The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-05-14 00:00:00

DR. MOFFAT AT THE MANSION
HOUSE.

On Saturday evenktg the Lord Mayor of London
gave a banquet at the Mansion-house to the Rev. Dr.
Moffat and the representatives of the various mission-
ary societies and others interested in missionary work.
The company included the Archbishop of Canterbury,
Earl Nelson, the Earl of Shaftesbury, the Bishops of
Gloucester, of Sodor and Man, North China, Labuan,
Antigua, and Victoria, Bishops Claughton, Tufnell,
and Perry, Sir R. Temple, Sir T. F. Buxton, the
C President of the Wesleyan onference, Sir J. Risdon
Bennett, the Rev. Dr. Allon, Archdeacon Blomfield,
the Rev. Canon Farrar, the Rev. J. Guinness Rogers,
the Rev. Dr. Mackay, the Rev. j. A. Spurgeon, the
Rev. Dr. Donald Fraser, and the Rev. Newman Hall.
After the loyal toasts,
The Lord Mayor proposed "The Health of the
Archbishop of Canterbury," to which his Grace re-
plied.
In proposing the toast of the evening, "The
Health of Dr. Moffat," the Lord Mayor said :—Dr.
Moffat's very name recalled memories both near and
remote. To have been nearly 60 years identified with
missions, more than half a century actually in the
mission field, was a fact in itself absolutely unique
in the history of Christian missions. There were
many old people now living who remembered when,
as children, they were first interested in the mis-
sionary cause by stories of the great and good work
which Dr. Moffat was doing in Southern Africa.
It was about 1817 that Dr. Moffat first visited that
country, and it was not a little remarkable that about
the same time John Williams, the Martyr of
Eromanga, left for the South Seas. The labours of
those devoted men, their toils and triumphs read more
like a romance than real history. Dr. Moffat's labours
among the Bechuanas and their direct influence over
many thousands of degraded Africans were most
beneficial. The mission-station of Kuruman became
a centre of Christian light and civilization in a region
previously given over to the grosser superstitions and
cruelties of heathendom. Dr. Moffat and his com-
panions had no easy task before them. They were
completely cut off from the civilized world, and pro-
bably at one time Daniel in the lion's den was not con-
fronted by greater dangers. What, under the Divine
blessing, was the secret of their success? Doubtless,
animated by the true missionary spirit, Dr. Moffat
could say with the Apostle Paul, "None of these
things move me, neither count I my life dear to me,
so that I might finish my course with joy, and the
ministry that I .have received of the Lord Jesus to
testify the Gospel of the Grace of God." Like the
same apostle he had also a true love for the people
among whom he laboured, patient in suffering, stead-
fast in well doing, content to sow the seed in con-
fidence that he would one day reap the harvest Of
him it might be truly said—

44 Thou didst not disdain to teach
To savage hordes celestial truth, '
To infant tongues thy mother's speech,
Enobiing arts to youth,
Till warriors flung their arms aside,
O'er bloodless fields the plough to guide."
Cne of Dr. Moffat's greatest achievements was his
translating the Holy Scriptures into the Bechuana
language; and the world also owed a debt of gratitude
to Dr. Moffat for inducing Dr. Livingstone to turn
his steps towards Africa. It was to Kuruman, Dr.
Moffat's station, that Livingstone wended his way
when he arrived in Africa. It was Dr. Moffat's
daughter that he married. The names of Moffat and
Livingstone would remain inseparable in their triumphs
of Christianity and its results of civilization in Africa.
The toast was cordially drunk, and
Dr. Moffat, in responding, sketched his remarkable
African career among the Namaquas and Bechuanas,
the influence he attained by long
' perseverance under
difficulties, his meeting with Livingstone whom he
induced also to select Africa as the field of his labours,
and the gratitude he felt at the prospect which now
existed of the rapid evangelisation of that great con-
tinent. They had now the Scriptures translated,
printed, and circulated amongst a people covering 700
miles of country in South Africa, and, besides nume-
rous conversions, natives had been trained to preach
and to defend the doctrines of the Gospel. (Applause.)

. The Daily Telegraph in a leader noticing the above meeting,
remarks :

Whatever other differences of opinion may exist
among those assembled to do honour to Dr. Moffat,
none of the guests would dream of denying the value of
such a life work as that of the patriarchal missionary
of Southern Africa, the friend and father-in-law of
Livingstone. Dr. Moffat is now an old man, over
eighty years of age, and he has spent nearly half a
century among the Namaquas and Bechuanas and
other African tribes. The "grand old man," as Lord
Shaftesbury aptly termed Dr. Moffatt, must have felt
warmed and cheered by the tokens of "affection and
respect" which he received on Saturday; and the
graceful compliment is one which is paid not only to
Or. Moffat, but through him to all those
who, "with simple hearts and true piety, leave
behind the charms of social and domesgc life to en-
dure privations an sorrow and danger, with the sole
object of advancing the temporal and eternal welfare
of all mankind." Perhaps Dr. Moffat, with all his
great experience and knowledge of Mika, may have
been a little too sanguine when he spoke of the
gratitude he felt for the prospects of "the rapid
evangelisation of the great continent." The truth
is that merely the hem of the vast problem
has already been touched, and it will be centuries
yet before civilisation, to say nothing of Chris-
tianity, really permeates the length and breadth
of the land where so many missionaries and travellers
have laid down their lives in the cause of Humanity.
It will be done, the great work of civilising Equatorial
and Tropical Africa, by such steady efforts as Dr.
Moffat set on foot in his magnificent record of mission-
ary toil; and the translation of the Bible into the
Bechuana language is one of those laborious tasks
which the "grand old patriarch" carried through, and
which will have untold influence on the future of the
country.
In the long and noble roll of those who have ad-
vanced European comprehension of the great con-
tinent which stretches southward from the shores of
the Mediterranean, there are some who, like Stanley,
Speke, Baker, or Cameron, have been simply ex-
plorers ; others who, like Dr. Moffat, have been
missionaries chiefly ; and still others who have, like
Dr. Livingstone, combined in themselves the charac-
teristics of both missionary and traveller. With
all that these devoted men have done, and with all
that our great missionary societies are doing, the
land of the Nile and the Congo still remains by far
the finest field for the enteprising explorer which
exists on the face of our planet. The Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, in his speech at the Mansion
House, took occasion to contrast the efforts of mis-
sionaries with those of traders, or with the more
potent but less Christian influence exerted by Euro-
pean soldiers. "Your stations," he told Dr. Moffat
and the missionaries generally, " act as centres of
light, far better than the encampments of the troops,
and far better even than our commercial stations."
Putting out of sight the troops, who, from the
nature of 'things, cannot pretend to be active
propagandists of Christianity, though they
.dp
valuable work in opening up a county to civi-
lisation, trade is an influence which is able to
work hand in hand with missionary enterprise. By
introducing the arts and sciences, the instruments
and materials of our advanced -European civilisation
into such a country as Africa, we can often do as
much to awaken the minds of the natives as by
the more unselfish exertions of our missionaries.
Dr. Moffat, in his interesting book of "Missionary
Labours and Scenes in Southern Africa,' has
borne testimony to the effect which commerce,
properly conducted, is able to exert in the way
of aiding the efforts of the missionary or the
philanthropist. We are glad that this patriarchal and
veteran pioneer is still, after fifty years of African
climate, hale and hearty enough to attend a banquet
in London, and receive the well-earned laudations of
such a distinguished company as assembled at the
Mansion House on Saturday. Many like-minded
travellers have left their bones to bleach on arid
deserts, or to lie in fever swamps, in the same good
cause; but Dr.. Moffat comes home, more fortunate in
that respect than his great son-in-law, to stimulate a
younger. generation, and to enjoy a merited repose
after a life of devoted toil.