Robert Moffat | Page 4

of the missionaries
and their wives was most distressing. Among a feeble and timid people,
with scarcely any means of defence, a bare country around, no
mountain, glen, or cave in which they could take refuge, under a
burning sun and on a glowing plain, distant two hundred miles from the
abodes of civilised men, between which and them lay the dreary
wilderness and the Orange River; such was their position, with the
human lion in his lair, ready to rouse himself up to deeds of rapine and
blood.
For a whole month they were in constant terror, hourly expecting the
threatened attack. Their souls revolted at the idea of abandoning the
people, who were suffering from want, to become a prey to a man from
whom they could expect no quarter. On one occasion they dug a square
hole in the ground, about six feet deep, that in case of an attack they
might escape the musket balls. In this they remained for the space of a
week, having the tilt sail of a waggon thrown over the mouth of the pit
to keep off the burning rays of an almost vertical sun. Eventually they
withdrew northward to the base of the Karas mountains, but finding it
impossible to settle, retired to the Colony.

Africaner approached the station, and finding it deserted, plundered it
of whatever articles could be found; one of his followers afterwards
setting fire to the houses and huts. Thus for a season, this mission was
brought to a close. It was after a time resumed at a place south of the
Orange River named Pella.
Thus missions in South Africa had been commenced, stations among
the Hottentots and others had been formed, good work had been done,
and the way pioneered. The field was opened and it was wide, but as
yet the labourers were few.
At the time when Vanderkemp closed his eyes on this world, a lad was
working as an apprentice to a Scotch gardener, rising in the dense
darkness of the cold winter's mornings at four o'clock, and warming his
knuckles by knocking them against the handle of his spade. He was
passing through a hard training, but this lad was being prepared to take
up the work which Vanderkemp had so well begun, though in a
somewhat different sphere, and to repair the loss which had been
sustained by the missionary cause through his death. The name of this
lad was Robert Moffat.
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CHAPTER II.
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH.
Robert Moffat was born on the 21st of December, 1795. His parents
dwelt at that time at Ormiston, in East Lothian, Scotland. They were
pious God-fearing people; the mother though holding a stern religious
faith, yet possessed a most tender loving heart, and very early sought to
instil into the minds and hearts of her children the love of God and a
knowledge of the Holy Scriptures.
Of the early childhood of the future missionary very little is stated. In
1797 his father received an appointment in the Custom House at

Portsoy, and in 1806 the home of the Moffats was at Carronshore, on
the Firth of Forth. At this time the family consisted of four sons and
two daughters, besides the subject of this memoir.
A glimpse of the interior of their cottage, during the long winter
evenings, is given, which shows how the mother by her gentle
influence may become the means of sowing seed, which shall spring up
in after years bearing fruit a hundred-fold. The lads were gathered by
the fireside learning to knit and sew, and while so engaged their mother,
who took great interest in the missionary enterprises then carried on,
read aloud, in such publications as she could obtain, the descriptions
given of the work and sufferings of the pioneer labourers in heathen
lands, more especially of the Moravians in Greenland and the East
Indies.
Of educational advantages, Robert had but few in his early days. One,
"Wully Mitchell," as he was popularly called, the parish schoolmaster
was his first tutor; and "the Shorter Catechism," the title-page of which
contained the alphabet, his first instruction book. His progress was but
slow, his hands often being made to suffer for the dullness of his brains.
A boy living in the midst of shipping, his desires were more for
nautical matters than for Wully's books, and so he ran off to sea. The
captain of the ship on which he was, became much attached to the lad,
so with his parent's consent, he made several voyages in the coasting
trade. Many hairbreadth escapes fell to his lot, and at last he quitted the
sea, as he states "to the no small joy of my parents."
When about eleven he accompanied his elder brother, Alexander, to Mr.
Paton's