letter, which juft reached me as
the prefent work was going to the prefs, will ferve to ftiew,
among other faCts I fhall have occafioa to ftate, of what deliberate