We have handled a handful of letters by Robert Moffat over the years. Usually, the date to later in his career and from one of his trips back to the United Kingdom. Content tends to be okay, but somewhat commonplace. They're great pieces of history as artifacts.
This on the other hand, this one is a gem. Dating from early in his career, it is distinguished both for its length and for its incredible content.
Robert Moffat [1895-1883] was formally commissioned at the famed Surrey Chapel and sent to Africa as part of the fledgling London Missionary Society. He settled in Kuruman and worked among the Batswana people, issuing the first translation of the Scriptures into Setswana, accompanied by Pilgrim's Progress in the same. An energetic worker, he approached missions as a whole person; translating Scripture, bettering communities, and working for the end of slavery, especially among the Bechuana. His daughter, Mary, would eventually marry another pioneer, David Livingstone.
His desire was so intense to see the tribal communities surrounding to experience Jesus, he often bound his stomach so that he could endure fasting while hiking for days on end through the African forest without sure food supply.
The present letter, dating to 1836, is four folio pages [on a bifolium sheet] in length and addressed to Peter Jackson, Esq, of London who was always a friend of missionaries personally, financially, and through his service on missionary boards.
Both this and another letter we offer this week [by Adam Clarke] are in response to parcels of books Jackson would accumulate and deliver to missionaries. These usually included the very latest and best in missionary works, theological and missionary periodicals, biblical references, and actual type to assist missionaries in the business of translation and printing tractates and the Scriptures in native languages.
It reads, in part:
"Kuruman, Novmbr 21, 1836.
Dear Sir,
I take up my pen with the hope that a few lines from me in this secluded part of the Lord's vineyard will not be found to encroach on your time, which, from the little I know of your engagements, must be completely occupied. However numerous these may be, you have found time to sympathize with us & serve us who to you must be comparatively unknown. The way in which you have served the mission and ourselves has etched in our minds the most grateful feelings towards you and especially towards Him whose we are and whom we serve in the Gospel of His Son. To receive such tokens as those you have given of your devotion to our interests has an influence on our minds easier conceived than described. It surely becomes us, pioneers, preparing the way of Immanuel's reign in apparent obscurity, duly to appreciate the sympathies of those who try to aid us in our labors & scatter light on our often benighted and bewildered paths. Situated as I have been, it has often been fallen to my lot to deplore the want of those resources calculated to remove obstacles in the course of my labors & stimulate to still greater zeal. This you have done not unto me alone, but unto Him who hath said, "He who giveth a cup of cold water to a disciple in the name of a disciple will in no wise lose his reward." May this be abundantly verified in your experience in time and in eternity.
. . .
It is with pleasure and gratitude to the great Head of the church that I inform you that our labors among the Bechuanas continue to be blessed. Tho we have sometimes our trials, we have much to encourage in the great work of making known a Savior to the perishing Heathen. At our last church meeting, eight persons were received & who will on the first sabbath of next month make public profession of their faith in the Gospel. The number of candidates is also increasing. At the present time, the knowledge of divine things is spreading & illuminating the minds of many who were lately the dupes of the grossest ignorance. Many of the Bechuanas at the different stations . . . have yielded obedience to the purifying and cheering doctrines of the Gospel. . . the prospect of the Bechuana Mission House was never more encouraging. Streams are breaking forth in the moral desert & the solitary places begin to blossom as the rose. Happy for us that it is in our power to supply these demands by the Press, which has already proved an important auxiliary to our labors, & tho it has greatly increased my work in body & mind, the pleasure afforded in imparting to the perishing heathen the means of becoming wise unto salvation is an ample reward."
Etc. etc. etc.
The letter is complete and entirely legible with some not insurmountable challenges at the folds. Tears to the folds without textual loss. A rare and extensive early letter from one of the true pioneers of modern missions.