CHAPTER IX.

THE SECHWANA BIBLE.


The great task was at length accomplished; the work of nearly thirty
years brought to a close. The Word of God in the language of the
Bechwana people, in all its glorious completeness and power, was now in
their hands.

To Robert Moffat the labour had been of a herculean character. He had
spared himself no labour or drudgery which its prosecution involved. To
accomplish it he had left his home and lived a semi-savage life for
nearly three months, that he might perfect himself in the language.
Without any special training for the important undertaking, and under
the greatest disadvantages, he had not only acquired the language, but
reduced it to its elements, and then presented it in a synthetic and
grammatical form. Beyond that his earnest desire had been to render the
whole Bible into the native tongue.

As age increased, the importance of finishing the work became more and
more apparent, till even a minute spent in anything but purely
mission-work, or his translation duties, seemed as wasted time. Writing
when the end was near, he said: "When I take up a newspaper, it is only
to glance at it with a feeling like that of committing sacrilege. I have
sometimes been arrested with something interesting, and have read it
with ten or more strokes in the minute added to my pulse, from the