The Bishop of Natal gave a very interesting account of
his missionary experience in Natal at a meeting of the Anthro- pological Society last week. He protested against the view that the only stimulus adequate for such missions was the belief that every heathen converted was saved from everlasting fire, and could be saved in no other way, and mentioned that he had stopped one of his own clergymen when, to the horror of the Zulus, he pro- pounded that doctrine. He insisted strongly on the necessity of an adequate scholarship in the missionary, and quoted some odd instances of the result of its deficiency. There is a word ubomi, meaning high meat,' a luxury with the Zulus, by which the firstnaissionaries used to convey the idea of supreme happi- ness—of enjoying eternal life ; they called it eating ubomi, a re- spectable approximation to translation according to the Bishop. But next, ubomi was supposed itself to mean ' life,' and substi- tuted for it in translating such passages as " Strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto—high meat." The Bishop gave other instances of blunders of equal magnitude, and protested against the practice of obliging converted polygamists to put away all their wives but one. His address showed how completely missionary zeal may be combined with common sense and faith in the love of God.
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