Shining Brightly in the Dark Continent: Robert Moffat
It is in the dark that a light shines brightest and best. This is so in the spiritual world, as in the natural. Africa has been called the “Dark Continent,” and from the early ages of mankind and of the Christian Church, there have been sons of light to illumine the “Dark Continent,” so that the lustre of the bright rays could give guidance and cheer to those who were in the shadow of death in that region and beyond. Moses was a light in the “Dark Continent,” and the world has since his day been profited by the light that shone from him as an illumining centre.
In the early Christian days, the white-souled Philip, as a messenger of Christ, was sent to preach the truth as to his Master to a dark-skinned Ethiopian; and by the grace of God he sent him rejoicing, that he might bear the glad tidings to others who sat in darkness and in the shadow of death. It was to Africa that young Samuel J. Mills, the pioneer student volunteer missionary, of Williams College “haystack” fame, directed his steps as a field of labor for Christ; and it was there that he laid down his life for his Master. From the earliest time to the present there have been bright missionary lights shining into the darkness of 5’
Africa, and sending out their cheery rays to be a help and a guide to those outside. It has been my privilege to know missionaries in Africa who were a blessing to me, while they were being such a blessing to others.
A veteran missionary hero of the South African field whom all the Christian world honors, and to whom natives of the Dark Continent owe much for time and for eternity, whom I am glad to have looked upon, and to have looked up to, and heard, was Robert Moffat. He was a soldier of Christ, a winner of souls, the translator of the Bible into the language of the Bechwanas. His devoted wife and faithful co-worker, educated under choice Moravian influences, was Mary Smith of Scotland; and his daughter, Mary Moffat, was wife and loving helper of David Livingstone. It was a great privilege to look into that saintly face, and to hear that winsome voice of his.
Robert Moffat, while a young gardener in his Scottish home, saw a placard on the wall announcing, what was then more of a novelty than now, a missionary meeting in a neighboring hall. The appeal came home to him as a call to personal service. He at once resolved to heed it, and he gave himself to the work. Sixty years before I met him he had gone out, as a representative of the London Missionary Society, among the still savage Hottentots, beyond the Dutch Boer settlements of Cape Colony in South Africa.
A famous Hottentot chief and desperado, Jager, in Namaqualand, was at that time, and had been for years, the dread and terror of Christians and of all European settlers. Moffat went to look him up. God had gone before. Jager had already become somewhat interested in the gospel message, as he had heard it declared by another missionary worker, and although not a convert, he received Moffat with unexpected kindness. Moffat remained there for a season with the yet savage despot and tyrant, “exposed to the sun, rain, dogs, snakes, and cattle, doing his own cooking, and often having nothing to cook or to eat, consoling himself with his violin and Scotch Psalms,” while preaching and teaching, and laying the foundations of a new character in the chief and his people, and a new civilization in the Dark Continent.
When Moffat took his new pupil, hitherto the dreaded Hottentot outlaw Jager, now the convert “Christian Africaner,” into Cape Town, to present him to the governor, he had somewhat the experiences of Barnabas with Saul of Tarsus when he introduced him as Paul the Apostle at Antioch and Jerusalem, — many were afraid of the new convert, “not believing that he was a disciple.” But the way was won for the gospel and its triumphs in that field, and the world saw and believed.
Single-handed, Robert Moffat translated the Bible into the language of the people to whom he was sent as God’s messenger, while at the same time he was preparing that people to receive and to profit by the written word he was translating. The difficulties of that undertaking can hardly be conceived. There was no written language for him to use when he began his work of translation. He must create it, to begin with, and then reduce it to grammatical form. The people themselves must be new created as to modes of thought and speech. For thirty years Moffat toiled at this work, and, as his life span grew nearer its limit, he was miserly of his minutes, lest he should misuse them in some other way than the very best. At length, as Moffat was almost fourscore years of age, the Bechwana Bible was complete, and he was recalled’to England to supervise its publishing and final igsue.
It was in London in the spring of 1881 that I saw and heard Robert Moffat, at a missionary reception at the Lord Mayor’s, at the Mansion House. There were representatives there from many lands, Christian men and women who were known of over the world. Yet no one in all that company was more a centre of loving interest and of hearty reverence than the missionary veteran hero of South Africa. He was more than fourscore and five years old, yet his eye was bright, his face shone with the light that never dims, and his voice was clear and penetrating. When he spoke, and all listened, his testimony seemed to be that there were no hardships in Christ’s service, or “none to speak of,” but that every step in the missionary’s path was one of blessing. And as he said it, and looked it, we who listened couldn’t believe anything else.