Some of Our Basutos by W. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 16, 1915

Some of Our Basutos

By W. A. S.

At the Durban union conference, Brother H. C. Olmstead had reported of the Basuto converts of the Emmanuel Mission: “Some of them are the most earnest Christians I have ever met—either among white or black.”

I can well believe it here in North Basutoland, as I see what God has wrought. Right out of the darkness they have come into the marvelous light.

Would that it did not take so much space to give even a glimpse of these sights and scenes among strange peoples whose hearts beat the same as ours. Look into last Friday night’s prayer meeting.

The lamps showed the school room well filled with members, believers, inquirers, and interested ones from the kraals. These Basutos have strong faces. The headdress of the women is the turban, and the bright colors of these and of the blankets which many, both men and women, wear these cold evenings, lend an Oriental aspect to the scene.

The leading thought in the meeting was the pathway to the city of God. Up stands a tall young Basuto from the kraals. “I want to follow this path,” he says, “and to teach my people who are in darkness the truth of God.”

Teko, an assistant pupil teacher: “I have learned to cast my burden on the Lord. I will cling fast to the Word of God, not in my own strength, but in the strength of the Lord.” Teko is a baptized member. “When I first saw him,” Brother J. R. Campbell told me, “I said to myself, ‘Oh, but here is a dull-looking boy!’” No dullness now; he is a good student and hopes soon to be in out-school work.

Here a young man in striped blanket stands: “Although I am a sinner, Jesus keeps me, and I want to be with those who enter the holy city.” Who are these who talk and pray of the holy city?—Souls straight out of heathen darkness, every one of them; and now they sing the songs of Zion and are pushing along the highway of the Advent people to the city of God.

A chief’s son speaks: “I want to be in that city of the New Jerusalem.”

Some herd boys—who come only to the night school—not yet Sabbath keepers, tell of their love for Jesus,—little lads wearing only their ragged and abbreviated blankets. Some present are speaking for the first time; one, a girl not in the school but from one of the kraals, says with breaking voice, “I love Jesus and want him to keep me.” And how much these souls need his keeping power, in those kraals with the beer drinking and the ever-sounding evening dance drums.

Mantea, a true sister in Christ, who has won freedom to meet with the believers by endurance of bitter persecution, having prayed earnestly in the prayer season, now speaks: “Only because of God’s love I am standing here. I am weak, but I want to please him day.

He is my strength and my Saviour.”

John, the ox-team driver, who had just been held up by the Free State border police because he had lost his “pass,” told of his determination not to lose his passport to the heavenly land.

Thus the meeting ran on. All this, I know, is very like the witnesses borne in the week-night prayer meeting everywhere. But that is exactly why it is good to hear these testimonies, borne in tones that thrill the heart, away up here by the Leribe Plateau of Northern Basutoland.

Our missionaries came here foreigners and strangers. They have preached and taught the Word of God. And, lo, one after another, men and women, boys and girls, are breaking away from customs that have held their fathers as in an iron vise for ages, and are resolutely setting their feet in the pathway to the holy city. It is good to see it, brethren and sisters, you who have prayed and given for missions, and angels must rejoice as they write these new Basuto names among those whom the Lord will call when he makes up his jewels. The meeting closed with this thought; and the company sang the Sesuto version of the hymn—

“When he cometh, when he cometh, To make up his jewels.”

Freely translated, the Sesuto runs,— “How have you made me the beloved! A thing that is precious; And like a diamond that is precious.”

We went out into the dark night; but in our hearts the light streaming from the gates of the heavenly city seemed nearer than before. The light of the last message is spreading over the dark places of the earth.

W. A. S.

Emmanuel Mission.