ABSTRACT
A BOUT the time when I was beginning torealise how actual mission work differed from the romantic ideas of it too commonly entertained at home, and overcharged with which many enter the field, a notable missionary-A. M. Mackay-far away in Uganda was writing these words :_CC Current ideas at home as to mission work are, I fear, very different; but I have not heard of any part of Africa, east or west, where the native bearing to the Missions is different from what it is in this neighbourhood. It is a system of beggary from beginning to end, and too often of suspicion, and more or less hostility too. Only when these first adverse stages are passed can we expect to do any real good. Disarming suspicion and securing friendship are a slow proc-ess, but an absolutely necessary one. They are most wearisome and trying to the faith and temper of those engaged in the task, while they
yield no returns to show in mission reports; yet on their success depends the future of our work. Hereabout we are so far from the reaping stage, that we can scarcely be said to be sowing. We are merely clearing the ground, and cutting down the natural growth of suspicion and jealousy, and clearing out the hard stones of ignorance and superstition. Only after the ground is thus in some measure prepared and broken up, can we cast in the seed with hope of a harvest in God's good time."
