All the white men in the country disliked the system of slavery, and struggled against it. In this they were applauded by the Directors at home. They had no clergyman regularly at the station, and, although evangelistic work was not neglected, the secular side of the Mission was by far the more prominent. The Church of Scotland did not expect so much at first from the religious side of the Mission, as from the Industrial. It was felt, as in the days of Gregory the Great, that Mission work would move by “steps and not by leaps”. The cultivation of the soil was eagerly looked to, as a means of rendering the Mission self-supporting, and the missionaries were urged to acquire land. By May, 1878, we find Dr. Macklin writing—“There are evidences or indications that we are beginning to influence the natives for good, by our conduct towards them and by our example. We have now got five women and one boy, escaped from slavery, under our protection. Concerning the acquisition of land as our own, I may here state that I have succeeded in getting from the chief a large grant, of which much of the land is excellent. In consideration of this grant we must make some annual present to the chief.” Besides espousing the cause of weakest, the Mission also commended itself by acts of kindness. Dr. Macklin writes with reference to a famine—“During the height of the distress I sent some hundredweights of grain from our own store to Katunga, one of the Magololo chiefs, who is a great friend of ours, and has supplied us with most of the sugar-cane we have.” We conclude this chapter by extracts from a letter of Dr. Macklin’s, written in the end of March, 1878, which throws much light on the various aspects of the work. “The Mission in its civil and social aspects is making reasonable and satisfactory progress. As an asylum for the poor, persecuted slave, Blantyre is becoming known and prized. We have now six fellow-creatures rescued from the lash of the slave driver, and miseries worse than death. And this in turn, prepares them for giving a ready reception to the free offers of the greater emancipation, salvation by grace through Jesus Christ our Lord. My present circumstances give a new emphasis to the old law of the city of refuge. Just think of the poor, fainting woman bearing her child, fleeing for her life, but sustained by the hope that if only she can reach the British flag, which already she sees fluttering in the evening breeze, her child shall live and herself be free.