ng up the
Colonial and Maori Church, and of pioneering for missions in the
Melanesian Isles, over which his vast see then extended. He preached a
course of four sermons at Cambridge; Mackenzie was an eager listener, and
those forcible, heart-stirring discourses clenched his long growing
resolution to obey the first call to missionary labour that should come
to him, though, on the other hand, he desired so far to follow the
leadings of Providence that he would not choose nor volunteer, but wait
for the summons--whither he knew not.

Ere long the invitation came. The erection of the colony of Natal into a
Bishop's See had been decided upon a year before, and it had been offered
to John William Colenso, a clergyman known as active in the support of
the missionary cause, and a member of the University of Cambridge. On
his appointment he had gone out in company with the Bishop of Capetown to
inspect his diocese and study its needs, as well as to lay the
foundations of future work. In the party who then sailed for Natal was a
lady who had recently been left a widow, Henrietta Woodrow by name,
ardent in zeal for the conversion of the heathen, and hoping that the
warm climate of Africa would enable her to devote herself to good works
more entirely than her delicate health permitted at home.

Pieter Maritzburg had by this time risen into a capital, with a strange
mixture of Dutch and English buildings; but the English population
strongly predominated. Panda was king of the Kaffirs, and fearfully
bloody massacres had taken place in his dominions, causing an immense
number of refugees to take shelter in the English territory. Young
people who thus came were bound apprentices to persons who would take
charge of them for the sake of their services, and thus the missions and
those connected with them gained considerable influence for a time. A
Kaffir, who must have been Captain Gardiner's faithful Umpondobeni,
though he was now called by another name, inquired for his former good
master, and fell into an agony of distress on hearing of his fate.

Mrs. Woodrow at once opened an orphanage for the destitute English
children that are sure to be found in a new colony, where the parents, if
unsuccessful, are soon tempted to drink, and then fall victims to climate
and accident. The Kaffir servant whom she engaged had already been
converted, and was baptized by the name of Abraham, soon after he entered
her service; but "Boy,"--the