SOUTH AFRICAN LABOUR BATTALION, B.E.F.
LTO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.")
Sm,—Referring to the interesting correspondence in the Spectator recently regarding the Besides in France, I take the liberty of rending you a short account of the excellent work done in evan- gelizing the Basuto nation ty the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society, which has had missionaries in the country since 1833, that is, long before the British flag was hoisted there. It may truly be said that the Basutos owe their civilization largely to the work of the devoted French missionaries. It may interest your readers to know that the statistics for 1916 show a Church membership of over 24,000, and of scholars over 23,000. During the last ten years the local Mission press has printed in the native language more than 300,000 religious books, including Bibles and Scripture por- tions, also, including these, nearly one and a quarter million edu- cational and other publications. I enclose extracts referring to
From the Rev. F. Christol, Paris Missionary Society (retired missionary).—(Translation.) —" I thought I was dreaming when I f.,und myself in the middle of Normandy surrounded by these black faces, so frank and so attractive. I was able to visit six or seven camps thoroughly.... It is only right to say that the officers treat the men they command with marked kindness.... It must be added that they never leave their camps except to work. It is the same system (but improved) as the compounds of Johannesburg and Kimberley. The officers could not say enough about their satisfaction with their men's work."
Here follows a passage from a letter written by one of the Besides of the contingent which has appeared in the Losclinyana tLittie Light), a newspaper which is published and edited by the Faris Mission Press, and which has a very large circulation in Basutoland and beyond it among the natives (— " When our Mother, England, raised the alarm for us to help her in her war, we the Basutos ought to have gone in such numbers that they would have refused some of vs. Then when we bad learnt that we were needed in France, the country of the mis- sionaries who have opened our eyes by means of the Gospel, who have stood by us in all our wars and all our difficulties, we ought to have shown our gratitude and our love for them by entering into the plan of our government unhesitatingly. Basutos, we have been lacking in gratitude; it might be said of us that we had denied our Mother, we have refused to help her when she was in difficulties; we members of the royal household have let the children of the lesser houses (i.e., the other South African tribes) systems us in zeal and loyalty."
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