and missionary. Instructions were issued that she was to be allowed to
use any and every conveyance belonging to them in the Colony, on any
road or river, and that every help was to be afforded to her. Workmen
were lent to her to execute repairs on her houses. Individual members
sought opportunities to be kind to her. She was taken her first motor-
car drive by a Commissioner. The highest officials did not think it
beneath them to buy feeding-bottles and forward them on by express
messenger. They sent her gifts of books, magazines, and papers--one
forwarded _The Times_ for years--and at Christmas there would come plum
puddings, crackers, and sweets. One dark, showery night the Governor of
Southern Nigeria, Sir W. Egerton, and several officials appeared at her
house to greet her, and left a case of milk, two cakes, and boxes of
chocolates and crystallised fruit. "The Governor is a Scotsman," she
wrote, "and must be sympathetic to mission work, or else why did he
come with his retinue and all to a mud house and see me at that cost to
his comfort and time on a wet night?" Lord Egerton was charmed with
her. Replying to some remark of his she said, "Hoots, my dear laddie--I
mean Sir!"
It was the great anxiety of her official friends that she should not
outlive her powers: her influence generally was so great that to them
the thought of this was distressing. They were always very solicitous
about her health, writing to her frequently to say that she should take
life more easily, "Take care of yourself, Ma--as much as you can."
"Don't be so ridiculously unselfish." "Learn a little selfishness--it
will do you all the good in the world," was the advice showered upon
her. When she had the Court work she was often urged to take a month's
holiday. On hearing of her intention to go to Ikpe one wrote, "Dear
Lady, I hate the idea of your going so far into the bush. Don't go.
There are plenty of men willing and eager to be of service to you, but
away up there you are far away from help or care." Another warned her
against the people; "But," he added, "we know you will go in spite of
it--and conquer!"
Latterly they became more importunate. "Do be careful," one wrote. "Do
take quinine and sleep under a net and drink filtered water." Her
custom of going hatless into the blazing sunshine was long a sore
point, and when they failed to persuade her of the danger, they
resorted to scheming. "We know why you do it," they said artfully. "You
know you have pretty hair and like to display it uncovered, imagining
that it gets its golden glint from the sun. Oh, vanity of vanities!
Fancy a nice, quiet missionary being so vain!" Certainly no argument
could have sent her more quickly to the milliner's.
IX. POWER THROUGH PRAYER
The power which enabled Mary Slessor to live so intensely, to triumph
over physical weakness, and to face the dangers of the African bush,
and gave her the magnetic personality that captivated the hearts of
white and black alike, was derived from her intimate and constant
contact with the Unseen, and the means of that contact were prayer and
the Bible.
She had an implicit belief in the reality of prayer, simply because she
had tested its efficacy every day of her life, and had never found it
to fail. When her old friend, Mr. Smith of Dundee, asked for her
testimony to include in his book, _Our Faithful God: Answers to
Prayer_, she wrote:
My life is one long daily, hourly, record of answered prayer. For
physical health, for mental overstrain, for guidance given
marvellously, for errors and dangers averted, for enmity to the Gospel
subdued, for food provided at the exact hour needed, for everything
that goes to make up life and my poor service, I can testify with a
full and often wonder-stricken awe that I believe God answers prayer. I
know God answers prayer. I have proved during long decades while alone,
as far as man's help and presence are concerned, that God answers
prayer. Cavilings, logical or physical, are of no avail to me. It is
the very atmosphere in which I live and breathe and have my being, and
it makes life glad and free and a million times worth living. I can
give no other testimony. I am sitting alone here on a log among a
company of natives. My children, whose very lives are a testimony that
God answers prayer, are working round me. Natives are crowding past on
the bush road to attend palavers, and I am at perfect peace, far from
my own countrymen and conditions, because I know God answers prayer.
Food is scarce just now. We live from hand to mouth. We have not more
than will be our breakfast to-day, but I know we shall be fed, for God
answers prayer.
She realised that prayer was hedged round by conditions, and that
everything depended upon the nature of the correspondence between earth
and heaven. She likened the process to a wireless message, saying, "We
can only obtain God's best by fitness of receiving power. Without
receivers fitted and kept in order the air may tingle and thrill with
the message, but it will not reach my spirit and consciousness." And
she knew equally well that all prayer was not worthy of being answered.
Those who were disappointed she would ask to look intelligently at
first causes as well as regretfully at second causes. To one who said
he had prayed without avail, she wrote: "You thought God was to hear
and answer you by making everything straight and pleasant--not so are
nations or churches or men and women born; not so is character made.
God is answering your prayer in His way." And to another who was in
similar mood she wrote: "I know what it is to pray long years and never
get the answer--I had to pray for my father. But I know my heavenly
Father so well that I can leave it with Him for the lower fatherhood."
In this as in other things she had to confess that she herself often
failed. "I am a poor exponent of faith," she would say. "I ought to
have full faith in our Father that He will do everything, but I am
ashamed of myself, for I want to 'see,' and that sends faith out of
court. I never felt more in sympathy with that old afflicted father
before in his prayer, 'Lord, I believe, help Thou my unbelief'--every
syllable suits me."
She had absolute faith in intercession, "Prayer," she said, "is the
greatest power God has put into our hands for service--praying is
harder work than doing, at least I find it so, but the dynamic lies
that way to advance the Kingdom." She believed that some of her
official friends, the Empire-builders, were kept straight in this way:
"The bands that mothers and sisters weave by prayer and precept are the
strongest in the world." There was nothing she asked her friends more
often at home to do than to pray for the Mission and the workers.
"Don't stop praying for us," she pleaded, and her injunctions were
sometimes pathetic in their personal application: "Pray that the power
of Christ may rest on me, that He may never be disappointed in me or
find me disobedient to the heavenly vision when He shows the way, pray
that I may make no false moves, but that the spirit will say, 'Go here
and go there,'" She was always convinced that it was the prayers of the
people in Scotland that carried her on and made the work possible. "It
is so customary to put aside those who, like myself, are old-fashioned
and unable for the burden and heat of the day; but in my case it is
care and love and forbearance all the way through; and all this I trace
back to the great amount of prayer which has ever followed me, to the
quality more than the quantity of that intercession. Prayer-waves
pulsate from Britain all through Calabar." To one who had always prayed
for her she also wrote: "I have always said that I have no idea how and
why God has carried me over so many funny and hard places, and made
these hordes of people submit to me, or why the Government should have
given me the privilege of a magistrate among them, except in answer to
prayer made at home for me. It is all beyond my comprehension. The only
way I can explain it is on the ground that I have been prayed for more
than most. Pray on, dear one-the power lies that way." She also urged
prayer for the Mission Committees, Home and Foreign--"We expect them to
do so much and to do it so well, and yet we withhold the means by which
alone they can do it."
Almost invariably, when acknowledging money, she would beg the donors
to follow up their gifts by prayer for workers. "Now," she would say,
"let us ask God earnestly and constantly for the greater gift of men
and women to fill all these vacant posts."
She used to pray much for her friends in all their circumstances,
asking for many things for them that they desired, but eventually her
petition came to be, "Lord give them Thy best and it shall suffice them
and me."
Her religion was a religion of the heart, and her communion with her
Father was of the most natural, most childlike character. No rule or
habit guided her. She just spoke to Him as a child to her Father when
she needed help and strength, or when her heart was filled with joy and
gratitude, at any time, in any place. He was so real to her, so near,
that her words were almost of the nature of conversation. There was no
formality, no self-conscious or stereotyped diction, only the simplest
language from a quiet and humble heart. It is told of her that when in
Scotland, after a tiresome journey, she sat down at the tea-table
alone, and, lifting her eyes, said, "Thank ye, Faither--ye ken I'm
tired," in the most ordinary way, as if she had been addressing her
friends. On another occasion, in the country, she lost her spectacles
while coming from a meeting in the dark. Snow lay on the ground, and
there seemed little hope of recovering them. She could not do without
them, and she prayed simply and directly: "O Father, give me back my
spectacles." Early next morning the milk-boy saw something glistening
in the snow, and she had the spectacles in time to read her Bible. A
lady asked her how she obtained such intimacy with God. "Ah, woman,"
she said, "when I am out there in the bush I have often no other one to
speak to but my Father, and I just talk to Him." It was in that way she
kept herself in tune with the highest. Sometimes, when there had been
laughing and frivolous conversation before a meeting, she lost "grip,"
and was vexed and restless and dumb. But a little communion with her
Father would put matters right. Once, oppressed by a similar mood, she
foresaw complete failure, but the minister who presided, as if
conscious of her attitude, prayed in such a way as to lift the burden
from her heart, and she was given not only a calm spirit but also an
eloquent tongue.
How natural it was for her to pray is evidenced by an incident at one
of the ladies' committee meetings at Duke Town. Speaking of it she
said, "All the ladies were laughing and daffin' over something of a
picturesque sort, when it struck me we ought to be praying rather, and
I just said so, and at once the whole lot jumped up, and we went into
the nearest room and were closeted with our Master for a bit."
Sometimes in the Mission House she would call the children to prayer
at odd hours, and Jean would remonstrate and say, "Ma, the time is long
past." "Jean," she would reply, "the gate of heaven is never shut." She
said she wished to teach them that they could pray anywhere and at any
time, and not only in the church.
"_We are not really apart," she once wrote to a friend in Scotland,
"_for you can touch God direct by prayer, and so can I_."
X. BIBLE STUDENT
She had always been an earnest and intelligent student of the Bible,
and to her it grew more wonderful every day. She believed that the
spread of the Book was the simplest and most natural and direct way of
preaching the Gospel and keeping it pure. Her own reading of it was
mainly accomplished in the early morning. As soon as there was light
enough--which was usually about 5.30--she took a fine pen and her Bible
and turned to the book she was studying in the Old or New Testament.
She underlined the governing words and sentences as she went along in
her endeavour to grasp the meaning of the writer and the course of his
argument; word by word, sentence by sentence, she patiently followed
his thought. Sometimes it would be three days before she completed a
chapter, but she would not leave it until she had some kind of idea as
to its purpose. She was her own commentator, and on the margin she
noted the truths she had learned, the lessons she had received, her
opinions about the sentiment expressed, or the character described. If
her expositions were not according to the ordinary canons of exegesis,
they had the merit of being simple, fresh, and unconventional. Her
language was as candid, often as pungent, as her remarks in
conversation, its very frankness and force indicating how real to her
were the life and conditions she was studying. When one Bible was
finished she began another, and repeated the process, for she found
that new thoughts came as the years went by. On one occasion we find
her interested in a recent translation, reading it to discover whether
it gave any clearer construction of the more difficult passages. Such
sedulous study had its effect upon her character and life; she was
interpenetrated with the spirit of the Book; it gave her direction in
all her affairs--in her difficult palavers she would remark, "Let us
see what the Bible says on this point "--it inspired her with hope,
faith, and, and courage. Often after an hour or two of meditation over
it she felt no desire for ordinary literature, all other books seeming
tame and tasteless after its pages.
Some of the later Bibles she used are in existence, and bear testimony
to the thoroughness of her methods. Almost every page is a mass of
interlineations and notes. As one turns them over, phrases here and
there catch the eye, arresting in thought and epigrammatic in form;
such for instance as these:
_God is never behind time.
If you play with temptation do not expect God will deliver you.
A gracious woman has gracious friendships.
No gift or genius or position can keep us safe or free from sin.
Nature is under fixed and fine laws, but it cannot meet the need of
man.
We must see and know Christ before we can teach.
Good is good, but it is not enough; it must be God.
The secret of all failure is disobedience,
Unspiritual man cannot stand success.
There is no escape from the reflex action of sin; broken law will have
its revenge,
Sin is loss for time and eternity,
The smallest things are as absolutely necessary as the great things.
An arm of flesh never brings power.
Half the world's sorrow comes from the unwisdom of parents.
Obedience brings health,
Blessed the man and woman who is able to serve cheerfully in the second
rank--a big test,
What they were weary of was the punishment, not the sin that brought
it.
Slavery never pays; the slave is spoiled as a man, and the master not
less so.
It were worth while to die, if thereby a soul could be born again._
She was deeply interested in the earlier books, for the reason that the
moral and social conditions depicted there were analogous to those she
had to deal with in Calabar. Every now and then we come across such
remarks as these: "a Calabar palaver," "a chapter of Calabar history,"
"a picture of Calabar outside the gospel area," "this happens in
Okoyong every day." Her own experience helped her to understand the
story of these primitive civilisations, and her annotations on this
part of the Bible have always the sharpest point. To the sentence, "The
Lord watch between me and thee," she appends, "Beautiful sentiment, but
a _mbiam_ oath of fear." Jacob she terms in one place a "selfish
beggar." Of Jael she says, "Not a womanly woman, a sorry story; would
God not have showed her a better way if she had asked?" and of part of
Deborah's song she remarks, "Fine poetry, poor morality." Her opinion
of Jezebel is thus expressed: "A vain, heartless woman; one of the most
revolting stories in history, and she might have been such a queen! A
good woman is the most beautiful thing on earth, but a bad woman is a
source of corruption.... Had only her soul been clean, dogs might have
been welcome to her body."
The book of Job was always well studied. She had a great admiration for
the "upright, wealthy, greatly-feared, and respected sheikh," and
little or none for the "typical philosophers," who came, Calabar
fashion, and sought to comfort him in his day of trial. Job was not, in
her view, rebellious; "his plaint was a relief to his own spirit, and
an appeal for sympathy." On chapter ix. she writes, "The atmosphere is
clearing; the clouds are scattering, glimpses of sunshine, of
starlight, and beauty; the spirit swings back on its pivot and begins
to see God." Farther on, "Right, Job--turn to God I Leave it to Him--
the fit of depression will pass when you have sounded the depths, and
profit will follow." On chapter xviii. her comment is, "Such is the
friendship of the world"; on chapter xx., "How very sure the fool is in
his explanations of God's ways"; on chapter xxvii., "The ultimate
values of life shall be fixed not by wealth but by character"; on
chapter xxviii., "A very mine of gems and precious things--exquisitely
lovely thoughts and language. Poetry like this in the earliest ages of
the world!" Of Elihu's contentions in chapter xxxiv., "A good many
truths, but served up with bitter herbs, not with love": on chapter
xxxvii., "Beautiful poetry, but a very bleak and barren picture of God;
hard, arbitrary, selfish, self-centred, striking terror into His works,
and compelling obedience and service. Nature cannot reveal Him, Elihu!"
On the next chapter, "The God of nature turns the picture, and behold
it is no more destruction and blind force, but beneficence and gracious
design and beauty,"--and so on to the end, when we read, "The voice of
humanity demands some such judgment and relief from the mysteries and
trials and misrepresentations of this life. The poem rings true to the
cry of the spirit of man. Is there a modern drama in any language to
come near to this ancient production?"
The New Testament was brooded over and absorbed with a care and
thoroughness which must have made every line and every thought familiar
to her. St. John was her favourite book. A few specimens of her remarks
may be given:
"_When the people saw that Jesus was not there ... they took shipping
and came ... seeking for Jesus_."
"The secret of our failures in winning men; they don't find Him with
us."
"_The Pharisees also with the Sadducees came and tempted Him that He
would, show them a sign from Heaven_."
"Man's cry for the moon! What does a sign prove? Is God known by
magic?"
"_And the people asked Him saying, What shall we do then? ... 'He
that hath two coats let him impart to him that hath none_.'"
"By love serve."
"_And He said unto them, When I sent you without purse and scrip and
shoes lacked you anything_?"
"No, Lord, never was lack with Thee!"
"_And her parents were astonished, but He charged them that they should
tell no man what He had done_."
"Life will tell. Speech will end in chatter."
These illustrations, picked out at random, will serve to indicate what
an intimate companion she made of her Bible, and with what loving
patience and insight she studied it for the illumination and deepening
of her spiritual life.
XI. BACK TO THE OLD HAUNTS
Eight years had passed since she had left Akpap, and she had never been
back, although she had paid flying visits to the hinterland. Miss
Amess, with whom her friendship had grown close, was in charge, being
minister, doctor, dispenser, teacher, and mentor to the people, and
with her was Miss Ramsay. They had built a new church, which was almost
ready, and Miss Amess determined to bring "Ma" over and have the
Macgregors to meet her. "Ma" could not resist the temptation to revisit
the scenes of her greatest adventures, and went in July 1913, taking
the children with her, except Mary, and ordering the others at Calabar,
including the two youngest, Whitie and Asuquö, who were also natives of
the district, to join her.
Her arrival caused much excitement, and her stay was one long
reception. All day the Mission House was like a market; from far and
near the people came to _köm_ their Mother. She could scarcely be got
to come to meals. On the first day when she was called, she said,
"These are my meat to-day," and then she told those about her what
Christ had said to His disciples after His conversation with the woman
of Samaria. Such love as the ladies saw on both sides they had not
thought possible between missionary and native. She seemed to remember
the names of most of the people, and all the details of their family
histories. One after another came forward and talked and revived
stories of the old times. But she seemed vexed to see so many who were
interested in her, and with no concern for the things of God, and with
these she pled earnestly to come to church and give themselves to the
Saviour. Two notable figures were Mana, and the mother of Susie, Iye.
The children were a source of astonishment to all. These healthy,
happy, handsome young people, the babies that had been cast away or
despised--it was wonderful! They gazed upon them in a kind of awe. A
few of the older and women held aloof from the twins, but not in any
offensive way, and the general disposition was to ignore the stain on
their birth.
There was a touching meeting with Ma Eme, who could not conceal her
affection and joy at seeing her old "Ma" again. Much to Mary's sorrow
she was still a heathen, and a very zealous one, as she sacrificed
daily to the spirits in the crudest way, with food and blood, in
abasement and fear. So strong was superstition rooted in her nature
that she would not touch the twins, although she confessed it was
marvellous that they had grown up.
The two women, bound by so strange a friendship, talked long about the
old days. It was, "Do you remember this?" "Do you remember that?" and
then would follow reminiscences of the killing time when they worked
hand in hand in secret for the preservation of life. Nothing that "Ma"
could say would induce Ma Eme to throw off her allegiance to her
African beliefs, and at the end of a long day she left, the same kind,
high-bred, mysterious heathen woman that she had always been. She died
shortly after. "My dear old friend and almost sister," said Mary, "she
made the saving of life so often possible in the early days, It is sad
that she did not come out for Christ. She could have been the honoured
leader of God's work had she risen to it. I cannot fancy Okoyong
without her. She made a foolish choice, and yet God cannot forget all
she was to me, and all she helped me to do in those dark and bloody
days."
A service was arranged, but the throng who wished to hear "Ma" was so
great that it had to be held in the unfinished church, and thus Mary
had the joy of being at the first service. Over four hundred well-
dressed natives were present, the largest number ever in a church in
Okoyong, She thought of the wild old days, and contrasted them with the
present scene. "Truly," she said to herself, "one soweth and another
reapeth." She spoke for half an hour, giving a strong, inspiring talk
on the duties of those who are believers to the world around them.
With her usual thought for others she sat down and wrote to her old
comrade, Miss Wright (Mrs. Rattray), in England, giving her the details
of her visit, and accounts of the people. "This house," she said, "is
full of memories of you, and you are not forgotten." She described with
pride and hope the way in which the ladies were conducting the station,
and praised them in her usual generous manner. After she left, it
seemed to them that they had greater influence among the people than
ever.
XII. ROYAL RECOGNITION
The friends who had known her long were noticing that a new softness
and graciousness were stealing into her life. She never grew
commonplace, and was original as ever, but her character was mellowing,
and her love and humility becoming even more marked. "Love will
overcome all," was her belief, and love, for her, included all the
qualities of the Christian faith--simplicity, kindness, patience,
charity, selflessness, confidence, hope. In herself she was conscious
of many faults. "I don't half live up to the ideal missionary life,"
she said, with a sigh. "It is not easier to be a saint here than at
home. We are very human, and not goody-goody at all." Often she was
deep in the valley of humiliation over hasty words spoken and
opportunities of service let slip. But she was saved from depression by
her sense of humour. She laughed and dared the devil. Of one who had
just come out she wrote: "She is very serious, and will take life and
work more in the sense of tasks than of a glad free life ... we want
one to laugh, to hitch on to the yoke, and joke over all that we don't
like." She also became less uncompromising in her views. "My opinions,"
she acknowledged, "may not just suit every one, and it is possible
other people may be right and I far wrong.... But although we differ
amongst ourselves, and some things differentiate our work, we are all
in full friendship and sympathy with one another."
It was not possible for self-abnegation to go farther than it did in
her case. She was unable to see that she had done anything out of the
common. "I have lived my life very quietly and in a very natural and
humble way," she would say, and all the credit of her work was given to
God. "It isn't Mary Slessor doing anything, but Something outside of
her altogether uses her as her small ability allows." She did not say
"my plan," or "my scheme"--if she did she checked herself and said,
"What God wants me to do." And she always paid generous tribute to her
girls, who, she said, did more than she did, though no one counted it
to them. She was distressed to receive letters praising her. One who
saw her go out from Scotland to her life-work, and had lovingly
followed her career ever since, wrote saying that her reward would be a
starry crown in the glory land, and her reply was, "_What would I do
with starry crowns except to cast them at His feet?_"
Nothing illustrated this feature so notably as an event which occurred
shortly after her visit to Akpap. Two years previously a few of her
friends in Calabar, official and missionary, had talked over the
possibility of securing some public recognition of her unique service.
Mr. Macgregor wrote an account of her life-work for the Government, but
it was not until Sir Frederick Lugard arrived as Governor-General of
the united provinces of Northern and Southern Nigeria that action was
taken. He was so struck by the heroic record placed before him that he
at once sent home a strong recommendation to the Secretary of State for
the Colonies, that Mary's services should be brought to Royal notice.
The Secretary of State was equally impressed, and laid the matter
before the Chapter-General of the Order of the Hospital of St. John of
Jerusalem in England, of which the King is Sovereign Head, and the Duke
of Connaught Grand Prior. This was done, and she was selected for
admission. When she received the august-looking document asking her to
accept the honour, she said to herself, "Now, who has done this? Who am
I, and what is my distinction that I should have it?" She was in a
quandary how to answer, but eventually complied with the request,
thinking that would be the end of it. Shortly afterwards came a letter
stating that "her selection had received the sanction and approval of
His Most Gracious Majesty King George V." The Chapter-General, it was
stated, elected her "with particular satisfaction" to the grade of
Honorary Associate. This honour is only conferred on persons professing
the Christian faith, who are eminently distinguished for philanthropy,
or who have specially devoted their exertions or professional skill in
aid of the objects of the Order. The Badge of an Honorary Associate is
a Maltese Cross in silver, embellished at the four principal angles
with a lion passant guardant and a unicorn passant alternately. It is
worn by women on the left shoulder, attached to a black watered riband
tied in a bow.
"Ma" kept the matter a secret, even after she had received the diploma,
but the silver Badge came through the Colonial Office to the
Commissioner at Duke Town, and the honour being made public, her
friends schemed to get her down to a formal presentation. It was a
difficult problem, but it was solved by a letter being sent stating
that the decoration had arrived, that, of course, she would not care to
have it given to her surreptitiously, and that her duty was to come to
Calabar for it. A telegraph form, ready for dispatch, and bearing the
one word "Coming," was enclosed. They knew she would get agitated, and
have no peace until the telegram was out of her hands. Their surmise
was correct. She sent the message and committed herself to the ordeal.
She was not elated at the prospect of appearing at a Government
function; neither was she perturbed, and she went about her duties as
usual. Miss Gilmour, one of the new lady agents, tells how on the eve
of her departure she gathered the bairns for family worship, and in a
simple and beautiful way read to them the story of the Good Shepherd
and the sheep that followed. Then, as an illustration, she took the
story of Peter's denial of our Lord, and showed that Peter sinned
because he followed "afar off." "Eh, bairns," she said, "it's the wee
lassie that sits beside her mother at meal times that gets all the nice
bittocks. The one who sits far away and sulks disna ken what she
misses. Even the pussy gets more than she does. Keep close to Jesus the
Good Shepherd all the way."
A Government launch was sent to bring her down, an honour she felt as
much as the bestowal of the insignia, and as she walked up to the
Macgregors' house--the Wilkies were in Scotland--there were many who
were struck by the dignity of her appearance, dressed though she was in
an old but clean cotton dress, straw hat, and list shoes. On the
Saturday afternoon she went to an "At Home" at the Barracks, where she
was lionised in a quiet way. She attended a cricket match--she was an
advocate of all games, and believed they were excellent civilising
agencies--and also witnessed a sham fight, where the "enemy" dressed
themselves up as "savage warriors" and attacked the Barrack Hill. She
was much impressed, and kept saying to her old friend the Hon. Horace
Bedwell, the Provincial Commissioner, "That's just splendid. Look how
the officers lead them." On Sunday she spoke for three-quarters of an
hour to the boys in the Institute in Efik, and no boys could have
listened more intently. On Monday night she was at Government House at
dinner.
The presentation took place in the Goldie Memorial Hall on Wednesday,
Mr. Macgregor presiding. All the Europeans who could leave business
gathered to do her honour. The boys of the Training Institute and the
girls of the Edgerley Memorial School were also in the hall. Had it not
been that Mr. Bedwell and Mrs. Bedwell were beside her, and that it was
the former who made the presentation, she would have felt more nervous.
As it was, she sat with her head buried in her hands. Mr. Bedwell spoke
of her unique work and influence, and of her genius for friendship in a
way that overcame her. She could not at first find words to reply. She
turned to the children, and in Efik told them to be faithful to the
Government, for at bottom it was Christian, and, as the silver Badge
proved, friendly to missions. Self was thus entirely effaced in her
interpretation of the act; she made it appear to be the recognition by
the Government of the work of the Mission, and suggested that it might
have been awarded to any member of the staff.
Having recovered her courage she spoke in English, saying that she did
not understand why she had been chosen for the distinction, when others
deserved it more. In a closing passage of simple beauty, she gave God
the honour and praise for all she had been able to accomplish. What had
impressed her at the sham fight was that the officer was always in
front leading and guiding his men. "If I have done anything in my life
it has been easy because the Master has gone before."
Forty Europeans came to tea at the Macgregors', and "Ma" was brilliant
and entertaining. On Thursday her hosts convoyed her back to Use. Mrs.
Bedwell had presented her with a bouquet of flowers, and she had taken
out the roses--of which she was passionately fond--and placed them in
water. On her arrival she carefully planted one of the stems, and to
her great joy it grew and flourished in front of her hut.
"Don't think," she wrote home, "that there is any difference in my
designation. I am Mary Mitchell Slessor, nothing more and none other
than the unworthy, unprofitable, but most willing, servant of the King
of Kings. May this be an incentive to work, and to be better than ever
I have been in the past."
At home the honour was made known chiefly through the _Record_ of the
Church, in which Mr. Macgregor gave some account of her romantic
career. He stipulated that this should be anonymous, for "Ma," he
feared, would never forgive him if she knew that he had been connected
with it. She gained a repute that was akin to fame. Congratulations
from all parts of the world were showered upon her. Sir Frederick
Lugard sent his "hearty and sincere congratulations, and his
appreciation of this well-earned reward for her life of heroic self-
sacrifice." In confusion of heart she escaped to Ikpe. "I shall never
look the world in the face again until all this blarney and publicity
is over," she said. "I feel so glad that I can hide here quietly where
no one knows about newspapers and _Records_, and do my small portion of
work out of sight."
For a time she was kept busy replying to the correspondence that the
event evoked, and to all she made the same modest reply, that she saw
in the honour "God's goodness to the Mission and her fellow-labourers,
who were levelling and building and consolidating the work on every
side. It is a token that He means to encourage them in the midst of
their discouraging circumstances."
XIII. BATTLE FOR A LIFE
Each new kindness shown her was an incentive to harder service. She
threw herself again into work with an extraordinary keenness.
Dissatisfied with what she was doing at Ikpe, she moved in all
directions in her "box on wheels," prospecting for new spheres of
usefulness, fording rivers, crossing swamps, climbing hills, pushing
through bush, traversing roads that were unsafe and where by the law
people had to go in couples, and often putting up at villages six or
ten miles distant. She saw crowds of people, and hundreds of women and
children in every street, but no light; not even a desire for it,
though here and there she found a disciple or two. She met with more
opposition from the chiefs than she had done in all her experience.
They would not hear of "God fashions," and would not permit teachers to
enter their districts or churches to be built; they forbade all
meetings for worship. She braced herself, body and mind, for the fight.
She spent days in palaver, but they would not give in. She insisted
that at least the right of the disciples to meet and worship in their
own homes must be recognised. When the chiefs saw her face, set with
iron resolution, they were afraid, wavered, and agreed. They then
became quite friendly. "We don't object to schools," they admitted. "We
want our children to learn to read and write, but we want no
interference with our fashions. If houses of God are built, we shall
all die, and we are dying fast enough."
"I shall never give you teachers without the Gospel," she declared. "If
you don't take the one, you won't have the other. But I'm going to
bring both. I shall put up a shed on the roadside, and hold services
there whenever I get a chance."
"All right, Ma," they said with something like admiration. "Come
yourself, but don't send boys."
And then she remembered. "How can this poor tabernacle do it, even with
six lads to push and pull and carry the cart through the streams? But I
have opened the way, and that is something."
In Ikpe itself the currents of heathenism ran deep and strong, and she
found progress as difficult as in Okoyong. But she solved all the
problems in the same fearless way as she had done there. Unlike those
in other centres, the women and girls of the town took no interest in
the work, and would not come forward, and she knew there was no hope
for the community unless she secured their sympathy and attachment to
the cause. At first a few girls had ventured to sit by themselves in
church. Then some village accident made the chiefs believe that their
juju was angry because the girls had forsaken their sacrifices and
deserted the heathen plays, and they placed pressure on them to return.
Some were flogged and made to pray before a clay-pot with an egg in it,
and all were forced out on the moonlight nights to take part in the
plays. "If they don't do that," demanded the chiefs, "how can they have
children for us?" The girls lost courage and forsook the church, but
she did not blame them. "Poor things, they are as timid as hares, and
have never had a choice of what to do until I came. But the chiefs--I
will be hard on them!"
One day she gathered all those who were faithful to the church laws,
and interviewed the chiefs. The spokesman for her party urged that the
antagonism that had been shown should cease; he agreed that any one who
broke the ordinary laws should be punished, but no girl or young man
should be compelled to sacrifice or pray to idols, or be ostracised or
fined for fearing God. The words were received with scornful looks and
laughs, the chiefs being hardly able to restrain themselves, but they
had a wholesome fear of "Ma," and were never outwardly disrespectful in
her presence. They looked at her. She kept a severe and solemn face,
and they were a little nonplussed.
"Ma, have you heard?" they asked,
"Am I not here?" she replied.
Taking the gift of rods that had been offered, the chiefs retired. When
they returned they said: "Ma, we hear. Let the present of rods lie, we
accept of it, and we promise that we will respect God's laws, in regard
to the joining in our sacrifices; and in regard to the Sabbath, we
shall respect it and leave our work; but we will _not_ join in the
confusions of the church, that we cannot do."
"God will doubtless be immensely pleased and benefited by your wondrous
condescension," said she with good-humoured sarcasm, and they laughed
heartily and tried to be friendly, but Mary airily told her people to
rise and go.
Fearing she was not pleased, the chiefs made to accompany her.
"I'm going round to see a woman in the next street," said Mary
pointedly. They stopped dead at once. Here was the "confusion" they
referred to, for the woman was a twin-mother.
It was the old weary battle over again,
Her patience and persistence eventually won a victory for the girls.
They were allowed to return to church, but the line was drawn at the
day-school. The chiefs said girls were meant to work and mother the
babies, and not to learn "book." Even the boys who attended, each
burdened with an infant to justify the waste of time, were not allowed
to bring a baby girl. If the baby of the home was a girl, he looked
after her there and his place was vacant. Mary began to think of
teaching the girls apart from the boys, when one day several girls
marched in; she courted them with all the skill she possessed, and
gradually one or two chiefs brought their daughters, who returned with
dresses from the Mission box, and that ended the opposition.
But there was no end to the struggle over twins. Time and again she had
to send the girls to bring babes to the Mission House, and many a
stirring night she had, she sleeping with them in her bed, whilst
outside stealthy forms watched for a chance to free the town from the
defilement of their presence. The first that survived was a boy. The
husband, angry and sullen, was for murdering it and putting the mother
into a hole in the swamp. She faced him with the old flash in her eye,
and made him take oath not to hurt or kill the child. He even promised
to permit it to live, for which magnanimity she bowed ironically to the
ground, an act that put his courage at once to flight. She had come to
realise that it was not good to take twins from their mother, and she
insisted on the child being kept in the home. Jean was sent to stay and
sleep with the woman, and as she had, on occasion, as caustic a tongue
as "Ma," the man had not a very agreeable time. It was decided later to
bring the woman and child to the hut, and there, beneath her verandah,
they rigged up a little lean-to, where they were housed, Jean sleeping
with them at night and keeping a watchful eye on the mother. "It is
really," said "Ma," "far braver and kinder of her to live with that
heathen woman with her fretting habits than it is for her to go out in
the dark and fight with snakes. Jean has as many faults as myself, but
she is a darling, none the less, and a treasure." All going well, they
went on Sunday to church and left the mother. When they returned they
found she had broken the baby's thigh and given him some poisonous
stuff. With care the boy recovered, but they redoubled their
precautions, hoping that when the parents saw how handsome and healthy
and normal the little fellow was, they would consent to keep him.
"Ma" was due at Use, but she would not leave Ikpe until she had
conquered. Another month passed, and she was running out of provisions,
including tea. To be without tea was a tremendous deprivation. She
thought of the big fragrant package that had been sent out as a gift,
and was lying fifty miles away but un-get-at-able, and felt far from
saintly as she resorted to the infusion of old leaves. One Sunday
evening there was a shout. A canoe had arrived, and in it was a box.
With sudden prescience Jean flew for a hammer and chisel and broke it
open, and sure enough inside was the tea from Use. Mary marvelled, and
with all the young folk round her stood and thanked God, the Lord of
the Sabbath, for His goodness. The beverage had never tasted so sweet
and invigorating. Though her thrifty Scottish nature rejoiced that she
had been able to save a little, she confessed that she would never be a
miser where tea was concerned, Whenever she received a package she
invariably sent a share to old Mammy Fuller at Duke Town. "Mammy," she
told a home friend, "has lived a holy and consecrated life here for
fifty years, and is perhaps the best-loved woman in Duke Town. Uncle
Tom in the old cabin is a child in the knowledge of God to Mammy. So we
all love to share anything with her, and she especially loves a cup of
tea."
The parents of the twin were at last persuaded to take the big happy
child home and provide for it. Four days later they sent for Jean, who
returned, carrying a weak, pinched form that had death written on its
face. It succumbed shortly afterwards--and that was the end of "Ma's"
strenuous fight and Jean's ten weeks' toil by night and day.
XIV. A VISION OF THE NIGHT
She was down at Use for Christmastide with all her children about her,
and was very happy at seeing the consummation of her efforts to build a
new church. The opening took place on Christmas Day,
"A bonnie kirk it is," she wrote. "Mr. Cruickshank officiated, and was
at his very best. Miss Peacock, my dear comrade and her young helper
Miss Cooper--a fine lassie--came and spent the whole day, so we had a
grand time, the biggest Christmas I've ever had in Calabar. Three tall
flag-poles with trade-cloth flags in the most flaming colours hung over
the village from point to point embracing the old and the new churches.
The people provided a plain breakfast in their several homes for over
eighty of our visitors, who therefore stayed over the forenoon. It made
our Christian population look fairly formidable, and certainly very
reputable as a force for uplifting and regenerating society. It looks
but yesterday that they were a horde of the most unlikely and
unresponsive people one could approach, and yet the Gospel has made of
them already something to prove that it is the power of God unto
salvation to a people and to an individual every and anywhere."
It was to her "one of the reddest of red-letter days," such a day as
only comes at rare intervals, and she fell into the snare, as she said,
"of being carried away with it," with the result that at night she was
down with fever. This kept recurring every alternate night. It was the
harmattan season, in which she always wilted like some delicate flower
in the sun, and she grew so limp and fragile that she could not sit up.
She felt that she would be compelled to go home in the summer with the
Macgregors, but the idea frightened her, chiefly because of the stir
that had been caused by the honour she had received. "I dare not appear
at home after all this publicity," she said. "I simply could not face
the music." As she recovered a little she superintended the work of the
girls outside, and was amused at the way her advice was now received.
"Jean and Annie do not hesitate to set it aside quietly in their
superior way; it often works out better than mine, truth to tell--
though I say it does so by accident!" This was a different house-mother
from the one who ruled years before.
In one of her fever nights, tossing in semi-delirium, she had a vision.
She had been following the Chapman-Alexander Mission in Glasgow with
keen interest, and in the long watches her excited brain continued to
dwell on the meetings. She dreamt, or imagined, that out of gratitude
for what had been accomplished, two young Glasgow engineers had taken a
six months' holiday, and come out with their motor car to Calabar. They
spent their days running up and down the Government Road through
Ibibio, singing and giving evangelistic addresses, she interpreting,
the girls, who were packed into the cars, doing the catering and
cooking, and the Government Rest Houses providing the lodging. "What a
night it was!" she wrote. "The bairns were afraid, for I was babbling
more than usual, but to me it was as real as if it had all happened. We
ran backwards and forwards between Itu and Ikpe, spending alternate
Sundays with the Churches, and taking Miss Peacock to her outstations,
and visiting Miss Welsh, It was magnificent."
The vision did not pass away; she took it as a sign from God; and out
of it in the morning she formulated a scheme which one day she hoped
would be realised. "It is strange," she said, "that it has never dawned
on us before. Here is the Government making use of the motor car to do
its work. Why should not the Church do the same when the roads are
here? It would permit one man to do the work of three, it would save
strength, and make for efficiency. The reason why I have been able to
go farther than my colleagues, is that I have had the privilege of
using Government conveyances by land and water; to have a car and a
mechanic missionary would be supplying us with a grand opportunity for
multiplied service." She expatiated on the matter in letters to her
friends at home, and the longer she thought of the idea, the more it
fired her imagination. Within a few days she was flying over the ground
in the Government car on her way to Ikpe--with many a "ca' canny" to
the driver--and her experience brought the conviction that the
proposal was a good one. It might be too novel a plan for the Church to
take up officially, but she thought wealthy men in Scotland might
materialise her vision as a thank-offering.
XV. STORMING THE CITADELS
The Government road went as far as Odoro Ikpe, where a Rest House, used
as a shelter by officials on the march or on judging tours, and the one
seen by Mr. Macgregor, had been built on the brow of a hill above the
township. It was Saturday when she arrived here, and she climbed the
ascent, taking over an hour to do it, and was captivated by the
situation. It had the widest outlook of any spot she had seen; she
seemed to be on the very roof of the world. A vast extent of bush
stretched out before her, unbroken save by the white road winding down
the hill, and instead of the stifling stillness of the plains, a soft
breeze blew and cooled the atmosphere. It was five miles from Ikpe, and
the centre of a number of populous towns. For months past she had been
praying for an entrance into these closed haunts of heathenism, and as
she sat down in the lonely little Rest House, she made up her mind not
to move a step further until she had come to grips with the chiefs.
Knowing that the Government would not object, she took possession of
the building. It had a doorway but no door; the windows were holes in
the wall high up under the eaves; the floor was of mud, and there was
no furniture of any kind. But these things were of no consequence to
the gipsy-missionary. She slept on a camp-bed borrowed from Miss
Peacock, the girls lay on the mud floor among the lizards, and some
pots and pans were obtained from the people until she could procure her
own from Ikpe. The commissariat department was run on the simplest
scale. A tin of fat, some salt and pepper, tea, and sugar, and roasted
plantain for bread, formed the principal constituents of the frugal
meals. Their clothes were taken off piece by piece as each could be
spared, and washed in a pail from the little prison yard. "Ma's" calico
gown went through the process in the forenoon, was dried on the fence
in the hot sun, and donned in the afternoon, in order, as she
humorously put it, to be ready for "visitors and tea." In her eyes it
was a sort of glorified picnic. She did not pity the girls; she thought
such an experience was better for them as African citizens and
missionaries than a secondary education.
From this high centre as from a fort, she began to bombard the towns in
the neighbourhood. Next day she summoned some disciples from a place
called Ndot, and service was held in the yard. Then the lads pushed her
chair out to Ibam, two miles distant, where she met the headman and his
followers. These were an arrogant, powerful sept--not Ibibios--who had
been allies of the slavers of Aros, and were disliked and suspected by
all. She told them that she wanted the question of Gospel entrance
settled. They looked at her indulgently. "We have no objection to you
coming, Ma," said the chief.
"And the saving of twins, and the right of twin-mothers to live as
women and not as unclean beasts in the bush?" she asked.
"No, no, we will not have it. Our town will spoil."
After much talk they said, "Go home, Ma, and we shall discuss it and
see you again"--the native way of ending a matter.
Her next discussion was with the town of Odoro Ikpe itself. The old
chief was urbane, and gave her every honour. Bringing out a plate with
_3_s. upon it, he said, "Take that to buy food while staying here, as
we have no market yet." She took the money, kissed it, put her hands on
his head, and thanked him, calling him "father," but requested him to
take it and buy chop for the children, and she would eat with him
another day. The old man went away and returned with some yams, which
he asked her to cook and eat. As they talked he gradually lost his
fear, and then she asked him bluntly about his attitude to the Gospel.
He and his big men told her frankly what their difficulties were, and
these she demolished one by one. After two hours' fencing and arguing
the tension gave way to a hearty laugh, and the old chief said, with a
sweep of his hand toward the crowd:
"Well, Ma, there they are, take them and teach them what you like--and
you, young men, go and build a house for book."
"No!" cried "Ma," "we don't begin or end either with a house. We begin
and end with God in our hearts."
A young man came forward, and without removing a quaint hat he wore,
said, "Ma, we can't take God's word if you bring twins and twin-mothers
into our town."
It was out at last. Instead of arguing, "Ma" looked at him as
witheringly as she could and replied; "I speak with men and people
worthy of me, and not with a puny bush-boy such as you have shown by
your manners you are."
Off came the hat, and then "Ma" spoke to him in such a way that the
crowd were fain to cry:
"Ma, forgive! forgive! he does not know any better."
There was no more after that about twins, and when she left she felt
that progress had been made.
Striking while the iron was hot she sent to Ikpe for school books, and
going into the highways and byways, she began to coax the lads to come
and learn. They stood aloof, half-afraid and half-scornful, and would
not respond. Then she adopted a flank movement, and began to speak to
them about the rubber and cocoa which the Government were planting in
the district, and tried to awaken their interest and ambitions by
telling them how the world was moving outside their home circle.
Gradually the sullenness gave way, and they began to ask questions and
to chat. She took the alphabet card, but they shied at the strange-
looking thing, and would not speak. One little fellow who had been at
Ikpe, and knew more than the others, began tremblingly, "A--B--," and
she and Alice who was with her, joined in until one after another
surrendered, and before long all were shouting the letters. By the end
of the week the lads were coming every spare hour for lessons, and
would scarcely give her time to eat.
The Ikpe disciples had ruefully watched this development, and at last
went to her:
"Ma, we are glad you have got a footing out here, but are you forsaking
us?"
Her heart ached at the words, and although now reduced to coming and
going in her Cape cart, she determined to give them every alternate
week when she was not at Use. Thus from now onwards she was keeping
three centres going by her own efforts.
After a week at Ikpe in fulfilment of her promise, she returned to
Odoro Ikpe to hold the first Sabbath service. A play was being enacted
in the town, and scores of naked young men and women were dancing to
the compelling throb of the drum. But some Ikpe and Ndot lads came to
support the service, and their presence helped the local sympathisers
to come forward. It was very simple; she said it would have seemed
babyish to Europeans, but it was an epoch to the natives. Another
meeting was held in the afternoon; and at night in the dark square, lit
only by the light of the fires where the women were cooking their meal,
she stood, and again proclaimed, with passionate earnestness, the love
of God and the power of Christ to save and uplift. It was, no doubt, a
day of small things, but she knew from long experience that small
things were not to be despised.
A month later, when she was at Ikpe holding the services, she was
astonished to see thirty of the Odoro Ikpe lads marching into church.
They had grown so interested, that they had come the five miles to hear
her speak. The Ikpe people at once rose and gave the strangers their
seats, finding a place for themselves on the floor. It was pathetic to
see their earnest faces and their ignorance as to what they should do
during the service, which was more elaborate than they had been
accustomed to. Having brought some food they cooked it at the house and
remained all day.
On her return to Odoro Ikpe the chiefs appeared one morning, and asked
her to come out at once and survey the land, and choose a site for a
station. Her heart leapt at the significance of the request. She
happened to be in her night attire, but as it might have been full
Court dress for all they knew, she went and tramped over the land and
chose what she believed would be the best situation in the Mission. It
was on the brow of a hill overlooking a magnificent stretch of country,
across which a cool breeze blew all the time. She immediately planned a
house--one of six rooms--three living rooms above and stores and hall
and girls' rooms below, with a roof of corrugated iron for security
against wind and insects, and prepared to go down to Use to buy the
material.
There was one town still holding out, Ibam (where she had been told to
"go home and they would think about it"), and she prayed that it, too,
might accept the new conditions. On the Sunday before she left for Use,
while she was conducting service, six strange men came in and waited
until all had gone. "We are from Ibam," they said. "Come at once, Ma,
and we will build a place to worship God, and will hear and obey." She
was so uplifted that she seemed to live on air for the next few days.
The villagers of Ibam gave up their best yard to her, and, crowds came
to the meetings.
All the citadels of heathenism in the district had now been stormed.
Sitting one night on the floor of the Rest House, her aching back
leaning against the mud wall, a candle, stuck in its own grease, giving
her light, she wrote to her friends in Scotland, telling them that she
was the happiest and most grateful woman in the world.
XVI. CLARION CALLS
The discovery of coal up in the interior at Udi brought a new interest
into her life, for her far-seeing mind at once realised all the
possibilities it contained. She believed it would revolutionise the
conditions of West Africa. And when a railway was projected and begun
from Port Harcourt, west of Calabar, to Udi, and there was talk of an
extension to Itu, she sought to make her friends at home grasp the full
significance of the development. That railway would become the highway
to the interior, and Calabar would cease to be so important a port.
Great stretches of rich oil-palm country would be opened up and
exploited. She urged the need for more men and women to work amongst
the rank heathenism that would soon collect and fester in the new
industrial and commercial centres. Up there also was the menace of
Mohammedanism. "Shall the Cross or the Crescent be first?" she cried.
"We need men and women, oh, we need them!"
She had been saddened by the closing of stations for furloughs, and the
apathy of the Church at home.
We are lower in numbers in Calabar than ever--fewer, if you except the
artisans in the Institute, than in the old days before the doors were
opened! Surely there is something very far wrong with our Church, the
largest in Scotland. Where are the men? Are there no heroes in the
making among us? No hearts beating high with the enthusiasm of the
Gospel? Men smile nowadays at the old-fashioned idea of sin and hell
and broken law and a perishing world, but these made men, men of
purpose, of power and achievement, and self-denying devotion to the
highest ideals earth has known. We have really no workers to meet all
this opened country, and our Church, to be honest, should stand back
and give it to some one else. But oh! I cannot think of that. Not that,
Lord! For how could we meet the Goldies, the Edgerleys, the Waddells,
the Andersons? How can our Church look at Christ who has given us the
privilege of making Calabar history, and say to Him, "Take it back.
Give It to another?"
She had been deeply interested In the great World's Missionary
Conference in Edinburgh in 1910, and had contrasted it with State
diplomacy and dreadnoughts, but was disappointed that so little
practical result had followed. "After all," she said, "it is not
committees and organisations from without that is to bring the revival,
and to send the Gospel to the heathen at home and abroad, but the
living spirit of God working from within the heart."
All this made her more than ever convinced of the value of her own
policy. She believed in the roughest methods for a raw country like
Nigeria. Too much civilisation and concentration was bad, both for the
work and the natives. There should be, she thought, an office of
itinerating or travelling missionary permanently attached to the
Mission. It would have its drawbacks, as, she recognised, all pioneer
work had, but it would also pay well. She was not sure whether the
missionaries did right in remaining closely to their stations, and
believed that short regular expeditions into the interior would not
only keep them in better health, but give them a closer knowledge of
the people. Not much teaching could be given in this way, but their
confidence would be won, and the way would be prepared for further
advance. Her hope lay in women workers; they made better pioneers than
men, and as they were under no suspicion of being connected with the
Government, their presence was unobjectionable to the natives. They
could move into new spheres and do the spade-work; enter the homes, win
a hearing, guide the people in quiet ways, and live a simple and
natural life amongst them. When confidence had been secured, men
missionaries could enter and train and develop, and build up
congregations in the ordinary manner.
Even then she did not see why elaborate churches should be erected. She
was always so afraid to put anything forward save Christ, that she was
quite satisfied with her little "mud kirks." The raw heathen knew
nothing of the Church as white people understood it. To give them a
costly building was to give them a foreign thing in which they would
worship a foreign God. To let them worship in an environment of their
own setting meant, she believed, a more real apprehension of spiritual
truth. The money they were trained to give, she would spend, not on
buildings so much as on pioneer work among the tribes.
So, too, with the Mission houses. She thought these should be as simple
as possible, and semi-native in style; such, she believed, to be the
driest and most healthy. In any case disease could come into a house
costing £200, as into one costing £20, and "there was such a thing as
God's providence." Still, she recognised the importance of preserving
the health of newcomers, and admitted that her ideas might not apply to
them. "It would be wrong," she said, "to insist on mud-huts for a
nervous or æsthetic person."
It was much the same feeling that ran through her objection to the
natives suddenly transforming themselves into Europeans. Her views in
this respect differed a good deal from those of her co-workers. One
Sunday, after a special service, a number of women who had arrayed
themselves in cheap European finery, boots and stockings and all,
called upon her. She sat on a chair, her back to them, and merely threw
them an occasional word with an angry jerk of her head. They were very
upset, and at last one of them ventured to ask what was the matter.
"Matter!" she exclaimed, and then spoke to them in a way which brought
them all back in the afternoon clothed more appropriately.
On all these questions she thought simply and naturally, and not in
terms of scientific theory and over-elaborated system. She believed
that the world was burdened and paralysed by conventional methods. But
she did not undervalue the æsthetic side of existence. "So many think
that we missionaries live a sort of glorified glamour of a life, and
have no right to think of any of the little refinements and elegancies
which rest and sooth tired and overstrained nerves--certainly
coarseness and ugliness do not help the Christian life, and ugly things
are not as a rule cheaper than beautiful ones." Her conviction was that
a woman worth her salt could make any kind of house beautiful. At the
same time she believed--and proved it in her own life--that the spirit-
filled woman was to a great extent independent of all accessories.
What always vexed her was to think of thousands of girls at home living
a purposeless life, spending their time in fashionable wintering-
places, and undergoing the strenuous toil of conventional amusement.
"Why," she asked, "could they not come out here and stay a month or six
months doing light work, helping with the children, cheering the staff?
What a wealth of interest it would introduce into their lives!" She
declared it would be better than stoning windows, for she had no
patience with the policy of the women who sought in blind destruction
the solution of political and social evils. "I'm for votes for women,
but I would prove my right to it by keeping law and helping others to
keep it. God-like motherhood is the finest sphere for women, and the
way to the redemption of the world."
Many a clarion call she sent to her sisters across the waters:
"Don't grow up a nervous old maid! Gird yourself for the battle outside
somewhere, and keep your heart young. Give up your whole being to
create music everywhere, in the light places and in the dark places,
and your life will make melody. I'm a witness to the perfect joy and
satisfaction of a single life--with a tail of human tag-rag hanging on.
It is rare! It is as exhilarating as an aeroplane or a dirigible or
whatever they are that are always trying to get up and are always
coming down!... Mine has been such a joyous service," she wrote again.
"God has been good to me, letting me serve Him in this humble way. I
cannot thank Him enough for the honour He conferred upon me when He
sent me to the Dark Continent."
Over and over again she put this idea of foreign service before her
friends at home. Some were afraid of a rush of cranks who would not
obey rules and so forth. She laughed the idea to scorn. "I wish I could
believe in a crush--but there are sensible men and women enough in the
Church who would be as law-abiding here as at home."
XVII. LOVE-LETTEBS
During the course of her career Miss Slessor wrote numberless letters,
many of them productions of six, ten, twelve, and fourteen pages,
closely penned in spidery writing, which she called her "hieroglyphic
style." She had the gift, which more women than men possess, of
expressing her ideas on paper in as affluent and graceful a way as in
conversation. Her letters indeed were long monologues, the spontaneous
outpouring of an active and clever mind. She sat down and talked
vivaciously of everything about her, not of public affairs, because she
knew people at home would not understand about these, but of her
children, the natives, her journeys, her ailments, the services, the
palavers, all as simply and naturally and as fully as if she were
addressing an interested listener. But it was essential that her
correspondent should be in sympathy with her. She could never write a
formal letter; she could not even compose a business letter in the
ordinary way. Neither could she write to order, nor give an official
report of her work. The prospect of appearing in print paralysed her.
It was always the heart and not the mind of her correspondent that she
addressed. What appeared from time to time in the _Record_ and in the
_Women's Missionary Magazine_, were mainly extracts from private
letters, and they derived all their charm and colour from the fact that
they were meant for friends who loved and understood her. In the same
way she would be chilled by receiving a coldly expressed letter. "I
wish you hadn't said _Dear Madam_," she told a lady at home. "I'm just
an insignificant, wee, auld wifey that you would never address in that
way if you knew me. I'll put the _Madam_ aside, and drag up my chair
close to you and the girls you write for, and we'll have a chat by the
fireside."
She could not help writing; it was the main outlet for her loving
nature, so much repressed in the loneliness of the bush. Had she not
possessed so big and so ardent a heart, she would have written less.
Into her letters she poured all the wealth of her affection; they were
in the real sense love-letters; and her magic gift of sympathy made
them always prized by the recipients. She had no home people of her
own, and she pressed her nearest friends to make her "one of the
family." "If," she would say, "you would let me share in any
disappointments or troubles, I would feel more worthy of your love--I
will tell you some of mine as a counter-irritant!" Many followed her
behest with good result. "I'm cross this morning," wrote a young
missionary at the beginning of a long letter, "and I know it is all my
own fault, but I am sure that writing to you will put me in a better
temper. When things go wrong, there is nothing like a talk with you....
Now I must stop, the letter has worked the cure." Her letters of
counsel to her colleagues when they were in difficulties with their
work were helpful and inspiring to the highest degree. On occasions of
trial or sorrow she always knew the right word to say. How delicately,
for instance, would she try to take the edge off the grief of bereaved
friends by describing the arrival of the spirit in heaven, and the glad
welcome that would be got there from those who had gone before. "Heaven
is just a meeting and a homing of our real selves. God will never make
us into new personalities. Everlasting life--take that word _life_ and
turn it over and over and press it and try to measure it, and see what
it will yield. It is a magnificent idea which comprises everything that
heart can yearn after." On another occasion she wrote, "I do not like
that petition in the Prayer Book, _From sudden death, good Lord deliver
us_. I never could pray it. It is surely far better to see Him at once
without pain of parting or physical debility. Why should we not be like
the apostle in his confident outburst of praise and assurance, 'For I
am persuaded...'?" Again: "Don't talk about the cold hand of death--it
is the hand of Christ."
It was not surprising that her correspondence became greater at last
than she could manage. The pile of unanswered communications was like a
millstone round her neck, and in these latter days she began to violate
an old rule and snatch time from the hours of night. Headings such as
"10 P.M.," "Midnight," "8.45 A.M.," became frequent, yet she would give
love's full measure to every correspondent, and there was seldom sign
of undue strain. "If my pen is in a hurry," she would say, "my heart is
not." When she was ill and unable to write, she would simply lie in bed
and speak to her Father about it all.
There was a number of friends to whom she wrote regularly, and whose
relations to her may be judged from the manner in which they began
their letters. "My lady of Grace," "My beloved missionary," "Dearest
sister," were some of the phrases used. But her nature demanded at
least one confidante to whom she could lay bare her inmost thoughts.
She needed a safety-valve, a city of refuge, a heart and mind with whom
there would be no reservations, and Providence provided her with a kind
of confessor from whom she obtained all the understanding and sympathy
and love she craved for. This was Miss Adam, who, while occasionally
differing from her in minor matters of policy, never, during the
fifteen years of their friendship, once failed her. What she was to the
lonely missionary no one can know. Mary said she knew without being
told what was in her heart, and "how sweet," she added, "it is to be
understood and have love reading between the lines." Month by month she
sent to Bowden the intimate story of her doings, her troubles, hopes,
and fears, and joys, and received in return wise and tender counsel and
encouragement and practical help. She kept the letters under her pillow
and read and reread them.
Never self-centred or self-sufficient, she depended upon the letters
that came from home to a greater extent than many of her friends
suspected. She needed the inflow of love into her own life, and she
valued the letters that brought her cheer and stimulus and inspiration.
Once she was travelling on foot, and had four miles of hill-road to go,
and was feeling very weary and depressed at the magnitude of the work
and her own weakness, when a letter was handed to her. It was the only
one by that mail, but it was enough. She sat down, and in the quiet of
the bush she opened it, and as she read all the tiredness fled, the
heat was forgotten, the road was easy, and she went blithely up the
hill.
Outside the circle of her friends many people wrote to her from
Scotland, and some from England, Canada, and America. Boys and girls
whom she had never seen sent her letters telling her of their cats and
dogs, of football, and lessons and school. With her replies sometimes
went a snake skin, a brass tray, a miniature paddle, or other curio.
But it was the letter, rather than the gift, that was enjoyed. As one
girl wrote; "You are away out helping the poor black kiddies and
people, and just as busy doing good as possible, and yet you've time to
send a letter home to a little Scottish girl, a letter fragrant with
everything lovely and good, that makes one try harder than ever to do
right, and that fills one's heart with beautiful helpful thoughts."
To her own bairns, wherever they were, she wrote letters full of
household news and gentle advice. To Dan at the Institute she wrote
regularly--very pleased she was when she heard he had been at lectures
on bacteria and understood them!--and when Alice and Maggie were
inmates of the Edgerley Memorial School she kept in the closest touch
with them. Here is a specimen of her letters, written chiefly in Efik,
and addressed apparently to Alice:
MY PRECIOUS CHILDREN--I am thinking a lot about you, for you will soon
be losing our dear Miss Young; and while I am sorry for myself I am
sorrier for you and Calabar. How are you all? and have you been good?
and are you all trying to serve and please Jesus your Lord? Whitie has
gone to sleep. She has been making sand and yöñö-ing my bedroom, the
bit that you did not finish. Janie has yöñö-d the high bits, so Whitie
is very tired. Janie has gone to stay all night with the twin-mother
and her baby in the town where Effiom used to live long ago. One baby
was dead, but she is keeping the other, and the chief says, "Ma, you
are our mother, but what you have done will be the death of us." But I
tell them just to die.
The mother almost died. One child was born dead, and Janie and I stayed
all night there. Mary is at Ikot Ekpene. We saw her as we passed in the
motor. The whole town came to-day and put splendid beams in the
verandah both in front and behind, swept all behind, and put on a
corrugated iron roof, did the porch and various other things, and the
safe.
Good-bye. Are you well? We are well, through God's goodness. Are you
coming soon for holidays? My heart is hungry to see you and to touch
your hands. Greetings to Ma Fuller. Greet Ma Wilkie and Mr. Wilkie for
me. Greet each other. All we greet you. With much love to Maggie, Dan,
Asuquö,--I am, in all my prayers, your mother,
M. Slessor.
The girls and Dan also wrote regularly to her in Efik--such letters as
this:
I am pleased to send this little letter to you. Are you well? I am
fairly well through the goodness of God. Why have you delayed to send
us a letter? Perhaps you are too busy to write, but we are coming home
in a fortnight. If you hear we are on the way come quickly out when you
hear the voices of the people from the beach, because you know it will
be us. Greet Whitie, Janie, Annie and all, and accept greeting from
your loving child
MAGGIE.
After her death there was found at Use a bundle of papers, evidently
much treasured, labelled "My children's letters."
XVIII. A LONELY FIGURE
She returned to Use, but only remained long enough to arrange for the
material for the house at Odoro Ikpe. Of the special difficulties that
would beset her on this occasion, she was quite aware. The timber
supply on the ground was scarce, transport would be expensive, there
was no local skilled labour, and she was unable to work with her own
hands, while it was not easy to procure carriers and other work-people,
since the Government, with the consent of the chiefs, were taking
batches of men from each village for the coalfields and railway, a
measure she approved, as it prevented the worst elements in the
community drifting there. But nothing ever discouraged her, and she
returned at the end of April and embarked once more, and for the last
time, on building operations.
Friends kept tempting her to come to Scotland. Her friend Miss Young
was now Mrs. Arnot, wife of the Rev. David Arnot, M.A., Blairgowrie,
and from her came a pressing invitation to make her home at the manse.
"I will meet you at Liverpool," Mrs. Arnot wrote, "and bring you
straight here, where you will rest and be nursed back to health again."
It was proposed that Alice should come with her, and be left at
Blairgowrie while Mary visited her friends. She was delighted, and
wrote gaily that when she did come she "would not be a week-end visitor
or a tea visitor, but a barnacle. It is, however, all too alluring. One
only thing can overtop it, and that is duty as put into my hands by my
King." Then she paints a picture of the piles of timber and corrugated
iron about her for the building of a house, "for the happy and
privileged man or woman who shall take up the work of salvage," and of
Ikpe waiting patiently, and the towns surrendering on all sides, and
adds, "Put yourself in my place, and with an accession of strength
given since I camped up here, how could you do other than I have done?
I verily thought to be with the Macgregors, but this came and the
strength has come with it, and there must be no more moving till the
house is up, when I hope and pray some one will come to it. What a
glorious privilege it all is! I can't think why God has so highly
honoured and trusted me."
She entered on a period of toil and tribulation which proved to be one
of the most trying and exacting in her life. The house itself was a
simple matter. Large posts were inserted in the ground, and split
bamboos were placed between; cross pieces were tied on with strips of
the oil-palm tree, and then clay was prepared and pounded in. But fifty
men and lads were employed, and she had never handled so lazy, so
greedy, so inefficient a gang. Compelled to supervise them constantly,
she often had to sit in the fierce sunshine for eight hours at a time;
then with face unwashed and morning wrapper still on she would go and
conduct school. If she went to Ikpe for a day, all the work done
required to be gone over again. Sometimes she lost all patience, and
resorted to a little "muscular Christianity," which caused huge
amusement, but always had the desired effect. But she was very
philosophical over it. "It is all part of the heathen character, and,
as Mrs. Anderson used to say, 'Well, Daddy, if they were Christians
there would have been no need for you and me here.'" Jean often became
very wroth, and demanded of the people if "Ma" was not to obtain time
to eat, and if they wanted to kill her?
Annie and her husband had been placed at Nkanga, and Jean now managed
the household affairs. The faithful girl had her own difficulties in
the way of catering, for on account of the isolation money frequently
ran done, and she could not obtain the commonest necessities to feed
her "Ma." An empty purse always worried Mary, but it was a special
trial to her independent and sensitive spirit at this period, for she
was in debt to the skilled carpenter who had been engaged, and to the
labourers, and was compelled to undergo the humiliation of borrowing.
On one occasion she obtained a loan of 5s. from one of her rare
visitors, a Government doctor, a Scot and a Presbyterian, who was
investigating tropical diseases, and who, finding her in the Rest
House, had contentedly settled down with his microscopes in the Court
House shed. After working all day in the bush he spent many evenings
with her, and she was much impressed by his upright character, and his
kindness and courtesy to the natives, and said matters would be very
different in Africa if all civil and military men were of the same
stamp. The only other two visitors she had at this time were Mr. Bowes,
the printer at Duke Town, and Mr. Hart, the accountant, the latter
bringing her all the money she needed.
By the end of July the house was roughly built, and she was able to
mount up to the top rooms by means of a "hen" ladder, and there on the
loose, unsteady boards she sat tending her last motherless baby, and
feeling uplifted into a new and restful atmosphere. A pathetic picture
she made, sitting gazing over the wide African plain. She had never
been more isolated, never felt more alone.
So lonely 'twas, that God Himself
Scarce seemed there to be.
She was without assistance, her body was broken and pitifully weak, and
yet with dauntless spirit and quenchless faith she looked hopefully to
the future, when those infant stations about her would be occupied by
consecrated men and women.
XIX. When the Great War Came
Into the African bush, the home of many things that white men cannot
understand, there was stealing a troubled sense of mystery. The air was
electric with expectation and alarm. Impalpable influences seemed
fighting the feeble old woman on the lonely hill-top. She was worried
by transport difficulties. What the causes were she did not know, but
the material did not come, and as she was paying the carpenter a high
wage she was compelled to dismiss him. What work there was to do she
attempted to accomplish with her own thin, worn hands.
In the early days of August the natives began to whisper to each other
strange stories about fighting going on in the big white world beyond
the seas. News came from Calabar that the European firms had ceased to
buy produce: canoes which went down river for rice and kerosene,
returned again with their cargoes of nuts and oil. She wondered what
was happening. Then excited natives came to her in a panic, with tales
of a mad Europe and of Britain fighting Germany. She pooh-poohed the
rumours and outwardly appeared calm and unafraid in order to reassure
them, but the silence and the suspense were unbearable. On the 13th she
received letters and heard of the outbreak of the war. All the
possibilities involved in that tremendous event came crowding upon her
mind, the immense suffering and sorrow, and, not least to her, the
peril to Calabar. Nigeria was conterminous with the Cameroons, and she
knew the Germans well enough to anticipate trouble. The cost of
articles, too, she realised, would go up, and as she had little food in
the house she at once sent to the market for supplies. Already prices
were doubled. Her kerosene oil gave out, and she had to resort to
lighted firewood to read at prayers.
She went on bravely with the routine duties of the station--Dan, who
was now with her, helping in the school--but she longed impatiently
for news, "Oh, for a telegram," she would cry, "even a boy bawling in
the street!" The officer at Ikot Ekpene, knowing her anxiety, sent over
the latest intelligence, but she half suspected that he kept back the
worst. The worst came in her first war mail which arrived when she was
sitting superintending operations at the house. She read why Britain
had entered the conflict and exclaimed, "Thank God! our nation is not
the aggressor." Then came the story of the invasion of Belgium and the
reverses of the Allies. Shocked and sad she essayed to rise, but was
unable to move. The girls ran to her aid and lifted her up, but she
could not stand. Exerting her will-power and praying for strength she
directed the girls to carry her over to the Rest House and put her to
bed. Ague came on, and in half an hour she was in a raging fever which
lasted, with scarcely an interval, for a fortnight. She struggled on
amidst increasing difficulties and worries, the horrors of the war with
her night and day. Her old enemy, diarrhoea, returned, and she steadily
weakened and seemed entering the valley of the shadow. She did not fear
death, but the thought of passing away alone in the bush troubled her,
for her skull might be seized and be worshipped as a powerful juju by
the people.
At last she lay in a stupor as if beyond help. It was a scene which
suggested the final act in Dr. Livingstone's life. The girls were
crying. The church lads stood alarmed and awed. Then they raised her in
her camp-bed and marched with her the five miles to Ikpe. Next morning
they lifted the bed into a canoe and placed her under a tarpaulin and
paddled her down the Creek. They landed at Okopedi beach, where she lay
in the roadway in the moonlight, scarcely breathing. The agent of a
trading-house brought restoratives and sent for Dr. Wood, then at Itu,
who accompanied her to Use and waited the night as he feared she would
not recover. All through the hours her mind was occupied with the war
and the soldiers in the trenches.
Next day she was a little better, but would not hear of going to Itu to
be cared for there. To her Use was home where the children could
minister to her, but realising her lack of strength she sent a message
to Miss Peacock asking her to come over. Miss Peacock said to her
fellow-worker, "Ma must be very ill before she would send for any one,"
and she cycled to Use at once. Mary confided to her that it might be
the end, and "Oh," she exclaimed, "if only the war were over and my
children safe in the Kingdom, how gladly would I go!" She called the
bairns to her and told them what to do in the event of her death. Like
all natives in the presence of serious illness they were greatly upset
and wept bitterly, but as the disorder passed they began to think that
she would get better, and went about their duties, Jean to her
marketing, and Alice to the care of the house, with Whitie to help,
while Maggie looked after the baby.
The shadow of the war continued to darken her heart. She agonised for
the cause which her native land had taken up, and many a cry went up to
God on its behalf in the hour of trial. Miss Peacock remained several
nights, and returned to Ikotobong with a strong presentiment that "Ma"
was not to be long with them, and she and Miss Couper arranged to keep
in touch with her as closely as possible.
As she plodded on towards strength and as better news arrived about the
war situation she began to be more like herself and take up her old
duties. For a time she lay in the verandah on a deck chair; and then
went to the church, conducted the Sunday services, but was obliged to
sit all the time and lean her body against the communion-table. Yet in
the midst of her weakness and suffering she had always a bright laugh
and a word of encouragement for others. Reluctantly she came to the
conclusion that nothing would heal her but a voyage home and as she was
longing for a few more hours--it was not years now--of work she made up
her mind to face it, and to include in her furlough a visit to the
graves of her mother and sister at Exeter. The difficulty of the east
wind in Scotland was overcome by a proposal from Mrs. Arnot, who in the
mystery of things, had suddenly been bereft of her husband, that she
would take a small house where they could live together in quiet. "I
shall meet you," that lady wrote, "and make a home for you and care for
you if God puts it into your heart to come." The wonderful kindness of
the offer brought tears to her eyes and she consented with a great
content. Her plan was to return to Odoro Ikpe, complete the house, and
leave for Scotland early in the spring; and she asked Miss Adam to send
her a hat and boots and other articles which civilisation demanded. Her
only regret was at leaving her people and specially those at Ikpe. "It
is ten years since I first took them on, and they have never got a
teacher yet. It is bitterly hard!" Miss Peacock and Miss Couper
noticed, however, that the old recuperative power which had always
surprised them was gone, and one day she said that she had been
overhauling her desk and tearing up letters in case anything should
happen.
The tragedy of the war came home personally to her. Two of her official
friends, Commander G. Gray and Lieutenant H. A. Child, C.M.G., were
serving in the Navy and were both drowned by the capsizing of a whaler
when crossing the bar at the entrance to the Nyong River. "They were my
oldest and most intimate friends here, capable, sane Empire-builders,"
and she sorrowed for them with a great sorrow. Sometimes her old
fighting spirit was roused by the news of the deeds of the enemy. "Oh
if I were thirty years younger, and if I were a man! ... We must not
have peace until Germany licks the dust and is undeceived and stricken
once for all." Her comments brought out the fact that she had followed
European events very closely during the past thirty years, whilst her
letters to her faint-hearted friends in Scotland showed her usual
insight:
God does not mean you and me to carry the burden, and German soldiers
are flesh and blood and must give out by-and-by, and they cannot create
new armies, and with long-drawn out lines of battle on East and West
they can't send an army that could invade Britain. They could harass,
that's all, and our women are not Belgians; they would fight even
German soldiers. Yes! they would stand up to William the Execrated.
Moreover, Zeppelins can do a lot of hurt, but they can't take London;
and Ostend and Antwerp are no nearer Britain for any kind of air attack
than Berlin is, and above all our perspective is doubtless better than
yours--any one can see that to try and take towns and to fight in
streets filled with civilians has not a pennyworth of military value.
It is a sheer waste of energy and life which should have been utilised
on the armies and strongholds of a country. Brussels, Bruges, Antwerp,
even Paris, had they got it, would be a mere blare of trumpets, a flash
in the pan, a spectacular show, and if they took Edinburgh or London or
Aberdeen, it would be the same, they would still have to reckon with a
nation or nations. It has all been a mistake for their own downfall,
and they will clear out of Belgium poorer than they entered it. Haven't
the East Indians done nobly? Bravo our Allies!
She had now fallen into calmer mood. "Miss Slessor," she would say
severely to herself, "why do you worry? Is God not fit to take care of
His own universe and purpose? We are not guilty of any aggression or
lust of conquest, and we can trust Him to bring us through. He is not
to be turned aside from the working out of His purpose by any War
Lord." She always fell back on the thought, "The Lord reigneth" as on a
soft pillow and rested there. Writing one morning at 6 o'clock she
described the beauty of the dawn and the earth refreshed and cooled and
the hope and the mystery of a new day opening out, and contrasted it
with the darkness and cold and fog experienced by the army and navy.
"God is always in the world," she said; "the sunshine will break out
and light will triumph." And she did not ignore the deeper issues, "May
our nation be sent from its pleasures to its knees, and the Church be
awed and brought back to Him."
On Christmas Day a service was held at which she intimated the opening
of the subscription list for the Prince of Wales' Fund. She did not
like to speak of war among Christian nations to natives; but it was
current history, and she made the best explanation she could, though
she was glad to turn their thoughts to the day of National Intercession
on the following Sabbath. Dan acted as interpreter in the evening to
Mr. Hart, who gave an address.
To a friend she wrote:
There will be few merry Christmasses in Europe this year. But, thank
God, there will be a more profound sense of all Christ came to be and
do for mankind, and a closer union and communion between Him and His
people, through the sadness and insufficiency of earthly good. He will
Himself draw near, and will fill empty chairs in lonely homes and
hearts, and make His people--aye--and thousands who have not sought Him
in prosperity--to know that here and now He is the Resurrection and the
Life, that he that believeth in Him shall never die.
On New Year's Day Miss Peacock and Miss Couper went to spend the
afternoon with her, and the former writes:
According to old-time customs I had made her her favourite plum-pudding
and sent it over with a message that we meant to come to tea on New
Year's Day. On our arrival the tea-table was set, and the plum-pudding
with a rose out of the garden stuck on the top was on the table. Miss
Slessor was as happy as a girl, and said she had to exercise self-
control to keep from tasting the pudding before we arrived. And we had
a merry meal. Then, when we left, she had to escort us to the end of
the road. A new tenderness seemed to have come into her life, and with
regard to those with whom she differed, she seemed to go out of her way
to say the kindest things possible. She spoke to me of something she
had written which she had torn up and said, "I wonder I could have been
so hard." It was not difficult to see the last touches of the Master's
hand to the life He had been moulding for so many years.
XX. THE TIME OF THE SINGING OF BIRDS
At the turn of the year her thoughts were again with her mother who had
passed away then, twenty-nine years before. She was feeling very weak,
but read and wrote as usual. Her last letter to Miss Adam told, amongst
other things, of the previous day's service and how Annie's little girl
would run about the church and point to her and call to her--"I can't
say 'Don't bring her' for there should be room enough for the babies in
our Father's house." Her closing words to her old friend were, "God be
with you till we meet again." Even in her feeble state she was always
thinking of others. David had taken his wife to Lagos, and her vivid
imagination conjured up all the dangers of the voyage, and she was
anxious for their safety. In the same letter in which she speaks of
them, written on the 5th, she pours out sympathy and comfort to a lady
friend in Edinburgh whose two sons had joined the Forces.
My heart bleeds for you, my dear, dear friend, but God's love gave the
mother heart its love and its yearning over its treasures, so He will
know how to honour and care for the mother, and how to comfort her and
keep her treasures for her. Just keep hold on Him, dear one, and put
your boys into His hand, as you did when they were babies. He is able
to keep them safe in the most difficult and dangerous situations. I am
constantly praying with you, and with others of my friends, who, just
as you, are giving up their dearest and most precious at the call of
Duty. God can enrich them and you and all the anxious and exposed ones
even through the terrible fires. In God's governance not one precious
thing can ever be lost.
On Friday the 8th she sat on a deck-chair in the little garden outside
the door enjoying the sunshine, for the harmattan wind was cold, and
writing some letters. The last she penned was to Mrs. Arnot, in which
she said she was better though "a wee shade weaker than usual." It was
never finished, and was found, later, on her pad. The final words were:
"I can't say definitely whether I shall yet come in March--if I be
spared till then ..."
In the afternoon there was a recurrence of fever. Alice tended her
unceasingly, seldom leaving her bedside, and stretching herself, when
in need of rest, on a mat beside the bed. She was a great comfort to
Mary. On Sunday spirit again dominated body; she struggled up, went
over to the church, and conducted service. Next day she was suffering
acutely from diarrhoea and vomiting, and one of the girls went to
Ikotobong and summoned Miss Peacock, who immediately cycled over.
"I got a messenger," says Miss Peacock, "and sent him to Itu stating
the symptoms, and asking Dr. Robertson to come and see her. All the
afternoon the vomiting and diarrhoea continued until Dr. Robertson
arrived. He had secured some ice at one of the factories, and gave her
some medicine, and both the diarrhoea and vomiting were stopped. All
the afternoon there had been a great restlessness and weariness, and
unless to ask for something she seldom spoke. Her mails were brought
into the room by one of the girls, but she took no notice of them. She
was moved from her bed on to her chair, and back again several times,
but did not seem to be able to rest anywhere; then she would give a
great cry of weariness as if she were wearied unto death.
"As the evening wore on she became quieter, but had a great thirst, and
begged that a little bit of the ice might be put into her mouth. She
had a very quiet night, without any recurrence of the former symptoms,
and I thought she was somewhat better, until the morning revealed how
exhausted she was. The old restlessness began again, and I got a lad
from the school to take a message over to Itu to Dr. Robertson. My
report was that Miss Slessor had had a quiet night, but was suffering
from extreme exhaustion. The doctor sent over some medicine with
instructions, and she seemed again to be able to lie quietly. Once when
I was attending to her she said, 'Ma, it's no use,' and again she
prayed, 'O _Abasi, sana mi yok_' ('O God release me'). As I fed her
with milk or chicken soup, she would sometimes sign to me, or just say
'Ma.' A lonely feeling came into my heart, and as I had to send a
message to Ikotobong, I asked Miss Couper to cycle over in the
afternoon. She stayed all the afternoon, and when she left Miss Slessor
was still quiet, and her pulse was fairly good. This was the 12th.
"The girls--Janie, Annie, Maggie, Alice, and Whitie--were all with me,
and we made our arrangements for the night-watch. It was not a grand
room with costly furnishings; the walls were of reddish-brown mud, very
roughly built; the floor was of cement, with a rug here and there, and
the roof corrugated iron. Besides the bed, washhand-stand, and a chair
or two, there was a chest of drawers which had belonged to her mother,
and in which was found all that was needed for the last service. Her
greatness was never in her surroundings, for she paid little attention
to these, but in the hidden life which we caught glimpses of now and
then when she forgot herself and revealed what was in her mind with
regard to the things that count.
"As the hours wore on, several times she signed to us to turn her, and
we noticed that her breathing was becoming more difficult. It was a
very dark night, and the natives were sound asleep in their houses, but
I sent off two of the girls to rouse two men to go to Itu; and we
waited anxiously the coming of the doctor. A strange uneasiness seemed
to come upon us. All the girls were round the bedside, and now and then
one or two would begin to weep. The clock had been forgotten, and we
did not know the time. A cock crew, and one of the girls said, 'Day
must be dawning,' but when I drew aside the curtain there was nothing
but pitch darkness. It was not nearly daybreak, and we felt that the
death-angel was drawing very near. Several times a change passed over
the dear face, and the girls burst out into wild weeping; they knew
only too well the sign of the dread visitor. They wished to rush away,
but I told them they must stay, and together we watched until at 3.30
God took her to Himself. There was no great struggle at the end; just a
gradual diminishing of the forces of nature, and Ma Akamba, 'The Great
Mother,' entered into the presence of the King."
And so the long life of toil was over. "The time of the singing of
birds," she used to say, "is where Christ is." For her, now, the winter
was past, the rain was over and gone, the time of the singing of birds
had come....
When the girls realised that she was gone, they gave way to their
grief, and lamented their position in the world. "My mother is dead--my
mother is dead--we shall be counted as slaves now that our mother is
dead." The sound of the weeping reached the town and roused the
inhabitants from their slumbers. Men and women came to the house and
mingled their tears with those of the household. They sat about on the
steps, went into the bedroom and gazed sorrowfully on the white still
face of her whom they regarded as a mother and friend. As the news was
passed on, people came from Itu and the district round, to see in death
her who had been _Eka kpukpru owo_, "Everybody's Mother."
As soon as Mr. Wilkie received the telegram announcing the end, he
obtained a launch and sent it up with the Rev. W. M. Christie, B.A.,
who, Mr. Macgregor being at home, was in charge of the Institute. While
it was on the way an English and an Efik service were being held at
Itu. The launch arrived at 5.30 P.M., the coffin was placed on board,
and the return voyage begun. It was midnight ere Duke Town was reached,
and the body rested at Government Beach until dawn. There the mourners
gathered. Government officials, merchants, and missionaries, were all
there. The boys of the Institute were drawn up on the beach, policemen
were posted in the streets, and the pupils of Duke Town school
continued the line to the cemetery. All flags flew at half-mast, and
the town was hushed and still. Great crowds watched the procession,
which moved along in silence. The coffin was draped with the Union
Jack, and was carried shoulder high by the boat boys, who wore black
singlets and mourning loin-cloths, but no caps.
At the cemetery on Mission Hill stood a throng of natives. Old Mammy
Fuller who had loved Mary so much, sat alone at the top of the grave.
When the procession was approaching she heard some women beginning to
wail, and at once rose. "_Kutua oh, kutua oh_," she said. "Do not cry,
do not cry. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Ma was a great
blessing."
A short and simple service was conducted by Mr. Wilkie and Mr. Rankin,
and some of the native members led the singing of "_When the day of
toil is done_," and "_Asleep in Jesus_." The coffin was lowered by
eight of the teachers of Duke Town School, and lilies and other flowers
were thrown upon it. Mammy Fuller uttered a grateful sigh. "Safe," she
murmured. One or two women wept quietly, but otherwise there was
absolute silence, and those who know the natives will understand the
restraint which they imposed upon themselves. Upon the grave were
placed crosses of purple bougainvillea and white and pink frangipanni,
and in the earth was planted a slip from the rose bush at Use, that it
might grow and be symbolic of the fragrance and purity and beauty of
her life.
"Ma," said Mammy Fuller to Mrs. Wilkie when all was over, "I don't know
when I enjoyed anything so much; I have been just near heaven all the
time."
XXI. TRIBUTE AND TREASURE
Many tributes were paid to the dead pioneer. As soon as Sir Frederick
Lugard, the Governor-General of Nigeria, heard of the event he
telegraphed to Mr. Wilkie: "It is with the deepest regret that I learn
of the death of Miss Slessor. Her death is a great loss to Nigeria."
And later came the formal black-bordered notice in the Government
_Gazette_:--
It is with the deepest regret that His Excellency the Governor-General
has to announce the death at Itu, on 18th January, of Miss Mary
Mitchell Slessor, Honorary Associate of the Order of the Hospital of
St. John of Jerusalem in England.
For thirty-nine years, with brief and infrequent visits to England,
Miss Slessor has laboured among the people of the Eastern Provinces in
the south of Nigeria.
By her enthusiasm, self-sacrifice, and greatness of character she has
earned the devotion of thousands of the natives among whom she worked,
and the love and esteem of all Europeans, irrespective of class or
creed, with whom she came in contact.
She has died, as she herself wished, on the scene of her labours, but
her memory will live long in the hearts of her friends, Native and
European, in Nigeria.
Testimony regarding her qualities and work was given in Scotland by the
Mission Committees of the United Free Church, by officials,
missionaries, and others who knew her, and by the Press, whilst from
many parts of the world came notices of her career which indicated how
widely known she had been. The appreciation which would perhaps have
pleased her most was a poem written by a Scottish girl, fifteen years
of age, with whom she had carried on a charming correspondence--
Christine G. M. Orr, daughter of Sheriff Orr, Edinburgh. She would,
doubtless, have had it included in any notice of her work, and here,
therefore, it is given:
THE LAMENT OF HER AFRICAN CHILDREN
She who loved us, she who sought us
Through the wild untrodden bushlands,
Brought us healing, brought us comfort,
Brought the sunlight to our darkness,
She has gone--the dear white Mother--
Gone into the great Hereafter.
Never more on rapid waters
Shall she dip her flashing paddle,
Nor again the dry leaves rustle
'Neath her footstep in the forest,
Never more shall we behold her
Eager, dauntless on her journeyings.
Now the children miss their teacher,
And the women mourn their helper;
And the sick, the weak, the outcast
Long that she once more might touch them,
Long to hear her speaking comfort,
Long to feel her strong hand soothing.
Much in loneliness and danger,
Fevered oft, beset with trouble,
Still she strove for us, her children;
Taught us of the great good Spirit,
He who dwells beyond the sunrise;
Showed to us the love He bears us,
By her own dear loving-kindness;
Told us not to fear the spirits,
Evil spirits in the shadows,
For our Father-God is watching,
Watching through the cloudless daytime,
Watching at the silent midnight,
So that nothing harms His people;
Taught us how to love each other,
How to care for little children
With a tenderness we knew not,
How, with courtesy and honour,
To respect the gentle women,
Nor despise them for their weakness,
But, as wives and mothers, love them.
Thus she taught, and thus she laboured;
Living, spent herself to help us,
Dying, found her rest among us.
Let the dry, harsh winds blow softer
And the river's song fall lower,
While the forest sways and murmurs
In the mystery of evening,
And the lonely bush lies silent,
Silent with a mighty sorrow.
Oh! our mother--she who loved us,
She who lost herself in service,
She who lightened all our darkness,
She has left us, and we mourn her
With a lonely, aching sorrow.
May the great good Spirit hear us,
Hear us in our grief and save us,
Compass us with His protection
Till, through suffering and shadow,
We with weary feet have journeyed
And again our mother greets us
In the Land beyond the sunrise.
Both the Calabar Council and the Women's Foreign Mission Committee in
Scotland felt that the most fitting memorial to her would be the
continuation of her work, and arrangements were accordingly made for
the appointment and supervision of teachers and evangelists at Use,
Ikpe, and Odoro Ikpe, and for the care of the children. It was also
decided to realise her settlement scheme and call it "The Mary Slessor
Home for Women and Girls," with a memorial missionary in charge, and
later an appeal for a capital sum of £5000 for the purpose was issued.
It would have pleased Mary to know that the lady chosen for the
position of memorial missionary was her old colleague Mrs. Arnot. She
had worked hard and waited long for the accomplishment of this idea,
and she may yet, from above, see of the travail of her soul and be
satisfied....
By and by her more special possessions were collected and sent home. If
she had been an ordinary woman one might have expected to see a
collection of the things that a lady likes to gather about her; the
dainty trinkets and souvenirs, the jewellery and knicknacks that have
pleasant associations connected with them. When the little box arrived
it was filled less with these than with pathos and tears. It held
merely a few much-faded articles, one or two Bibles, a hymn-book (the
gift of some twin-mother at home), an old-fashioned scent-bottle, a
pebble brooch, hair bracelet, two old lockets, and her mother's ring--
all these were evidently relics of the early days--a compass, and a
fountain pen.
But there also came a large packet of letters, those received during
her last years, which revealed where her treasures on earth were
stored--in a multitude of hearts whose love she had won. They were from
men in Nigeria--Government officials, missionaries, and merchants--
from men and women in many lands, from the mothers and sisters of the
"boys" to whom she had been kind, from Church officials, from children
--all overflowing with affection and admiration and love. She had often
called herself a "rich woman." One learned from these letters the
reason why.
XXII. SEEN AND UNSEEN
Miss Slessor had a sure consciousness of her limitations, and knew she
was nothing but a forerunner, who opened up the way and made it
possible for others to come in and take up the work on normal lines.
Both in the sphere of mission exploration and in the region of ideas
she possessed the qualities of the pioneer,--imagination, daring,
patience,--and like all idealists she met with opposition. It was not,
however, the broad policy she originated that was criticised, so much
as matters of detail, and no doubt there was sometimes justification
for this. She admitted that she had no gifts as an organiser, and when
she engaged in constructive work it was because there was no one else
to do it.
What she accomplished, therefore, cannot be measured only by the
visible results of her own handiwork. The Hope Waddell Institute was
the outcome of her suggestions, and from it has gone out a host of lads
to teach in schools throughout the country, and to influence the lives
of thousands of others. She laid the foundations of civilised order in
Okoyong, upon which regular church and school life has now been
successfully built. When she unlocked the Enyong Creek, some were
amused at the little kirks and huts she constructed in the bush, and
asked what they were worth--just a few posts plastered with mud, and a
sheet or two of corrugated iron. But they represented a spiritual force
and influence far beyond their material value. They were erected with
her life-blood, they embodied her love for her Master and for the
people, they were outposts, the first dim lights in the darkness of a
dark land, they stood for Christ Himself and His Cross. And to-day
there exist throughout the district nearly fifty churches and schools
in which the work is being carried on carefully and methodically by
trained minds. The membership numbers nearly 1500, and there is a large
body of candidates and enquirers and over 2000 scholars. The remarkable
progress being made in self-support may be gathered from the following
figures taken from the accounts of the five Creek congregations for
1914:
Members Income Cash in bank
Itu . . . . 109 £113 9 4 £97 13 6
Okpo . . . . 101 76 7 7 62 16 8
Asang . . . . 428 184 17 10 865 13 6
Obufa Obio (Chief
Onoyom) . . . 118 118 16 10 736 19 4
Ntan Obu . . . 111 83 11 9 204 1 2
All these churches and others that she began are spreading the Gospel
not only by direct effort, but also by means of their members as they
trade up and down the country.
One cannot estimate the value of her general influence on the natives;
it extended over an area of more than 2000 square miles, from all parts
of which they came to seek her help and advice, whilst her fame reached
even to Northern Nigeria, where she was spoken of as the "good White Ma
who lived alone." To West Africans, a woman is simply a chattel to be
used for pleasure and gain, but she gave them a new conception of
womanhood, and gained their reverence and confidence and obedience.
Although she came to upset all their ideas and customs, which
represented home and habit and life itself to them, they loved her and
would not let the wind blow on her. She thus made it easy for other
women agents to live and work amongst them; probably there is no
similar mission field where these can dwell in such freedom and safety.
And through her womanhood she gave them some idea of the power and
beauty of the religion which could make that womanhood possible. Her
influence will not cease, for in the African bush, where there are no
daily newspapers to crowd out events impressions, and tradition is
tenacious, she will be remembered in hut and harem and by forest camp
fire, and each generation will hand down to the next the story of the
Great White Mother who lived and toiled for their good.
Upon the Mission staff her example acted like a tonic. Her tireless
energy, her courage, her enthusiasm, were infectious and stimulating,
to the highest degree, and stirred many to action. Such an inspiring
force is a valuable asset in a tropical land, where everything tends to
languor and inertia. And in Scotland her influence was also very great.
Round her name and work gathered a romance which deepened and widened
interest in the missionary enterprise of the Church. Her career
demonstrates how important is the personal touch and tie in sustaining
and increasing the attraction of the work abroad. By the spell of her
personality she was able to draw support not only from large numbers of
people within her own Church, but from many outside who had little
thought or for missions. It was because she not a mere name on a list,
but a warm, living, inspiring, human presence. For while she was great
as a pioneer and worker, she was equally great as a woman.
XXIII. THE ALABASTER Box
But the interest in Nigeria on the part of the home people as a whole
was never enough for Miss Slessor. It was largely an interest in
herself and her work, and she wanted rather the larger vision which
would realise the possibilities of that great field, and endeavour to
conquer it for the Master. The general indifference on the subject was
a deep disappointment to her. But it had always been so.
The story of Calabar is one of the most thrilling in the history of
missions, yet through it also there runs an undercurrent of tragedy--
the tragedy of unseized opportunities and unfulfilled hopes. As one
reads, he can fancy that he is standing by a forest at night listening
to the sound that the wind brings of a strange conflict between a few
brave spirits, and legions of wild and evil forces, with incessant
cries for help. From the first days of the Mission, urgent appeals for
more workers have constantly been made; there is scarcely a year that
the men and women on the spot have not pressed its urgent needs upon
the home Church, but never once has there been an adequate response.
To-day, as always, the staff is pitifully small. To minister to the
needs of the many millions within the area assigned to the Church,
there are only eighteen European missionaries, three medical
missionaries, and thirteen women agents, apart from the wives of the
married missionaries. In Duke Town and Okoyong, on the Cross River and
the Enyong Creek, and far up at Uburu, the city of the salt lakes, all
the stations are undermanned, and the medical men are overwhelmed by
the thousands of patients who flock to them to be healed.
What Mary Slessor did, other women are doing in the same spirit of
selflessness and courage, but with the same sense of powerlessness to
overtake what is required. The number of these women agents does not
appreciably increase, for, while fresh appointments are continuously
being made, there are usually more changes amongst them than amongst
the men missionaries, on account of resignations from ill-health or
marriage. Yet in Nigeria women have unlimited opportunities for the
employment of their special gifts.
The remarkable feature of the situation is that the Mission is face to
face with an open door. It is not a question of sitting down in the
midst of a religiously difficult and even hostile community as in India
or China, and waiting patiently for admission to the hearts of the
people, but of entering in and taking possession. The natives
everywhere are clamouring for teachers and missionaries, education,
enlightenment, and they are clamouring in vain. The peril is that under
the new conditions governing the country, they will be lost to the
Christian Church. With freer intercommunication, Islam is spreading
south. All Mohammedans are missionaries, and their religion has
peculiar attractions for the natives. Already they are trading in the
principal towns, and in Arochuku a Mullah is sitting, smiling and
expectant, and ingratiating himself with the people. Here the position
should be strengthened; it is, as Miss Slessor knew, the master-key to
the Ibo territory, for if the Aros are Christianised, they will carry
the evangel with them over a wide tract of country.
Miss Slessor's life shadowed by the consciousness of how little had
been done, as well as by the immensity of what was still to do. Making
every allowance for the initial difficulties that had to be overcome,
and the long process of preparing the soil, the net result of seventy
years' effort seemed to her inadequate. There is only a Christian
community of 10,800, and a communion-roll of 3412, and the districts
contiguous to the coast have alone been occupied, whilst no real
impression has been made on the interior. Over the vast, sun-smitten
land she wept, as her Master wept over the great city of old, and she
did what she could--no woman could have done more--to redeem its
people, and sought, year in, year out, to make the Church rise to the
height of its wonderful opportunity--in vain.
She knew, however, that the presentation of startling facts and figures
alone would never rouse it to action; these might touch the conscience
for a moment, but the only thing that would awaken interest and keep it
active and militant would be a revival of love for Christ in the hearts
of the people; and it was for this she prayed and agonised most of all.
For with it would come a more sympathetic imagination, a warmer faith,
greater courage to go forward and do the seemingly impossible and
foolish thing. It would, she knew, change the aims and ideals of her
sisters, so many of them moving in a narrow world of self, and thrill
them with a desire to take part in the saving and uplifting of the
world. There would be no need then to make appeals, for volunteers
would come forward in abundance for the hardest posts, and consecrated
workers would fill up the ranks in Nigeria and in all the Mission
Fields of the Church.
She knew, because it was so in her case. Love for Christ made her a
missionary. Like that other Mary who was with Him on earth, her love
constrained her to offer Him her best, and very gladly she took the
alabaster box of her life and broke it and gave the precious ointment
of her service to Him and His cause.
Many influences move men and women to beautiful and gallant deeds, but
what Mary Slessor was, and what she did, affords one more proof that
the greatest of these is Love.
THE END