CHAPTER XIII

Summary

It is an agreeable and profitable exercise, to take a retrospective view of those events, whatever their character, which have led to important results; and surely, to the mind of the missionary, it must be delightful to look back along the channel, tracing through all its windings the little till of the water of life, until it is observed oozing from beneath a mountain peak. Like an African river, it now swells, and then dwindles,—is now rapid, then slowly spreads its refreshing waters over a large surface of desert waste,—now disappears, and then rises in another part of its course, in which it resumes a steady flow—affording, at all seasons, permanent fertility, to the advantage of those who assemble on its banks, or come within the range of its influence.

The mind of the writer has been led to these reflections by a minute survey of the rise and progress of the Griqua mission, which, although embracing more variety in the national character of its objects than perhaps any other in Africa, exhibits much sameness; but, nevertheless, its history, extending to more than forty years, presents us with some remarkable displays of Divine power in causing missionary enterprise to triumph over no common difficulties. Its fluctuations have been very numerous, but this is not surprising, when it is remembered that it was commenced at the Zak River, on the borders of the colony, in the year 1799, being one of the two branches of the Missionary Society's first efforts in South Africa.