restless aggressor at bay. The next morning a Council of War was held in the Emperor's apartments, at which Prince Albert, Marshal Vaillant, Lord Palmerston, etc., were present. They sat several hours, but with unsatisfactory results; and, after drawing up a protocol of this conference, the Prince struck out a definite plan of operations, which was considered at another Council; and finally he wrote out a scheme of agreement which was signed by Lord Panmure and Marshal Vaillant. So

far as the armies were concerned, the alliance was a mistake. The French wanted all the glory and as little of the trouble as possible. The Parisian press, being under the strict control of the Imperial censorship, dared not expose the blunders of their commander and the faults of the commissariat; whilst our own papers exaggerated whatever could tell to our disadvantage, and pointed to French management as perfect, at the very time when the Gallic army was suffering severely from neglect.

On April 19th, the Queen, Prince, Emperor and Empress went to London. Her Majesty writes in her Diary: I cannot say why, but their departure makes me melancholy...... Passing through the rooms, the hall, and down the staircase, with all its State guards, and the fine old yeomen; the very melancholy tune (Partant pour la Syrie); the feeling that all, about which there had been so much excitement, trouble, anxiety and expectation, was past; the doubtfulness of the future-all made me, I know not why, quite wehmüthig; and I hear that the Empress was equally sad at going away from Windsor.'

Mr. Martin suggests that: 'The sadness might almost be said to be prophetic of the changed circumstances under which first the Empress, and sometime later the Emperor, after he left Wilhelmshöhe, dis

crowned and bankrupt in fortune, were to see their royal host, herself a widowed Queen, again on the same spot.'

In the Autograph Book of the Prince of Wales the Emperor wrote some pretty lines of German poetry, which had been originally penned for himself, and which are striking as being chosen for the purpose by one who certainly had not the reputation of being devoted to Truth,' and

whose views of 'Duty' were not unseldom clouded with thick mists of selfishness. Mr. Martin thus trans

lates the lines :

'Youth, of soul unstained and pure, Innocent and fresh in feeling, Choose and ponder, but be sure

World's praise never sways thy dealing! Though the crowd with plaudits hail thee, Though their calumnies assail thee, Swerve not; but remember, youth,

Minstrel praises oft betray, Narrow is the path of Truth,

Duty threads 'twixt chasms her way.'

The Emperor returned to Paris to find his popularity increased at home by the attentions shown him here; and displayed good sense by at once relinquishing his pet project of going to the Crimea in person and finishing the war at a stroke. A glow of good feeling thrilled through him just now toward the Queen and Prince. In fact, Louis Napoleon was neither the heartless sharper of Victor Hugo's imagination, nor the contemptible sensualist depicted by Mr. Kinglake, any more than he was the perfect sovereign portrayed by Mr. Blanchard Jerrold. To him, who had passed nearly six dreary years in the monotony of the fortress of Ham, and whose later time had been spent in the society of adventurers and sycophants, the frank, friendly bearing of Prince Albert, every inch a man,' and his free, sagacious, lively conversation, came with all the charm of freshness and goodness, and caused him to leave the atmosphere of the English Court with a sincere sigh of regret.

THE spot selected as the scene of Tiyo Soga's labours amongst his own countrymen was the Mgwali, about thirty miles from King William's Town, and near the headquarters of the Gaika tribe. Here for about eleven

years he laboured with unflagging zeal to convert his people to Christianity. The present writer having lived more than two years on the borders of Kaffir land, and having been closely associated with the men who are worthy successors of the distinguished pioneers of our Kaffir Missions, wishes especially to impress the minds of his English readers with the fact that our Missionaries still have hardships, trials and discouragements in their daily work, calling for the deepest sympathy and most earnest prayers of Christian people at home. It is, however, when trouble comes that the hardship of the position is most fully realized. When the Missionary and his wife have to watch the life ebbing out from a beloved child, with no doctor within reach; to fashion a rough coffin out of an old packing-case with their own hands; and then to wait for the arrival of a brother Missionary from the next station, fifty miles away, whom they have asked to come and read the Burial Service-circumstances which have happened to personal friends of the writer, it is then that the isolation is most keenly felt, and the Missionary may be forgiven if he long for a sphere of labour nearer the regions of civilized life.

The following paragraph from Tiyo Soga's memoir sets the special trials of missionary-life in so judicious a light, showing at the same time how bitter were his own experiences of them, that we cannot refrain from quoting it entire :

Some men may imagine that missionlife among the Kaffirs is all sunshine and ease, as the Missionary has a sort of magisterial authority to direct the people under his charge: the reality is far otherwise. This false conception of mission-work may be traced to the fact, that the outside world sees only the bright side of the picture, and hears only the most favourable reports of the work. If Christians at home knew what it is to labour in "the high places of the earth," among a barbarous people, they would acknowledge that it requires a marvellous amount of patience and faithfulness to duty, to grapple with the varied and numerous discouragements. Kaffirs have been described as "South African Scotchmen." They have been said to be to the Missionary what the British soldier is to his officer-ready at any moment to answer to his call. Whatever they may have been in the past, the present generation is not so tractable. If the Missionary is faithful, or desirous of preserving the good order and purity of his station, he must suffer much and endure much in the discharge of his duty. There is no romance in mission-work amongst the Kafirs. There can be no romance in the conflict between Christianity and barbarism for the mastery. The Missionary must often fall back upon some reserved fund of faith, acquired in calmer and more peaceful times, when he is sternly reproving immorality, selfishness and drunkenness. Tiyo Soga very soon experienced that the Missionary life is one of peculiar trials and difficulties; and he was so exquisitely sensitive, that he was easily cast down and almost disheartened. No sooner did he congratulate himself upon the completion of the church building, than he encountered some very painful experiences. No sooner were peace and harmony restored to his station, which had been broken by shameless vice, than his countrymen vied with each other to vex and harass him, and far beyond what they would have ventured upon with a European, or with one whose antecedents they had not known.'

Tiyo Soga's own records of his labours at the Mgwali are remarkable chiefly for the lamentations they contain over the indifference of the Gaikas, his own people, and the emphatic testimony which he gives to

the superior character of the Fingoes. As our Own successes have been greatest with the single exception of Kama's tribe-amongst the latter people, this testimony is of special interest to the readers of this Magazine. It reflects great credit on Tiyo Soga that he should have been so willing to do justice to a people held in profound contempt by his own and other Kaffir tribes. The contrast presented in the following quotations holds good of Missionary operations generally amongst these people as well as of Tiyo Soga's personal experience:

'The surrounding population is composed of Fingoes and Kaffirs. The docility of the former is as remarkable as is the indifference of the latter....The Kaffirs, my own countrymen, are still careless, and manifest only outward respect for the Word....But my greatest source of encour. agement in labouring among the heathen is from the Fingoes. With few exceptions they manifest a docility and willingness to hear the Word. In itinerating among my countrymen, the Kaffirs, one requires a large degree of courage to go from hut to hut, and bring out to service the reluctant inmates. Were this not done we would wait long for an audience. I have not found it necessary to do this among the Fingoes....Most of the Fingoes manifest a very pleasing regard for the Lord's-day. They abstain from work. Some of them, indeed, plume themselves a good deal on their observance of the "great day," as the Sabbath is generally called by them and the Kaffirs.'

It is very suggestive to any one fully acquainted with the Kaffir character and with recent events, to find Tiyo Soga, so far back as 1860, recording his conviction that there would never be another Kaffir war, unless it should be an outbreak of 'a kind of incurable natural insanity.' Most intelligent residents on the frontier of Cape Colony during 1877 will be inclined to say that a truer description of the war with Kreli and Sandilli could not be written. In the records of ordinary missionary-work on the station of this devoted Missionary, we now and then meet with

striking incidents and racy bits of Kaffir eloquence or humour which we should like to transcribe, but we must content ourselves with one specimen. One of the members of his Church, on being asked to pray at the conclusion of the service, prayed thus for his Missionary:

'Lord, sharpen kim. What man is there who owns an axe, and who, when he goes into the bush to fell the trees, does not grind and sharpen it, that he may do more execution with it; or, what cutting instrument is it to which the possessor thereof does not endeavour to give the keenest edge, that he may cut with it to some effect? Do so with Thy servant! The grindstone is in Thy hand, and so also is the power of sharpening upon it. Exercise Thy power upon him, then, O Lord!'

We fancy there are sermons sometimes preached to other than Kaffir congregations at the close of which the prayer, Lord, sharpen him,' would be appropriate.

In addition to the occasional journeys into the colony which he had to take for various purposes, the monotony of Tiyo Soga's ordinary mission-station life during the ten or eleven years he was at Mgwali was broken by four notable events. The first and most notable of these events was a journey to Cape Town in no less illustrious company than that of Prince Alfred (the Duke of Edinburgh), Sir George Grey, Governor of the colony, and suite, on board H.M.S. Euryalus. The occasion was a State visit of Sandilli and his chief counsellors to the capital of the colony, which had been planned by the Governor with the twofold design of inspiring confidence in the mind of the Gaika Chief in the friendly intentions of the Government towards him, and at the same time impressing him with a sense of British greatness. As the suspicious old Chief refused to go unless the Missionary accompanied him, Tiyo Soga was invited and urged to do so, and for many reasons he felt it his duty to consent.

There are many naïve touches in his account of the voyage and his description of the Prince, the Governor, and others of the distinguished fellow-voyagers with whom he was thus brought into such unexpected and close association. It is noteworthy as illustrating the difference which Christianity makes, that, while the habits of the heathen Chief and his counsellors rendered it necessary for provision to be made for their meals in their own cabin, the humble Kaffir Missionary was honoured with a seat at the same table as the Prince and suite, and appears to have been treated with the greatest respect by every individual of the party, the Prince manifesting his personal sentiments by presenting him on parting with a beautifullybound Bible inscribed with his own autograph. In Cape Town the Kaffir Minister preached to crowded congregations, and won for himself and his work the interest and sympathy of a number of people who had both the ability and the will to render him effective help, eventually returning to his station loaded with favours and with a heart full of gratitude and encouragement.

The second of the events to which we referred above was an up-country journey undertaken for the benefit of his health, in the course of which he had an opportunity of observing the work carried on by the Moravians in their interesting station at Shiloh, near Queenstown; by the Wesleyans at Lesseyton and Glen Grey (Mount Arthur Circuit), and by the French Missionaries in Basutoland. It is pleasing to note that he seems to have been more favourably impressed with the character of our work than anything else he saw during his tour. He says of the people of our stations above mentioned: 'Altogether they are in advance of any native Christians I have seen.' Though, from various causes, those

stations are not in as flourishing a condition as they were then, the writer is able to testify, from personal knowledge, to the correctness of this estimate of the character of our native members there.

The next remarkable event in the life of the Kaffir Missionary was a visit from the veteran Indian Missionary, Dr. Duff, who returned to England via the Cape, and visited all the principal Presbyterian Missions in South Africa. The Kaffir's and the Scotchman's impressions of this visit, written of course unknown to each other, are both given in the biography of the former, and afford an interesting study in the light of each writer's history and personality. We can only extract Dr. Duff's emphatic testimony to the character and work of his Kaffir brother: 'I am bound to add, that throughout the whole of South Africa I found no Mission-station conducted in a more orderly, vigorous, systematic way, than that of my admirable friend and brother, the Rev. Tiyo Soga, the native Kaffir ordained Minister of the Mgwali.'

In 1866 the failure of Tiyo Soga's health became so serious as to compel an entire cessation from work for six months, which period was spent, under medical advice, in Cape Town and the neighbourhood, where he renewed his acquaintance with former friends and made many new ones, returning to his work at the end of the time apparently better, but really with the seeds of a fatal disease too deeply rooted in his frail constitution to be eradicated. This was the last important event of his residence at the station which he had formed and worked with so much diligence and success. The following year he was removed to commence a new Mission in Kreli's country, and his connection both with the Mgwali and his own tribe came to an end in June, 1868.

This removal was undoubtedly a great mistake, and, possibly, none would be more ready to acknowledge this now, than the men who were responsible for it. Kreli was a most difficult man to deal with, and the Missionaries in their anxiety to commence the Galeka Mission while he was in the humour, seem to have lost sight of every other consideration in the desire to do what would be most pleasing to him. It is easy to be wise after the event, but any one having but a slight knowledge of the country, judging only from what is stated in the biography, is compelled to feel that the result might have been foreseen. Even if Tiyo Soga's health had been good, it was placing what, looking at his unique position as the only highly-educated Kaffir Minister, may be said to have been the most valuable life in Kaffirland, in the most risky place. The imprudence of the step can only be excused by the fact that he studiously concealed from his brethren the gravity of the symptoms from which he was suffering, and with the selfabnegation of a true Missionary placed himself absolutely at their disposal, though it was the greatest sacrifice he could be called on to make. The change removed a man with a diseased throat and chest to a much less suitable climate; it transferred a frail and failing man from a tribe where missionary-work had been difficult, to one where it has always been more difficult still; a man whose sensitive nature and failing health required the stimulus of success, to a sphere where he was certain to be discouraged; and, finally, it placed a man whose literary work was of the greatest importance, in the most disadvantageous position for carrying it on. The result was that in a little more than three years the Mission-stations and colonial towns in South Africa were startled and saddened by the message: Tiyo Soga is dead!'

What we have said is sufficiently justified by the following words of his biographer:

'His is a tragic story, from first to last. Nameless sorrows lie buried within the grave of Tiyo Soga-the darkest and most oppressive of which befell him after he had proved to the world that a Kaffir can perform the noblest act of self-sacrifice. From channels least expected, and from men who were well able to strengthen his hands, there came during the last years of his life the very bitterest wounds that can be inflicted on a pious, earnest soul. Cruel disappointments in close succession hastened the end of a useful and beautiful life. Even when his work was done, and he was "kneeling at the threshold, waiting for the opening of the door," trials in his mission-work gathered and spent their fury on his already wounded and bleeding heart. But from all trials Tiyo Soga was released, at the Tutuka, on that memorable Saturday, the 12th day of August [1871], when he fell asleep "in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ."

Literary work was a department in which the service that Tiyo Soga rendered, valuable as it was, is small compared with that he might have rendered had not his useful life been so prematurely closed. In his earliest days, before his second sojourn in Scotland, when he was still a youth, he composed some hymns in his own language, of which it is said they will 'continue to be sung as long as there are Kaffir Christians to celebrate in the sanctuary, or in the home, the victories of the cross of Christ.' This talent he continued to improve, with the result that he has given to his countrymen 'some of the best sacred songs yet published in the Kaffir language.' His greatest literary work, however, was his translation of The Pilgrim's Progress, in which, we are told, he was specially successful in adapting the shades of meaning peculiar to the Kaffir language, to the niceties of English idiom. The pathetic and emotional parts have been naturally and eloquently ex