In his more private letters to his friends, from an early period after entering Africa, he had expressed himself very freely, almost contemptuously, on the distribution of the laborers.

There was far too much clustering about the Cape Colony, and the district immediately beyond it, and a woeful slowness to strike out with the fearless chivalry that became missionaries of the Cross, and take possession of the vast continent beyond.

All his letters reveal the chafing of his spirit with this confinement of evangelistic energy in the face of so vast a field--this huddling together of laborers in sparsely peopled districts, instead of sending them forth over the whole of Africa, India, and China, to preach the gospel to every creature.

He felt deeply that both the Church at home, and many of the missionaries on the spot, had a poor conception of missionary duty, out of which came little faith, little effort, little expectation, with a miserable tendency to exaggerate their own evils and grievances, and fall into paltry squabbles which would not have been possible if they had been fired with the ambition to win the world for Christ.
But what it was a positive relief for him to whisper in the ear of an intimate friend, it demanded the courage of a hero to proclaim to the Directors of a great Society.

It was like impugning their whole policy and arraigning their wisdom.