CHAPTER XXIX

Summary

While thus the judgments of the Lord were abroad among the tribes, the appearances on the station were indicative of the long-desired change. The temporary chapel was becoming too small. The readiness with which many answered the questions of Dr. William Brown's Catechism, which had been translated, and an increasing fixedness of attention to the preacher, were like the glimmering light on the eastern sky, so long watched for,—the presaging tints of the brighter rays which were, ere long, to gild the horizon,—the harbingers of the Sun of Righteousness arising on a benighted people.

Mr. Hamilton, who had been detained unusually long in the colony and on the road, from severe drought and loss of oxen, to our great joy arrived in the end of August, 1828. This veteran and faithful labourer, who might with great propriety be called the father of the Bechuana mission, was beyond measure delighted to find, although our circumstances had been perilous during his absence, that now his mental energies were to be called into exercise in a way he had scarcely dared to anticipate. Shortly after this we were favoured with the manifest outpouring of the Spirit from on high. The moral wilderness was now about to blossom. Sable cheeks bedewed with tears attracted our observation. To see females weep was nothing extraordinary; it was, according to Bechuana notions, their province, and theirs alone.