THE MISSIONARY REPOSITORY For Youth. VISIT OF A MISSIONARY AND HIS WIFE TO A PLANTATION VILLAGE. THE negroes of Jamaica do not all live together in large towns. There are many pretty little villages, just as there are in England. Some of these are a long way from their chapels, and many negroes have to go from three to fifteen miles on Sunday to worship. Sometimes their missionary, with his wife and children, will pay a visit to one of these distant villages, and then there is such joy! Young and old all run out to welcome them. They are led to some shady seat in the most convenient part of the village, and the boys try who can soonest climb the tall cocoa-nut trees to get them some of the milky fruit. Their kindness and gratitude, says Mr. Phillippo, are often almost overwhelming, and when their visitors leave, blessings follow them until they are out of hearing, such as, "God bless minister, and missis, and de children!-come call, come see we; give we comfort."-Phillippo's "Jamaica," p. 372. THE HISTORY OF DR. VANDERKEMP. (Taken from the Quarterly Missionary Chronicle of the London Missionary Society.) [By the Author of "The Night of Toil."] CHAPTER I. DR. VANDERKEMP IN HOLLAND. THE little readers of this Repository have heard a great deal about Africa. They know well the name of Moffat, and of the Bechuanas. But Moffat was not the first missionary who went to Africa. Who was the first? To do a difficult thing for the first time, requires a great deal of courage and of faith. The first missionary to Africa could not tell what sort of people he would find there, and how it would be likely they would treat him. No. 61. The first of all the missionaries who went to Africa, were some poor Moravians. They went there about a hundred years ago, and they did a great deal of good there; but I am not going to tell you about them, for they did not go FAR into Africa, but settled in places only a little way from Cape Town, at the Cape of Good Hope. The first missionary that travelled FAR up the country into places almost unknown before, among savages very wild and fierce, was a man named Vanderkemp. He went to teach the Caffres, a people who delight in war and bloodshed. I will tell you first what he was before he became a missionary. In what country was he born? Not in England as Williams was, nor in Scotland as Moffat was, but in Holland. Vanderkemp was a Dutchman. You He was the son of a minister, a very pious man. might suppose then that Vanderkemp was pious from the time he was a child that he listened to his mother's instructions, and obeyed his father's commands. O no, this was not the case. When he was a child, his heart was hard; as he grew older it grew harder, and when he became a man, he mocked at holy things, and did wicked things. What must his parents have felt to see their son grow up in this manner! I know not how his mother felt. Perhaps she died when he was little but I do know how his father felt. He was so much grieved that he died of a broken heart. Now, perhaps, you think that his son repented, and turned to God. No, he went on in his sins: yet I am sure he cannot have been happy, for he never could quite forget his poor grey-headed father lying in the cold grave. The people of the world indeed admired him, for he was very clever, and understood a great number of languages; besides this, he was a soldier, and was considered very brave. He became captain of horse, which is counted an honourable title, and he might in time have been made a general; but he left off being a soldier, and became a physician. I think his reason for changing his profession was that he had married, and that he now wished to lead a quiet life with his wife. He was considered a very good doctor, and he might have had a great number of patients, THE HISTORY OF DR. VANDERKEMP. 5 but he did not choose to visit more than twelve at one time, because he found that he could not pay attention to more. But all this time his mind was in a very wicked state. He had left off keeping gay company, as he used to do, but he had not begun to love God better than before. He believed that there was a God, but he did not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. He did not feel that he was a great sinner, and that he needed a great Saviour. He thought indeed he had some faults, and that a little punishment might do him good: therefore he prayed to God to send him some afflictions. This was not a right prayer to make. God has not told us to pray for afflictions, but to pray for pardon through Jesus, and for the Holy Spirit. Vanderkemp did not attend to what God has taught in the Bible, and I believe he seldom read it, though of course he remembered many things he had heard, when he was a child, from his pious parents. Did God grant the prayer of Vanderkemp? You shall hear. The doctor had now given up his profession, and had settled in a pleasant house in the country with his wife and his little girl. He was as happy as a worldly man could be; he never was at a loss how to employ himself, for he was very fond of reading; and when he wished for amusement, he would sail on the river near his house with his little family. One day he was sailing in a boat, when a great storm suddenly arose, and in the storm a water-spout was seen. Very few people have beheld this dangerous thing. It rises, no one knows how, out of the water up very high into the air. It is only water spouting up, but then it flies so swiftly along, that all who see it are alarmed lest it should come against them, and break over their heads; for no boat can get out of its way quickly enough, if indeed the water-spout is coming after it. This dreadful enemy pursued Vanderkemp; it overtook him, and overset his little boat. The father was in a moment separated from his wife and child, and hurried down the stream, clinging to the boards of his broken boat. There were people on the shore who saw the dreadful accident, but no one would venture on the sea in such a storm. Poor Vanderkemp must have perished had not his merciful God, his father's God, remembered him. How could he be saved! it would be difficult for men to think of a way, but God finds nothing difficult to him. There was a strong ship fastened by ropes to the shore: the tossing of the waves broke the ropes, and sent the ship out to sea. There were some men in the ship who would gladly have got to shore again, but God drove them by his waves to the very place where Vanderkemp was floating near his little shattered bark. The men thought they saw a human creature in the sea, though they knew not who it was they drew him out of the water, and helped him to recover his senses. When he came to himself, what was the first question he asked? "Where are my wife and child ?" "We do not know," was the only answer. The father returned to his pleasant house, but found no wife nor child to welcome him. O how miserable he felt, now he had lost everything he cared for most! However, the next Sunday he went to church, and he even stayed to partake of the Lord's Supper. He had indeed no right to be there, because he did not love Jesus; but still he went. While he was there, the Lord Jesus put thoughts into his mind such as he had never had before. He showed him his sins, and he made him feel that his blood alone could take them away. Vanderkemp now felt as Saul of Tarsus once did; and he went home to pray. The more he read the Bible, the more sure he was that Jesus was the Son of God, the Saviour of the world. He now desired to spend the rest of his life in serving this loving Saviour. It happened that there was a war at this time in Holland against the French, and that a large hospital was built for poor wounded soldiers. Vanderkemp undertook the charge of the hospital, and was like a father to the sick and dying But when the war was over, he went back again to his country-house, waiting to find out some other way in which to serve the Lord. men. One day he met with a paper, written by some English people, about missionaries to the heathen. It came into |