"They knew of it," replied the missionary, who proceeded to describe
the scenes of the last great day.
"You startle me: these words make all my bones to shake;
I have no more strength in me. But my forefathers were living
at the same time yours were; and how is it that they did not send them word
about these terrible things? They all passed away into darkness
without knowing whither they were going."
Mr. Moffat had translated the Bible into the Bechuana language,
which he had reduced to writing, and Sechele set himself to learn to read,
with so much assiduity that he began to grow corpulent
from lack of his accustomed exercise. His great favorite was Isaiah.
"He was a fine man, that Isaiah; he knew how to speak," he was wont to say,
using the very words applied by the Glasgow Professor to the Apostle Paul.
Having become convinced of the truth of Christianity, he wished his people
also to become Christians. "I will call them together," he said, "and with
our rhinoceros-skin whips we will soon make them all believe together."
Livingstone, mindful, perhaps, of the ill success of his worthy father
in the matter of Wilberforce on "Practical Christianity",
did not favor the proposed line of argument. He was, in fact,
in no great haste to urge Sechele to make a full profession of faith
by receiving the ordinance of baptism; for the chief had,
in accordance with the customs of his people, taken a number of wives,
of whom he must, in this case, put away all except one.
The head-wife was a greasy old jade, who was in the habit of attending church
without her gown, and when her husband sent her home to make her toilet,
she would pout out her thick lips in unutterable disgust
at his new-fangled notions, while some of the other wives
were the best scholars in the school.
