African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented 5 September 1994Missionary and evangelical work among the Africans in the mine
compounds took place on Sundays, Good Friday, Boxing, Christmas
and New Year's days, when African mine workers in the compounds
were allowed a whole day's rest. Attempts by missionaries to
have workers come to their religious services on these days, had
to face competition from other leisure options that the workers
had. This study is going to focus on the activities of the Paris
Evangelical Missionary Society (PEMS) among the Basotho in the
mine compounds. It will attempt to go beyond looking at religion
and the working class simply in terms of the role that the church
played in instilling workers with an industrial ethic; there is
a need to also look at the dynamics of proselytisation and
conversion in the compounds, and the importance that religion had
for the miners
