Page:Distinguished Churchmen.djvu/336

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

290 DISTINGUISHED CHURCHMEN

Zulus and Swazis. We have got a certain number of white people not a large number- in Zululand ; but hitherto it has been reserved for natives. At the beginning of 1903 it may be thrown open to Europeans. There is religious work going on among Europeans at Ashway, where there is a priest, and at Vryheid and Utrecht. The clergy there at the present time are acting chaplains to the British troops engaged in the South African War. You might say that our endeavour hitherto has been for the most part among the natives."

"And were they quick to appreciate religious teaching ? "

"That is rather a difficult question to answer. In some districts for instance, the Rorke s Drift district there has been a tremendous response. Some 5,000 Christians have been gathered together under Archdeacon Johnson, and he told me only the other day that he had got about 1,000 in his class undergoing preparation for baptism. They would be mostly Zulus, and some, perhaps, from a Basuto tribe. The Zulus up there respond more readily than the Basutos."

It is interesting to note what the author of the S.P.G. book, previously quoted, has to say with reference to the district singled out by the Bishop : " Few more remarkable developments have been seen in our day than the growth of the mission of St Augustine at Rorke s Drift.

�� �