SECOND TERM AT SAN SALVADOR
Mr. Lewis gathered strength during the voyage. Upon arrival in England he
was pronounced “much better” and Mrs. Lewis “very well.” A visit to the
Parkinsons at Deal and a stay with the Hartlands at Aberystwyth yielded
much pleasure to all concerned and went far toward restoring Mr. Lewis
to customary vigour. Toward the end of November Mrs. Lewis is busy with
her old friends at Camden Road preparing for the Congo Sale and records
with evident delight a surprise visit at the schoolroom by Grenfell, who
had arrived in England two days earlier. On November 25th the Sale was
opened by Mrs. Lewis, Mr. Baynes, the Secretary of the B.M.S., and the
Rev. William Brock, of Hampstead, being among her supporters. She spoke
in calm, simple, restrained, but intense fashion of her work among the
women of San Salvador, and held a large audience in closest and most
sympathetic attention.
And here I may remark—and the judgment is based not upon this speech
only, but also upon many others heard in later years and more fully
remembered—never was there a missionary speaker who more conscientiously
avoided excessive use of bright colouring in pictures of missionary
success. Her nature was passionately truthful, and she ever sought as far
as possible to make her audiences see things as they really were. As far
as possible, I say, for her saddened eyes saw much which her woman’s lips
could never speak, and this she allowed her friends to understand.
In the New Year Mr. Lewis was sent north, south, east, and west on
deputation journeys, but Mrs. Lewis’s work was largely confined to the
London district, in which she attended many meetings advocating the cause
to which her life was given. Once she started at an hour’s notice for
Newport, Mon., and spoke at an evening meeting the same day, “with Tom
and Mr. Evans, of Merthyr.” As much as possible of her time was given
to her “dear mother,” Mrs. Hartland, who was at this time a confirmed
invalid and subject to the discipline of much suffering, which she
endured with exemplary Christian patience and submission.
It is interesting to me, as it will be to many readers, to gather from
the diary that Grenfell was a frequent visitor at the rooms of Mr. and
Mrs. Lewis. The entry for Saturday, March 21st, surprised me. “Mr.
Grenfell and Mr. Hawker called.” The eclecticism of memory is one of
the mysteries of life. Incidents of no moment and little interest are
retained with photographic clearness, other incidents which it would be
precious to recall pass utterly out of mind. Clearly upon this day I must
have spent some time—probably an hour, perhaps more—in conversation with
two people whom I regarded with affectionate esteem and whose lives I was
destined to write long years afterwards. Yet I confess with wonder and
humiliation that the utmost effort at recollection leaves me destitute of
the faintest remembrance of the fact.
Six weeks later Mr. and Mrs. Lewis were both down with influenza. The
illness was somewhat serious and involved a visit to Ventnor, where lost
energies were recovered. They returned to London in the middle of June,
and on the day of arrival met Mrs. J. J. Brown and Messrs. Grenfell
and Oram. On June 19th Mrs. Lewis records with a note of relief that
she has “passed Dr. Roberts,” and on the last day of the month she and
her husband leave London for Liverpool amid the cheers of a company of
friends who had gathered at St. Pancras for the send-off. Mrs. Parkinson
accompanied them to Liverpool, where Mr. Parkinson joined them later.
On Wednesday, July 1st, the little party spent the day at Southport.
Surely it must have been a wet day, for Mrs. Lewis smites the fair town
with the scornful phrase, “wretched place,” and is glad to get back to
Liverpool to tea. An evening entertainment in Liverpool proved as little
satisfactory as Southport. Perhaps she was in no mood for entertainment.
The next day she sailed upon her fourth voyage to Africa, which, though
enlivened by many incidents of interest, proved on the whole the most
wearisome and comfortless of her experience. On August 20th she writes:
“Arrived at Banana about 7 a.m. After breakfast went ashore and called
at the Dutch House. Went to see dear Annie’s grave. Tom photographed it.
Rather tired.”
The mention of “Dear Annie’s grave” calls for a slight digression. Annie
was the youngest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Jonas Smith, of Camden Road
Church, and one of Mrs. Lewis’s girl friends, whose name has already been
mentioned. She became engaged to Mr. Percy Comber and went out to Africa
to be married. Arriving at St. Thomé on the voyage, she was overjoyed
to find that the homeward-bound steamer was in port and that among her
passengers were Mr. and Mrs. Lewis. There lies before me as I write
her letter to Mrs. Hartland, written at the close of this happy day of
meeting, telling of how her friends were brought aboard her ship and of
the eager, happy converse which ensued.
They parted. The Lewises arrived safely in England. Annie Smith was
married at Matadi on June 5th, and passed up to Wathen, where she worked
for a few months with great joy and much promise. Toward the end of
the year serious illness fell upon her, and under doctor’s orders she
started for home, accompanied by her husband. But her journey ended at
Banana on December 19th. She was laid to rest beside the sea, and her
stricken husband turned back to his work—alone. The sorrow at Camden
Road was great. She had gone from us such a little while before, so full
of radiant life, so joyous in her consecration to the great cause. Mrs.
Lewis was present at the memorial service held in Camden Road Church on
January 25, 1891, and the reader will appreciate the sorrowful interest
of her visit to “dear Annie’s grave,” and the intensity of her sympathy
with “poor Percy, so sad and lonely.”
On August 28th, Mrs. Lewis writes from Tunduwa (Underhill) lamenting
endless delays. The old King of San Salvador is dead, and the hoped-for
carriers are detained by the prolonged obsequies of their late sovereign.
She is still in Tunduwa on September 6th, but has been of service in
nursing Mr. Lawson Forfeitt through an illness, whose return to England,
she suggests, should be arranged speedily. Finally, on September 12th,
San Salvador is reached, and the longed-for work is resumed. A fortnight
later Mrs. Graham and Mrs. Phillips are on the point of leaving for
England. Their husbands are to accompany them to the coast, and Mr.
Graham is to remain in charge at Underhill, while Mr. Forfeitt takes his
much-needed furlough.
* * * * *
It is not practicable, as it is not necessary, to attempt anything like a
continuous story of the next two or three years. The work proceeds along
the lines laid down, and the days are passed in the quiet and sometimes
monotonous discharge of routine duties. San Salvador is off the main line
of the Mission, and Mrs. Lewis and her friends live in a little world
of their own, which occasionally seems to be very small and secluded.
But the work is too constantly exacting to give time for dispiriting
reflection upon its isolation, nor is it destitute of occasional
excitements.
Mrs. Lewis resumed with undiminished zeal her school work and her women’s
classes. Her medical and dispensary work steadily increases. There are
successes which cheer and disappointments which test faith and endurance.
An untoward accident interrupts the promising work at the sub-station
of Etoto. Some of the “boys” become less zealous, and, like certain of
their white brethren in England, yield to the seductions of worldly
interest. Kivitidi resigns the office of evangelist, and occupies himself
in tailoring and trading, which he finds much more remunerative. Yet he
continues to live the life of a Christian man, and renders to the Mission
much voluntary service. Nlekai and others involve themselves and their
missionary friends in troubles and embarrassments by their matrimonial
aspirations and ventures.
The marriage business is still more distracting in relation to the girls.
It is not to be thought of that they should not marry; they marry when
they are mere children, and their babies keep them away from school at
the time when they would profit most by instruction. In some instances
the grandmothers take care of the babies, and set the girl-mothers free.
Mrs. Lewis observes that the grandmothers are much more devoted to the
babies than the mothers, and she surmises that this is due to the fact
that the mothers are mere children themselves, too immature to appreciate
or discharge maternal responsibilities.
1892 was the centenary year of the Baptist Missionary Society. The little
Church at San Salvador, numbering thirty-nine members, resolved to make
its contribution to the Centenary Fund in the form of a Christmas
collection. The conditions of native life made it desirable that the
gifts should be brought in as soon as they were ready. If they were
stored up in the native huts they might be used or lost, so the Christmas
collection began early.
Writing on New Year’s Day, Mrs. Lewis says: “Kivitidi was the first to
bring his offering. Since then the people have been constantly coming,
and a strange collection you would find it. Some have brought cloth,
some beads, some fowls, some baskets full of ground nuts. One woman
brought a keg of gunpowder, and one man—the largest contribution of all—a
pig. This last offering caused much amusement. It was so difficult to
catch that it seemed doubtful whether it would be ready for Christmas
Day, either dead or alive. However, on the morning of Christmas Eve,
it arrived dead, borne triumphantly in a hammock, and made a capital
Christmas feast for all the people on the station.[3] The people have
indeed offered willingly, and have both surprised and gladdened our
hearts by their generosity. On Christmas morning a large congregation met
together in our chapel for a thanksgiving service, when the names of the
contributors were read out, and it was announced that the total value of
the collection was £33 14s. 3d. Earnest prayers were offered by some of
the native Christians that God’s blessing might go with their gifts, and
we closed by singing the Te Deum and the Doxology.”
In the same letter Mrs. Lewis tells of certain horrible cruelties
perpetrated in the district in deference to native customs. Two runaway
slaves were captured, tied to long poles firmly fixed in the earth, and
left to starve. In returning from Tunduwa Mr. Phillips saw the charred
bones of a woman who had been burned to death in a witch palaver. In a
town near by a slave, for a threatening word, was put in irons, his neck
made fast in the fork of a heavy stick six feet long. In this plight he
had remained for twenty-one days when Mr. Lewis came upon him, while the
death palaver was in process. Happily, in this instance, he was able to
effect a rescue, and the man was taken to work on the Mission station.
On April 28th in a long letter to her niece, Miss Ethel Percival, Mrs.
Lewis tells of Nlekai beginning work in Mawunza; of the hindrance to the
Mission arising from the unpopularity of the present Portuguese officials
and the Catholic Mission; and then gives the following account of her
garden, which is yielding Mr. Lewis recompense for his labours.
“We have lots of flowers in our garden—English ones, too—verbenas,
heliotropes, petunias, and roses pink and white. We have also a quantity
of maize, plantains, and bananas in our kitchen garden, splendid onions
and potatoes, which will be ready shortly. Yams, too, are coming on.
Limes are in abundance, and the trees are laden with oranges, which I
hope will ripen in due time. This is the Vegetable dispensation. Under
Mr. Graham it was the Animal dispensation, and the two do not run well
together. Now our live-stock is kept within bounds, and consists of one
goose, which is fattening for the table, several ducks, a few goats, a
lot of pigeons, and one dear rabbit, Jack, who has a spacious yard all to
himself, for his tiresome wife has run away. How she went is a mystery.
Mr. Phillips also possesses a monkey, who lives in a cage, poor fellow! I
forgot the fowls, whose name is legion.”
“June 28th.—I don’t think I told you that since I returned this time I
have started quite a midwifery practice. It came without seeking. Of
course I could not do anything in this line until I could speak without
an interpreter. Now I am in request at the advent of every baby. I keep
a registry of births, that we may have some idea of the children’s
ages. I could tell you some laughable things about habits and customs,
but I cannot write them. At last, this month, we have dispensed with
interpreters altogether—_i.e._, Tom and I. I think Mr. Phillips will also
when he comes back. We have managed for some time everything except the
regular services. In these we were afraid of making mistakes, which are
so easy. But for three Sundays Tom has preached in the native language,
and all the people say he speaks well, and that they can understand
him perfectly. Last Sunday my interpreter was away, and having asked
the women if they would understand me, and being reassured, I made the
attempt, though I was awfully nervous. At the end one of the women kindly
told me that they understood perfectly, and liked it much better. It
means a lot more work, as one has to prepare the words as well as the
matter of one’s sermons; and I have a Bible-class in school on Wednesday,
another in the house on Thursday evening, and give an address at the
women’s prayer-meeting on Saturday. Then there are the Sunday school and
the women’s meeting on Sunday, and in every case the preparation must
be different, as some of the audience come to all. However, we are very
thankful to have got so far. It seems like beginning a new stage in our
missionary work.... People in England seem to forget sometimes that I
am as much interested in their work as they are in mine. It is the same
work, only we are on distant service. But we do not forget the work at
home, either in our thoughts or in our prayers.
“July 29th.—I do hope dear mother is not suffering very much; we so often
think of her and of you all. I am thinking that perhaps to-morrow you
and Mr. Hartland are setting off upon your travels. We should just like
to fly over and go with you for a month to Wales. Wouldn’t it be jolly?
But we are unable to get away, even for a journey here. Mr. Phillips has
been away just on three months, and we are alone. We have heard nothing
from Tunduwa since last mail. We suppose the carriers are afraid to come,
and we cannot get away to go to him. There is a palaver proceeding in
the town, and the King forbids any one to leave. One family, who are
slaves of the Padres, are claiming another family as slaves of theirs,
and the Padres are backing them. This same dispute was brought up and
settled several times, some years ago. The whole town is in a state of
commotion, and nearly every day the people assemble under the big tree.
The King, got up in striking costume varied from day to day, sits on his
throne with the Queen beside him. They are a pair! The disputing parties,
holding their guns, are ranged opposite one another. Then the counsellors
on either side sing songs, make speeches, and finish up with a dance. Of
course there is also any amount of malavu drinking.
“The old road to Noki is shut up. There are other roads by which we send
letters, but the carriers are all afraid to go for loads. The Portuguese
talk about soldiers coming, but they are a long time on the way. The
Resident told Tom the other day that they are going to make a military
station half-way to keep the road open. I wish they would remove this
Resident. There have been palavers ever since he came, and he does not
know how to settle them. This palaver has brought many strangers to the
town, and they attend our meetings, so good may come out of evil. But all
these things interrupt our work. The minds of the people are unsettled,
and full of other things. I have just received a new girl into the house,
and she _is_ a caution! the wildest specimen I have yet had to deal with.
She is put under our protection by the Resident, and is quite grown up.”
The following extract from a circular letter written on September 26th
gives an instructive and idyllic picture of a Congo baptism, with certain
other matters suggestive of the dark background:—
“We had a very happy time at Mbanza Mputu at the end of last month. Tom
and I went over on Tuesday, and stayed two nights. There were six whom we
wished to baptize, the chief, his sister, three of his wives, and another
man. But we found that one of the women was sick, and another away. The
event caused quite an excitement in the towns around, as the chief holds
a position, second only to that of the King of Congo. On the day before
the baptism the women of the town were hard at work preparing to receive
visitors from other places. A pig was killed, and in every house might
be seen groups of women pounding pepper and skinning pumpkin seeds for
seasoning the dishes on the morrow. We spent the day in speaking to
inquirers, and preparing the candidates. None of these people had ever
seen a baptism, so it was necessary to explain every detail to them.
“Early on Thursday morning Mr. Phillips arrived from San Salvador, our
boy Vita coming with him. Soon afterwards nearly all our Church members
followed. After they had rested a little we went down to the water. At
the bottom of a very steep hill runs a watercourse, obstructed at one
point by very large stones, forming a natural basin, into which a spring
rises, so that there is water in the basin even when the course is dry,
as it is now. A steep cliff almost surrounds the basin, covered with
ferns and tropical growths, the branches of trees interlacing overhead.
The congregation sat on the sides of this dell, which formed a splendid
meeting-place, Tom standing on one of the big stones in the middle.
“The hymn sounded grandly; Kivitidi prayed; Tom explained the rite, and
then baptized the candidates, beginning with Vita, of whom you will have
read in the _Herald_. He took the first place, that the others might see
what was required. He was followed by the chief, and the other man, and
then came the two women, one of them very old and thin and shrivelled,
the other quite a young girl. After the benediction we climbed up
the hill and returned to the town, making our way to the little
meeting-house, where we celebrated the Lord’s Supper. The Church members
and those newly baptized half filled the house, but other people crowded
in, or sat round the doors, curious to see what we were doing. Mr.
Phillips presided and gave the right hand of fellowship to the five new
members. Nlekai and Kalendenda offered prayer, and then after a few words
of explanation from Kivitidi we ate and drank together the memorials of
dying Love. We hope soon to baptize three more at least.
“Pray for these new converts that they may be kept faithful. At present
things go smoothly with them. The fact that their chief is a humble
Christian makes all the difference, and saves them from many trials and
temptations. Only one thing marred our pleasure. Mr. Phillips brought
news of a terrible calamity which had happened in San Salvador the day
before. A young man who has been one of our hammock-bearers from the
beginning of the Mission, Ntoni, was overtaken by one of the grass fires
while hunting, and horribly burnt. Mr. Phillips did what he could, but
the poor patient died in great agony the same evening, and upon our
return from Mbanza Mputu the funeral took place. He had not professed
faith in Christ, but he knew the gospel well, and one of our Christians,
who was with him when he died, says that he spoke much about his sins and
prayed for forgiveness for Jesus’ sake. We can but leave him with God,
assured that He Who received the dying thief will never turn away from a
dying sinner’s cry.
“So many horrid things have happened lately. The other day in a town
close by, a man beat his wife to death. The chief of Mbanza Mputu has
been over to the Resident about the matter, and is doing his best to find
the man, who has run away. It seems that he was drunk with palm wine
and had been beating his wives all the evening. The palm wine drinking
has been dreadful this season, the yield has been so plentiful. We are
trying to get our boys to leave off taking it altogether, but it is very
difficult to teach them self-denial for the sake of others.”
[Illustration: BWINGIDI (EVANGELIST’S WIFE) AND GIRLS’ SCHOOL AT NKABA,
AN OUT-STATION NEAR SAN SALVADOR.]
While she was writing this letter, news was on the way to Congo destined
to fill the heart of Mrs. Lewis with heavy sorrow, sorrow which her
husband would share profoundly, and in which all our Congo missionaries
would have their part. Some few months earlier, in writing to Miss
Hartland, Mrs. Lewis said: “I am sure we shall never cease to thank God
for all the love and kindness which dear mother and you have shown to us.
Having lost our own mothers, we have appreciated her love all the more.”
On September 13th, Mrs. Hartland died. Mrs. Lewis’s diary for 1892 is
missing, and the letter or letters in which she poured out her own
sorrow, and her sympathy with those whom the bereavement touched yet more
nearly, have not come to my hand. Assured that Mrs. Lewis would desire
some tribute to the “dear mother,” who loved her so well, to appear in
the record of her own life, I venture to reprint certain paragraphs from
a short article which I wrote a few days after Mrs. Hartland had entered
into rest[4]:—
“After four years of heroic service John Hartland died in Comber’s
arms, and his mother bowed her head, as mothers do. But when she rose
again, it was not to regard this costly Congo Mission with reserved
toleration which applauded itself for not changing to dislike, but with
self-devotion and enthusiastic love. The life of her son was in the
Mission; so she took it to her heart and carried it gently in her bosom
before God.
“Mrs. Hartland lived as much upon the Congo as in Falkland Road, and was
more intimately acquainted with the history of the Mission, internal
and external, than perhaps any other person, excepting only Mr. Baynes.
Almost all the missionaries knew her. Before they went out they were
invited to Falkland Road, and when the interview was over they knew
themselves to be possessed of at least one mother-hearted friend. Aware
of the secret of her love each man and woman honoured her unspoken claim
to some measure of their filial affection, and the motherless among
them called her “mother.” Upon returning to this country they went to
see her, naturally; and while upon the field many of them corresponded
with her, receiving letters which were like cold water in a thirsty land.
Many times have I seen her, with hands distorted and half paralysed by
relentless rheumatism, writing painfully and patiently to her friends
upon the Congo. Her letters were peculiarly precious, because they were
indited by one who understood the work, who loved the workers, and
believed in God. And so from one quiet heart, in one quiet London home,
there went forth waves of spiritual energy that were felt hundreds of
miles above Stanley Pool. This was her work. She wrote till she could
no longer hold the pen; she dictated till she could no longer think
sustainedly by reason of agony and growing weakness; then she sent
messages; then she murmured prayers; and now she is with Him Who ever
liveth to make intercession for us.
“We do not know much about the gates of heaven. We do not know whether
some vigilant angel on the battlements of God’s city announces with
silver trumpet the coming of the enfranchised soul. We do not know
whether comrades and kinsfolk hurry to the gates to welcome and
congratulate their beloved. We can only dream. But if it be so, the
sainted heroes of the Congo Mission were by the gates last week.
“Two things were remarkable in Mrs. Hartland’s life to all who knew
her—unselfishness and faith, evinced in little things and great. A few
days before her death I visited her, and, leaning over her bed that my
voice might reach the ear that was growing heavy I noticed four exquisite
roses lying near her face. She insisted that I should take one. In my
prayer, I used the word ‘doubts,’ and I shall never forget the quick and
confident words that followed the ‘Amen’—‘I have no doubts.’ Verily, she
has none.”