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IRnigbte 

of  tbe 

3tabarum 


Marian  p.  IScacb 


BV  3700 

.B4 

1896 

■  flWfW™»»«W^'¥BR:' 

Beach,  ] 

Harl 

an  Page, 

1854- 

1933. 

Knights 

of 

the  labarum 

^^-^        KNIGHTS  Vv''''''!v' 


^^_    OF  JHE    LABARUM, 


BEING    STUDIES   IN   THE    LIVES   OF 

JUDSON,  1)UFF,   MACKENZIE   AND 'mACKAY 


Bi^HARLAN  P.  BEACH 

Hducational  Secretary  of  the  Student  Volunteer  Movement 

for  Foreign  Missions;  formerly  Missionary  in  China  r    j 

3K//3  ^ 

CHICAGO  /       ' 

STUDENT  VOLUNTEER  MOVEMENT 
FOR  FOREIGN  MISSIONS 
.  1896 


L^ 


Copyright,   1896,  by  the 

Student  Volunteer  Movement 

FOR  Foreign  Missions. 


vTP 


%<\\»W\l\.^  \>!11S\J*T<.SVV  \»%'^\Tli'^l 


^ 


EXPLANATORY 

This  little  book  does  not  claim  to  be  a  collection  of  fin- 
ished biographies.  Like  a  volume  on  India,  issued  a  year 
ago,  "The  Cross  in  the  Land  of  the  Trident,"  it  is  in- 
tended as  an  outline  text-book  for  Mission  Study  Classes, 
whether  conducted  by  the  Student  Volunteer  Movement, 
or  carried  on  by  Young  Peoples'  Societies  and  women's 
missionary  organizations.  The  condensation  of  material 
and  the  use  of  bold-faced  type  and  italics  are  due  to  the  de- 
sire to  facilitate  the  acquisition  of  leading  facts  and  to  sug- 
gest topics  and  sub-topics  for  further  reading.  The  en- 
thusiastic approval  of  many  among  the  thousands  who  have 
used  the  similarly  prepared  book  above  mentioned,  has  en- 
couraged the  autVi,\5r  to  again  make  use  of  this  style  of  writ- 
ing, faulty  though  it  may  be  from  a  typographical  and 
literary  point  of  view. 

The  author  hopes  that  in  addition  to  a  mastery  of  these 
outline  facts,  the  user  will  read  the  fuller,  and  hence  more 
living  and  interesting,  volumes  from  which  he  has  derived 
most  of  his  information.  Several  readings  have  been  sug- 
gested by  chapter  or  page  at  the  close  of  each  chapter,  and 
in  classes  some  of  these,  at  least,  should  be  read  and  re- 
ported upon  as  valuable  side-light  material.  Only  thus 
can  the  greatest  profit  be  derived  from  these  studies. 

Leaders  of  classes  should  possess  a  full  biography  of  each 
of  the  lives  outlined  here,  and  the  following  are  suggested 
as  the  best  now  in  pri>jl: :  "The  Life  of  Adoniram  Judson," 


by  his  son,  Edward  Judson,  1SS3,  A.  D,  F.  Randolph  & 
Co.,  New  York;  the  two-volume-in-one  edition,  published 
by  the  American  Tract  Society  of  New  York,  of  "The  Life 
of  Alexander  Duff,  D.  D.,  LL.  D.,"  by  George  Smith, 
LL.D.,  1879;  "John  Kenneth  Mackenzie,  Medical  Miss- 
ionary to  China,"  by  Mrs  Bryson,  Fleming  H.  Revell 
Company,  New  York  and  Chicago ;  and,  "A.  M.  Mackay, 
Pioneer  Missionary  of  the  Church  Missionary  Society  to 
Uganda,"  by  his  Sister,  1890,  A.  C.  Armstrong  &  Son, 
New  York. 

The  principal  reason  why  these  four  have  been  chosen 
from  among  the  many  mighty  men  on  the  mission  field  is 
that  they  represent  four  different  lines  of  missionary  effort, 
as  well  as  four  different  countries.  A  broader  view  of 
missionary  life  is  thus  secured  than  would  have  been  the 
case  if  representatives  of  one  land  or  of  one  phase  of  work 
wei-e  studied.  This  will  partly  account  for  the  omission 
of  some  missionaries  equally  famous,  though  additional  rea- 
sons for  choosing  these  rather  than  others  have  also  been 
operative.  Thus  the  latter  part  of  LiyiJ^ngstone's  life,  like 
that  of  Dr  Peter  Parker's,  was  only  indirectly  missionary, 
and  both  had  severed  their  connection  with  missionary  or- 
ganizations. Again,  Bishop  Patteson  and  Dr  Paton  are 
omitted,  because  both  of  them  labored  in  a  field  which  has 
comparatively  little  connectiojial  interest  for  American  stu- 
dents, while  in  the  case  of  Dr  Paton,  an  additional  reason 
for  neglecting  so  marvelous  a  life  is  the  fact  that  it  has 
not  yet  reached  its  completion. 

September,  i8g6. 


^ 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.  Judson's  Life  from   17SS  to   1816      .          .  9 

11.  The  Judsons'  Burman  Work     ...  22 

III.  Duff's  Early  Life  and  Educational 

Work             ......  36 

IV.  Duff  as  a  Promoter  of  Missions     .          .  49 

V.  The  Man  Mackenzie,  His  Field  and 

People^         ......  6-5 

VI,  Mackenzie,   the  Medical  Missionary       .  76 

VII  Mackay's  Early  Life  and  His  African 

Field              ......  89 

VIII.  Mackay's  Parishioners  and  His  Work    .  10 1 


¥ 


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org,  was  first  a^optc^  bsConstantinc  tbc  Great  after  bis  miraculous  vision  in  312. 
.  .  .  B  Special  Guard  of  flftv  solMers  was  appointed)  to  protect  tbe  sacred 
standard.— ]£nc^clopaebia3Brittanica. 

fl  determined  not  to  ftnow  ani^tbing  among  ^ou,  save  Jesus  Cbrist,  and  bim 
crucified.  ...  II  bave  fougbt  tbc  good  figbt,  II  bave  flnisbed  tbe  course,  H  have 
fcept  tbe  faitb  ;    benccfortb  tbcrc  is  laid  for  me   tbe   crown  of   righteousness. 

—St.  Paul. 

UbT2  servants  will  pass  over,  evcrv  man  tbat  is  armed  for  war,  before  tbc 
Xord  to  battle— mumbecs  xxxti.  27.  ^ 


•4*' 


KNIGHTS   OF   THE   LABAKUM 


JUDSON'S    life    from    17SS    TO    18 1 6 

IN  MEMORIAM.  REV.  ADONIRAM  JUDSON.  BORN  AUG.  9,  I78S. 
DIED  APRIL  12,  185O.  MALDEN,  HIS  BIRTHPLACE.  THE  OCEAN, 
HIS  SEPULCHRE.  CONVERTED  BURMANS,  AND  THE  BURMAN 
BIBLE,     HIS  MONUMENT.       HIS  RECORD  IS  ON  HIGH. 

The  above  insciiption,  found  on  a  marble  tablet  in  the 
Baptist  church  at  Maiden,  Mass.,  constitutes  one  of  the 
interesting  relics  of  America's  early  missionary  history. 
Another,  found  in  this  same  Boston  suburb,  is  a  wooden, 
two-storied  and  dorni»-j(ted  house  embowered  in  trees,  the 
birthplace  of  "  The  Apostle  of  Burma." 

Parentage.  The  person  thus  commemorated  was  the  eld- 
est of  four  children.  The  father^  true  to  his  Hebi^ew  name, 
Adoniram,  "Lord  of  height,"  was  more  like  a  Hebrew 
patriarch  or  Roman  censor  than  fathers  of  to-day.  Erect, 
above  the  ordinary  height,  grave  and  taciturn,  stately  and 
awe-inspiring,  he  occupied  the  lofty  position  of  Congrega- 
tional minister  in  the  old-time  New  England  community. 
It  was  his  to  command  in  the  parish,  and  especially  in 
his  home,  where  he  ruled  as  absolute  monarch.  Not  am- 
bitious for  himself,  he  inordinately  desired  to  see  his  child- 
ren achieve  greatness.  To  this  end  he  largely  threw  the 
son  on  his  own  resources,  and  constantly  held  before  him 
the  possibility  of  becoming  great.  Christianity  ^vas  to  the 
father  a  thing  surely  proven  and  demanding  immediate 
obedience,  and  any  attempl^to  question  it  was  tantamount 


lO  THE   JUDSONS,    BURMAN    PIONEERS 

to  rebellion.  In  general  his  life  was  marked  by  inflexible 
integrity  and  uniform  consistency,  and  called  forth  from  the 
young  Adoniram  the  phrase,  "honored  parent,"  as  well  as 
inspired  in  him  self-reliance  and  overweening  ambition. 
Paternal  influence  doubtless  accounts  for  the  stately  cour- 
tesy and  the  dignified  literary  style  of  Judson's  later  years. 

His  mother,  Abigail  Brown,  seconded  her  husband  in 
his  ambitious  schemes  for  the  boy  ;  yet  of  her  Augustine's 
words  are  also  true  :  "  This  name  of  my  Saviour,  Thy  Son, 
had  my  tender  heart,  even  with  my  mother's  milk,  devoutly 
drunk  in,  and  deeply  cherished;  and  whatsoever  was  with- 
out that  name,  though  never  so  learned,  polished,  or  true, 
took  not  entire  hold  of  me." 

Anecdotes  of  His  Boyhood.  A  sort  of  forcing  system, 
of  which  in  later  life  Judson  did  not  approve,  made  of  the 
child  of  three  a  reader  in  the  Bible,  and  when  four,  a 
preacher  to  children,  his  favorite  hymn  being,  "Go  preach 
my  gospel,  saith  the  Lord."  He  is  a  philosopher  and  as- 
tronomer at  seven,  as  he  lies  on  his  back  at  midday  en- 
deavoring to  learn,  by  means  of  a  hole  in  his  hat,  through 
which  he  long  gazes  at  the  sun,  whether  or  not  it  moves. 
The  problem  was  solved,  but  the  boy  could  not  tell  the 
process.  Later  his  success  as  riddle  guesser  brings  him  a 
whole  book  full  of  them,  an  arithii^tic. 

Preparatory  and  Collegiate  Education.  The  coming 
of  this  book,  which  his  father's  praise  and  the  fact  of  its 
being  difficult  made  delightful,  began  his  educational  career. 
Arithmetic  establishes  his  reputation.  Navigation  follows 
at  ten  years,  and  soon  thereafter  his  odd  hat,  and  proficiency 
in  the  classics  studied  at  the  grammar  school,  w^on  him  the 
nickname,  "Old  Vergil  dug  up."  For  leisure  houi's,  he 
indulges  in  a  mUangc  consisting  of  Ben  Jonson's  plays, 
novels  of  Richardson  and  Fielding,  and  theological  works. 

His  studies,  which  he  enjoyed  far  more  than  play,  suf- 
fered a  prolonged  and  almost  fatal  interruption  at  the  age 
of  fourteen,  and  for  the  first  time  he  calmly  considered  the 
meaning  of  life.  During  convalescence,  castle-building 
made  him  a  nineteenth  century  Alexander  weeping  for  un- 
conquei'ed  worlds.  Better  impulses  allured  him  to  a  life  of 
Christian  usefulness,  lived  to  th«  glory  of  God ;  but  as  that 


LIFE    FROM     17SS    TO     I S 16  H 

meant  being  a  Christian,  and  as  he  was  determined  to  be- 
come a  great  man,  these  thoughts  he  foolishly  set  aside. 

Providence  College — the  present  Brown  University — 
received  Adoniram  at  sixteen,  he  having  entered  as  sopho- 
more. President  Messer  has  testified,  in  a  letter  to  Jud- 
son's  father,  to  "a  uniform  propriety  of  conduct,  as  well  as 
an  intense  application  to  study,"  while  a  classmate  had  "no 
recollection  of  his  ever  failing,  or  even  hesitating  in  recita- 
tion." Qiiite  naturally,  therefore,  and  in  spite  of  six  weeks 
of  teaching  during  senior  year,  he  graduated  with  the  vale- 
dictory in  1S07.  Unfortunately  these  years  brought  him  in 
contact  with  French  infidelity  which  so  permeated  educa- 
tional centers  at  that  time.  Yielding  to  the  flood,  and  es- 
pecially to  the  arguments  of  a  witty  and  talented  upper- 
classman,  Judson  became  a  professed  deist  and  looked  for- 
ward to  the  law  as  an  open  door  to  political  preferment,  or 
to  the  stage  as  a  field  for  his  dramatic  gifts. 

Teacher  and  Author.  Two  weeks  after  receiving  his  B. 
A.,  Judson  opened  the  "Plymouth  Independent  Academy," 
his  father  being  then  pastor  in  that  historic  town.  His 
application  during  this  3^ear  must  have  been  unremitting, 
as,  in  addition  to  his  school  duties,  he  published  two  text- 
books, "  The  Elements  of  English  Grammar,"  and  "The 
Young  Ladies'  Arithmt;^c,"  which,  though  exhibiting  the 
"ingenious  literary  enterprise  and  perseverance"  of  their 
author,  were  of  no  great  pedagogical  value. 

Judson's  Conversion.  In  August,  180S,  less  than  a 
week  after  closing  his  academy,  he  mounted  a  horse  and 
set  out  on  a  tour  through  the  North  "to  see  the  world." 
Fulton's  newly  invented  steamboat  and  the  charming  scen- 
ery of  the  Hudson  greatly  interested  him,  but  questionable 
scenes  soon  followed.  Arriving  in  New  York,  he  joined  a 
band  of  strolling  players  in  order  to  prepare  himself  for 
dramatical  writing.  He  said  later  of  these  experiences  : 
"We  lived  a  reckless,  vagabond  life,  lodging  where  we 
could,  and  bilking  the  landlord  when  we  found  opportunity. 
.  Before  leaving  America,  ...  I  made  a  second 
tour  over  the  same  ground,  carefully  making  amends  to  all 
whom  I  had  injured." 

His  Damascus  came  sooa'^fter  leaving  New  York,  when 


12  THE   JUDSONS,    BUKMAN    PIONEERS 

he  returned  to  Connecticut  for  his  horse.  A  godly  young 
minister,  supplying  his  uncle's  pulpit  at  Sheffield,  greatly 
impressed  him.  This  added  force  to  his  father's  severity 
and  his  mother's  grief,  exhibited  when  he  told  them,  before 
leaving  home,  of  his  deistical  beliefs.  The  night  after  leaving 
Sheffield,  his  room  in  the  inn  adjoined  that  of  a  dying  young- 
man  whose  futui'e  prospects  disturbed  his  sleep.  He  tried 
to  banish  "superstitious  illusions"  by  the  thought  of  what 
his  deistical  college  friend  would  say  if  he  were  cognizant 
of  such  fears.  The  morning  brought  the  news  of  the  young 
man's  death  and  the  crushing  intelligence  that  the  dead  man 
was  no  other  than  this  same  college  idol.  Thunder-struck, 
Judson  gave  up  his  tour  and  turned  Plymouth-ward,  his 
mind  deeply  impressed  with  the  need  of  salvation,  but  with 
the  scales  still  unremoved  from  his  eyes.  Professors  Griffin 
and  Stuart  of  Andovcr  6"^/;/ zVz a /-^  advised  him  to  enter  that 
institution.  This  he  finally  decided  to  do,  "not  as  a  pro- 
fessor of  religion  and  candidate  for  the  ministry,  but  as  a 
person  deeply  in  earnest  on  the  subject,  and  desirous  of  ar- 
riving at  the  truth."  Having  become  somewhat  proficient  in 
Hebrew,  Judson  was  able  to  enter  the  iniddle  class  at 
Andover,  and  here  it  was  that  the  light  came  ;  though  it  was 
only  the  clearest  evidence  of  the  truth  of  Christianity  and  an 
increasing  need  of  the  Saviour  Iffat  caused  the  conquered 
infidel  to  say,  "My  Lord  and  my  God."  December  2, 
i8o8,  \vas  the  date  of  this  momentous  decision,  but  not  un- 
til the  following  May  did  he  unite  with  his  father's  church. 
Andover  "Divinity  College"  Life,  1808-1810.  Judson's 
conversion  ended  forever  his  old  life  of  doubt  and  political 
and  literary  ambition.  His  supreme  desire  now  was  to 
know  how  he  could  order  his  life  so  as  to  best  please  God. 
That  this  thought  might  be  constantly  before  him,  he  in- 
scribed on  several  constantly  used  articles,  '•''Is  it  pleasing 
to  God?  "  His  letters  at  this  period  glow  with  earnest  de- 
sires after  holiness  and  with  whole-souled  consecration  to 
Christ's  service.  Without  raising  the  question,  he  felt  that 
he  must  devote  his  life  to  the  ministry  in  some  form.  When 
as  a  student  he  went  out  to  preach,  his  sermons  were 
"  solemn,  impassioned,  logical  and  highly  scriptural,  with- 
out much  of  the  hortatory,  and'  with  no  far-fetched  figure  or 


LIFE    FROM     17SS    TO     1S16  I J 

studied  ornament  of  phrase."  These  addresses  were  rarely 
Avritten  :  for,  "why  should  I  spend  my  time  in  attempting 
the  correctness  and  elegancies  of  English  literature,  who 
expect  to  spend  my  days  in  talking  to  savages  in  vulgar 
style?  Why  not  cultivate  extempore  speaking  altogether, 
when  that  will  soon  be  my  only  mode  of  preaching  for 
life  ?" 

His  ifttcrest  in  missions  began  in  September  of  his  senior 
year,  when  he  read  Buchanan's  "Star  in  the  East."  Later 
he  did  not  consider  this  sermon  remarkable,  but  at  the  time 
it  produced  a  powerful  effect  on  his  mind,  prevented  his 
studying  for  several  days,  inflamed  his  mind  with  romantic 
ideas  and  sent  him  through  the  students'  I'ooms  declaiming 
on  missions.  The  overdrawn  pictures  in  Syme's  "Em- 
bassay  to  Ava,"  added  fuel  to  the  flames  and  ended  in  a 
highly  wrought  enthusiasm,  which  never  died.  It  was  some 
time  after  this — in  Februaiy,  1810 — that  the  decision  w^as 
reached.  During  a  solitary  walk  in  the  woods  behind  the 
seminary,  the  dfliculties  in  the  way  seemed  so  great  that  after 
ineditating  and  praying  on  the  subject,  he  inclined  to  give  it 
up,  when  the  force  of  Christ's  last  command  so  overwhelmed 
him  that  he  resolved  "  to  obey  it  at  all  hazards,  ybr  the  sake 
of  pleasing"  the  JLord  Jesus  Christ."  His  "passion  for 
missions"  was  so  great  tlm  he  became  a  man  of  one  idea, 
and  was  soon  the  leading  advocate  of  the  cause  at  Andover. 

The  First  American  Volunteer  riovement.  Most  of 
the  men  drawn  around  him  were  from  Williams  College, 
where  in  a  grove  and  under  the  shadow  of  a  haystack  the 
missionary  fire  was  kindled  among  American  students.  In 
1808  they  had  signed  a  constitution  whose  first,  second, 
fifth  and  sixth  articles  pledged  them  to  train  themselves  for 
missionary  service,  to  personally  establish  a  mission  or  mis- 
sions among  the  heathen,  to  admit  none  as  members  who 
were  under  obligations  preventing  their  going  on  a  mission, 
and  to  hold  themselves  ready  to  go  when  and  where  duty 
might  call.  Judson  did  not  sign  this  constitution  until  181 1, 
but  speedily  allied  himself  with  them  in  prayer  and  in  an 
active  missionary  propaganda  in  other  colleges  and  semina- 
ries and  in  the  churches  whet:^-  called  to  preach.  Most  of 
the  members  had  in  mind  temporary  service  and  a  mission. 


14  THE   JUDSONS,    BUHMAX     PIONEERS 

to  American  Indians,  but  Mills,  and  especially  Nott  and 
Judson,  desired  Asia's  conversion  and  a  lifelong  service. 

Judson  and  the  A.  B.  C.  F.  M.  The  American  Board, 
though  the  first  foreign  missionary  organization  in  America, 
had  its  forerunners.  The  Massachusetts  ISIissionary  Society, 
formed  in  1799,  altered  its  constitution  so  that  in  1S04  it 
was  free  to  take  up  work  abroad.  Doctors  GrifHn  and  Wor- 
cester had  urged  most  eloquently  the  claims  of  the  heathen, 
while  several  thousand  dollars  had  been  sent  from  America 
to  Carey  and  others.  A  missionary  magazine,  a  predeces- 
sor of  the  American  Board's  "Missionary  Herald,"  was 
published  in  1803.  Notwithstanding  these  facts,  Judson 
and  his  associates  were  the  ones  who  were  the  occasion  of 
forming  America's  first  foreign  missionary  organization. 

In  pursuance  of  t/ieir  policy  to  interest  influential  clergy- 
men in  missions,  a  number  of  professors  and  ministers  met 
in  Professor  Stuart's  house  at  Andover,  June  25,  iSio,  to 
whom  their  desire  to  enter  on  the  work  was  made  known. 
Their  fervent  prayers  and  serious  deliberations  led  the  next 
day  to  the  foi-mulation  of  a  plan  for  a  board  as  Doctors 
Worcester  and  Spring  rode  in  a  chaise  to  Bradford.  There 
the  representatives  of  the  Massachusetts,  New  Hampshire 
and  Connecticut  Congregational  jfi^ssociations  were  to  meet. 
An  appeal  to  the  Association,  written  out  by  Judson  and 
signed  also  by  Messrs  Nott,  Mills  and  Newell,  asked  coun- 
sel concerning  their  inissionary  duty,  the  field  to  be  occu- 
pied, and  the  organization  under  which  they  were  to  work. 
Judson  and  the  others  were  there  to  advocate  the  scheme. 
On  June  29,  iSio,  a  report  was  adopted  and  the  first  board 
of  commissioners  elected,  though  not  until  September  5, 
was  the  board  finally  constituted.  The  four  petitioners 
were  encouraged  to  go  abroad  as  soon  as  possible. 

To  France  and  England.  Judson,  in  the  desire  to  place 
himself  and  companions  on  missionary  soil,  had  written  in 
April  to  Dr  Bogue,  in  charge  of  the  London  Missionary  So- 
ciety's institution  at  Gosport,  inquiring  about  India  and  Tar- 
tary  as  mission  fields  and  asking  assistance  in  preparation 
therefor.  The  Board  having  been  formed  and  feeling  unable 
to  proceed  alone,  requested  Judson  to  go  to  England  and 
confer  with  that  society  concerning  a  co-operative  work,  and 


LIFE    FROM     1788    TO     1816  1 5 

to  secure  and  transmit  to  the  Board  "ample  and  correct 
information  relating  to  missionary  fields,  the  requisite  prep- 
arations for  missionary  service,  the  most  eligible  methods 
of  executing  missions  and  generally  whatever  may  be  con- 
ducive to  the  missionary  interest." 

His  voyage  in  the  "Packet,"  his  capture  by  a  French 
privateer,  imprisonment  at  Bayonne,  escape  therefrom,  sev- 
eral weeks  residence  in  France,  during  which  time  he 
travelled  in  one  of  Napoleon's  carriages,  his  examination 
of  the  dark  side  of  French  life,  ending  in  a  sermon  at  a 
masked  ball,  constitute  one  of  the  exciting  pages  of  his 
eventful  history.  Its  value  to  him  in  later  years  he  grate- 
fully records. 

Arriving  ht  England  he  w^as  very  cordially  received  by 
the  London  Society,  but  his  ardent  wish  to  reach  the  field 
made  him  somewhat  recreant  to  his  duty.  He  not  only  did 
not  make  the  investigations  upon  which  he  was  to  report 
to  the  Board,  but  finding  that  concert  between  the  two 
societies  was  impracticable,  he  secured  an  appointment  to 
India  for  himself,  Nott,  Newell  and  Hall,  who  took  Mill's 
place  in  the  list.  At  the  meeting  following  his  return,  the 
Board  ■were  practically  forced  to  commission  and  support 
the  four  candidates ;  oth^wise  they  might  have  gone  out 
under  the  London  Society.  Judson's  pertinacity  on  this 
occasion  received  a  mild  censure  which  years  afterward 
gave  rise  to  a  heated  and  profitless  controversy,  regretted  in 
his  calmer  moments. 

Counter  Currents.  Mr  Judson  met  with  other  obstacles 
also.  In  1809  he  had  received  appointment  as  tutor  in 
Providence  College  and  later  w^as  asked  to  become  a  col- 
league of  Dr  GriflSn  in  Park  Street  Church,  the  largest  in 
Boston.  In  spite  of  his  father's  disappointment  and  the 
tears  of  mother  and  sister,  he  refused  these  flattei"ing  posi- 
tions and  set  his  face  resolutely  duty-ward.  An  apparently 
more  serious  obstacle  was  his  delicate  constitution  \vith  a 
tendency  to  consumption.  His  rigid  adherence  to  three 
rules  of  health  ^ — frequent  inhalations  of  large  quantities  of 
air,  daily  sponging  of  the  entire  body  in  cold  water,  and 
systematic  and  vigorous  walk'jpg, — enabled  him  to  meet  the 
health  requirements  of  the  Board  and  to  reach  a  goodly  age. 


l6  THE   JUDSONS,    BURMAN    PIONEERS 

Embarkation  and  Voyage.  When  before  the  General 
Association  at  Bradford,  Judson  had  been  waited  on  by  a 
fascinating  Bradford  Academy  graduate,  and  ten  days  hiter 
an  acquaintance  began  which  ended  in  marriage  on  Feb.  «;, 
1812.  The  following  day  he  and  Messrs  Nott,  Newell, 
Hall  and  Rice  were  ordained  in  Salem,  whence  he  sailed 
on  the  19th  for  Calcutta,  commissioned  "to  labor  in  Asia, 
either  in  the  Burman  Empire,  or  in  Surat,  or  in  Prince  of 
Wales  Island,  or  elsewhere."  On  board  the  brig  "Cara- 
van" were  Newell  and  his  illustrious  wife,  Harriet;  the 
others  sailed  from  Philadelphia  on  the  ship  "Harmony." 

7^/ie  appeara7ice  of  Judson^  then  in  his  twenty-fourth 
year,  is  thus  described  :  "He  was  at  this  time  small  and 
exceedingly  delicate  in  figure,  with  a  round,  rosy  face, 
which  gave  him  the  appearance  of  extreme  youthfulness. 
His  hair  and  eyes  were  of  a  dark  shade  of  brown. 
His  voice,  however,  w^as  far  from  what  w^ould  be  ex- 
pected of  such  a  person  and  usually  took  the  listener  by 
surprise,"  so  much  so  that  a  London  minister,  hearing  him 
read  a  hymn,  said  of  it :  "  If  his  faith  is  proportioned  to  his 
voice,  he  will  drive  the  devil  from  all  India." 

During  the  vo}age  much  time  was  devoted  to  the  study  of 
baptism.  This  was  taken  vip  as  npreparation  for  the  time 
w^hen  converts  from  heathenism  with  their  families  would 
be  in  his  care,  and  also  because  he  wrongly  supposed  that 
the  Serampore  Baptists,  with  whom  he  was  to  live  for  a  time, 
would  attack  his  pedobaptist  views.  Careful  study,  which 
in  the  case  of  many  equally  critical  missionary  students  has 
led  to  different  conclusions,  caused  him  to  accept  the  Bap- 
tist views.  Hence,  soon  after  his  arrival  in  India,  he  and 
his  wife  were  immersed,  and  Judson  resigned  his  connec- 
tion with  the  American  Board,  its  missionaries  and  churches, 
— a  heroic  step  which  caused  him  deepest  pain.  Mr  Rice 
was  the  only  one  of  their  company  who  shared  his  views, 
and  he  soon  after  returned  to  America  to  agitate  and  effect 
by  voice,  as  Judson  did  by  pen,  thefortnation  of  what  is 
now  the  Americatt  Baptist  Missionary  Union^  one  of  our 
strongest  boards.  This  step  marked  the  beginning  of  the 
marvellous  growth  of  that  dciiomination. 

Rejected  of  flen.    Compelled  by  conscience  to  leave  the 


LIFE    FROM     1 788    1:01816  17 

American  Board,  he  was  not  wholly  acceptable  to  his  Bap- 
tist friends.  Dr  Carey  felt  that  the  luxurious  upbringing 
of  Americans  unfitted  them  for  the  privations  of  mission- 
ary life,  and  so  looked  askance  at  him.  The  East  India 
Company,  too,  fearing  that  the  arrival  of  so  many  recruits 
would  embarrass  them  in  certain  questionable  practices,  de- 
creed their  return  to  England,  though  by  a  kind  providence 
the  Judsons  were  allowed  to  go  to  Mauritius.  Thence, 
two  months  later,  they  returned  to  Madras.  They  had 
planned  to  start  a  mission  on  Prince  of  Wales  Islrfnd, 
but  to  avoid  deportation  to  England,  they  were  obliged  to 
fliee,  and  the  only  vessel  available  was  bound  for  Rangoon. 
This  crazy  craft  they  regretfully  boarded,  as  they  regarded 
a  mission  to  that  city  with  great  horror. 

Arrival  at  Rangoon.  The  voyage  was  dangerous,  but 
the  Judsons  finally  reached  Burma  July  13,  1813.  Their 
feelings  after  going  ashore  were  among  the  most  gloomy 
and  distressing  that  they  had  ever  known.  The  house  Jirst 
occupied  was  outside  of  the  city  walls  near  the  execution 
ground,  the  cemetery  and  the  dumping  ground,  and  was 
exposed  to  robbers  and  wild  beasts.  Rangoon  itself  was 
then  a  poorly  built,  dirty,  undrained  city  of  10,000  inhabi- 
tants, and  was  inters^ted  by  muddy  creeks.  Later,  they 
lived  within  the  wal'lsy  not  far  from  Burma's  most  famous 
temple,  the  Golden  Dagon  Dagoba,  glorying  in  eight  of 
Buddha's  hairs. 

They  were  not  the  Jirst  But'man  workers.  In  1S07 
the  English  Baptists  sent  two  men  thither  and  later  two 
others,  one  being  William  Carey's  son  Felix.  The  London 
mission  sent  two  men  in  iSoS,  but  their  work  ceased  within 
a  year.  Mr  Chater,  a  Baptist,  had  prepared  a  Burmese 
St  Matthew,  and  Felix  Carey  accomplished  something  as 
linguist,  vaccinator  and  printer.  He  was  the  only  one  there 
in  1813,  and  his  subsequent  wild  career  hindered  mission- 
ary work  in  the  E^npire. 

The  Burman  Field.  Burma,  now  an  Indian  province, 
was  then  an  independent  and  absolute  despotism  in  spite  of 
its  inany  councilors  and  kingly  advisers.  Its  "Lord  of 
Life  and  Death,"  "  Owne^f  the  Sword,"  ruled  a  territory 
over  1000  miles  long  ancf  600  in  breadth.     The  Nile-like 


l8  THE   JUDSONS,    BURMAN    PIONEERS 

plain  of  the  Irawadi, — a  future  key  of  Asia, — the  forest  cov- 
ered hills  and  mountains  were  then  largely  undeveloped, 
and  intercommunication  was  difficult  save  by  water.  Its 
valuable  timber  lands  were  beast-infested  and  contained  in 
some  districts  still  fiercer  men.  Its  inhabitants,  incorrectly 
supposed  by  Judson  to  equal  our  own  population  at  that 
time,  were  the  prey  of  their  governors,  the  "Eaters "of 
provinces.  Law  was  always  on  the  side  of  the  largest 
bribe,  while  torture  and  diabolical  punishment  awaited  the 
poor  litigant. 

The  religion  which  Burma's  apostle  had  to  meet  was 
Buddhism  of  the  southern  type,  unrelieved  by  the  theistic 
and  soteriological  hopes  of  China  and  Japan.  Monasteries 
were  on  every  street,  and  priests  were  reckoned  as  one  out 
of  thirty  of  the  population.  The  doctrines  most  commonly 
remembered  were  connected  with  merit,  which  affected 
their  transmigrations  and  their  cheerless  doctrine  of  Nir- 
vana. In  spite  of  this  atheistic  atmosphere, Yule  could  thus 
describe  the  Burmans :  "They  are  cheerful  and  singularly 
.alive  to  the  ridiculous :  buoyant,  elastic,  soon  recovering 
from  personal  or  domestic  disaster.  With  little  feeling  of 
patriotism  they  are  still  attached  to  their  homes,  greatly  so 
to  their  families ;  .  .  .  Though  ignorant,  they  are, 
when  no  mental  exertion  is  required,  inquisitive,  and  to  a 
certain  extent  eager  for  information  ;  .  .  .  temperate, 
abstemious  and  hardy,  but  idle,  with  neither  fixedness  of 
purpose  nor  perseverance."  Such  a  people  might  have 
been  reasonably  easy  to  reach,  as  there  was  no  hereditary 
priesthood,  caste,  nor  isolation  of  women  ;  but  the  oppo- 
sition of  rulers  and  the  death  penalty  which  threatened 
those  who  turned  from  Buddhism,  were  tremendous  obsta- 
cles. A  comparatively  rich  literature,  a  religious  termi- 
nology and  compulsory  primary  education  for  boys  were 
an  aid  to  the  missionary ;  but  on  the  other  hand,  Burma 
had  not  a  few  stubborn  disputants  who,  in  their  extrava- 
gant tenure  of  Idealism  and  Nihilism,  would  put  Berkeley 
and  Hume  to  shame. 

Plan  of  Campaign.  Though  young  Caiey  was  absent, 
the  Judsons  did  not  confront  tht$  Gibralter  alone  ;  for  they 
knew  intimately  Him  in  whom  they  believed,  and  placed 


],1FE    FROM     1755    TO     1S16  I9 

themselves  in  His  hands  as  implicitly  iis  did  their  Seram- 
pore  brethren,  who  spent  tifteen  days  in  prayer  over  one  of 
the  early  steps  in  connection  with  the  Burma  Mission. 

Mrs  Judson  says  that  at  Jirst  they  had  but  one  plan,, 
that  of  learning  the  Burmese  most  thoroughly.  Later,  Jud- 
son gained  such  command  of  the  classical  Pali  as  to  fully 
equip  him  for  his  work.  This  was  a  difficult  task.  No 
English  speaking  teacher,  dictionary  nor  adequate  grammar 
was  at  hand,  so  that  they  had  to  blaze  their  way.  Bent 
over  a  book-covered  table  beside  a  venerable  pundit  whose 
head  was  wrapped  in  a  handkerchief  and  his  loins  with  a 
cloth,  the  two  chattered,  read  and  took  notes  all  day  long. 
Meanwhile  Mrs  Judson  acquired  the  tongue  more  rapidly, 
if  less  scientifically,  while  superintending  the  work  of  the 
house.  Carey  had  so  impressed  upon  Judson  the  value  of 
accuracy  in  speech,  that  he  delayed  longer  than  wise,  per- 
haps, before  conducting  public  worship  and  doing  zayat 
preaching.  These  duties  did  not  begin  until  he  had  been 
in  Bm"ma  nearly  six  years,  though  mvich  personal  work  had 
been  done  from  the  beginning. 

The  language  mastered,  work  must  be  planned  in  ac- 
cordance with  Judson'' s  deep-seated  co7ivictions.  Bur- 
man  Buddhism  taugh^that  there  was  "no  God  to  save,  no 
soul  to  be  saved,  and  no  sin  to  be  saved  from."  The  oppo- 
site of  these  three  doctrines  he  believed  with  his  whole  soul. 
He  felt,  moreover,  that  no  Burman  could  reach  heaven  wdio 
did  not  realize  his  sin  and  flee  to  the  Saviour.  When  they 
began  their  work  not  one  of  Burma's  millions,  so  far  as 
Judson  knew,  was  a  believer  in  Christ,  nor  even  an  earnest 
inquirer ;  and  as  they  stood  alone  in  that  land,  the  crushing 
responsibility  of  their  position  deeply  solemnized  them. 
They  believed,  however,  that  here  and  there  about  them 
was  a  person  so  led  by  Providence  and  so  influenced  by  the 
Spirit  that  if  the  story  of  salvation  could  reach  him.,  he 
would  accept  it.      To  discover  such  persons  was  their  task. 

Their  methods  were  simple.  Judson  did  not  believe 
that  he  was  first  a  promoter  of  civilization,  then  an  educa- 
tor and  finally  a  herald  of  salvation.  The  last  function 
w^s  pre-eminently  his,  --^d  to  accomplish  his  work  he 
made  large  use  of  eye-gu5e  and  ear-gate.      The  Word  of 


20  THE   JUDSONS,    BURMAN    PIONEERS 

God  mvist,  at  the  earliest  possible  moment,  be  accurately 
translated  into  the  tongue  ot  the  people,  and  comprehensive 
and  concrete  statements  of  truth  be  sown  in  every  promising 
field.  Burman  ears  must  also  be  filled  with  the  saving  mes- 
sage. Unlike  many  missionaries,  Judson  thought  that  the 
most  strategic  point  of  attack  was  the  citadel  of  Mansoul 
instead  of  the  weaker  walls  of  Childsoul ;  hence,  work  for 
adults  consumed  most  of  his  time. 

The  pair  well  knew  that  a  C/iristian  atmosphere  was 
essential  to  the  growth  of  the  exotic  with  which  they  were 
entrusted.  "God  is  love"  must  be  taught  through  "I  am 
love,"  and  their  lives  in  home  and  church,  in  zayat  and  in 
palace,  must  teach  this,  instead  of  relegating  the  duty  to 
nicely  framed  mottoes.  Tender  sensibilities,  strong  affec- 
tions, undying  love  were  the  saps  through  which  they  de- 
termined to  zigzag  toward  Burman  fortresses. 

The  Burman  Mission  in  1816.  This,  then,  was  the 
situation  at  the  beginning  of  this  year.  Felix  Carey  had 
seceded  from  the  mission,  leaving  the  Judsons  as  the  sole 
evangelizing  force  in  a  land  containing  several  millions  of 
Buddhists  and  heathen.  Behind  them  were  the  Baptists  of 
Ainerica,  awakened  to  self-consciousness  and  missionary 
zeal  largely  through  Judson.  He  in, his  twenty-eighth  year 
and  his  wife  a  year  younger,  they  had  ah'eady  gained  tol- 
erable mastery  of  the  language,  but  no  usable  tract,  gram- 
mar, dictionary,  or  portion  of  Scripture  had  yet  been  pub- 
lished, nor  was  there  a  single  Protestant  convert  to  preach 
through  Burman  lips  evangelical  Christianity.  But  God 
was  there  and  in  them  ;  and  their  hopes,  founded  on  His 
sure  promises,  flooded  the  eastern  horizon  with  prophetic 
glory. 

SUGGESTED  READINGS. 

Conant :     The  Earnest  Man,   (1856),  Chs.  i-xii. 

Doivlmg:     The  Judson  Offering,  (1S47),  Pp.  1-44. 

Eddy:     The   Three    Mrs  Judsons    and    Other   Daughters    of     the 

Cross,  (1S60),  Pp.  43-73. 
Encyclopaedia  of    Missions,   (1891 ),     Articles  Adoniram  and  Ann 

Hasseltine  Judson  and  Burma.   _ 
Hervcy:     The  Story  of  Baptist  Miss^^ns,  (1884),  Chs.  xii,  xiii. 


LIFE    FROM     178S    TO     1S16  21 

Johtiston :     Life  of  Adoniram  Judson,  (18S7  ),  Chs.  i-vii. 

Mrs  A.  H.  yudson:     Mission  to  Burmah,  (1823). 

Edzvard  yudson:  Notable  Baptists:  Adoniram  Judson,  (1894), 
Chs.  i-iv. 

Knoivlcs :     Ann  Hasseltine  Judson,  (1835),  Chs.  i-vii. 

Page:     Noble  Workers,  (1875),  Pp.  201-209. 

Pie r son :     New  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  (1S94),  Pp.  105-110. 

Ptfcr  and  Maccrackcv :  Lives  of  the  Leaders  of  Our  Church  Uni- 
versal, (1879),  Pp.  837-842. 

Pi't>nan:     Heroines   of  the  Missionary    Field,   Pp.    278-293. 
Ladj  Missionaries  to  Foreign  Lands,  Pp.  13-64. 

Richards:     Adoniram  Judson,  (an  Epic  ;   1889),  Pp.  1-18. 

Stuart:     Lives  of  the  Three  Mrs  Judsons,  (1851),  Pp.  13-iSo. 

Thomson:     Great  Missionaries,   (1S62),  Pp.  2S1-290. 

Vanguard  of  the  Christian  Armv,  Pp.  77-89. 

Walsh:     Modern  Heroes  of  the  Mission  Field,  (1882),  Pp.  63-75. 
Wycth:     Missionary  Memorials  :  Ann  H.  Judson,  (1894). 

Yonge:     Pioneers  and  Founders,  (1890),  Pp.  1 17-128. 

Edvjard  Judson :  The  Life  of  Adoniram  Judson,  (1883;.  Early 
Years,  Ch.  1. ;  Consecration  to  Missionary  Life,  Ch.  11. ;  Voy- 
age to  Burmah,  Ch.  iii. ;  Burmah,  Ch.  iv. ;  Life  in  Rangoon, 
Ch.  V. 


» 


II 


THE  JUDSONS  BURMAN  WORK 

His  name  alone  is  a  tower  of  strength  to  the  missionary  cause; 
but  his  name  is  not  alone.  He  was  the  center  of  a  family  group, 
to  which,  so  far  as  I  have  read,  no  parallel  can  be  found  in  ancient 
or  in  modern  history.  Ann,  Sarah  and  Emily  Judson — all  three, 
noble,  intellectual  and  Christian  women,  all  three  devoted  and  af- 
fectionate— sympathized  with  and  shared  in  all  his  labors,  rose  to 
his  height,  and  shine  even  beside  him. — Rev  W.  S.  Mackay,  in 
the  "Friend  of  India." 

Story  of  the  Years.  A  missionary  experience,  extend- 
ing over  nearly  four  decades,  cannot  be  fully  condensed  into 
a  few  pages  ;  yet  Dr  Judson  has  himself  left  a  brief  "Auto- 
biographical Record  of  Dates  and  E'ients,"  which  will  aid 
us  in  fixing  on  the  salient  points  of  hife  career,  with  that  of 
his  devoted  wives.  Roughly  outlined,  their  Burman  life 
falls  into  six  periods. 

/.  At  Rangoon^  181J-182J.  This  period  has  already 
been  partly  described.  In  1816  Judson,  being  kept  from 
work  by  illness,  prepared  "Grammatical  Notices  of  the 
Burman  Language,"  and  his  first  tract,  "A  View  of  the 
Christian  Religion."  In  October  they  were  reenforced  by 
the  Houghs.  18 1 7  was  marked  by  the  completion  of  his 
translation  of  Matthew  and  the  beginning  of  a  Burman  dic- 
tionary. 1818  was  a  sad  year  for  them.  Dr  Judson  had 
been  broken  down  by  four  years  of  overwork  on  the  lan- 
guage, in  translating  and  in  book-making ;  so  he  resolved 
to  try  a  sea  voyage  to  Chittagong,  the  southeast  point  of 
India  proper,  where  were  some  Burmese-speaking  converts 
of  the  Serampore  Mission.  Hesirposedto  reorganize  that 
scattered  church  and  bring  back  Uelpers  who  could  conduct 


BURMAN    WORK 


23 


worship  in  Burmese ;  but  the  expected  short  voyage  was 
lengthened  to  about  nine  months,  during  which  time  Judson 
was  driven  to  India  and  barely  escaped  death  by  fever  and 
starvation.  Mrs  Judson  suffered  equally  during  his  ab- 
sence. All  suppposed  tliat  her  husband  had  been  lost  at 
sea.  Government  persecution  assailed  Mr  Hough,  who  was 
rescued  by  her  great  tact  and  personal  influence.  Then 
cholera  swept  over  the  city  and  the  Houghs  proposed  leav- 
ing. She  was  temporarily  expecting  to  go  with  them,  but 
at  last  decided  that  she  would  not  desert  the  station  while 
there  was  the  least  chance  of  her  husband's  return.  Two 
new  families  came  out  in  the  fall. 

In  April  of  the  following  year  public  worship  and  zayat 
preaching' he^a.w.  This  was  followed  in  June,  1819,  by 
the  baptism  of  t\\e\Y  Jirst  convert^  Moung  Nau,  nearly  six 
years  after  beginning  w^ork  in  Rangoon.  A  number  of 
others  including  the  philosopher,  Shwa-gnong,  becoming 
inquirers,  the  viceroy  became  alarmed  and  the  work  was 
stopped.  Judson  and  Mr  Colman  resolved  to  go  the  Em- 
pei^or  in  person  and  appeal  for  toleration,  an  eventful  jour- 
ney of  two  months  resulting  in  nothing.  Being  unable  to 
secure  the  lives  of  converts,  Judson  determined  to  transport 
them  to  Chittagong,  where  they  would  be  under  British 
pi'otection.  Their  Nvillingness  to  endure  persecution  and 
their  request  that  he  delay  until  a  church  of  ten  members 
was  formed  prevailed,  and  he  remained,  though  the  Col- 
mans  went  thither  to  prepare  a  place  of  refuge.  Mrs 
Judson's  health  being  shattered,  they  were  forced  to  go  to 
Calcutta,  where  a  three  months'  rest  at  Seranipore  was  a 
refreshing  oasis  in  their  lives.  Relief  was  only  temporary, 
and  a  few  months  after  their  return  home,  Mrs  Judson 
was  obliged  to  sail  for  England  and  America,  where  she  did 
much  to  create  interest  in  the  mission  and  to  gain  recruits. 

During  her  absence  he  went,  in  1822,  with  their  newly 
arrived  physician  to  Ava.  His  skill  in  removing  cataracts 
had  attracted  the  Emperor's  notice,  and  an  imperial  sum- 
mons brought  them  to  the  Golden  Foot.  Dr  Price's  ability 
secured  to  them  an  invitation  to  reside  at  the  capital.  Af- 
ter five  months  there,  during  which  time  Judson  secured 
mission  premises  and  pre'j^d  home  the  claims  of  Christ  on 


24  THE   JUDSONS,    BURMAN    PIONEERS 

princes,  higher  officials,  and  the  Emperor  himself,  he  re- 
turned to  Rangoon.  While  awaiting  for  ten  months  the 
return  of  Mrs  Judson,  he  completed  on  July  12,  1S23, 
his  translation  of  the  New  Testament,  together  with  an 
epitome  of  the  Old  Testament,  intended  to  serve  as  an  in- 
troduction to  the  New. 

2.  Prisoner  at  Ava  and  Oung-pen-la^  1824-1826.  The 
auspicious  beginning  of  their  life  in  Ava  was  early  shrouded 
in  gloom.  The  war  cloud  between  England  and  Burma, 
due  to  the  sheltering  of  Burman  refugees  in  Chittagong, 
soon  burst.  As  all  white  foreigners  at  the  capital  were  re- 
garded as  spies,  Dr  Judson  was  seized  on  June  8,  1S24, 
and  an  experience  began  equalled  in  suffering  only  bv  that  of 
some  early  church  and  Catholic  missionaries.  Ilis  official 
com?nunicatioti  on  the  subject  is  as  follows:  "Through 
the  kind  interposition  of  our  Heavenly  Father,  our  lives 
have  been  preserved  in  the  most  imminent  danger,  froin 
the  hand  of  the  executioner,  and  in  repeated  instances  of 
most  alarming  illness  during  my  proti'acted  imprisonment 
of  one  year  and  seven  months — nine  months  in  three  pairs 
of  fetters,  two  months  in  five,  six  months  in  one,  and  two 
months  as  prisoner  at  large.  Subsequent  to  the  latter 
period,  I  spent  about  six  weeks  in  the  house  of  the  north 
governor  of  the  palace,  who  petitioned  for  my  release, 
and  took  me  under  his  charge ;  and  finally  on  the  joy- 
ful 2ist  of  February  last  [1826]  I  took  leave  with  Mrs 
Judson  and  family,  of  the  scenes  of  our  sufferings."  JVo 
■mention  is  here  made  of  the  horror  of  those  eleven  months 
at  Ava  ;  of  the  march  to  Oung-pen-la,  which  was  so  severe 
that  one  of  their  number  died  on  the  road ;  no  hint  of  the 
suspense  due  to  their  belief  that  they  had  been  removed 
from  the  capital  to  be  offered  as  a  sacrifice  to  insure  victory 
over  the  English  ;  no  suggestion  of  the  filth,  the  heat,  the 
hunger,  the  thirst,  the  lion  cage,  the  deathly  silence  of  the 
three  o'clock  hour,  the  nightly  stringing  on  a  bamboo  pole, 
the  "tender  mercies"  of  the  "Father"  of  the  prison  which 
w^as  well  named  Let-ma-yoon^  i.  e.,  Hand,  shrink  not;  no 
such  blood-cui-dling  narratives  as  Mrs  Judson's  "  The  Ka- 
thayan  Slave  : "  no ;  these  details  were  left  for  others  to 
record    and   any   who  choose  n^^     find  them  in  Gouger's 


BURMAN    \VOKK  2^ 

*' Narrative  of  Imprisonment  in  Burma."  Enough  for  this 
sufft^rer  that  he  was  privileged  to  bear  in  his  body  the 
marks  of  the  Lord  Jesus. 

J.  At  Amherst^  1826-182^.  The  war  resulted,  among 
other  things,  in  the  cession  of  the  Tenasserim  Provinces, 
and  to  escape  Burman  despotism  the  Judsons  took  the  re- 
maining four  of  their  eighteen  converts  to  Amherst,  a  new 
British  settlement  selected  by  the  Commissioner  and  Dr 
Judson.  Soon  after  arriving,  he  was  asked  to  accompany 
the  British  envoy  to  Ava  to  negotiate  a  commercial  treaty. 
This  he  only  consented  to  do  when  assured  that  an  effort 
Avould  be  made  to  insert  a  clause  securing  religious  liberty 
to  the  Burmans.  It  was  a  trying  experience.  Ava  w^as  a 
hell  full  of  awful  memories ;  his  days  were  filled  with  di- 
plomatic wrestling  which  secured  nothing  in  the  Avay  of 
religious  toleration  ;  and  worst  of  all,  during  his  absence 
his  wife  died  of  a  fever  from  which  his  presence  might 
have  saved  her.  This  terrible  loss  was  followed  just  six 
months  later  by  his  little  daughter's  death,  whom  he  left 
beside  her  mother  underneath  the  hopia-tree  and  removed 
to  Maulmain. 

4,  Maubnain^  1822-184^.  Amherst  proved  to  be  less 
•desirable  than  this  if^w  town,  the  headquarters  of  the 
British  army,  and  so  the  mission  was  transferred  thither. 
The  years  there  were  most  useful  ones.  Beginning  with 
t/ie  ascetic  period  oi  his  life,  they  were  brightened  by  red- 
letter  days  like  those  when  Dr  Judson  baptized  the  one- 
hundreth  Karen  convert,  and  later — t\ventv-t\vo  vears  after 
landing  in  the  country, — the  one-hundreth  Burman  disci- 
ple. They  witnessed  in  1S34  /lis  second  marriage^  fruit- 
ful in  work  and  bringing  to  his  home  eight  children.  They 
also  saw  the  publication  of  some  of  his  most  valuable 
works,  notably  the  New  Testament  and  the  quarto  edition 
of  the  Burtnan  Bible^  and  some  of  his  best  minor  com- 
positions. He  did  not  remain  all  the  time  in  Maulmain. 
Journeys  to  Rangoon,  Prome,  Tavoy,  Calcutta,  a  second 
"time  with  his  family  to  Bengal,  and  later  to  the  Isle  of 
France,  resulted  in  improved  health  and  new  impulses  to 
■work  all  along  the  line.     { 

J.   In  the  ho?ne  land,  1^^-1846.      For  thirtv-three  vears 


26  THE   JUDSONS,    BURMAN    PIONEERS 

Judson  had  never  seen  a  ship  sailing  out  into  the  west  with- 
out intensely  longing  to  fly  homeward;  yet  a  stern  regard 
for  duty  had  Icept  him  at  his  post.  Finally,  as  his  wife's 
life  seemed  at  stake,  he  decided  to  return,  though  he  took 
with  himtwoBurman  teachers,  with  whom  he  was  to  work 
each  day  on  his  dictionary.  Reaching  the  Isle  of  France, 
Mrs  Judson  was  so  much  better  that  the  pair  heroically 
determined  to  separate  that  he  might  return  to  his  work, 
and  he  actually  sent  the  teachers  back,  expecting  soon  ta 
follow  them,  A  relapse,  however,  caused  him  to  follo\v 
his  original  plan.  On  reaching  Napoleon's  prison  island, 
the  gentle  spirit  departed'and  the  body  was  laid  away  on 
St  Helena's  soil.  As  the  bereaved  hero  approached  Bos- 
ton, he  fell  to  worrying  as  to  how  to  find  a  lodging  place, 
little  dreaming  that  thousands  of  homes  longed  for  the  priv- 
ilege of  receiving  him,  and  that  the  nine  months  of  his 
stay  in  America  would  be  one  continuous  ovation,  eagerly 
chronicled  by  the  press,  both  secular  and  religious.  Yet 
his  presence  brought  some  disappointment.  A  severe  throat 
affection  prevented  prolonged  public  speech  so  that  he  was 
compelled  to  talk  in  a  whisper  to  one  who  repeated  it  to 
the  immense  audiences.  Moreover,  his  third  of  a  century 
in  Burma,  had,  as  often  happens  with  missionaries,  unfitted 
him  for  the  English  of  the  platform,  and  an  additional  dis- 
appointment was  his  unwillingness  to  narrate  his  foreign 
adventures,  especially  the  experiences  of  Oung-pen-la. 

Nevertheless,  these  months  brought  the  freshening  of 
thought  and  religious  life,  so  necessary  to  the  missionary, 
enkindled  in  all  denominations  a  new  flame  of  missionary 
zeal,  and  more  important  to  him,  acqitainted  him  ivith 
Emily  Chiibbuck^  whom  he  married  June  2,  1846.  Within 
six  weeks  thereafter  they  turned  their  faces  towards  Burma^ 
accompanied  by  five  new  recruits,  and  were  wafted  onward 
by  a  mighty  volume  of  earnest  prayer. 

6.  Sunset  years^  1846-1850.  On  their  arrival,  the  su- 
perior opportunities  for  finishing  the  dictionary,  as  also  Jud- 
son's  desire  to  be  in  the  regions  beyond,  impelled  them  "to 
leave  the  twilight  of  Maulmain  in  order  to  penetrate  the 
denser  darkness  of  Rangoon,"  though  "it  seemed  harder 
for  him  to  leave  Maulmain  for  R^ingoon  than  to  leave  Bos- 


BURMAN    WORK  2^ 

ton  for  Maulmain."  There,  in  a  gloomy  brick  structure, 
which  its  many  inhabitants  caused  them  to  call  "Bat  Cas- 
tle," Judson  worked  like  a  galley-slave  on  his  dictionary, 
while  his  wife  applied  herself  to  Burmese  and  to  writing 
the  story  of  her  predecessor's  life,  characterized  by  Bishop 
Walsh  as  "one  of  the  most  exquisite  biographies  in  the 
language."  Governmental  intolerance  prevented  any  open 
religious  work  and  made  secret  meetings  extremely  diffi- 
cult. Then  Bat  Castle  became  a  hospital,  whose  sick  in- 
mates could  not  secure  nourishing  food,  being  reduced  on 
one  occasion,  though  unwittingly,  to  a  dinner  of  rats,  which 
in  their  ignorance  they  declared  excellent. 

A  desire  to  make  at  Ava  one  more  appeal  for  religious 
toleration  and  the  advantage  to  the  dictionary  from  such  a 
residence,  were  thwarted  by  the  awful  cry  at  home  of  re- 
trcnc/ifnent  and  even  Rangoon  had,  for  that  reason,  to  be 
deserted.  At  Maulmain  he  completed  the  English-Burmese 
part  of  his  dictionary  and  had  brought  the  other  part  well 
on  towards  completion.  Family  joys,  succeeded  by  his 
wife's  serious  illness,  were  followed  by  a  lung  affection  of 
his  own.  Dysentery  and  congestive  fever  made  a  long  sea- 
voyage  necessary,  and  he  bade  his  wife  a  last  adieu  on 
April  3rd.  Some  da^jl^of  agony  and  then,  after  the  fare- 
well words,  "  It  is  done  ;  I  am  going,  .  .  ,  Take  care 
of  poor  mistress,"  he  fell  asleep  as  quietly  as  a  child,  on 
April  the  12th,  At  eight  o'clock  that  evening  the  larboard 
port  was  opened  and  the  body  of  him  whose  life  had  been 
bread  cast  on  Burman  w^aters  was  committed  to  his  much 
loved  ocean,  three  days  distant  from  his  adopted  home. 

The  three  firs  Judsons.  Before  considering  Judson's 
character  and  work,  a  glance  should  be  taken  at  that  noble 
trio,  without  whom  his  life  would  have  lacked  much  of  its 
effectiveness,  and  whose  loss  to  the  cause  of  missions  would 
have  been  irreparable.  Only  a  few  items  can  be  added  to 
those  already  given ;  the  rest  must  be  gained  from  their 
excellent  memoirs. 

I.  Ann  Hasseltine^  1812-1826.  Born  at  Bradford, 
Mass.,  December  22,  1789?  her  early  years  were  marked 
by  a  restless,  roving  disj^ba^ition  ;  moreover  she  was  very 
vivacious  and  intensely  fond  of  society.     When  at  sixteen 


38  THE   JUDSONS,    BUR.MAN     PIONEERS 

she  ^vas  converted,  she  threw  herself  with  equal  ardor  into 
the  service  of  her  JVIaster,  and  after  graduating  at  Bradford, 
while  teaching  for  several  years,  her  one  aim  was  to  bring 
her  pupils  to  Jesus. 

In  Burffia  she  supplemented  her  husband's  labors  by 
studying  the  language  of  the  Siamese,  thousands  of  whom 
lived  at  Rangoon, and  by  translating  into  that  tongue  the  Bur- 
mese Catechism,  a  tract,  and  St  Tvlatthew.  She  also  taught 
schools  of  native  girls,  held  women's  meetings,  and  cultiva- 
ted, for  missionary  reasons,  the  societv  of  ladies  of  rank.  As 
sharer  of  her  husband's  ifnpr/son/?ie?it  ?>\\c  is  best  known. 
"  She  followed  him  from  prison  to  prison,  ministering  to  his 
"wants,  trying  to  soften  the  hearts  of  his  keepers,  to  mitigate 
his  sufferings,  interceding  with  government  officials  or  with 
members  of  the  royal  familv.  For  a  year  and  a  half  she  thus 
exei'ted  herself,  walking  miles  in  feeble  health,  in  the  dark- 
ness of  the  night  or  under  a  noonday  sun,  much  of  the  time 
with  a  babe  in  her  arms."  When  forbidden  to  see  her  hus- 
hand,  she  would  write  on  dough  made  into  a  cake  and  con- 
cealed in  a  bowl  of  rice,  or  send  messages  of  affection  on  a 
roll  of  paper  inserted  in  the  nose  of  a  coffeepot.  The  lives 
of  others  besides  Dr  Judson  and  manv  prison  ameliora- 
tions were  due  to  her  tact  and  import»dnitv.  In  Amherst^ 
while  Judson  was  in  Ava,  it  was  she  who  built  their  home 
and  two  schoolhouses  in  which  she  taught  girls  and  gath- 
ered the  native  converts  for  Sabbath  worship.  When  in  her 
thirty-seventh  3'ear  she  died,  with  no  missionarv  near  her, 
after  a  sixteen  davs'  illness.  Burma  was  thus  deprived  of 
a  woman  of  great  refinement,  marked  intellectual  power, 
unexampled  devotion,  dogged  perseverance  and  earnest 
piety. 

2.  Siirah  Hall,  1S34-184J.  She  was  born  at  Alstead, 
N.  H.,  Nov.  4,  1S03.  From  the  age  of  ten,  when  she 
wrote  a  poem  upon  the  death  of  Judson's  first  child,  she 
had  a  great  enthusiasm  for  missions.  Of  singular  beauty, 
English  friends  declared  her  to  be  "the  most  finished  and 
faultless  specimen  of  an  American  woman  that  they  had 
ever  known."  The  years  of  wedded  life  made  her  a  valued 
assistant  of  her  first  husband,  the  sainted  Boardman,  mis- 
sionarv to  the  Karens,  and  after  Ivis  death  she  continued  for 


BURMAN    WORK  29 

thi'ee  years  her  important  work  as  school  teacher  and  itiner- 
ator  through  marshes  and  jungles  and  mountains.  Her 
schools  were  so  famous  that  later  educational  appropria- 
tions by  the  English  Government  stipulated  that  the  schools, 
should  be  conducted  on  the  plan  of  Mrs  Boardman's  at, 
Tavoy. 

She  was  no  less  a  treasure  to  Dr  Judson.  Her  fluent 
use  of  the  Burmese^  extending  even  into  the  dithcult  realm 
of  prayer,  enabled  her  to  impressively  conduct  women's 
prayer  meetings  and  Bible  classes  and  to  translate  Part  I  of 
"Pilgrim's  Progress,"  several  tracts,  twenty  of  the  best 
hymns,  four  volumes  of  "Scriptural  Qiiestions  for  Sunday- 
schools,"  and  a  series  of  Sunday  cards.  She  likewise  ac- 
quired the  Peguan  and  superintended  the  translations  into 
it  of  the  New  Testament  and  the  best  Burmese  tracts.  Her 
ability  as  a  xvriter  of  poetry  was  above  the  ordinary,  as 
is  shown  by  her  pathetic  lines  w^ritten  shortly  before  her 
death  when  she  expected  to  part  from  her  husband  at  the 
Isle  of  France. 

J.  Emily  Chubbuck^  1846-18^0.  She  was  born  at  Eaton, 
N.  Y.,  Aug.  22,  1S17,  and  died  at  Hamilton  in  the  same 
state,  June  i,  iS!^4.  Few  American  authoresses  have  been 
reared  in  a  harder  sclp-gpl  than  '•'•Fanny  Forester ^^'  whom 
Judson  first  met  while  being  vaccinated  at  Philadelphia. 
The  acquaintance  began  with  his  chiding  her  for  wasting 
her  talents  on  books  written  in  a  lighter  vein.  Her  defense 
was  that  she  did  this  as  they  were  more  salable,  and  it  was  a 
necessity  in  order  to  support  her  family.  This  explanation 
completely  won  his  heart  and  he  engaged  her  to  write  a  life- 
of  his  second  wife.  Before  it  was  finished,  the  charmed 
watch  which  he  sent  her,  as  he  had  to  Ann  and  Sarah,  made 
her  his  wife,  much  to  the  scandal  of  the  literary  world,  who 
felt  that  she  was  throwing  herself  away  on  "an  old  mis- 
sionary," and  of  the  friends  of  missions,  who  feared  the 
effect  of  an  alliance  between  the  founder  of  the  movement 
and  a  writer  of  fiction.  Aside  from  the  debt  owed  her  for 
her  account  of  Mrs  Sarah  Judson,  she  is  the  main  source 
of  information  concerning  her  illustrious  husband,  and  has 
given  the  world  such  missionary  brilliants  as  "The  Kathayaii. 
Slave"  and  "Wayside  Prtjching." 


30  THE   JUDSONS,    BURMAN    PIONEERS 

Judson's  Private  Life  and  Character.   He  was  a  man 

of  large  inteUectual  power ^  a  fact  evinced  by  his  early  life 
and  by  his  missionary  sei'vices,  as  well  as  by  his  contact 
w^ith  civilians,  military  men  and  diplomats  of  India,  among 
whom  he  stood  like  a  second  Schwartz.  Indeed,  had  he 
wished  to  make  money  and  win  fame,  he  would  have  ac- 
cepted an  important  government  position  under  the  Eng- 
lish. Marked  ability  of  this  sort  is  naturally  accompanied 
by  atnbitio?i.  This  striking  trait  of  his  early  life  remained 
after  conversion,  but  was  sublimated  into  a  desire  to  lay 
foundations  in  new  fields,  to  furnish  a  nation  with  a  Bible, 
and  to  secure  the  largest  possible  results  from  the  mission's 
work.  Behind  his  ambition  lay  a  zviil  of  singular  strength 
backed  by  indomitable  perseverance.  A  course  once  ap- 
pearing to  be  pleasing  to  God,  no  temptation  could  turn 
him  from  it,  least  of  all  those  connected  with  personal  ease. 
The  possible  danger  connected  with  such  traits,  that  of 
self  sufficiency  and  unwillingness  to  ask  advice,  did  not  in- 
jure his  usefulness. 

His  ho7nc  life  has  been  veiy  attractively  described.  With 
his  childf'en  he  was  at  once  a  mentor  and  a  rollicking  boy. 
His  letters  to  them  are  a  combination  of  the  comic  and  the 
serious.  No  one  of  his  wives  hacLany  reason  to  feel  that 
she  was  anything  but  sole  possesor  of  his  heart,  and  rarely 
has  the  role  of  lover  been  prolonged  with  greater  delicacy 
and  sincerity.  Daily  walks  together,  little  notes  pinned  on 
the  curtain,  to  be  read  on  awakening  before  his  return  from 
his  morning  run,  bright  chits  scribbled  surreptitiously  and 
sent  home  when  delayed  beyond  the  usual  time,  were  indi- 
cations of  his  daily  regard,  while  in  sickness  he  was  the 
nurse  and  health-giving  sunshine. 

Judson  -was  an  Israel  in  prayer.  "He  asked  not  as  a 
duty,  nor  even  as  a  pleasure,  but  he  asked  that  he  might 
receive.  ...  It  was  a  common  thing  for  him  to  ask 
until  he  received,  in  his  own  consciousness,  an  assurance  that 
his  requests  would  be  granted."  Another  writes  :  "His 
best  and  freest  time  for  meditation  and  prayer  was  while 
walking  rapidly  in  the  open  air.  He,  however,  attended 
to  the  duty  in  his  room,  and  so  well  was  this  peculiarity 
understood  that  when    the    children  heard  the    somewhat 


BURMAN    WORK  3 1 

long,  quick,  but  well-measured  tread  up  and  down  the 
room,  they  would  say,  '  Papa  is  praying.'"  Such  prayer 
was  winged  by  a  suilime  faith  in  God.  "He  believed 
that  Burma  was  to  be  converted  to  Christ  just  as  much  as 
he  believed  that  Burma  existed,"  and  in  personal  need  his 
trust  was  like  Abraham's,  reposeful  as  that  of  a  child  in  its 
father's  arms.  His  '•^  heavcnlv-miiidedjiess'"  %\xwq^  ^\&xy 
one  who  knew  him.  His  earthly  treasures  wei"e  above, 
and  there  dwelt  his  Saviour  and  God  ;  naturally,  therefore, 
his  conversation,  and  especially  his  hours  of  meditation, 
transported  him  through  azure  depths  to  heavenly  mansions. 

No  true  saint  can  be  passive,  and  Judson  certainly  was  a 
vigorous  foe  to  natural  sin.  His  ambition  was  curbed,  his 
will  brought  into  subjection  to  godly  majorities,  and  grow- 
ing conformity  to  Christ's  will  was  attained, — but  all  only 
by  a  strenuous  struggle  and  persistent  trust.  It  occasionally 
went  to  an  ascetic  extreme^  as  when,  after  the  awful  strain 
of  imprisonment  and  his  wife's  death,  he  gave  all  his  prop- 
erty to  the  Board,  burned  up  official  letters  of  commenda- 
tion, declined  the  degree  of  D.  D.,  spent  wrecks  among  the 
beasts  in  the  jvmgle,  and  like  a  Trappist  monk,  sat  for  hours 
beside  a  grave.  Yet  such  times  were  exceptional  and  bet- 
ter circvmistances  ga\"'!^"iim  renewed  brightness,  though  he 
never  gave  up  the  spiritual  longings  incited  by  IMadame 
Guyon's  writings. 

Judson's  Work.  Years  ago  the  Baptist  Board  testified 
that  they  had  sent  no  missionary  from  this  country  who 
yielded  more  implicit  compliance  than  he  to  all  their  regu- 
lations. Residents  in  the  East  testified,  at  the  time  of  his 
death,  to  his  remarkable  ability  in  various  spheres. 

I .  Relation  to  felloxv  jnissionaries.  Some  said  that 
Judson  was  unsocial.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  his  view  of  the 
value  of  time  prevented  his  spending  much  of  it  in  stealing 
that  of  his  colleagues.  It  is  true,  also,  that  he  strongly  op- 
posed the  massing  of  missionaries  at  one  point,  and  his  uni- 
form desire  to  scatter  them  over  the  field  seemed  to  many 
to  mark  an  ascetic  mind.  If,  however,  they  were  in  afflic- 
tion he  "was  their  Barnabas,  and  thoughtful  attentions,  such 
as  securing  portraits  of  absent  children  and  presenting  them 
to  their  parents,  showed  h*  genuine  interest  in  them. 


32  THE   JUDSONS      BURMAN    PIONEERS 

2.  Attitude  to~vard  the  Board.  In  general  it  was  ideal ; 
yet  he  often  forgot  that  board  secretaries  are  only  the  ser- 
vants of  a  denomination, — oftentimes  dead  so  far  as  mis- 
sionary interest  is  concerned, — and  his  letters  to  them  on 
more  than  one  occasion  are  not  to  be  imitated.  Thus,  his 
letter  virtually  denouncing  them  because  they  had  not  pub- 
lished the  dark  side  of  the  situation  abroad,  would  probably 
not  have  been  so  severe  had  he  occupied  their  position. 
So,  too,  his  upbraiding  them  for  the  consequences  of  re- 
trenchment might  have  been  somewhat  more  temperate. 

J.  Intercourse  with  Europeans.  It  is  said  that  Judson 
preached  but  one  English  sermon  in  his  thirty-seven  years 
in  Burma,  though  when  British  soldiers  at  Maulmain  were 
seeking  salvation,  Judson  ministered  to  them.  He  was  nat- 
urally fond  of  society  and  proved  its  ornament  when  he 
could  do  so  without  neglecting  his  work.  It  was  simply  his 
whole-hearted  devotion  to  the  Burmese  that  caused  him  to 
abjure  English  preaching,  teaching  in  English,  and  English 
reading  and  society.  If  he  erred  it  was  on  the  safe  side  of  a 
subtle  temptation.  The  same  reason  is  his  only  justification 
for  opposing  Trevel3^anism,  or  the  Romanization  of  oriental 
tongues,  which  found  in  Duff 'so  ardent  an  advocate. 

4.  Judson  and  the  Government^  Again  and  again  he 
looked  toward  Ava  as  the  only  human  hope  for  Christi- 
anity. To  gain  toleration  he  would  do  almost  anything.  So,, 
also,  he  rendered  valuable  aid  to  England,  with  the  hope 
that  this  Christian  power  might  forward  the  cause.  The 
personal  salvation  of  rulers  was  constantly  on  his  heart  and 
to  the  Burman  sovereign  and  the  future  king  of  Siam  came 
faithful  words  of  warning  and  Christian  counsel.  While 
he  inculcated  obedience  to  rulers  when  not  involving  sin, 
he  received  secret  inquirers  who  came  to  him  contrary  to 
official  orders. 

5.  Translator  and  author.  Here  Judson  was  almost 
peerless.  His  views  of  translation  required  such  a  repro- 
duction of  the  Bible  as  the  English  Revised  Version,  and, 
thanks  to  such  principles,  rare  linguistic  ability,  and  his 
"lust  for  finishing,"  his  Bible  will  long  be  what  Luther's 
has  been  to  Germany.  Many  missionaries  have  owed  their 
rapid  and  accurate  progress  in  t"^  language  to  his  "  Gram- 


BURMAN    WORK  33 

matical  Notices  of  the  Burman  Language," — a  marvel  of 
campactness  and  lucidity, — and  more  still  are  indebted  to 
him  for  his  monumental  dictionary.  Tracts  of  his  are  not 
of  uniform  value.  Thus  his  first  one,  "A  View  of  the 
Christian  Religion,"  if  rendered  into  other  tongues,  would 
mildew  in  missionary  book-rooms,  while  "The  Golden 
Balance,"  written  when  Judson  had  become  more  Burman- 
ized,  would  attract  all  Buddhists  holding  the  doctrines  of 
the  "Lesser  Vehicle." 

6.  The  itinerant.  Unwillingly  Judson  was  compelled 
to  forego  this  dangerous  and  fatiguing,  but  to  him  exhilar- 
ating, form  of  work,  indulging  in  it  only  as  a  health-change, 
so  to  speak.  He  was  accompanied  on  these  tours  by  a 
number  of  converts,  who  were  sent  off  to  the  right  and  left 
to  meet  and  report  to  the  missionary  a  few  da^'s  later. 

y.  As  preac/ier.  Preaching  was  to  Dr  Judson  a  per- 
fect delight,  though  much  of  it  was  conversational  and  be- 
fore an  audience  of  one.  A  most  interesting  picture  of  this 
latter  w^ork  is  given  in  Mrs  Judson's  "Wayside  Preach- 
ing." In  public  address,  "his  preaching  was  concrete. 
He  did  not  deal  in  vague  abstractions.  Truth  assumed  in 
his  mind  statuesque  forms.  .  .  .  Behind  his  words 
when  he  preached  lay^he  magnet  of  a  great  character," 
and  native  audiences  were  swayed  by  his  words  as  the 
Welsh  were  by  Christmas  Evans. 

8.  The  pastor.  This  most  difficult  task,  involving  the 
care  of  volunteer  or  paid  assistants,  was  felicitously  per- 
formed. He  had  the  knack  of  getting  the  utmost  out  of 
church-members  and  helpers,  and  his  wise  leadership  held 
them  to  him  most  closely.  In  financial  matters  he  shrewdly 
managed  them,  giving  them  differing  sums  at  irregular  in- 
tervals, the  total  for  a  year  being  the  amount  voted  by  the 
Mission  ;  but  his  way  of  dispensing  it  raised  the  recipients- 
above  mere  expectant  and  fault-finding  hirelings. 

9.  Self-propagation  of  the  work.  Judson's  plan  was 
to  choose  promising  boys  and  young  men  and  personally  fit 
them  by  daily  morning  instruction  for  teachers  and  minis- 
ters. He  also  favored  schools  of  primary  or  practical  theo- 
logical education.  He  writes  thus  upon  this  subject :  "I 
am  really  imwilling  to  placi|?young  men  who  have  just  be- 


34  THE   JUDSONS,    BURMAN    PIONEERS 

gun  to  love  their  Saviour,  under  teachers  who  will  strive 
to  carry  [them  through  a  long  course  of  study,  until  they 
are  able  to  unravel  metaphysics,  and  calculate  eclipses,  and 
their  soul  become  as  dry  as  the  one  and  as  dark  as  the  other. 
I  want  to  see  our  young  disciples  thoroughly  ac- 
quainted with  the  Bible  from  beginning  to  end,  and  with 
geography  and  history,  so  far  as  necessary  to  understand 
the  Scriptures,  and  to  furnish  them  with  enlarged,  enlight- 
ened minds.  I  would  also  have  them  carried  through  a 
course  of  systematic  theology.  .  .  .  And  I  would  have 
them  well  instructed  in  the  art  of  communicating  their  ideas 
by  word  and  by  writing." 

General  Results  of  his  Life.  Did  Judson  turn  from 
the  attractions  of  the  law  and  the  drama,  from  an  instruc- 
torship  in  Brown  University  and  the  wide  usefulness  of 
the  "biggest  church  in  Boston,"  to  throw  his  life  away  as 
a  missionary.?  The  American  and  Baptist  Boards,  over 
7000  converted  Karens  and  Burmans  gathered,  at  his  death, 
into  63  churches  and  cared  for  by  163  missionaries  and 
native  assistants,  a  grammar  and  dictionary  as  stepping 
stones  to  early  usefulness  to  many,  leaves  of  life  scattered 
widely  for  the  healing  of  the  nation,  an  entire  Bible  in  exact 
and  perspicuous  Burmese,  streams  of  influence  reaching 
out  into  Siam  and  even  to  the  Jews,  a  stalwart  character 
moulded  by  Christ,  and  a  perennial  example  of  devotion  to 
the  "Greatest  Work  in  the  World,"  left  to  all  the  church 
— all  of  these  either  partially  or  wholly  the  fruitage  of  that 
magnificent  "throwing  away,"  are  a  convincing  reply. 

SUGGESTED  READINGS. 

Conant:     The  Earnest  Man,  (1856),  Chs.  xiv-xxvi. 

Doivling:     The  Judson  Offering,  (1847),  Pp.  45-294. 

£ddy:     The  Three  Mrs  Judsons,  (i860).  Pp.  207-333,  251-270. 

Encyclopaedia   of  Missions,   (1891),  Articles    Adoniram,   Sarah  H. 

and  Emily  C.  Judson. 
Hervey:     The  Story  of  Baptist  Missions,  (1884),  Chs  xiv-xvii. 
Johnston:     Life  of  Adoniram  Judson,  (18S7),  Chs.  vin-xx. 
Ed-ward  Judson :     Notable  Baptists  :  Adoniram  Judson, (1894),  Chs. 


BURMAN    WORK  35 

Mrs  K.  C.  yttdsoit :     Sarah  Boardman,  (184S). 

Kendrick:     Emily    Chubbuck    Judson,     (1S60).      Especially   Chs. 

XIV-XXVI. 

Kno-ivles:     Ann  Hasseltine Judson  (1S35),  Chs  viii-xviii. 
Missionary  Review  of  the  World,  April,  1S94,  Pp.  259-261. 
Page  :     Noble  Workers,  (1875),  Pp.  209-224. 
Piper  and  Alaccrackcii :     Lives     of    the    Leaders    of    Our    Church 

Universal,  (1879),  Pp.  842-S49. 
Pitman:     Heroines  of  the  Mission  Field,  Pp.  96-122. 
Richards:     Adoniram  Judson,   the  Apostle    of    Burma,    (an  Epic, 

1889),  Pp.  19-103. 
Stuart:     Lives  of  the  three  Mrs  Judsons,  (1851 ),  Pp.  1S3-356. 
Thomson:     Great  Missionaries,  (1862),  Pp.  291-29S. 
Vanguard  of  the  Christian  Army,  Pp.  87-132. 

Walsh:     Modern  Heroes  of  the  Mission  Field,  (1882),  Pp.  75-94. 
Wayland:     Memoir  of  Rev.  Dr.  Judson,  (1853),  Vol.  I.,  Pp.    178 
to  end  of  Vol.    II.;  especially  I.,  Chs.  x.,  xiii.,  and  II.,   Chs. 

II.,  III.,  VI. -X. 

Wyeth:  Missionary  Memorials  :  Sarah  B.  and  Emily  C.  Judson, 
(1894). 

Yonge  :     Pioneers  and  Founders,  (1890),  Pp  129-171. 

Young:     Modern  Missions  and  Their  Triumphs,  (18SS),  Pp.  79-89. 

Edzvard  Judson :  The  I>^  of  Adoniram  Judson,  (1S83).  Life  ia 
Rangoon,  Ch.  vi. ;  Life  in  Ava  and  Oung-pen-la,  Ch.  vii. : 
Life  in  Amherst  and  Maulmain,  Chs.  viii-x. ;  Visit  to  America, 
Ch.  XI. ;  Last  Years,  Ch.  xii. ;   Posthumous  Influence,  Ch.  xiii. 


w 


Ill 


DUFF  S     EARLY     LIFE     AND     EDUCATIONAL     WORK 

That  tall  figure,  crossing  the  street  and  looking  thoughtfully  to 
the  ground,  stooped  somewhat  in  the  shoulders  and  his  hand  awk- 
wardly grasping  the  lappet  of  his  coat,  is  Alexander  Duff,  the  pride 
of  the  college,  whose  mind  has  received  the  impress  of  Chalmers' 
big  thoughts  and  the  form  of  his  phraseology.  Under  Chalmers, 
he  w-as,  in  St  Andrews,  the  institutor  of  Sabbath-schools  and  the 
originator  of  the  Students'  Missionary  Society. — liev  y.  W.  Tay- 
lor, of  Flisk. 

Early  Years.  Almost  at  the  geographical  center  of 
Scotland,  the  home  of  great  missionaries,  lies  the  little 
town  of  ^Moulin,  near  which  was  born  on  the  twenty-fifth 
of  April,  iSo6,  Alexander  Duff,  one  of  the  foremost  apos- 
tles of  this  century.  Scott  calls  Perthshire,  in  which  Mou- 
lin is  situated,  "the  fairest  portion  of  the  northern  king- 
dom," a  claim  made  good  by  its  forests  and  fertile  straths, 
its  rivers  and  lakes,  mountains  and  glens.  And  that  eighty 
by  seventy  mile  shire  was  full  of  worthy  memories  also ; 
for  did  it  not  contain  the  Killiecrankie,  Tippermuir  and 
Sheriffmuir  battlefields.^  and  did  it  not  possess  memorials 
of  Bruce  and  Queen  Mary  and  Rob  Roy  as  well  as  boast  of 
connections  in  Scott  and  Wordsworth.?  Of  this  home  shire 
Duff  writes  in  later  years  :  "Amid  scenery  of  unsurpassed 
beauty  and  grandeur,  I  acquired  early  tastes  and  impulses 
which  have  animated  and  influenced  me  through  life." 

James  Duff  and  Jean  Rattray.     James  Duff,  was  it  is 

true,  a 

"dalesman,  child  of  rock  and  stream;" 

but  he  was  as  much  more  as  Carlyle's  father  was  more  than 
a  mere  stonemason.  He  and  Jean  before  their  marriage 
were  electrified  by  the  new  spiritual  life  bi-ought  one  com- 


EARLY     LIFE    AND    EDUCATIONAL    WORK  37 

munion  Sabbath  into  their  services  by  the  sainted  Charles 
Simeon,  who  had  come  up  from  the  house  top  overlooking 
the  beautiful  Backs  between  King's  College  and  the  river 
Cam,  and  who  changed  their  pastor  into  an  evangelical 
leaven.  When  Duff  visited  Cambridge  many  years  after, 
he  enjoyed  a  long  interview  with  this  evangelical  Anglican, 
whom  he  considered  his  spiritual  ancestor. 

While  his  mother's  early  influence  was  much  valued, 
Duff  wrote  in  later  years  of  the  powerful  effect  exerted 
upon  his  life  by  his  father.  His  Sabbath-schools  and  the 
weekly  meetings  at  his  own  home,  when  his  Scripture  ex- 
positions and  rapturous  prayers  carried  the  hearer  to  the 
very  gates  of  heaven,  his  peculiar  power  of  winning  the 
3^ovmg  through  the  picturing  of  Bible  truth,  and  especially 
the  moving  manner  in  which  he  set  forth  the  bleeding,  dy- 
ing love  of  the  Saviour,  ineffaceably  impressed  themselves 
on  his  son.  James  Duff  was,  in  turn,  held  by  the  spell  of 
his  reconverted  pastor's  spirit  and  by  the  silent  fellowship  of 
the  old  divines  whose  works  contain  the  "sap  and  marrow 
of  the  gospel"  and  were  fragrant  with  "the  flavor  of  Para- 
dise." The  influence  of  such  a  father  is  thus  testifled  to  : 
"In  the  sharpness  and  cleai"ness  with  which  he  drew  the 
line  between  the  mercl^r  expedient  and  the  absolutely  right 
and  true  ;  in  his  stern  adhesion  to  principle  at  all  hazards  ; 
in  his  ineffable  loathing  for  temporizing  and  compromise, 
in  any  shape  or  form,  where  the  interest  of  '  Zion's  King  and 
Zion's  cause'  were  concerned;  in  his  energy  of  spirit, 
promptness  of  decision,  and  unbending  sturdihood  of  char- 
acter ;  in  the  Abraham-like  cast  of  his  faith,  which  mani- 
fested itself  in  its  directness,  simplicity  and  strength, — in 
all  these  and  other  respects  he  always  appeared  to  me  to 
realize  fully  as  much  of  my  own  beau-ideal  of  the  ancient 
martyr  or  hero  of  the  Covenant  as  any  other  man  1  ever 
knew^.  .  .  .  Oh  that  a  double  portion  of  his  spirit  were 
mine,  and  that  the  mantle  of  his  graces  would  fall  upon 
me!"     . 

Duff's  Education.  As  the  Moulin  "dominie "  spent  more 
time  on  watch-repairing  and  fishing  than  on  instructing  the 
school  children,  Alexander  was  sent  at  the  early  age  of 
eight  to  a  better  school  between  Dunkeld  and  Perth.     Three 


3S  ALEXANDER    DUFP',     INDIA'S    EDUCATOR 

years  there  prepared  him  for  the  Kirkmichael  school,  whose 
reputation  commended  it  to  his  father.  He  had  the  good 
fortune  to  live  under  the  roof  of  its  accomplished  master, 
Mr  ^Nlacdougall,  and  to  count  among  his  schoolfellows  some 
prominent  men  of  a  later  day.  Duff  as  dtix  of  the  school 
was  put  forward  on  state  occasions  to  read  the  Odes  of 
Horace,  and  left  it  to  afterward  exclaim,  "What  would  I 
have  been  this  day,  had  not  an  overruling  Providence  di- 
rected me  to  Kirkmichael  school  ?  "  Another  year  at  Perth 
Grammar  School,  where  he  was  again  dux^  had  much  to 
do  with  his  later  educational  work,  as  he  here  came  under 
the  influence  of  a  born  teacher,  Mr  Moncur.  This  man's 
first  act  as  master  was  to  summon  the  janitor  and  bid  him 
sink  in  the  Tay  the  entire  outfit  of  torturing  tawse,  after 
which  "he  asked  why  the  generous  youths  entrusted  to  him 
should  be  treated  as  savages."  This  was  the  germ  of  Duff's 
Indian  school  management  and  the  animus  lying  behind  the 
address  "To  the  Native  Gentlemen  of  Calcutta"  who  had 
in  their  hatred  conspired  to  kill  him. 

At  St.  Andreivs,  Scotland's  most  venerable  University, 
Alexander  was  entered  at  fifteen.  In  spite  of  its  bleakness 
and  the  hermit-like  isolation  of  its  students,  the  future  mis- 
sionary received  here  the  strongest  lYnpulses  of  his  life.  It 
was  not  so  much  the  fact  that  he  sat  at  the  feet  of  men  like 
Dr  Hunter,  the  Latinist,  and  Dr  Jackson,  the  scientist,  nor 
that  he  came  off  with  the  highest  honors  in  Greek,  Latin, 
logic  and  natural  philosophy,  as  it  was  contact  with  one  of 
the  greatest  of  his  countrymen,  which  made  St  Andrews 
his  Arabia.  The  captivating  eloquence  of  Chalmers,  the 
advent  of  a  man  of  genius  whose  pi-esence  was  a  liberal 
education  in  itself,  and  the  delightful  freshness  of  his  spirit- 
ual life  as  it  emptied  itself  into  the  Dead  Sea  of  formal  re- 
ligion, were  epoch-making  elements  in  the  life  of  all  the 
students.  Coming  from  the  wynds  of  Glasgow  and  his 
miracle-w^orking  there.  Duff  was  inspired  to  do  like  him, 
and  so  organized  Sabbath-schools  and  private  circles  for 
Bible  study.  Before  leaving  the  University,  Duff  could 
say  :  "  I  have  personally  visited  all  the  lower  classes  in 
town,  and  did  not  find  twenty  ''Vildren  who  were  not  attend- 
ing some  school  or  other."       ^  ^^ 


EAKI.V    LIKK    AND    EDUCATIONAL    WORK  39 

Other  Educational  IttJJuences  than  those  named  were 
ahnost  equally  helpful.  Books  were  the  delight  of  his  heart. 
In  childhood  the  "Cloud  of  Witnesses"  with  which  his 
father  saturated  his  mind,  the  "Day  of  Judgment"  and  "The 
Skull"  of  Dugald  Buchanan,  a  Perthshire  Ossian,  filled 
him  with  mingled  emotions  of  hatred  and  awe.  When  at 
fifteen  he  left  the  Grammar  School  of  Perth,  he  carried 
with  him  Johnson's  "Rambler"  and,  more  important  still, 
a  pocket  copy  of  "Paradise  Lost,"  the  daily  reading  of 
which  unconsciously  brought  into  his  thought  and  modes 
of  expression  their  formative  power.  Thus  there  entered 
into  his  fibre  the  elements  so  prominent  in  his  life, — "the 
Gaelic  Buchanan  and  the  English  Milton,  the  Celtic  fire 
and  the  Puritan  imagination,  feeding  on  Scripture  story  and 
classic  culture,  colored  by  such  dreams  and  experiences, 
and  directed  by  such  a  father  and  teacher." 

The  Missionary  Call.  The  dreams  above  alluded  to, 
were  in  a  sense  the  precursors  of  his  missionary  decision. 
The  first  vision  was  a  personal  rendering  of  Buchanan's 
"  Latha  Bhreitheanais"  in  which  he  stood  before  the  Judge 
at  the  Last  Day.  The  effect  ^vas  such  that  it  evoked  an 
earnest  cry  for  pardon  and  led  to  an  assurance  of  forgive- 
ness through  the  blooft  of  Jesus.  The  second  w'as  a  more 
direct  intimation  of  the  will  of  God,  who  descended  in  a 
heavenly  chariot  and  called  to  the  Scotch  laddie  sleeping  in 
the  blae-berries  by  the  burn  side,  "  Come  up  hither  ;  I  have 
work  for  thee  to  do."  His  father's  teachings  were  de- 
cidedly missionary  in  their  tone.  "Pictures  of  Jugganath 
and  other  heathen  idols  he  was  wont  to  exhibit  accom- 
panying the  exhibition  with  copious  explanations,  well 
fitted  to  create  a  feeling  of  horror  towards  idolatry  and  of 
compassion  towards  the  poor  blinded  idolators,  and  inter- 
mixing the  whole  with  statements  of  the  love  of  Jesus." 

When  in  St  Andrews  this  childish  interest  broadened 
under  the  missionary  enthusiasm  of  Dr  Chalmers,  and 
through  the  friendship  of  students  like  Urquhart,  his  room- 
mate. They  and  others  organized  the  Students'  Missionary 
Society,  Duff  being  librarian.  Their  object  was  to  study 
foreign  missions  with  the^urpose  of  learning  of  the  needs 
of  the  non-Christian  world,  Chalmers  abetting  their  effoi'ts 


40  ALKXANDEll    DUFF,     INDIA'S    EDUCATOR 

by  a  monthly  lecture  on  missions  in  the  town-hall.  The 
society  was  the  parent  of  the  most  famous  missionaries  of 
the  country.  Marshman  and  Yates  from  India  and  Mor- 
rison with  his  story  of  China,  added  their  quota  by  firing 
the  men  with  apostolic  zeal.  Duff  not  only  succeeded  in 
getting  missionary  books  read  by  others  ;  he  also  read  much 
himself  and  it  was  when  he  had  perused  the  elaborate  arti- 
cle, "India,"  in  Brewster's  " Edinburgh  Encyclopaedia," 
that  his  soul  first  felt  the  fascinating  spell  of  a  land  that 
was  to  bind  itself  around  his  whole  being. 

As  the  Established  Church  of  Scotland  had  no  mission- 
aries in  any  field, — in  spite  of  the  motto  of  the  first  Con- 
fession, "And  this  glaid  tydingis  of  the  kyngdome  sail  be 
precheit  through  the  haill  warld  for  a  witnes  unto  all 
natiouns,  and  then  sail  the  end  cum," — the  interest  thus 
aroused  seemed  likely  to  be  ineffective.  But  the  spirit  of 
missions  was  abroad  and  the  Church  awoke.  Dr  Inglis  at 
home  and  Dr  Bryce  in  Calcutta  had  brought  the  General 
Assembly  in  1824  to  agree  to  establish  in  India  an  educa- 
tional woi"k,  and  in  1828  Duff  was  asked  to  head  the  enter- 
prise. How  the  young  student  met  the  question  is  seen  in 
letters  written  to  Dr  Chalmers  and  to  other  friends.  He 
counts  the  cost  and  after  deliberatel^^j^yeighing  the  cons  and 
pros  he  feels  the  weight  of  the  latter  and  writes  :  ' '  May 
the  former  considerations  not  only  be  weakened,  but  be  ut- 
terly swept  out  of  existence.  O  Lord,  I  feel  their  little- 
ness, their  total  insignificancy,  and  for  the  sake  of  promot- 
ing Thy  glory  among  the  heathen,  I  cordially,  cheerfully 
embrace  the  latter  :  yea,  if  such  were  thy  will,  I  am  ready 
to  go  to  the  parched  desert  or  the  howling  wilderness,  to 
live  on  its  bitter  herbs  and  at  the  mercy  of  its  savage  in- 
habitants." 

He  had  decided  this  important  matter  alone;  for  he 
concluded  that  the  present  inquiry  rested  almost  solely  be- 
tween himself  and  his  Maker.  His  fathers'  disappoints 
metit  and  objections  were  answeied  from  his  own  state- 
ments when  dealing  with  missions  as  an  abstract  matter, 
and  he  begins  to  pray  that  his  son  may  approve  himself 
not  merely  a  common  soldier  of  the  cross,  but  a  cham- 
pion.  Duff  overcomes  his  mother's  natural  affection  thus  : 


EARLY     LIFE    AND    EDUCATIONAL    WORK  4I 

"Beware  of  making  an  idol  of  me.  While  you  feel  all 
the  tenderness  of  parental  love,  ...  be  earnest  in 
prayer  to  God  that  Satan  may  not  tempt  you  to  raise  me  to 
an  undue  place  in  your  affections,  lest  God,  in  his  holy  dis- 
pleasure, see  fit  to  remove  me  not  only  to  India,  but  to  the 
land  of  skulls  and  sepulchres.  Think  then,  ponder,  pray 
over  these  things,  and  may  God  Himself  guide  and  direct 
you  into  the  ways  of  peace  and  heavenly  i-esignation."  But 
the  matter  had  its  exalted  aspects,  and  his  lettei's,  as  also  his 
addresses,  picture  the  lofty  vocation  of  the  missionary,  and 
parents  and  audiences  forgot  the  sacrifice  in  the  exceeding 
weight  of  glory. 

Preparation  for  Departure.  Quaint  Patrick  Lawson, 
■whom  Duff  used  to  visit  annually  for  the  sake  of  his  "rich 
and  racy  biblical  talk,"  abruptly  asked  him  one  day  whether 
he  intended  to  marry.  His  negative  reply  elicited  some 
sage  advice  :  "Be  quietly  on  the  look  out ;  and  if  in  God's 
providence,  you  make  the  acquaintance  of  one  of  the  daugh- 
ters of  Zion,  travei'sing,  like  yourself,  the  ^vilderness  of 
this  world,  her  face  set  thitherward,  get  into  ,friendly  con- 
verse with  her."  The  old  Bunyan's  counsel  was  acted 
upon,  and  in  Edinbui^^h  he  found  such  a  person  in  Anne 
Scott  Drysdale,  of  \v«om  Dr  Smith  writes:  "Never  had 
even  missionary  a  more  devoted  wife.  Sinking  herself  in 
her  husband  from  the  very  first,  she  gave  him  a  new  strength, 
and  left  the  whole  fulness  of  his  nature  and  his  time  free 
for  the  one  work  of  his  life." 

Conference  with  gentlemen  who  had  been  in  India,  study- 
ing the  religion  and  character  of  the  Hindus,  inspecting  the 
best  conducted  schools  in  the  Scotch  Athens,  and  conferring 
with  the  Committee  who  had  the  Indian  Mission  in  charge, 
filled  his  days  before  sailing.  The  ordination  trials  over 
and  Dr  Chalmer's  eloquent  ordination  sermon  delivered, 
he  and  his  wife  sailed  in  October  in  the  "Lady  Holland." 
As  the  result  of  his  own  preference  and  the  ignorance  of 
the  Committee,  he  went  forth  with  no  restrictions  save  one 
— which  he  disregarded  soon  after  he  reached  India — and 
so  was  free  to  do  what  his  good  judgment  dictated. 

"In  Perils  of  Waters. '.V  Just  off  the  English  coast,  they 
encountered  a  derelict,  which  proved  a  true  omen  of  the 


42  ALEXANDER    DUFF,    INDIA'S    EDUCATOR 

voyage.  While  taking  on  a  cargo  at  Madeira,  a  storm 
drove  the  ship  to  sea.  A  three  weeks'  delay  gave  Duff  op- 
portunity to  look  about  the  island  and  also  to  do  some 
preaching.  Re-embarking,  they  w^ere  saved  from  pirates 
by  the  presence  of  a  frigate.  Driven  almost  to  the  coast  of 
South  America,  they  finally  -were  just  about  rounding  the 
Cape  of  Good  Hope,  when  in  a  heavy  sea  and  in  the  dark- 
ness the  ship  ran  on  the  rocks  off  Dassen  Island.  The  ex- 
citement was  intense  and  it  was  then  that  the  effect  of  Duff's 
preaching  and  daily  inorning  worship  became  evident. 
Through  exciting  experiences  all  were  landed  on  a  penguin 
island  by  daybreak,  and  soon  thereafter  they  were  rescued 
by  a  brig  of  war  sent  from  Cape  Town.  The  incideni 
ivJiich  most  affected  Djtff's future  in  connection  with  this 
wreck  was  the  destruction  of  his  entire  library  of  eight 
hundred  volumes,  with  the  sole  exception  of  his  Bagster's 
Bible  and  a  Psalter,  which  were  picked  up  by  a  sailor  un- 
injured though  wet.  His  journals,  notes,  essays  and  mem- 
oranda— the  harvesting  of  his  student  days — were  also  lost 
and  all  this  produced  in  him  the  conviction  that  "human 
learning  must  be  to  him  a  means  only,  not  in  itself  an  end." 

Once  again  on  the  ocean,  they  were  no  less  unfortunate. 
Beaten  out  of  their  course,  overcome-almost  by  a  hurricane 
when  off  Mauritius,  they  finally  reached  the  banks  of  the 
Hooghly  only  to  become  the  victims  of  a  cyclone  which  a 
second  thne  wrecked  them.  A  merciful  deliverance  brought 
them  to  the  land  and  to  a  heathen  temple,  where  they  were 
allowed  to  rest,  as  they  were  not  received  in  the  homes  of 
the  caste-ridden  inhabitants.  From  this  place  of  discomfort 
they  were  soon  removed  to  Calcutta,  where  they  were  hos- 
pitably received  and  early  met  the  principal  residents,  both 
missionary  and  diplomatic. 

The  Calcutta  of  1830.  This  tall  and  handsome  man  of 
twenty-four,  "with  flashing  eye,  quivering  voice,  and  rest- 
less gesticulation,  .  .  .  heir  of  Knox  and  Chalmers, 
had  to  begin  in  the  heart  of  Hinduism  what  they  had  car- 
ried out  in  the  mediaevalism  of  Rome  and  the  moderatism 
of  the  Kirk  of  the  eighteenth  century."  What  were  the 
conditions  obtaining  when  he  began  his  work  in  India  ? 


EARLY    LIFE    AND    EDUCATIONAL    WORK  43 

Strange  to  say,  no  one  was  able  to  accurately  tell  him. 
Merchants  and  government  officials  were  intent  on  one  thing, 
the  securing  at  the  earliest  moment  of  a  competency  en- 
abling them  to  return  home  ;  and  hence  their  knowledge  of 
the  city  and  its  inhabitants  was  gained  in  their  offices  or 
stores  and  in  their  daily  drive  on  The  Course.  The  mis- 
sionaries there  had  never  fully  defined  the  situation,  but 
Duff  accompanied  them  everywhere,  w^atching  them  deal 
with  the  natives  under  most  diverse  circumstances.  More- 
over, he  made  friends  with  merchants,  zemindars,  rajahs 
and  Brahmans,  and  from  native  lips,  through  English  and 
Bengali,  learned  the  problems  which  he  must  meet. 

Calcutta  then  had  a  population  of  about  half  a  million 
while  within  a  radius  of  ten  miles  was  an  estimated  one  of 
two  millions.  Within  the  city  were  \nany  yorin^-  jnen  who 
ivlshed  to  learn  English^  lai'gely  as  a  stepping  stone  to 
mercantile  or  governmental  employment.  To  meet  this 
need  and  higher  objects,  adventurers,  Eurasians  and  Arme- 
nians had  given  instruction  mainly  in  the  language  alone. 
In  1S17  David  Hare  and  the  famous  Rammohun  Roy  es- 
tablished the  first  English  seminary  in  India,  "  The  Hindoo 
College  of  Calcutta.",  This  had  lost  all  its  capital  soon 
after  Duff's  arrival,  aifd  the  Calcutta  School  Society,  asso- 
ciated with  it  and  intolerant  of  Christianity,  had  perished. 
Measures  providing  for  useful  education  and  calculated  also 
to  "raise  the  moral  character  of  those  who  partake  of  its 
advantages,"  were  proposed  by  the  directors  of  the  East 
India  Company,  but  when  the  medium  of  instruction  was 
discussed,  an  angry  struggle  took  place  between  the  advo- 
cates of  Sanskrit  for  the  Hindus  and  Arabic  and  Persian 
for  IMuhammadans,  and  those  who  desired  to  use  English, 
as  the  sole  medium  for  higher  education. 

Missionaries  outside  the  city  had  advocated  a  Christian 
and  English  higher  education  before  Duff's  advent,  but  in 
the  capital  itself  little  Christian  and  educational  work  had 
been  accomplished.  Sati,  infanticide,  the  choking  of  the 
dying  with  sacred  mud,  idolatry,  caste,  human  sacrifice 
and  thuggery  still  flourished.  Though  The  Baptist,  Orissa 
General  Baptist,  Church  ,:\svl  London  Missionary  Societies 
were  laboring  there,  three  years  before  his  coming  there 


44        ALEXANDER  DUFF,  INDIA  S  EDUCATOR 

were  only  fifteen  converts  in  the  city  as  the  result  of  ten 
years'  ^vork,  while  not  more  than  five  thousand  children 
were  in  school.  When  he  landed,  "not  more  than  five 
hundred  of  these  learned  English,  and  that  after  the  strait- 
est  sect  of  secularists  of  the  Tom  Paine  stamp." 

Duff's  Educational  Plan.  Negatively  it  was  two-fold, 
not  to  do  as  the  Home  Committee  had  directed  him,  and 
not  to  imitate  his  predecessors  in  India.  This  decision 
would  seem  presumptuous  in  the  extreme,  were  it  not  sup- 
ported by  such  exhaustive  and  conclusive  reasoning  as  may 
be  found  in  "India  and  Indian  Missions"  and  by  the  un- 
anwerable  argument  of  later  results. 

He  states  it  positively  and  germinally  in  these  words  : 
"While  you  engage  in  directly  separating  as  many  precious 
atoms  from  the  mass  as  the  stubborn  resistance  to  ordinary 
appliances  can  admit,  we  shall,  with  the  blessing  of  God, 
devote  ovu-  time  and  strength  to  the  preparing  of  a  mine, 
and  the  setting  up  of  a  train  which  shall  one  day  explode 
and  tear  up  the  whole  from  its  lowest  depths,"  More 
specifically  : 

1.  The  object  of  Duff's  educational  project  was  to  for- 
w^ard  in  the  best  way  the  accomplishment  of  three  aims : 
preaching  to  adults;  educating  the* young;  furnishing  a 
Bible  and  suitable  literature.  Fully  educated  natives  seemed 
to  him  the  key  to  the  problem,  and  his  institutions  were  to 
furnish  these. 

2.  The  kind  of  school  best  fitted  to  do  such  work  was 
one  of  high  grade,  but  as  raw  material  was  at  first  lacking, 
he  was  obliged  to  begin  with  a  lower  class  of  work. 

J.  The  place  for  such  a  plant  was  then  Calcutta,  since 
it  met  best  his  three  conditions, — a  dense  population  from 
which  to  draw  pupils,  a  desire  on  the  part  of  many  of  these 
people  to  avail  themselves  of  western  learning,  and  the 
absence  of  hostile  prepossessions  against  European  super- 
vision. Moreover,  Calcutta  was  then  the  skull  of  India,  and 
its  brain,  rather  than  its  heart,  was  what  he  aimed  to  win. 

4.  Pupils  were  to  be  di'awn  from  every  class,  pro\ided 
they  showed  the  proper  ability  and  docility;  but  Duff  pre- 
ferred to  receive  those  of  higher  rank  or  caste,  believing 
that  if  he  could  raise  up  one  KncfX  he  would  be  worth  ten 


EARLY    LIFE    AND    EDUCATIONAL    WORK  45 

thousand  illiterate  peasants.  Bruhmans,  so  rarely  sought  by 
other  missionaries,  he  looked  upon  with  special  favor  for 
this  reason. 

J.  ^fediuvi  of  instruction.  No  man  believed  more  than 
he  in  the  value  of  the  vernacular.  Every  student  of  his 
must  know  it  well ;  but  for  advanced  studies  he  boldly  and 
contrary  to  government  opinion  and  missionary  usage,  de- 
cided upon  the  English.  Bengali  was  objectionable  in 
that  experiment  had  shown  that  it  was  impossible  to  keep 
students  longer  in  such  schools  than  was  sufficient  to  get  a 
mere  smattering  of  an  education.  Such  schools,  moreover, 
attracted  a  poorer  class  of  students,  who  were  not  poten- 
tially so  valuable  to  India.  Again,  Bengali  was  the  language 
of  neither  law  nor  religion  and  its  terminology  was  too 
meager  to  serve  as  a  vehicle  of  western  thought,  even  if  it 
possessed  such  books.  Sanskrit  was  not  chosen  for  the 
following  among  other  reasons  :  it  was  not  so  perfect  an 
instrument  for  conveying  Ein-opean  knowledge ;  it  was 
more  difficult  for  the  student  to  acquire  than  English  ;  be- 
ing considered  divine,  three-fourths  of  the  people  were  for- 
bidden to  learn  it ;  hardly  any  European  \vorks  were  trans- 
lated into  it ;  its  terminology  carried  with  it  superstitious 
or  false  ideas.  The  very  process  of  learning  English,  on 
the  other  hand,  brought  in  with  the  new  terms  new  ideas 
and  truths,  and  opened  up  to  the  student  an  unsurpassed 
literature. 

6.  The  studies  pursued  were  to  be  first  the  Bible, — 
every  student  having  some  Bible  work  each  day, — and  then 
every  variety  of  useful  knowledge,  first  in  elementary  forms, 
but  later  ascending  to  all  branches  of  western  culture.  In 
all  these  studies  religion  was  to  be  the  animating  spirit. 

7.  The  method  of  instruction  was  then  new  in  mission 
schools.  It  was  in  accordance  with  the  "Intellectual  Sys- 
tem" and  is  practically  the  method  pursued  in  our  best  pub- 
lic schools  of  to-day.  The  alphabet  was  taught  to  classes, 
even  this  work  being  made  a  keen  intellectual  contest.  "  In- 
structors," prepared  by  Duff  and  used  for  several  decades 
thereafter,  carried  the  student  by  logical  and  simple  steps 
from  point  to  point  until  he  could  study  westei"n  text-books 
as  readily  as  students  in  out  colleges. 


46        ALEXANDER  DUFF,  INDIA'S  EDUCATOR 

8.  The  begi}ining  oi  this  work  occurred  July  13,  1S30, 
less  than  seven  weeks  after  his  arrival.  In  a  hall  secured 
for  him  by  Rammohun  Roy,  five  young  men  recommended 
by  him  appeared.  The  plan  as  laid  before  them,  approved 
itself  to  them  and  to  their  friends,  so  that  in  three  days  one 
hundred  and  five  were  enrolled.  Expecting  to  classify  these 
on  the  following  day,  he  was  prevented  by  the  appearance 
of  two  hundred  new  applicants.  As  the  hall  accommo- 
dated but  one  hundred  and  twenty, — later,  accommodations 
for  two  hundred  and  fifty  were  secured, — and  as  the  nvimber 
of  candidates  increased  during  the  next  week,  Duff  was 
able  to  sift  his  students  and  to  secure  a  ^vritten  promise 
from  parents  that  they  would  pay  for  the  books  used  and 
would  see  that  their  sons  were  present  punctually  and  for  a 
prolonged  period,  thus  doing  away  with  the  instability  of 
other  mission  schools. 

When  the  institution  thus  organized  was_/brwa//y  opened 
and  the  stvidents  were  asked  to  read  in  the  Bible,  there  was 
danger  of  a  revolt ;  but  the  counsel  of  India's  Erasmus, 
Rammohun  Roy, — himself  a  student  of  the  Bible  in  its 
original  tongues, — and  Duff's  matchless  persuasiveness,  won 
the  day,  as  was  also  the  case  when  the  Lord's  prayer  was 
first  used.  Lack  of  qualified  teachers,  habits  of  lawless- 
ness, absence  of  thought  so  common  to  rote  students,  had 
to  be  met,  but  St  Andrews'  first  scholar,  debater  and  essay- 
ist was  equal  to  the  labor.  Possibly  no  missionary  teacher 
has  so  enthused  and  re-created  oriental  students  in  a  year 
as  did  he.  The  result  of  a  public  exhibition  of  the  work 
done  by  them  in  a  twelvemonth  was  the  only  thing  talked 
about  in  Calcutta  for  days  thereafter,  and  Duff  had  at  a 
bound  passed  from  his  Rubicon  to  the  chair  of  dictator  in 
the  realm  of  missionaiy  education,  though  Pompey  was 
still  unconquered. 

g.  So7ne  other  results  may  be  noted.  Of  Duff's  first 
students  one-fourth  were  Brahmans  and  there  were  very  few 
of  low  caste.  These  young  men  vv^ere  being  daily  influ- 
enced to  give  up  their  false  beliefs,  no  matter  whether  the 
impulse  came  from  the  first  two  English  letters  and  word 
learned,  o— x,  ox,  or  from  the  reading  of  Paul's  Canticle  of 
Love.   Naturally  the  cry  of  "Hinduism  in  Danger!"  fol- 


EARLY    LIFE    AND    EDUCATIONAL    WORK  47 

lowed  and  chronic  boycotts,  succeeded  by  greater  triumphs, 
were  experienced.  In  spite  of  opposition  Duff  soon  had 
the  joy  of  seeing  four  converts,  one  of  them  an  exceed- 
ingly influential  Brahman, 

A  wider  work  was  also  being  accomplished.  Duff's  ob- 
ject lesson  had  given  birth  to  scores  of  somewhat  similar 
seminaries,  whose  duly  qualified  teachers  were  in  inany 
cases  his  own  students.  Sii  Charles  Trevelyan  had  not 
been  a  week  in  Calcutta  when,  in  1831,  he  threw  himself 
into  Duff's  ranks.  His  talented  brother-in-law,  Macaulay, 
was  the  Law  Member  of  the  Council  a  little  later,  and  he, 
too,  felt  the  spell  of  the  young  Scotchman.  These  three 
inen  were  nobly  backed  by  Lord  William  Bentinck  and  the 
result  of  the  agitation  was  the  decree  of  1835^  "^  which 
the  Governor-General  sanctions  in  the  Government  institu- 
tions Duff's  system  almost  in  its  entirety,  though  lacking 
its  religious  element.  One  year  afterwards  the  Government 
English  schools  were  doubled  in  number.  Sir  Charles  later 
attributed  much  of  this  Renaissance  to  him,  while  a  prom- 
inent Indian  writer  says  that  Macaulay's  greatest  work — 
greater  even  than  his  Warren  Hastings  and  Clive  essays, 
— "was  to  be  the  legislative  completion  of  the  young  Scot- 
tish missionary's  polic,^" 


SUGGESTED    READINGS. 

Catholic  Presbyterian,  Article  Alexander  Duff,  Vol.  III. ;  Pp.215  ^• 
Duff:     India  and  Indian  Missions,  (1840),  Chs.  iv,  vi. 
W.  P.  Duff:     Memorials  of  Alexander  Duff,  D.D. 
Encyclopjedia  of  Missions,  (1891),  Article  Alexander  Duff. 
Free  Church  Record,  April,  187S,  Pp.  95,  96. 

Good  Words,  Article  Educational  Work  of  Duff',  Vol  XIX.,  Pp  307  ff. 
Lai  Be/iari  Day :     Recollections  of  Alexander  Duff',  D.D.,LL.D., 

(1S79),  Chs.  i-iv. 
Pierson :     New  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  (1894),  Pp.  128-132. 
T.  S>nt/k:     Alexander  Duff",  D.D.,  LL.D.,  (1883),  Chs.  i-iii. 
Vermtlye:     The  Life  of  Alexarti^r  Duff,  (1890),  Chs.  i-iv. 


48*       ALEXANDER  DUFP",  INDIA'S  EDUCATOR 

G.  Siiiiih:  The  Life  of  Alexander  Duff,  D.  D.  LL.  D.,  (1S79). 
The  Boy  and  Student,  Vol.  I.,  Ch.  i. ;  The  First  Missionary 
of  the  Church  of  Scotland,  Vol.  I.,  Ch.  11. ;  The  Two  Ship- 
wrecks, Vol.  I.,  Ch.  III. ;  Calcutta  as  it  Was,  Vol.  I.,  Ch.  iv. ; 
Beginning  of  the  Work,  Vol.  I.,  Chs.  v,  vi. ;  The  Renaissance 
in  India,  Vol.  I.,  Chs.  vii,  viii. ;  Work  for  Eurasians,  Native 
Christians  and  Europeans,  Vol,  I.,  Ch.  ix. 


IV 


DUFF    AS    A    PROMOTER    OF    MISSIONS 

Wherever  I  wander,  wherever  I  stay,  my  heart  is  in  India,  in 
deep  sympathy  with  its  multitudinous  inhabitants,  and  in  earnest 
longings  for  their  highest  welfare  in  time  and  in  eternity. — Duffs 
latest  published  -Mords. 

Other  Labors  in  India,  1830=1834.  Jungle-fever,  con- 
tracted during  a  journey  to  Takee  to  inspect  his  branch 
school,  followed  by  dysentery,  almost  as  fatal  as  cholera 
before  ipecacuanha  had  been  used  as  a  specific  against  it, 
gave  Duff  a  much  regretted  furlough.  Yet  in  these  four 
years  in  India  he  had  accomplished  much.  Besides  the  cen- 
tral work  already  mentioned,  he  had  delivered  lectures 
which  set  the  young  mind  of  India  thinking  on  religious 
topics ;  in  their  deb.iijThg  societies  and  elsewhere  he  had 
agitated  the  establishment  of  a  national  system  of  female 
education;  India's  first  modern  medical  school,  grown  ta 
be  the  largest  in  the  world,  came  into  existence  largely  be- 
cause of  testimony  before  the  Educational  Committee  given 
by  Duff  and  his  I3rahman  pupils,  who  had  so  imbibed  his 
spirit  that  they  were  ready  to  commit  the  awful  sacrilege  of 
dissecting  a  human  body  ;  the  germ  of  the  Doveton  Colleges,, 
so  helpful  to  despised  Eurasians,  was  nourished  by  their 
best  friend.  Duff  ;  he  had  proposed  his  masterly  scheme  for 
a  United  Christian  College,  later  realized  in  Madras  foo.- 
Southern  India,  but  foolishly  and  expensively  rejected  at 
this  time  because  of  English  sectarian  controversy ;  his  ap- 
peal for  vernacular  education,  so  sadly  needed  by  ninety- 
two  per  cent,  of  the  children  of  Bengal,  required  for  its 
continual  agitation  a  free  organ  of  expression,  and  so  the 
"Calcutta  Christian  Obser^J^er"  had  come  to  birth  ;  TreveU 


50  ALEXANDER    DUFF,    INDIA'S    EDUCATOR 

yanism,  or  the  Romanization  of  East  Indian  languages, — 
numbering  two  hundred  and  forty-three  phis  a  larger  num- 
ber of  dialects, — was  so  dependent  upon  him  that  its  author, 
Sir  Charles,  writes  :  "  The  turning  point  of  the  controversy 
was  marked  by  the  publication  of  three  papers  by  Dr  Duff, 
in  the  first  of  which  the  possibility,  practicability  and  ex- 
pecfiency  of  substituting  the  Roman  for  the  Indian  alphabet 
was  discussed,  and  in  the  last  two  a  practical  scheme  for 
that  purpose  was  worked  out  in  detail,  and  objections  wei^e 
answered.  .  .  .  They  settled  the  system  on  its  pres- 
ent basis,  and  may  be  read  to  this  day  with  interest  and 
advantage." 

From  his  part  in  this  controversy  and  his  roll  of  cham- 
pion of  the  Anglicists,  we  must  not  imagine  that  he  was 
opposed  to  true  oriental  scholarship  and  the  cultivation  of 
the  vernacular  in  higher  education.  Bengali  received  its 
greatest  impulse  at  that  time  from  Duff's  institution,  where 
the  despised  language  was  enriched  from  contact  with  west- 
ern thought  and  was  systematically  cultivated  in  the  inter- 
ests of  Bengal's  evangelization.  In  regai'd  to  Orientalism, 
all  that  Duff  criticised  and  opposed  was  a  pseudo- 
Orientalism  ^y^Ync^v  failed  to  see  all  that  ^vas  valuable  in  such 
literature,  and  yet  stoutly  argued  that  govermnent  money 
should  be  expended  on  costly  works  in  oriental  tongues 
which  it  was  necessary  to  pay  men  to  learn  to  read.  More- 
over, he  felt  that  a  worse  wrong  had  been  done  India  than 
that  of  waste  ;  heathenism  had  been  endowed,  while  Christi- 
anity had  been  set  back  by  such  action.  The  folly  of  Orient- 
alism, such  as  was  shown  in  the  medical  college  contro- 
versy, was  also  opposed.  His  high  appreciation  of  a  true 
oriental  scholarship  is  set  forth  in  one  of  the  finest  para- 
graphs of  his  valuable  pamphlet,  the  "New  Era  of  the 
English  language  and  English  Literature  in  India." 

But  the  man  had  been  more  directly  ivor  king  for  Chris- 
iianity  also.  He  was  a  staunch  and  aggressive  worker  in 
the  line  of  Bible  and  Tract  distribution.  When  the  first  writ 
of  Jiabeas  corpus  was  served  and  the  character  of  mission- 
aries was  in  consequence  assailed,  the  Highlander,  rather 
than  the  Bishop  of  Calcutta,  came  to  the  rescue.  St  An- 
drew's Kirk^  the  official  "cathedral"  of  the  Scotch,  was 


PllOMOTEK    OF    MISSIONS  5  I 

in  bad  repute.  Legal  wars  had  been  carried  on  between  its 
chaplain  and  the  Bishop  of  Calcutta,  concerning  a  steeple 
first,  then  over  its  weather-cock,  and  last  of  all  concerning 
a  second  service  argued  for  by  the  junior  chaplain.  As  a 
result  it  had  lost  its  members  a-nd  wa.s  a  scandal  to  Christi- 
anity. Dr  Bryce,  returning  to  Scotland,  threw  the  care 
of  this  church  on  Duff,  thus  giving  to  the  city  such  preach- 
ing as  it  had  never  heard  before.  A  happy  sequel  to  his 
labors  there  was  his  admonition  to  one  of  his  parishoners, 
an  employer  of  five  hundred  natives,  who  allowed  them  to 
ivork  on  Sundays ^  as  was  coinmon  at  that  tiine.  The  result 
of  this  advice  ^vas  the  payment  of  Sunday  wages  without 
requiring  its  work  to  those  who  would  make  their  labor  on 
other  days  more  profitable.  Thus  what  a  bishop  had  failed 
to  do  through  a  pledge  to  abstain  from  Sabbath  desecration, 
was  done  by  the  quiet  advice  of  a  missionary,  and  Sabbath 
keeping  began. 

Before  setting  sail  on  the  "John  M'Lellan, "  Alexander 
Duff  had  seen  all  these  forces  in  motion  and  his  beloved  in- 
stitution had  become  "a  complete  Arts  College^  includ- 
ing the  thorough  study  of  the  Bible  as  well  as  the  evidences 
and  doctrines  of  natural  and  revealed  religion,"  the  annual 
examinations  of  whij^  were  among  the  notable  events  of 
the  year.  What  larger  work  can  any  young  man  of  twenty- 
eight  hope  to  accomplish  } 

Five  years  in  Britain,  1835-1839.  During  the  voyage 
the  convalescent  improved  the  opportunity  thus  afforded  by 
reading  the  entire  Bible  through  three  times.  The  result 
of  this  comparative  and  repeated  study  was  an  enthusiastic 
conviction  that  "missionary  work  is  merely  preparatory  to 
the  great  outpouring  of  the  Holy  Spirit."  He  did  one  other 
thing  of  importance  on  the  journey  ;  he  outlined  a  plan  for 
reaching  every  presbytery  with  the  missionary  message. 
To  us  this  seems  commonplace,  but  Dr  Chalmers  gives  him 
the  credit  of  being  the  first  man  to  present  personallv  a 
cause  in  such  a  manner.  Of  the  many  results  of  this  stay  in 
the  home-land,  only  three  are  here  named. 

I .  Results  coming  from  missionary  oratory.  In  this  di- 
rection Dr  Duff  has  probably  had  no  equal,  either  in  Europe 
or  America.     Received  ioldly  by  the    Committee  on   his 


52  ALEXANDER    DUFF,    INDIA'S    EDUCATOR 

retiiin,  he  was  first  called  sternly  to  account  for  presenting 
his  work  before  some  friends  in  a  private  house.  The  Con- 
vener's censure  was  promptly  turned  into  victory  and  the 
Scotch  of  London  wished  to  hear  him.  He  had  scarcelv 
made  a  beginning  there  when  his  old  enemy,  jungle-fever, 
laid  him  low.  But  t/ic  General  Assembly  of  iSjj  was 
soon  to  meet  in  Edinburgh's  box-like  Tron  Church,  and  he 
felt  that  he  must  be  heard  there  or  die.  The  opportunitv 
being  given  Duff — who  was  just  off  from  a  sick-bed  and 
spoke  against  the  advice  of  his  physician, — he  arose,  and 
after  passing  beyond  the  stage  when  his  friends  felt  that  he 
would  drop  to  the  floor,  gave  utterance  to  a  flood  of  ora- 
tory which  furnished  to  schools  and  elocutionary  manuals 
for  many  yea«rs  one  of  their  best  models.  For  between  two 
and  three  hours  he  held  the  vast  audience  captive  beneath 
his  commanding  eloquence.  Callous  lawvers  and  lords 
of  session,  churchmen  and  laity  of  every  degree,  were 
moved  to  tears,  and  when  the  tumult  of  emotion  had  sub- 
sided, the  venerable  Dr  Stewart  said:  "Moderator,  it  has 
been  my  privilege  to  hear  Mr  Fox  and  Mr  Pitt  speak  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  that  grand  focus  of  British  eloquence, 
when  in  the  very  zenith  of  their  glory  as  statesmen  and  ora- 
tors. I  nov/  solemly  declare  that  I  never  heard  from  either 
of  them  a  speech  similar  or  second  to  tliat  to  which  we 
have  now  listened,  alike  for  its  lofty  tone,  thought  and  sen- 
timent, its  close  argumentative  force,  its  transcending  elo- 
quence and  overpowering  impressiveness."  At  one  blo\v 
he  had  struck  off  the  locks  of  heretofore  unwilling  church 
doors  and  every  one  svished  to  hear  this  new  Chr}'sostom. 
Tw^ent}'  thousand  copies  of  his  speech  published  by  the  As- 
sembly's order,  as  well  as  almost  every  newspaper  in  the 
realm,  scattered  broadcast  the  masterful  oration. 

Read  to-dav^  it  cannot  produce  the  impression  originally 
felt.  We  live  in  the  age  of  knowledge,  and  missionary  ad- 
dresses are  not  the  novelty  that  they  Mere  then.  Notwith- 
standing, one  reading  now  the  ruins  of  that  production,  and 
especially  its  peroration,  is  stirred  with  the  grandeur  of  his 
theme, — India,  India  for  Christ,  India  through  the  Chris- 
tian use  of  education,  and  all  this  the  privilege  of  godly 
Scotland  !      His  blood-earnestnes'ji,  due  to  agonizing  prayer 


PROMOTER    OF    MISSIONS  53 

like  that  of  Knox,  save  that  he  longed  that  God  would  give 
him  India ;  periods  unconsciously  molded  in  the  form  of 
early  favorites  of  his,  Chatham,  Burke,  Erskine  and  Can- 
ning ;  his  prophet-like  utterance  and  utter  disregard  of 
modern  laws  of  elocution  ;  the  impression  given  that  he 
was  the  spokesman  of  his  Master  in  behalf  of  perishing 
millions  ;  the  final  supernatural  effect  produced  by  his  whis- 
pered peroi'ation  :  these  are  some  of  the  points  which  struck 
the  hearer  most  forcibly.  And  other  notable  efforts,  like 
that  at  London  and  his  famous  Vindication  of  the  Mission 
at  the  Assembly  of  it>37,  were  marked  by  similar  traits, 
though  he  later  ir.ade  a  more  liberal  use  of  satire  than  in 
his  first  address. 

If  one  proof  of  the  Athenian  orator's  power  was  the  cry, 
"  Let  us  go  against  Philip  !  "  Duff  was  a  Demosthenes ; 
for  an  Act  was  passed  recommending  him  to  the  churches 
and  advising  that  in  each  congregation  an  agency  for  prayer 
and  the  propagation  of  missionary  intelligence  be  created. 
Less  pleasant  resvdts  were  calls  extended  to  him  from 
churches  of  various  degrees,  including  the  famous  Grey- 
friars,  and  urgent  requests  that  he  give  up  India.  It  pained 
him  that  people  should  even  suppose  that  he  would  "re- 
treat from  the  front  of  uie  battle  into  the  easy  and  }et  respec- 
table comfort  of  the  baggage."  Aberdeen  honored  itself 
and  him  by  conferring  the  degree  of  D.  D.,  and  this  to  a 
man  under  thirty  in  a  land  where  the  letters  are  more  than 
"semi-lunar  fardels"  and  are  never  carelessly  bestowed. 

2.  As  an  organizer .,  even  more  satisfactory  results  were 
secured.  From  the  Orkneys  to  Solway  Firth  there  was  no 
considerable  district  which  he  did  not  visit  and  organize,  so 
far  as  possible,  the  presbyteries  and  churches  into  missionary 
branches  of  the  foreign  work.  The  first  Ladies'  Society 
in  Scotland  and  its  imitators  were  due  to  him.  Financial 
aid  to  the  missionary  work  of  the  Church  increased  fourteen 
fold  during  the  years  that  this  Celtic  firebrand  flamed  on 
Scotia's  hills. 

The  result  which  seemed  to  him  personally  the  most  im- 
portant, was  the  securing  of  strofig  recruits.  His  own 
sti'ength  and  the  large  results  of  his  four  years  in  India  drew 
to  him  some  of  the  choicest  men  from  the  Universities, — 


54  ALEXANDER    DUFF,    INDIA'S    EDUCATOR 

John  Anderson  of  Madras,  and  Doctors  Mitchell  and  Smith, 
\vho  were  to  become  so  powerful  in  India,  as  well  as  those 
almost-persuaded  men  who  remained  behind  to  hold  the 
ropes,  such  as  the  sainted  McCheyne  and  the  talented  Guth- 
rie. Instead  of  being  the  Church  of  Scotland's  sole  represen- 
tative as  in  1S30,  when  he  was  ready  to  return,  eight  others 
were  there  laboring  ;  the  Church  had  in  its  hands  his  "  Vin- 
dication," which  demanded  of  the  Assembly  that  they  send 
out  to  races  like  the  Hindus  their  best  educated  ministers 
and  ablest  preachers ;  and  divinity  students  the  world  over 
had  material  for  serious  meditation  in  his  most  popular 
writing,  "Missions  the  Chief  end  of  the  Christian  Church; 
also  the  Qiialifications,  Duties  and  Trials  of  an  Indian 
Missionary." 

Back  to  Calcutta,  1839,  1840.  Duff's  journey  to  India 
was  a  profitable  one  to  him.  Going  by  the  Ov'erland  Route, 
he  was  delayed  z'«  ^^v// _/(9r  a  month.  Besides  review- 
ing the  remains  of  a  mighty  Empire,  he  sought  an  interview 
with  the  Patriarch  of  the  Coptic  Church,  being  anxious  to 
see  if  "life  could  be  breathed  into  the  shriveled  skeleton  of 
so  fruitful  and  so  noble  a  mother  of  churches."  The  Pa- 
triarch listened  w^ith  interest  to  si"i^;estions  concerning  the 
use  of  the  Bible  and  the  publicat.on  of  tracts,  and  when 
an  institution  for  higher  education  was  broached  the  old 
man  assented  and  asked  Mr  Lieder,  the  missionary  accom- 
panying him,  to  draft  a  plan  for  his  more  careful  inspec- 
tion. Duff's  desire  has  since  been  partly  accomplished  by 
the  noble  efforts  of  American  missionaries.  The  corner- 
stone of  the  first  English  Church  in  Alexandria,  on  its  great 
square,  was  about  to  be  laid,  and  Dr  Duff  performed  the  re- 
ligious part  of  the  ceremonies.  Later  this  child  of  the 
Covenant  and  lover  of  Ben  Nevis,  went  into  the  solitudes 
of  Sinai  for  a  fortnight.  Conversing  with  the  monks  of 
St  Catherine's  Convent  through  Hindustani,  confirming  his 
own  faith  through  a  careful  study  of  the  topography  of  the 
mountain,  which  could  be  touched  as  his  own  Grampians 
could  not,  ascending  the  peak  where  Moses  stood  when  the 
Divine  Law  was  given  him,  he  repeats  many  times  on  a 
Sabbath  day  the  Ten  commaui^lments  and  luxuriates  in  a 
flood  of  sublime  and  spiritual  reflections. 


PROMOTER    OF    MISSIONS  55 

The  Suez  steamer  came  early  in  February,  1S40,  and  the 
Duffs  duly  reached  Bombay^  where  they  enjoyed  the  fel- 
lowship of  their  fellow  missionaries,  the  famous  John  Wil- 
son, Robert  Nesbit,  his  old  St  Andrew's  fellow  worker, 
and  Murray  Mitchell,  one  of  his  Scotland  recruits.  Duff 
comforted  them  in  the  misfortunes  attending  their  first  Parsi 
conversions,  and  made  a  careful  study  of  the  conditions  in 
western  India.  Thence  they  took  a  teak-built  vessel  to  Cal- 
cutta, stopping  on  the  way  at  Alangalore^ — where  a  visit 
with  the  eccentric  Basel  missionary,  Hebich,  kept  Duff  talk- 
ing until  almost  dawn,  and  at  Madras  where  were  their 
own  recruits,  Anderson  and  Johnson.  The  interest  taken 
by  Duff  in  the  conversion  of  old  St  Andrews  school  into 
the  germs  of  what  is  to-day  the  great  Christian  College 
of  Madras,  and  in  John  Anderson, — who  with  John  Wil- 
son at  Bombay  and  himself  at  Calcutta  constituted  the  basal 
triangle  of  missionary  educational  work  in  India, — was 
great  and  fruitful.  Later  they  sail  for  the  Hooghly,  where 
a  May  cyclone  again  alniost  destroys  them. 

Second  Stadium  in  India,  1840-1850.  The  first  decade 
of  his  missionary  life  had  laid  down  the  lines  which  he  af- 
terward followed ;  hence  his  later  years  can  be  passed  over 
more  rapidly. 

Duff  had  hardly  had  time  to  look  about  him  on  landing' and 
note  English  signs  of  native  druggists  and  surgeons,  a  beau- 
tiful Gothic  church  presided  over  by  a  high  caste  Brahman 
brought  to  Christ  from  atheism  through  his  efforts,  and  the 
magnificent  college  buildings  and  mission  house  where  he 
was  to  live  surrounded  by  nearly  seven  hundred  enthusiastic 
pupils,  before  he  found  himself  plunged  into  a  conjiict  ivith 
the  Governor-  General^  Lord  Auckland.  In  his  absence, 
the  liberties  fought  for  by  himself  and  others,  which  resulted 
in  the  use  of  the  English  tongue  and  the  study  of  western 
science  in  public  institutions  of  learning,  had  been  taken 
away  and  given  to  the  Orientalists,  and  error  was  again  en- 
dowed. In  three  bold  letters  he  arraigns  his  Lordship  at 
the  bar  of  universal  reason  and  before  the  Judge  of  Lords. 
While  the  letters  availed  nothing,  another  protest  against 
the  public  support  of  heathf^iism  and  a  plea  for  a  Christian 
education  had  been   uttered; 


56        ALEXANDER  DUFF,  INDIA'S  EDUCATOR 

Though  the  institution  under  its  four  gifted  colleagues 
had  made  great  progress,  it  was  ripe  for  a  i'eorga7iization 
looking  toward  the  one  spiritual  end  of  the  conversion  of 
students,  the  ultimate  overthrow  of  the  Brahmanical  system 
and  the  suhstitution  of  a  self-propagating  native  Church. 
While  at  home  he  had  been  a  student  of  the  latest  educa- 
tional ideas,  and  to  his  buildings,  library  and  apparatus,  he 
now  pi'oceeded  by  a  normal  class  and  by  privately  training 
those  already  acting  as  instructors  in  the  college,  to  raise 
up  a  body  of  thoroughly  trained  teachers, — an  attempt  so 
successful  that  the  Government  and  missions  from  Burma 
to  Sindh  speedily  carried  off  his  graduates.  Note-books 
were  discouraged  and  Duff  aimed  to  get  into  his  students' 
minds  clear  and  correct  conceptions  with  the  ability  to  ex- 
press them. 

For  three  years  he  held  a  Sunday  class  for  Bible  study 
among  the  clerks  in  public  offices,  with  encouraging  spiritual 
results.  For  his  old  graduates  who  desired  the  elevating 
companionship  and  intellectual  stimulus  of  their  old  in- 
structor, Duff  held  a  week-day  evening  lecture,  when  works 
of  men  like  Guizot  and  John  Foster  were  discussed.  Older 
and  less  favored  tne7i  were  aided  by  weekly  lectures  on 
moral  and  religious  themes.  The  ivoes  of  child-marriage 
and  widowhood  made  an  appeal  to  his  vigorous  pen.  The 
Krishnaghur  movement  and  its  sect  of  Worshippers  of  the 
Creator  so  interested  him  that  he  investigated  the  matter, 
and  ttvo  new  stations  were  added  to  Takee.  Meanwhile 
at  the  college  most  of  the  time  of  the  missionaries  was 
spent  in  teaching,  convei'sing,  preaching,  translating,  pre- 
paring tracts  and  praying  together,  while  Duff's  nine  hun- 
dred students  were  receiving  at  their  hands  a  thorough  and 
Christian  training. 

The  Disruption  of  1843^  though  it  was  not  unexpected, 
was  a  terrible  blow  to  Duff  when  it  came.  While  at  home 
he  had  claimed  that  missions  lay  outside  the  realm  of  party, 
but  with  the  formation  of  the  Free  Church,  he  and  his  col- 
leagues felt  that  they  must  cast  in  their  lot  with  the  off-shoot. 
This  meant  the  giving  up  of  an  institution  finely  equipped, 
much  of  it  with  his  own  privafce  means,  to  the  Established 
Church  and  the  beginning  ovel   again,  with  little  hope  of 


PROMOTER    OF    MISSIONS  57 

assistance  from  a  struggling  church  at  home.  But  Dr  Duff 
was  master  of  the  hour  in  India.  Friends  were  raised  up 
and  in  1844  a  hall  devoted  to  idol  revelries  was  secured  and 
the  new  institution  began  with  a  thousand  pupils.  His 
magnanimitv  forbade  his  starting  a  work  too  near  his  old 
institution  ;  hence  this  less  central  heathen  hall.  Similarly 
SI  man  who  could  move  all  Calcutta  by  his  "  Voice  from  the 
Ganges,"— four  lectures  given  in  the  town  hall  on  the  rea- 
sons for  separating  from  the  Established  Church, — had  lit- 
tle ditHculty  in  building  a  church  for  the  members  of  the 
new  denomination,  and  when  it  fell  down,  he  speedily  raised 
twice  as  much  for  a  new  one  costing  $60,000. 

Other  efforts  of  this  period  were  the  development  of  the 
branch  schools,  by  which  natives  were  evangelizing  the  ru- 
ral districts;  the  editorship  of  the  liberal  "Calcutta  Re- 
view" of  which  he  was  one  of  the  three  founders, — a  the- 
saurus of  valuable  information  concerning  India ; — a  ser- 
mon preached  after  the  deadly  summer  of  1S44,  which 
partly  accounts  for  the  largest  single  hospital  in  the  world 
and  the  ten  others  which  later  followed ;  and  raising  money 
for  a  Knox  monument  in  Edinburgh  and  again  for  starving 
Highlanders. 

Personal  ?natters  Vv'cre  the  attempt  to  kill  one  whose 
Institution  was  turning  out  Christian  graduates  to  the  threat- 
ened subversion  of  Hinduism, — an  attempt  met  by  his  tact- 
ful letter  and  turned  to  his  advantage, — and  the  crushing 
intelligence  of  the  t/ert'//^  of  Tho?7ias  C//t7//«e/'5,  whose  suc- 
cessor he  Avas  strenuously  urged  to  become.  In  spite  of 
appeals  from  presbyteries  and  the  General  Assembly  itself, 
Duff  resolutely  turned  from  so  great  an  honor  that  he  might 
"retain  in  the  view  of  all  men,  the  clearly  marked  and 
distinguishing  character  of  a  missionary  to  the  heathen 
abroad," — a  conclusion  which  gave  the  utmost  joy  to  all 
classes  of  the  Indian  community,  not  excluding  the  Brah- 
mans,  whose  appeal  is  a  strange  commentary  on  Duff's  fas- 
cinating power  and  on  Brahmanical  inconsistency.  While 
his  colleagues  agreed  that  he  ought  not  to  desert  India, 
they  thought  it  wise  for  him  to  return  and  organize  the 
Free  Church  Mission  scheme.  Dr  Duff  yielded  to  their 
views  as  well  as  to  those  of  iKs  physician  and  after  a  most 


58  ALEXANDER    DUFF,    INDIA'S    EDUCATOR 

interesting  tour  through  India,  that  he  might  know  the  sit- 
uation and  drink  in  inspiration  from  the  haunts  of  men 
whose  life  stirred  his  blood,  he  embarked  and  reached  Edin- 
burgh at  the  end  of  May,  1S50. 

Second  Visit  Home,  1850-1855.  Financially  Dr  Duff 
was  sorely  needed,  though  a  week  of  collecting  had  re- 
moved a  previous  deficit  of  $27,500.  Such  sporadic  efforts 
would  not  do.  Duff  had  on  shipboard  evolved  a  scheme 
which  he  hurried  to  the  Assembly  to  advocate.  Though 
his  five  addresses  did  not  secure  his  four  points, — a  day  of 
humiliation  and  prayer  for  the  Church's  neglect  of  the 
heathen,  regular  weekly  subscriptions  for  missions,  a  rule 
of  proportion  concerning  the  objects  aided,  and  a  synod  in. 
which  to  try  the  experiment, — he  was  granted  a  quarterly 
Association  in  every  congregation  to  forward  these  objects. 
Sent  forth  by  this  "Foreign  Missions  Assembly,"  he  went 
everywhere  establishing  associations  for  prayer,  informa- 
tion and  the  quarterly  collection  of  subscriptions.  The  re- 
sult of  this  prolonged  campaign,  extending  into  all  parts  of 
Scotland  and  into  England  and  even  Wales, — where  he 
spoke  at  one  time  to  over  fifteen  thousand, — was  the  estab- 
lishment of  his  far-reaching  scheme  in  five  hundred  out  of 
the  then  seven  hundred  of  the  Free' Church  congregations. 

The  distinguished  honor  of  being  Moderator  of  the  As- 
sembly of  1 85 1  and  his  part  in  ^o.  famous  Educational 
Despatch  of  July ^  1834^  are  worthy  of  mention.  The  lat- 
ter service  was  of  incalculable  value  to  India.  Attending 
for  hours  each  day  sessions  of  the  Committee  with  fellow- 
witnesses  like  John  Stuart  Mill  and  Prof  H.  H.  Wilson, 
and  cross-questioned  on  more  than  one  occasion  for  five 
hours  at  a  stretch,  in  the  presence  of  persons  like  Ma- 
caulay,  Disraeli  and  Gladstone,  his  educational  and  edi- 
torial experience  gave  his  words  weight.  The  result  was 
that  he  and  Mr  Marshman  worked  out  the  educational  part 
of  the  Despatch  of  1854.  His  "handiwork  can  be  traced 
not  only  in  the  definite  orders,  but  in  the  very  style  of  what 
has  ever  since  been  pronounced  the  great  educational  charter 
of  the  people  of  India."  By  it  were  secured  Government 
inspectors,  universities  like  that  of  London,  secondary 
schools,  improved  primary  an  ^^  indigenous  schools,  grants- 


PROMOTER    OF    MISSIONS  ■       59 

in-aid  of  all,  degrees  of  the  same  for  all  in  any  institution 
who  attain  to  a  certain  standard,  normal  schools,  school- 
books,  scholarships,  public  appointments,  medical,  engi- 
neering and  arts,  colleges,  and  also  female  schools.  The 
grants-in-aid  proposal,  so  fruitful  in  good,  was  urged  by 
Duff  "as  the  only  just  alternative,  if  the  state  persisted  in 
refusing  the  Bible  to  be  taught,  under  a  conscience  clause, 
in  its  colleges,  as  the  Koran  and  the  Vedas  are  taught." 

In  America,  1854.  Interjected  into  this  stay  at  home 
came  an  epoch-making  three  months  in  the  States  and  in 
Canada.  Brought  here  by  Mr  Stuart  of  Philadelphia,  he 
was  received  in  a  terrific  snow-storm  by  seventy  ministers 
at  eleven  at  night.  This  was  a  presage  of  the  tremendous 
enthusiasm  with  which  he  was  greeted  from  Boston  to  St 
Louis,  and  from  Montreal  to  Washington.  Whether  preach- 
ing before  Congress  or  talking  to  a  Sunday-school  class, 
he  was  everywhere  the  hero  of  the  hour.  The  impression 
left  by  his  stay^ — during  which  he  was  the  animating 
spirit  of  the  first  Union  Missionary  Convention  held  on  this 
continent, — is  thus  described  :  ' '  Dr  Duff  is  obviously  labor- 
ing under  ill-health,  and  his  voice,  at  no  time  very  strong, 
occasionally  subsides  almost  into  a  whisper.  In  addition 
to  this  drawback,  he  has  Jone  of  the  mere  external  graces 
of  oratory.  His  eloquence  is  unstudied ;  his  gesticulation 
uncouth,  and,  but  for  the  intense  feeling,  the  self-absorption 
out  of  which  it  manifestly  springs,  might  even  be  consid- 
ered grotesque.  Yet  he  is  fascinatingly  eloquent.  Though 
his  words  flowed  out  in  an  unbroken,  unpausing  torrent, 
every  eye  \vas  riveted  upon  him,  every  ear  was  strained  to 
catch  the  slightest  sound.  Indeed,  while  all  that  he  said  was 
impressive,  both  in  matter  and  manner,  many  passages  were 
really  grand."  As  to  the  effect  on  our  missionary  spirit, 
he  stands  perhaps  above  even  our  own  Judson  and  the  saint 
of  the  New  Hebrides,  Dr  Paton. 

But  such  a  nervous  strain,  amounting  to  a  "living  mar- 
tydom,"  could  not  long  continue,  and  he  left  America  with 
an  LL.  D.,  money  for  a  new  college  in  Calcutta,  and  an 
order  to  go  to  the  water  cure  of  Great  Malvern. 

Third  Term  in  India,  1856-1863.  A  winter  spent  in 
southern   Europe,  Syria  anc/*  Palestine,  a  return  to  Edin- 


6o  ALEXANDER    DUFF,    INDIA'S    EDUCATOIl 

burgh  for  a  glorious  September,  and  then  the  Duffs  again 
leave  for  their  field.  Passing  through  central  India,  he  ar- 
rived at  Calcutta  in  February,  when  the  mutterings  of  the 
storm  which  was  to  burst  in  1857  were  beginning  to  be 
heard.  During  the  awful  period  of  the  Sepoy  Mutiny  he 
was  the  careful  observer  and  chronicler,  the  man  who  stood 
unmoved  in  the  most  dangerous  part  of  the  city  and  who 
could  say  after  the  most  critical  night,  "I  have  not  enjoyed 
such  a  soft,  sweet,  refreshing  sleep  for  some  weeks  past," 
and  the  preacher,  who,  when  the  danger  ^vas  past,  deli\'ered 
by  request  a  Thanksgiving  Sermon, — one  of  the  grandest 
oratorical  efforts  of  his  life. 

Three  evcjits  of  special  importance  broke  in  upon  the 
routine  of  his  college  work.  One  was  the  establishment 
of  his  Caste  Girls'  Day  School,  an  institution  of  the  g'"eat- 
est  worth  to  the  higher  classes.  A  second  was  the  j^art  Duff 
played  in  the  origin  of  the  famous  Calcutta  University, 
established  by  the  Government.  The  real  headship  of  this 
institution  lay  in  his  fertile  and  wise  brain,  though  he  de- 
clined to  become  its  Vice-Chancellor.  A  third  matter  was 
his  ivithdra'jcal,  after  nearly  a  third  of  a  centurv,  to  home 
service.  Not  even  the  cry  "C'^^^ne  home  to  save  the  mis- 
sion !  "  would  have  moved  him,'><Ad  not  his  old  enemy,  the 
dysentery,  which  a  voyage  to  China  did  not  remove,  com- 
pelled his  consent.  Again  Calcutta  was  stirred.  Scholar- 
ships were  established  in  his  name  ;  portraits  and  busts  of 
him  were  secured  for  educational  institutions ;  addresses 
from  different  classes  of  the  community  poured  in  upon 
him;  and  his  countrymen  raised  a  fund  of  $55,000,  upon 
the  interest  of  which  he  afterward  lived.  With  the  well- 
merited  eulogies  of  Sir  Henry  ISIaine  and  Bishop  Cotton 
to  remind  India  of  brilliant  service  ringing  in  his  ears,  this 
veteran  sailed  to  the  shores  of  Africa  to  begin  at  Lovedale 
his  labors  as  Director  of  the  Free  Church  Missions. 

Closing  Years,  1864-1878.  A  dream  of  Duff's  had  been 
a  sort  of  Protestant  Propaganda  College  in  Scotland,  and 
now  with  his  other  duties  he  attempted  to  realize  it.  The 
first  step  was  a  missionary  professorship  in  the  Free  Church 
Institution, — he  had  years  before  gotten  an  American  Sem- 
inary to  establish  one, — and  when  money  was  raised  he  was 


PKOMOTKR    OK    MISSIONS  6 1 

the  only  person  worthy  to  occupy  it.  Unfortunately  he  did 
not  live  to  see  the  establishment  of  his  Missionary  Institute 
nor  Missionary  Qiiarterly,  though  his  lectureship  is  giving 
the  world  such  books  as  Monier-Williams'  "Buddhism." 

Full  of  labors  as  professor  of  Evangelistic  Theology,  as 
Director  of  the  Foreign  Missions  of  his  Chuixh, — greatly 
to  their  enlargement — and  as  general  missionary  adviser  to 
America  and  Britain,  were  the  fourteen  years  preceding 
187S.  Then,  on  February  twelfth,  from  his  books  which 
he  loved  so  well, — Carlyle,  De  Qiiincev,  ISIilton,  Cowper, 
Hooker  and  the  rest ; — from  his  friends,  who  deemed  his 
presence  an  inspiration  ;  from  his  Kirk,  of  which  he  was  a 
chief  ornament ;  from  bonnie  Scotland,  which  he  loved  with 
an  undying  passion  ;  from  his  Indian  friends  and  old  pu- 
pils, with  whom  he  lived  in  spirit ;  from  a  world,  one  of 
whose  most  useful  factors  he  had  been, — God  called  him 
home  and  he  vras  not. 

His  funeral  brought  together  about  the  bier  magistrates 
of  various  ranks,  the  four  Universities  and  the  Royal  High 
School, — professors  and  students, — and,  for  the  lirst  time 
in  history,  the  three  Kirks  and  their  Moderators,  together 
with  representatives  of  the  English,  American  and  Indian 
churches.  Laid  to  rest  bv  }?eer.  citizen,  missionary  and  min- 
ister, his  life  furnished  the  theme  for  half  of  the  pulpits  in 
Scotland  on  the  following  Sabbath.  Well  spoke  a  woman 
who  saw  his  body  lowered  into  the  grave,  "His  coffin  should 
be  covered  with  palm  branches  ;"  for  a  Christian  conqueror 
was  this  Alexander,  and  he  could  in  very  truth  sing  Paul's 
pajan  of  victory,  "I  have  fought  the  good  fight,  I  have  fin- 
ished the  course,  I  have  kept  the  faith  :  henceforth  there  is 
laid  up  for  me  the  crown  of  righteousness,  which  the  Lord, 
the  righteous  judge,  shall  give  to  me  at  that  day." 

SUGGESTED  READINGS. 

Catholic  Presbyterian,  Article  Alexander  Duff,  Vol.  III., Pp.  215,  ff. 
Duff:     Indian  Rebellion;  Its  Causes  and  Results,  (1S5S). 

Missionary  Addresses,  (1850),  I.,  II.,  III. 

Missions,  the  Chief  End  of  the  Christian  Church,  (1839). 

New  Era  of   the  English   Language  and  English  Literature  in 
India,  (1835).  -} 


62        ALEXANDER  DUFF,  IXDIA's  EDUCATOR 

W.  P.  Duff:  Memorials  of  Alexander  Duff,  D.  D.  Especially 
Pp.  32-70. 

Encyclopivdia  of  Missions,  (1S91 ),  Article  Alexander  Duff. 

Lai  Behari  Day:  Recollections  of  Alexander  Duff,  D.D.,  LL.  D., 
(1S79),  Chs.  v.,  IX.,  X.,  XVI. 

London  Qiiarterly,  Article  Alexander  Duff,  Vol.  LIV.,  Pp.  93,  £f. 

Proceedings  of  the  Union  Missionary  Conference,  Held  in  New 
York  in  May,  1854. 

T.  Smith:     Alexander  Duff,  D.  D.,    LL.D.,  (1S83),  Chs.  iv-x. 

Vermilye  :     The  Life  of  Alexander  Duff,  (1890),  Chs.  vi-xvi. 

G.  Smith:  The  Life  of  Alexander  Duff,  D.  D.,  LL.D.,  (1879). 
Agitating  for  Missions  in  Britain,  Vol.  I.,  Chs.  x-xii. ;  Return 
to  Calcutta,  Vol.  I.,  Ch.  xiii. ;  Second  Term  in  India,  Vol.  I., 
Ch.xiv.  to  Vol.  II.,  Ch.  XIX. ;  Second  Furlough  in  Britain 
and  America,  Vol.  II.,  Chs.  xx-xxii. ;  Last  Term  in  India,  Vol. 
II.,  Chs.  xxiii,  XXIV.-   Final  Years  in  Scotland,  Vol,  II.,  Chs. 

XXV-XXIX. 


THE    MAN    MACKENZIE,    HIS    FIELD    AND    PEOPLE. 

It  was  not  merely  an  enthusiasm  for  humanity  that  touched  Mac- 
kenzie's heart  and  made  him  -willing  to  give  up  his  life  for  the  bene- 
fit of  the  millions  of  China.  Men  ha^•e  done  noble  deeds  under  the 
stimulus  of  philanthropy,  but  a  higher  motive  than  this  ^vas  the 
mainspring  of  his  life,  and  that  was  a  consuming  love  for  his  Di- 
vine Master.— il/^'5  M.  F.  Bryson. 

Early  Days.  In  the  isle  so  clear  to  England's  late  poet 
laureate  arid  to  her  Queen,  near  its  western-  end,  lies  the 
decayed  town  of  Yarmouth.  In  that  out  of  the  way,  fen- 
begirt  place  was  born  on  the  twenty-fifth  of  August,  1850, 
John  Kenneth  Mackenzie,  destined  in  after  years  to  prove 
one  of  the  most  important  factors  in  the  medical  and  mis- 
sionary history  of  China. V  But  he  did  not  long  remain  in 
that  land  of  downs  and  forests  and  picturesque  watering- 
places  ;  for  in  infancy  his  parents  took  him  to  the  home  of 
his  boyhood  and  youth,  the  mercantile  city  of  Bristol,  sev- 
enty miles  to  the  northwest  of  his  native  Isle  of  Wight. 
In  this  city,  which  had  in  1497  sent  forth  John  Cabot  to  dis- 
cover in  Nova  Scctia  the  mainland  of  North  America,  and 
where  in  1S3S  was  built  the  first  trans- Atlantic  steamer, 
the  boy  Kenneth  received  those  impulses  which  made  him 
first  a  Christian,  then  an  active  worker  for  his  Master,  and 
finally  a  medical  niissionary. 

The  north  of  Scotland  gave  him  a  staunch  Presbyterian 
father,  while  southern  Wales  furnished  him  with  a  beloved 
mother.  His  biographer  is  probably  correct  in  saying  that 
"to  his  Highla7id  blood  doubtless  he  owed  a  certain  reti- 
cence of  manner,  combined  with  an  intensity  of  feeling, 
which  in  a  marked  degree  characterized  his  likes  and  dis- 
likes." The   Welsh  blood  in  hii-veins  may  have  aided  him, 


64  KENNETH    MACKENZIE,    CHINA'S    PHYSICIAN 

as  it  usually  does  those  of  that  nationality,  in  gaining  a 
facile  use  of  one  of  the  most  difticult  tongues  of  the  world, 
and  it  very  probably  had  much  to  do  with  that  love  of 
preaching  which  colored  his  medical  work. 

His  boyhood  was  passed  in  the  helpful.  Christian  sur- 
roundings of  a  Presbyterian  elder's  home,  so  that  religion 
Avas  affecting  him  even  before  he  was  conscious  of  the  fact. 
Not  that  he  was  a  boy  saint,  however ;  for  he  had  a  hasty 
temper  and  was  outspoken  in  defending  any  position  which 
he  might  take,  while  as  a  pupil  in  Dr  Stone's  private  school 
he  disliked  study,  preferring  the  active  sports  of  boyhood 
to  irksome  books. 

At  fifteen  he  left  school  and  became  a  clerk  in  a  mer- 
chant's office.  He  now  began  to  appreciate  the  opportun- 
ities which  he  had  hitherto  partly  wasted,  and  spent  his 
spare  hours  in  instructive  reading.  He  also  availed  him- 
self of  the  advantages  of  the  Christian  Association,  which 
by  its  manifold  activities  has  been  so  beneficial  to  many 
young  men. 

Beginnings  of  His  Ctiristian  Life  and  Usefulness. 
The  unconscious  workings  of  the  Spirit  in  his  early  years 
became  intensified  on  two  momentous  days,  both  of  them 
times  of  special  interest  in  the  Ji\ssociation.  The  first  of 
these  was  a  certain  May  Sunday  in  1867,  when  the  topic  of 
the  Bible-class  had  been  "A  Good  Conscience."  It  was 
an  unusually  impressive  hour  and  at  its  close  Mr  Moody, 
then  visiting  England  for  the  first  time,  made  an  address. 
Though  he  rose  for  prayers  and  dated  his  earnest  desire 
for  a  spiritual  life  from  that  day,  he  was  not  one  of  the 
fifteen  who  then  decided  for  Christ.  Months  of  alternate 
struggle  and  discouragement  followed  until  the  anniversary 
of  Mr  Moody's  address  arrived.  W.  Hind  Smith,  the  Lon- 
don Y.  M.  C.  A.  Secretary,  delivered  the  address  before 
the  Association  on  that  day,  and  at  the  solemn  moment 
when  he  asked  the  young  men  to  openly  accept  or  I'eject 
Christ,  the  decisive  hour  for  Mackenzie  had  struck,  and 
from  that  time  he  was  Christ's.  On  the  w^ay  home,  he  and 
three  companions  stopped  on  a  hill  top,  and  like  the  Japa- 
nese youths  of  Kumamoto,  dedicated  themselves  to  be  hence- 
forth trustful,  leal-hearted  followers  of  their  Master.    Four 


LIP^E,    FIELD    AND    PEOPLE  65 

months  later  Kenneth  united  with  the  Presbyterian  Church 
of  Bristol  and  came  under  the  moulding  influence  of  that 
powerful  preacher  and  earnest  Christian,  Rev  Matthew 
Dickie,  to  whom  he  became  greatly  attached. 

Young  Mackenzie  did  not  wait  long  before  he  engaged  in 
active  ivork  ;  for  he  could  not  conceive  of  a  true  Christian 
who  was  not  about  his  Father's  business.  First  crucifying 
his  pride  by  chstributing  tracts  on  a  crowded  thoroughfare, 
he  later  became  leader  of  a  band  of  workers  who  held  open- 
air  services,  visited  lodging-houses,  taught  in  ragged  schools 
and,  as  occasion  offered,  spoke  at  religious  meetings  and 
preached  in  outlying  villages. 

Mackenzie  soon  became  conscious  of  his  unfitness  for 
these  higher  forms  of  work,  and  so  \\&  see  him  organizing 
a  mutual  Christian  training  school.  In  a  broken-down 
cow-shed,  two  miles  out  of  town,  a  little  group  of  them 
would  meet  at  five  in  the  morning  to  read  and  criticise 
specially  prepared  sermons.  His  discourses  were  of  great 
excellence,  and  this  work,  together  with  the  ardent  prayers 
poured  forth  as  they  knelt  on  the  earth  floor  of  the  cow- 
house, enabled  him  to  engage  in  the  winter  theater  services. 
His  ardent  soul  could  rest  in  nothing  but  the  most  active 
service  of  the  lowest,  s(>^hat  he  is  seen  at  one  time  win- 
ning a  notorious  king  of  thieves,  at  another  bringing  to  the. 
feet  of  Jesus  attendants  at  the  Midnight  Mission.' 

Interest  in  Missions.  The  Christian  workers  with\ 
whom  he  came  in  contact  w^ere  a  source  of  rich  blessing  to 
him.  One  of  these.  Colonel  Duncan,  he  felt  a  special  love 
for,  and  to  him  he  confided  on  his  way  home  from  a  theater 
service  a  secret  desire  which  had  come  into  his  heart,  to 
engage  in  foreign  missionary  work.  This  wish  had  been 
begotten  of  the  Spirit,  through  the  reading  of  b^ograph^es^ 
of  William  Burns  and  Dr  James  Henderson,  both  laborers; 
in  China.  Mr  Duncan  was  very  sympathetic  but  advised 
him,  in  view  of  his  youth  and  limited  education,  to  spend  a 
number  of  years  in  a  medical  school  in  preparation  for 
medical  service  abroad.  Mrs  Gordon's  little  book,  "The 
Double  Cure ;  or  What  is  a  Medical  Mission.^"  was  loaned 
him  with  the  result  that  he  felt  that  God  would  have  him 
give  up  business  and  study  mciSicine. 


66  KENNETH    MACKENZIE,    CHINA'S    PHYSICIAN 

When  he  laid  this  proposition  before  his  parents,  he 
found  them  unwilHng  to  consent  to  such  a  plan.  Going  to 
the  Colonel  with  this  obstacle^  he  proposed  that  young 
Mackenzie,  John  Gordon,  whose  wife  had  written  "  The 
Double  Cure,"  a  Bristol  surgeon  named  Steele,  and  him- 
self, should  lay  the  matter  before  the  Lord  in  prayer.  This 
plan  had  scarcely  become  operativfe  before  his  parents'  ob- 
jections disappeared.  So  at  the  very  begining  of  his  mis- 
sionary career,  he  learned  one  of  the  secrets  of  his  fruitful 
life,  the  power  of  prayer  and  the  special  value  of  united 
supplication  for  definite  objects. 

Preparation  for  Medical  Service.  Though  without  the 
basis  of  a  college  course,  young  Mackenzie  had  unusually 
good  opportunities  for  securing  a  thorough  medical  train- 
ing. For  four  years  at  the  Bristol  Medical  School,  and 
later  taking  special  work  in  the  Royal  Opthalmic  Hospital 
in  London,  he  passed  in  Edinburgh  his  Licentiate  of  the 
Royal  College  of  Physicians  examinations,  while  at  Lon- 
don he  obtained  the  diploma  of  Member  of  the  Royal  Col- 
lege of  Surgeons.  During  these  years  he  had  not  intermit- 
ted his  Christian  work, — though  naturally  it  was  lessened 
in  amount, — nor  had  his  interest  in  missions  decreased. 

V 

Appointment  under  the  London  flissionary  Society. 

Before  going  to  Edinburgh,  Mackenzie  had  heard  a  stirring 
address  from  Rev  Grffiith  John,  one  of  China's  greatest 
missionaries.  This  only  increased  his  interest  in  that  field, 
and  when  at  the  Scotch  capital,  he  interviewed  Dr  Lowe, 
of  the  Edinburgh  Medical  Missionary  Society.  Mr  Bry- 
son,  Mr  John's  colleague,  was  eventually  questioned  and  the 
need  of  Hankow  seemed  so  great  that  he  decided  for  China, 
though  on  the  very  day  on  which  he  offered  himself  to 
the  L.  M.  S.,  he  had  two  appointments  brought  before  him 
for  decision.  With  his  early  impatience  and  ignorance  of 
the  necessary  routine  of  missionary  organizations,  he  fret- 
ted because  an  immediate  reply  did  not  come  from  the  So- 
ciety. As  soon  as  possible,  however,  he  was  gladly  wel- 
comed and  appointment  followed. 

His  co7tscientiousncss  caused  him  to  lay  every  matter 
before  the  Lord,  so  that  the  date  of  his  sailing  and  the  ques- 
tion of  marriage  were  both  ifhade  matters  of  prayer.     The 


LIFE,    FIELD    AND    PEOPLE  67 

Society  rather  unwisely  advised  his  starting  in  April — a 
step  which  they  afterward  regretted  because  of  fever  con- 
tracted in  his  first  summer, — but  he  assented.  Mr  John's 
advice  concerning  the  advisability  of  not  marrying  until 
after  he  had  been  in  China  for  two  years,  that  he  might  get 
well  grounded  in  the  language  and  in  his  niedical  work 
before  the  additional  cares  of  a  family  came  upon  him,  was 
also  heeded. 

Journey  to  China.  Bidding  his  parents  a  sad  adieu  on 
April  8,  187!^,  he  went  up  with  his  brother  to  London 
where  he  had  time  to  attend  once  more  Mr  Moody's  meet- 
ings. He  had  a  few  weeks  before  enjoyed  a  "never-to- 
be-forgotten"  interview  with  the  great  evangelist,  and  all 
through  his  life  he  carried  the  memory  of  his  evangelical 
zeal  and  activity. 

Boarding  the  "Glenlyon,"  he  left  London,  April  tenth. 
His  social  nature  soon  gained  him  the  friendship  of  sailors 
and  passengers,  with  whom  he  was  equally  at  home  as 
quoit-player  or  preacher.  Reading  such  books  as  Carlyle's 
"French  Revolution"  and  Macintosh's  "Leviticus"  occu- 
pied his  time,  except  that  he  meditated  on  the  life  before 
him  with  deep  heart-searchMig.  Thus  he  writes  one  Sun- 
day :  "I  have  had  sweet  ciJmmunion  with  God  this  even- 
ing, and  have  enjoyed  much  comfort  from  the  study  of  the 
Word  to-day.  I  see  that  there  are  no  tw^o  courses  ;  it  must 
be  all  for  Christ,  or  else  the  soul  gets  dead  and  cold.  Do- 
ing everything  for  His  glory,  and  making  His  glory  our 
object  in  every  matter, — then  only  is  there  joy  and  peace. 
O  Lord,  may  it  be  thus  with  me  ! " 

Hong  Kong  was  reached  on  May  twenty- fifth ,  Shanghai 
on  the  third  of  June,  and  then  after  a  river  voyage  of  600 
miles  up  the  Yang-tzu,  he  arrived  on  Jvme  eighth  at  iiis 
new  home  in  Hankow. 

Life  in  Hankow.  China  welcomes  are  peculiarly  de- 
lightful, and  in  Mackenzie's  case  he  was  received  into  a 
-very  select  circle,  whose  crown  were  Mr  and  Mrs  Griffith 
John.  As  Bible  translator,  preacher,  missionary  champion 
and  author  of  some  of  the  most  widely  useful  tracts  in  the 
language,  Dr  John  was  an  incalculable  aid  to  the  young 
missionary.     Mrs  John,  too,  \vas  indefatigable  in  her  ef- 


68  KENNETH    MACKENZIE,    CHINA'S    PHYSICIAN 

forts  to  aid  all,  especially  the  sailors  on  the  tea-steamers 
who  are  so  numerous  during  the  tea  season.  Into  her  work 
Mackenzie  entered  the  fir'st  Sunday  after  his  arrival,  and 
during  his  three  years  in  that  city  he  was  a  large  factor  in 
a  work  which  resulted  in  many  conversions. 

His  first  Monday  saw  him  settled  and  beginning  in  ear- 
nest the  study  of  the  language^  a  process  thus  described  : 
the  teacher  and  I  "sit  down  together  with  the  same  book. 
He  calls  over  the  words  and  I  try  to  imitate  him  ;  my  mouth 
is  forced  into  all  sorts  of  odd  shapes,  and  I  struggle  on. 
The  idea  is  first  to  get  the  proper  sound,  the  meaning  after- 
wards, and  then — probably  the  most  difficult — to  learn  the 
characters.  We  go  on  for  about  three  hours,  until  I  am  tired 
of  repeating  sounds  after  him."  This  study  was  unfortu- 
nately interfered  with  by  the  pressure  of  medical'  work,  as 
was  the  time  for  exercise,  so  that  as  the  result  of  his  own  ex- 
perience he  writes  to  a  young  physician  who  came  out  years 
later:  "  If  I  were  you  I  would  not  touch  medicine  for  at 
least  a  year,  but  give  your  whole  strength  to  the  language 
and  to  looking  after  your  own  health.  Medical  mission- 
aries are  usually  forced  into  medical  work  from  the  begin- 
ning, and  then  have  to  lameot  it  ever  after.  Get  a  good 
foundation  laid  in  the  language,  and  take  plent}^  of  exer- 
cise in  the  open  air."  By  utilizing  spare  moments,  Mac- 
kenzie was  able,  after  two  years,  to  say  that  he  enjoyed  a 
Chinese  sermon  as  much  as  one  in  English,  and  his  biogra- 
phy tells  of  times  when  he  could  get  a  good  look  into  the 
Classics  and  find  joy  in  William  Burns'  incomparable  ver- 
sion of  the  "Pilgrim's  Progress."  In  the  absence  of  larger 
opportunities  for  language  study,  he  comforted  himself  in 
the  significance  of  his  Chinese  na7nc.  This  in  Hankow 
w^as  represented  by  three  characters,  Ma-kun-ge,  Ala  being 
his  surname,  the  ^/c«  meaning  "root"  and  the  ^<?  mean- 
ing "to  relieve."  It  was  his  business,  therefore,  if  true  to 
his  root,  to  relieve  others'  woes. 

The  street  chapel  was  a  place  which  the  Doctor  visited  as 
often  as  possible,  there  to  watch  one  of  the  most  successful 
Chinese  preachers  do  his  work.  The  motley  company  of 
coolies,  tradesmen  and  scholars  to  whom  Mr  John  would  try 
for  two  hours  at  a  time  tclimpart  one  great  idea,  gave  him  a 


LIFE,    FIELD    AND    PEOPLE  69 

valuable  lesson  and  made  him  feel  that  ordinary  discursive 
preaching  was  a  sheer  waste  of  time,  and  that  no  great  results 
were  to  be  expected  unless  one  were  willing  to  settle  down 
to  patient  persevering  work  which  the  Spirit  might  use. 

Mackenzie  was  wise  enough  to  do  what  many  mission- 
aries neglect ;  he  tells  very  vividly  of  visits  to  such  places 
as  the  hall  where  the  horrors  of  the  Buddhist  Hades  are 
displayed  in  most  gruesome  fashion,  and  other  matters  con- 
nected with  Chinese  religion  were  also  investigated. 

An  event  occuring  while  at  Hankow  had  its  large  influ- 
ence upon  Mackenzie's  life.  While  engaged  in  Christian 
work  at  Bristol  he  became  acquainted  with  Miss  Millie 
Travers,  a  fellow  worker,  and  later  they  were  engaged. 
In  1876  he  felt  that  the  time  had  come  for  their  union,  and 
she  accordingly  came  out  to  Shanghai,  where  they  were 
married  on  the  ninth  of  January,  1S77.  She  was  a  true 
help-meet  for  him,  and  he  greatly  enjoyed  his  home  and  the 
joint  work  which  they  were  now  able  to  do.  But  her  health 
was  an  uncertain  quantity  and  in  less  than  two  years  \vhen 
their  home  had  been  brightened  by  the  birth  of  their  only 
child,  Margaret  Ethel,  family  complications  and  personal 
matters  caused  Mackenzie  to  ask  to  be  sent  to  a  new  station 
in  Ssu  Chuan.  The  Socie*  decided  not  to  establish  work 
at  that  place,  but  re-appointed  him  to  Tientsin,  the  port  of 
Peking  in  North  China. 

Transfer  to  North  China.  During  these  three  years 
and  a  half  Dr  Mackenzie  had  won  golden  opinions  for  his 
art  from  all  classes  of  the  community  and  from  the  native 
Christians,  who  rarely  see  a  physician  so  ready  aiid  anxious 
to  help  in  the  spiritual  work  of  the  mission.  It  was  with 
pain,  then,  and  in  the  midst  of  sorrowful  adieus,  that  he  left 
the  city  in  March,  1S79.  The  presence  of  Bp  Schereschew- 
sky  and  a  consequential  Salt  Commissioner,  relieved  the 
tedivmi  of  the  voyage,  and  when  on  the  ocean  they  stopped 
a  little  at  Chefoo,  thus  giving  Mackenzie  a  glimpse  of  Dr 
Brereton's  hospital.  Thence  to  the  bar  off  Taku,  past  its 
mud  forts  and  into  the  sinuous  Pei-Ho,  seeming  to  him 
like  a  mill-stream  meandering  through  fens,  when  com- 
pared with  the  majestic  Yang-tzu,  Son  of  the  Ocean.  The 
bund  at  Tientsin  was  reached  ori-the  twelfth  and  the  party 


70  KENNETH    MACKENZIE,    CHINA'S    PHYSICIAN 

were  most  cordially  received  by  members  of  the  mission. 
His  life  here  is  in  many  ways  a  repetition  of  that  at  Han- 
kow, save  that  it  was  far  more  momentous,  as  will  be  seen 
later. 

Influences  Affecting  flackenzie's  Life.  It  may  be  well 
to  note  here  some  of  those  influences  which  had  a  develop- 
ing effect  on  his  life,  for  with  him  there  was  constant 
growth. 

Men  xvere  his  teachers  xery  largely.  Contact  with  earn- 
est believers  had  a  quickening  influence  upon  him.  The 
Cambridge  Band  stopped  at  Tientsin  on  their  way  to  Shansi 
and  their  meetings  and  conversations  gave  him  the  greatest 
single  impulse  of  his  life,  perhaps.  A  brief  acquaintance 
with  one  of  the  most  talented  of  England's  young  physi- 
cians, so  early  to  yield  his  saintly  life  to  Chinese  service, 
Dr  Schofield,  was  an  experience  of  a  life-time.  So,  too^ 
was  converse  with  the  hero  of  Mongolia,  a  missionary 
Robinson  Crusoe  and  evangelical  exile,  James  Gilmour. 
One  cannot  help  seeing  in  his  after  life  the  deep  impress 
of  these  men  and  of  Chinese  Gordon,  whose  unique  views 
he  so  fully  expressed  to  Mackenzie. 

Akin  to  these  influences  m  ':;re  those  coming  from  the 
printed  page.  Bp  Pattison,  from  the  South  Seas,  inspired 
him  ;  devotional  writings  of  men  like  Murray  were  care- 
fully digested  and  became  part  of  his  spiritual  fibre ;  but 
above  all  other  books,  the  Bible  stood  as  the  one  pre- 
eminently loved.  The  writer  well  remembers  his  library 
with  its  rows  of  volumes,  and  the  comparatively  few  which 
w^ere  well  worn.  One  of  his  choice  souvenirs  is  a  set  of 
old  Bengel's  "Gnomon,"  quaint  and  pithy,  which  Mac- 
kenzie had  marked  copiously.  As  his  life  ripened  and 
spiritual  discernment  grew  clearer,  even  Bengel  and  Mur- 
ray were  neglected  in  his  absorbing  love  of  the  Word  itself, 
so  that  at  the  end  he  was  the  man  of  one  Book.  How 
much  he  used  this  friend  may  be  judged  from  the  fact  that  a 
new  copy  of  the  Bible  which  had  been  his  but  three  months, 
had  been  marked  in  every  part,  and  in  many  portions  care- 
fully studied. 

Providences  were  Mackenzie's  teachers  also.  Nothing 
drove  him  to  God  so  effectually  as  obstacles.     No  matter 


LIFE,    FIELD    AND    PEOPLE  7I 

whether  the  difficulty  was  a  critical  operation,  money  for  a 
hospital,  particular  kinds  of  cases  which  he  preferred  to 
have  in  his  care,  the  hostility  of  natives  inflamed  to  hatred 
by  stories,  or  any  other  burden,  his  hour  of  weakness  was 
"the  wished,  the  trysted  hour"  when  he  was  sui'e  his  Lord 
would  fulfill  his  promises.  The  prayer-life  thus  engen- 
dered was  one  of  the  marked  characteristics  of  the  man. 
His  Bible  had  prayer-slips  in  it ;  his  letters  are  full  of  ex- 
hortations to  prayer,  or  objects  for  which  he  wishes  defi- 
nite petitions  offered.  In  one  letter  he  proposes  a  plan  for 
interesting  little  groups  of  Christians  at  home  in  particular 
Chinamen  for  whom  prayers  were  needed,  their  interest 
to  be  sustained  by  frequent  letters  of  information  concern- 
ing them.  The  peculiar  circumstances  of  his  wife's  health, 
which  bereft  him  of  her  Mobile  she  still  lived,  had  a  most 
hallowing  influence  over  his  remaining  years. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  his  last  months  saw  the  growth 
of  ajt  ascetic  element  which  was  not  quite  healthful.  In 
his  early  years  in  China,  he  had  been  scrupulous  about  ex- 
ercise, and  after  reaching  Tientsin,  he  had  attributed  his  ex- 
cellent health  to  horse-back  riding,  as  also  to  tennis,  skating 
and  walking,  of  which  he  was  very  fond.  Toward  the  close 
of  his  life  he  withdrew  '•  .'nore  and  more  from  society, — 
having  tried  in  vain  to  exercise  a  Christian  influence  in  that 
way, — and  gave  up  games  and  riding.  Yet  he  was  not 
exactly  morbid ;  he  was  rather  eaten  up  by  his  zeal  for 
his  work  and  for  his  Saviour,  from  whom  he  could  not 
bear  to  be  long  separated  by  even  so  thin  a  veil  as  that  of 
the  Christian's  daily  environment.  Christian  friends  of 
deep  spirituality  had  a  growing  value  to  him,  and  it  was  a 
pleasure  to  spend  his  time  with  them  in  Bible  reading  and 
prayer. 

Relation  to  Others.  To  the  people  whom  Mackenzie 
had  left  in  England,  he  looked,  in  the  earnest  hope  that 
they  might  be  influenced  to  become  helpers  of  the  woi^k 
abroad.  When  in  1SS3  he  took  his  only  furlough  home, 
he  was  pained  to  see  how  little  the  children  of  God  cared 
for  their  lost  brethren  and  sisters  in  China  ;  yet  this  did  not 
prevent  his  being  a  useful  speaker  to  home  audiences,  not 
only  along  missionary  lines  but  also  in  the  awakening  or 


72  KENNETH    MACKENZIE,    CHINA'S    PHYSICIAN 

development  of  spiritual  longings.  His  father's  letters 
coming  to  him  in  China  were  much  prized  and  aided  him 
greatly. 

Mackenzie  never  forgot  his  obligations  to  foreigners 
in  China.  The  work  for  crews  on  tea-steamers  at  Hankow, 
and  his  temperance  and  evangelical  efforts  for  the  marines 
and  sailors  who  wintered  at  Tientsin  constituted  part  of  his 
service  and  were  very  fruitful.  In  the  latter  city,  Mackenzie 
was  often  aided  by  surgeons  connected  with  gunboats  or 
vessels,  and  for  these  some  effort  was  made,  though  with 
little  success.  Fellow  missionaries  of  every  denomination 
were  stimulated  by  his  earnest  prayers  and  by  his  strong 
hold  on  the  Bible.  A  special  quickening  like  that  men- 
tioned by  Mrs  Bryson  in  his  Hankow  life,  and  the  yearly 
wave  of  blessing  received  at  the  Week  of  Prayer  services  at 
Tientsin  or  Peking,  marked  upward  bounds  into  a  broader 
and  higher  life. 

But  his  students  and  patients  were  his  especial  burden. 
For  them  his  heart  yearned  and  day  and  night  his  thought 
was  how  he  might  be  most  influential  in  winning  them  for 
Christ.  The  life  of  a  genuine  Christian  and  the  truths  of 
inspired  Scripture  were  the  two  things  which  he  was  anx- 
ious to  bring  into  heart  contact  wi'^h  them.  Few  men  have 
been  so  happy  in  Bible  class  work  as  he.  Deep  interest  in 
the  truth  and  the  living  out  of  this  truth  were  the  points 
which  he  impressed,  both  of  which  were  to  be  attained  only 
through  the  help  of  the  Spirit. 

In  God's  providence  Dr  Mackenzie  was  thrown  into  in- 
timate contact  with  the  real,  though  not  nominal.  Emperor 
of  China,  the  Viceroy  Li  Hung  Chang,  To  this  man  he 
fearlessly  testified  of  the  truth  which  is  in  Jesus,  though  with 
the  result  that  the  oriental  Bismarck  regarded  him  highly 
for  his  works'  sake,  but  esteemed  him  mad  in  matters  of  re- 
ligion. Many  other  lesser  servants  in  Ctesar's  household 
came  under  his  influence,  but  without  a  single  conversion  ; 
indeed,  no  high  oflicial  in  China  can  be  a  consistent  Chris- 
tian since  his  official  duties  must  include  idolatrous  worship. 

Sickness  and  Death.  While  still  in  his  full  vigor,  his 
Master  called  him.  On  Monday,  March  26,  1888,  he  was 
smitten  down  with  a  fever,  Vhich  later  threatened  to  be- 


LIFE,    FIELD    AXD    PEOPLE  73 

come  small-pox.  Less  than  six  days  of  patient  suffering, 
■of  last  farewells,  especially  pathetic  in  the  case  of  his  chief 
native  assistant,  formerly  a  student  at  Philips,  Andover, 
iind  then  on  Easter  morning,  "very  early,"  "when  it  was 
y-et  dark,"  he  ascended  from  his  couch  of  pain  on  Chih  Li's 
cheerless  plain  to  the  Paradise  of  God.  Tientsin,  meaning 
the  Heavenly  Ford,  had  been  to  him  but  the  inn  of  a  trav- 
eler journeying  to  Jerusalem,  but  his  passing  that  way  had 
drawn  multitudes  to  him.  What  wonder  then  that  when 
this  "most  important  man  in  Tientsin"  died  the  last  words 
marked  in  his  Bible  befoi'e  his  sickness  were  fulfilled  in 
him,  "And  all  Judah  and  the  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem 
•did  him  honor  at  his  death." 

Mackenzie's  Field.  Before  passing  to  the  considera- 
tion of  the  special  work  which  made  him  great,  a  glance 
should  be  taken  of  his  held.  China,  with  its  teeming  mil- 
lions is  one  of  the  most  favorable  places  in  the  world  for 
the  medical  missionary.  Mackenzie's  first  home  was  al- 
most in  the  geographical  center  of  the  Middle  Kingdom  ; 
indeed,  IIankow,with  its  sister  cities  of  Wuchang  and  Han- 
yang, on  the  confluence  of  the  Han  and  Yang-tzu,  is  known 
as  the  "Heart  of  the  ^npire."  There  at  the  center  of 
its  commerce  and  at  the  iieadquarters  of  anti-foreign  influ- 
ences which  have  been  responsible  for  much  of  the  rioting 
and  outbreaks  of  recent  years,  Medicine  stretched  forth 
her  beneficent  hand  to  still  hostility.  Hankow,  with  its 
750,000  inhabitants  huddled  together  in  the  narrow  lanes 
characteristic  of  central  and  southern  China,  swept  often  by 
floods,  and  the  perpetual  victim  of  epidemics  of  all  sorts, 
needed  him  when  he  came,  but  with  that  rejection  of  the 
best  so  fatal  to  the  Chinese,  it  was  necessary  for  him  to 
earn  his  laurels  before  he  wore  them.  Threading  its  nar- 
row alleys  and  burrows,  he  was  every  one's  friend,  even 
when  deadly  diseases  threatened  his  own  life.  Nor  did  he 
confine  his  labors  to  the  great  city.  Frequent  tours  in  the 
country  by  boat  or  on  foot  on  narrow  dikes,  made  among 
people  who  more  than  once  stoned  and  beat  him,  as  well  as 
lauded  his  virtues  and  feasted  him.  brought  the  healing 
hand  and  Christ-like  voice,  so  attractive  to  simple-minded 
folk,  into  close  contact  with/them. 


74  KENNETH    MACKENZIE,    CHINA'S    PHYSICIAN 

When  summer  malaria  or  overwork  drove  him  from  his 
post  for  needed  rest,  he  enjoyed  greatly  the  mountain  scen- 
ery of  the  lovely  Lu-Shan,  where  a  foi'eign  bungalow  shel- 
tered him,  or  the  quiet  of  the  lakes,  and  especially  the 
luxury  of  being  at  last  in  a  place  where  he  and  his  wife 
could  walk  about  without  the  following  of  the  elsewhere 
omnipresent,  curious  crowd  of  gaping  on-lookers. 

A  less  interesting  country  greeted  him  when  he  transfer- 
red his  work  to  the  northern  end  of  that  large  plain  of  north- 
eastern China  whose  fertile  fields  contain  a  population  al- 
most three  times  as  great  as  that  of  the  United  States.  In 
the  winter  season  resembling  an  almost  treeless  expanse 
of  clay  colored  soil,  relieved  by  countless  gi'oups  of  grave 
mounds  and  frequent  villages,  this  plain  suddenly  assumes 
a  tropical  aspect  when  the  rains  and  fiery  sun  of  summer 
cover  it  with  heavy  crops  and  abundant  pools.  In  the 
winter  Mackenzie  would  occasionally  don  his  fur  cap  and 
warm  Chinese  foot-gear,  and  mounting  the  heavy  spring- 
less  cart  of  the  north,  run  out  into  the  villages  and  towns 
Avhence  his  patients  had  come.  What  cared  he  for  the  bed- 
lam and  vermin  of  inns  and  their  brick  beds,  when  he  could 
reach  gi-ateful  patients,  who  were  f^nly  too  glad  to  receive 
the  Christain  Tai-fu,  Great-father  T  But  in  the  north  he 
had  no  beautiful  Lu-Shan  to  which  he  could  flee  in  time  of 
sickness ;  instead,  the  mouth  of  the  Pei-ho,  with  its  mud 
flats  and  homes  of  pilots,  was  his  place  of  refuge  and 
furnished  him  with  pure  air  and  sea  breezes  as  their  only 
attractions. 

His  People.  We  shall  see  in  the  following  chapter  of 
what  sort  they  were,  medically  considered.  But  as  he  met 
them  di)y  by  day  they  at  once  attracted  and  repelled  him. 
Their  duplicity  and  honesty,  conservatism  and  conservation 
of  the  best  as  they  apprehend  it,  cruelty  and  tenderness, 
atheism  and  many  gods,  and  a  host  of  other  qualities  ex- 
pressed by  similar  antonyms,  were  his  constant  study.  His 
general  estimate  of  them  is  thus  recorded:  "The  more  I 
know  of  the  Chinese,  especially  of  their  educated  men,  the 
more  I  feel  that  there  is  a  mine  of  wealth  here.  The 
leaven  will  take  long  to  spread,  but  it  is  already  at  work. 
The  inhabitants  of  the  Pacific  Islands  are  rapidly  influenced 


LIFE,    FIELD    AND    PEOPLE  75 

in  comparison  Avith  the  Chinese,  but  though   the  process 
here  will  be  slower,  it  will  be  far  mightier  in  results." 


SUGGESTED    READINGS. 

Burns:     W.  C.  Burns,  (1S70). 

Coltman:     The  Chinese,  (1S91 ),  Chs.  i-vii. 

Douglas:     Society  in  China,  (1894),  Chs.  vi,  vii. 

Encyclopedia  of  Missions,  (1891),  articles  J.  Kenneth  Mackenzie, 
and  China,  especially  Pp.  255-264. 

E.  1,1. :  The  Chinese ;  Their  mental  and  Moral  Characteris- 
tics, (1877). 

General  Encyclopedias,  articles  Hankow  and  Tientsin. 

Gordon:     The  Double  Cure;  or,  What  is  a  Medical  Mission? 

Henry:     The  Cross  and  the  Dragon,  (1885),  Ch.  iii. 

Holcomb  :     The  Real  Chinaman,  (1894). 

James  Henderson,  (  1873). 

Leisure  Hour,  Vol.  XL.,  Pp.  777,  ft'. 

Robson:     Griffith  John,  (1S89 ). 

Smith:     Chinese  Characteristics,  (1894), 

Bryson:  John  Kenneth  Mackenzie.  Early  Days,  Ch  i. ;  Student 
Life  and  Voyage  to  China,  Ch.  11. ;  Life  in  Hankow,  Ch.  iii. ; 
His  Northern  Horile,  Ch.  viii. ;  His  Inner  Life,  Chs.  xiv., 
XV. ;  Last  Things,  Ch.  xvi. 


VI 


MACKENZIE,    THE    MEDICAL  MISSIONARY 

A  little  while  for  winning  souls  to  Jesus, 
Ere  we  behold  His  beauty  face  to  face ; 
A  little  while  for  healing  soul  diseases, 
By  telling  others  of  a  Saviour's  grace. 

— Lilies  sent  JSIackenzic  by  Dr  Sc/iojield's  -^vidozv. 

Chinese  Views  of  fledicine.  Dr  Mackenzie  labored  in 
a  land  where  medicine  was  studied  quite  widely  and  where 
men  of  education  acted  as  physicians.  In  order  to  appre- 
<:iate  more  fully  the  value  of  his  work,  we  should  glance,  at 
least,  at  the  conditions  which  surrounded  him  in  his  work. 

Surgery^  whicli  in  so  many  lands  has  become  an  art 
Avhile  medicine  is  still  a  phase  of  superstition,  has  never 
been  developed  in  China.  "Surgical  operations  are  chiefly 
confined  to  removing  a  tooth,  puncturing  sores  and  tumors 
with  needles,  or  trying  to  reduce  dislocations  and  reunite 
fractures  by  pressure  or  bandaging.  Sometimes  thev  suc- 
cessfully execute  more  difficult  cases,  as  the  amputation  of  a 
finger,  operation  for  a  harelip,  and  insertion  of  false  teeth. 
Turning  in  of  the  eyelashes  is  a  common  ailment, 
and  nati^•e  practitioners  attempt  to  cure  it  by  everting  the 
lid  and  fastening  it  in  its  place  by  two  slips  of  bamboo 
tightly  bound  on,  or  by  a  pair  of  tweezers,  until  the  loose 
fold  on  the  edge  sloughs  off."  From  the  sixth  century 
B.  c,  the  surgeon  has  placed  great  reliance  upon  acupunc- 
ture and  the  moxa. 

Perhaps  one  reason  why  the  Chinese  have  made  so  little 
progress  in  surgery  is  the  fact  that  they  have  made  no  use 
of  dissection  and  depend  for  their  knozvledge  of  anatoiny 
upon  a  copper   model  of  a   man,  pierced   with  numerous 


AS    MEDICAL    MISSIONARY  77 

holes  and  inscribed  in  different  places  with  the  names  of 
the  pulses,  and  upon  two  other  anatomical  figures  made  in 
1027  A.  D.  to  illustrate  the  art  of  acupuncture. 

Their  theory  of  disease  might  seem  to  us  unique,  did 
we  not  remember  more  senseless  theories  prevalent  among 
other  uncultured  nations,  and  the  further  facts  that  in 
Greece,  "the  mother-land  of  rational  medicine,"  the  "tem- 
ple sleep"  and  its  dreams  were  the  basis  of  priestly  prescrip- 
tion. Hippocrates,  whose  name  stands  first  in  ancient 
medicine,  held  tenaciously  to  the  theoretical  notions  of  the 
four  elements, — hot,  cold,  wet  and  dry, —  and  to  the  Hip- 
pocratic  humors.  The  hardly  less  famous  Galen  placed 
great  confidence  in  the  doctrine  of  critical  days,  which  he 
believed  to  be  influenced  by  the  moon,  and  seems  to  have 
relied  more  on  amulets  than  on  medicine.  According  to 
Chinese  authorities  disease  is  due  to  a  "disagreement  of  the 
yin  and  the  yang^  [the  male  and  female  principles  of  Chi- 
nese philosophv],  the  presence  of  bad  humors,  or  the  more 
powerful  agency  of  evil  spirits,  and  until  these  agencies  are 
corrected  medicines  cannot  exercise  their  full  efiicacy."  It 
is  also  supposed  to  be  due  to  the  onset  of  the  five  elements, 
— water,  fire,  wood-,  metal,  earth, — or  to  their  wrong 
reaction.  '^ 

Their  materia  medica  presents  a  strange  conglomera- 
tion of  useful,  useless  and  harmful  ingredients.  A  list  of 
442  medicinal  agents  shows  that  71  per  cent,  are  vegetable, 
iS  per  cent,  animal  and  11  per  cent,  mineral.  If  one  were 
to  peep  into  celestial  gallipots  he  might  find  such  surprises 
as  snake-skins,  scorpion  stings,  rhinoceros-horn  shavings, 
moths,  oyster-shells,  human  and  silk-worm  secretions,  tiger 
bones,  etc.  These  and  their  effective  remedies  are  nicely 
accommodated  to  the  particular  one  of  the  nine  classes  of 
diseases  with  which  the  patient  is  afflicted. 

Native  Practitioners.  The  Chinese  Dr  Rhubarb  does 
not  arrive  at  his  dignities  without  effort.  His  course  of 
study  is  not  definite,  though  it  includes  the  mastery  of  cer- 
tain treatises  of  acknowledged  weight,  many  of  them  de- 
scribed in  Wylie's  "Notes  on  Chinese  Literature."  The 
prospective  doctor  is  also  suppposed  to  have  gotten  hold  of 
some  manuscript  medical  works  of  a  physician  of  repute 


78  KENNETH    MACKENZIE,    CHINA'S    PHYSICIAN 

and  to  have  looked,  at  least,  at  the  diagram  which  presents 
popular  opinion  concerning  the  inner  economy  of  man,  a 
diagram  much  i-esembling  the  cross-section  of  an  egg  en- 
closing a  pine-cone  and  half  a  dozen  angle  worms.  No 
diplotiia  is  needed,  the  practitioner  being  kept  in  check  by 
one  of  the  sections  of  the  Government  Code  which  exacts 
various  penalties,  even  to  the  beheading  of  the  physician, 
of  him  who  causes  the  death  of  a  patient  by  departing  from 
established  forms. 

Diagnosis  is  considered  the  main  point  by  the  doctor. 
Coming  to  the  patient  in  some  state,  he  sees  the  disease^  as 
the  phrase  for  the  operation  is  translated.  "The  right  hand 
is  placed  upon  a  book  to  steady  it  and  the  doctor,  with 
much  gravity  and  a  learned  look,  places  his  three  fingers 
upon  the  pulsating  vessel,  pressing  it  alternately  with  each 
finger  on  the  inner  and  outer  side,  and  then  making  with 
three  fingers  a  steady  pressure  for  several  minutes,  not  with 
watch  in  hand,  to  note  the  frequency  of  its  beats,  but  with 
a  thoughtful  and  calculating  mind,  to  diagnose  the  disease 
and  prognosticate  its  issue.  The  fingers  being  removed,  the 
patient  immediately  stretches  out  the  other  hand,  which  is 
felt  in  the  same  manner."  With  few  questions  concerning 
his  symptoms,  the  doctor  proceeds  it)  write  out  the  numer- 
ous ingredients  of  a  prescription  which  is  pretty  sure  to 
contain  decoctions  measuring  into  the  pints  or  quarts,  be- 
sides powders,  boluses,  pills  or  electuaries.  This  done  and 
the  fee — "golden  thanks" — received,  he  departs  to  return 
no  more  unless  invited.  As  for  the  victim — who  is  literally 
a  patient, — he  may  have  resorted  to  the  lot  in  order  to  learn 
what  physician  to  employ.  If  so,  the  same  man  is  asked 
to  return  again.  In  case  he  has  bargained  with  a  doctor  to 
cure  him  in  a  certain  time,  he  lays  aside  all  work  and 
ceases  to  eat  that  he  may  give  his  entire  time  to  swallowing 
horse  doses  of  all  sorts  of  concoctions.  If  at  the  expira- 
tion of  the  time,  he  is  not  cured,  a  new  physician  is  called 
in  and  eventually  the  patient  dies  or  recovers. 

Chinese  Hospitals.  Before  the  introduction  of  Chris- 
tianity into  the  Empii'e,  these  "were  unknown,  unless  one 
considers  fovmdling  hospitals  and  lazarettoes  as  such.  In 
the   latter  the  poor  leper  can  secure  a  fairly  comfortable 


AS    MEDICAL   MISSIONARY  79 

close  to  his  wretched  life  by  the  payment  of  a  sufficiently 
large  fee.  In  the  foundling  hospitals  the  visitor  chiefly  re- 
marks the  dirt,  the  large  mortality  and  the  fact  that  the 
babies  never  ciy,  being  constantly  drugged. 

Hackenzie's  Two  Hospitals.  To  such  a  medical  need 
he  had  come  to  minister,  but  he  w^as  pained  to  find  at  the 
outset  a  deeply-seated  prejudice  against  foreign  medicine. 
The  fact  that  foreign  physicians  ask  questions  of  a  patient 
instead  of  learning  his  condition  from  the  light  and  heavy 
pressui'e  on  the  inch,  bar  and  cubit  pulses  of  the  two  wrists, 
as  well  as  the  stories  about  foreigners'  gouging  out  native 
eyes  and  hearts,  with  which  to  make  medicines,  telescope 
lenses  and  famous  elixirs,  had  strengthened  the  ever-present 
conservatism  into  a  virtual  Chinese  Wall  which  had  first  to 
be  overthrown. 

1.  Tlic  Haiikoxv  Hospital.  This  was  all  ready  to 
hand,  having  been  cared  for  since  iS66  by  Drs  Reid  and 
Shearer.  The  building,  erected  at  the  joint  expense  of  the 
foreign  community,  native  merchants  and  the  London  Mis- 
sion, is  thus  described  by  Mackenzie  :  "The  hospital  is  a 
fine,  substantially-built,  roomy  building,  very  well  venti- 
lated and  arranged.  On  the  ground  floor  at  the  back  is  the 
chapel,  seating  about  2^  people  ;  here  there  is  preaching 
every  morning  to  patients  and  to  any  others  who  may  drop 
in  from  the  streets.  In  front  of  the  chapel  is  the  dispensary 
and  consulting  room,  where  the  patients  are  seen,  a  vestry 
for  the  missionaries,  and  a  room  in  which  the  resident 
assistant  lives.  On  the  upper  story  are  two  large  wards, 
two  small  ones,  and  a  good-sized  ward  for  foreigners  ;  the 
naval  surgeon  sends  his  worst  cases  here.  Outside  the 
general  building  is  a  woman's  ward  and  two  other  small 
buildings,  used  as  schoolrooms,  with  the  porter's  lodge. 
Ti"ees  are  planted  all  round  the  building,  so  that  it  has 
quite  a  pleasant  appearance." 

2.  The  Tientsin  Hospital.  When  he  arrived  at  this 
port  the  Mission  had  no  hospital,  though  a  medical  work 
had  been  carried  on  since  1S69,  by  a  native  dispenser, 
trained  in  Peking  by  Dr  Dudgeon.  Dr  Mackenzie  found 
this  man  withovit  foreign  drugs,  and  practicing  much  after 
the  native  fashion.     Himsel:^, without  money  to  buy  medi- 


So  KENNETH    MACKENZIE,    CHINA'S    PHYSICIAN 

cines,  he  could  only  sit  down  and  try  to  adjust  his  tongue 
to  the  new  dialect,  while  he  united  with  his  colleagues  in. 
earnest  prayer  that  God  would  open  a  door  of  escape  from 
their  financial  dilemma.  These  prayers  resulted  in  the  de- 
termination to  draw  up  a  petitiofi  to  Jiceroy  Lt^  "set- 
ting forth  the  advantages  of  establishing  a  hospital  for  the 
benefit  of  the  Chinese,  telling  him  what  had  been  done  else- 
where in  medical  missionaiy  enterprise,  and  soliciting  his 
aid."  Although  this  memorial  was  written  in  perspicuous 
Chinese  and  pi'esented  by  the  very  influential  American, 
Mr  W.  N.  Pethick,  it  received  no  attention. 

Prayers,  however,  were  doing  their  work.  At  the 
prayer-meeting  of  the  Mission  on  the  first  of  August,  the 
topic  was,  "Ask,  and  it  shall  be  given  you,"  a  promise 
which  those  present  agam  pleaded  in  the  matter  of  the  me- 
moi^ial.  As  the  meeting  was  breaking  up,  a  courier  from 
the  Viceroy  arrived  wnth  the  request  that  Mackenzie  would 
hasten  with  Dr  Irwin  to  his  residence,  to  attend  his  wife. 
That  morning  a  member  of  the  British  Legation  had  been 
\vith  the  Viceroy,  and  noticing  that  he  was  sad,  inquired 
the  cause.  When  informed  of  Lady  LVs  serious  illness^ 
he  suggested  that  foreign  physicians  be  summoned.  His 
excellency  objected  that  it  would  'te  impermissible  for  her 
to  be  attended  by  a  foreigner,  but  his  good  sense  finally 
overcame  immemorial  custom,  and  the  two  physicians  wei'e 
called.  Prayer  was  the  more  instant  when  so  critical  a 
case  was  undertaken,  and  God  was  pleased  to  use  their  ef- 
forts to  the  recoveiy  of  the  illustrious  patient.  During 
convalescence  Mackenzie  suggested  that  Miss  Dr  Howard, 
then  in  Peking,  be  invited  to  remain  at  the  lady's  residence 
until  she  had  entirely  recovered.  This  resulted  in  the  es- 
tablishment by  Lady  Li  of  a  woman's  hospital,  which  was 
placed  in  Dr  Howard's  charge,  and  soon  passed  into  the 
hands  of  the  Woman's  Society  of  the  Methodist  Board 
North. 

While  Mackenzie  was  still  attending  Lady  Li,  he  and 
the  community  physician,  Dr  Irwin,  gave  an  exhibition 
of  foreign  surgery  in  the  presence  of  the  Viceroy,  which 
even  more  favorably  impressed  him.  He  had  appointed 
these  two  men  as  physcians  to  his  own  family,  and  when 


AS    MEDICAL    MISSIONARY  8f 

the  question  of  salary  came  up,  Mackenzie  asked  that  none 
be  given  him,  but  that  instead  the  expense  of  his  medical 
work  be  defrayed.  At  first  a  room  outside  the  official  office 
was  set  apart  for  medical  purposes,  but  as  this  was  found 
to  impede  public  business,  a  quadrangle  in  one  of  the  finest 
temples  of  the  city  was  assigned  him.  Thither  and  to  other 
yamens  in  the  city  he  went  on  a  handsome  pony  provided 
by  the  Viceroy,  attended  by  a  groom  and  a  military  official 
appointed  to  escort  him.  The  temple  was  three  miles  from 
his  house  and  proper  religious  work  could  not  be  done  at 
such  a  distance ;  hence  plans  were  made  for  a  hospital 
building  on  the  London  Mission  premises.  Subscriptions, 
coming  mainly  from  wealthy  Chinese  patients,  enabled  him 
to  erect  one  of  the  finest  hospitals  in  North  China. 

This  building  has  been  thus  described  :  "  It  is  erected 
in  the  best  style  of  Chinese  architecture,  and  has  an  ex- 
tremely picturesque  and  attractive  appearance.  The  front 
building,  standing  in  its  own  courtyard,  is  ascended  by 
broad  stone  steps,  which  lead  from  the  covered  gatewav  to 
a  verandah,  with  massive  wooden  pillars  running  along  its 
whole  length.  A  hall  divides  it  into  two  portions.  On  the 
right  side  and  in  front  is  a  spacious  dispensary,  which, 
thanks  to  the  liberality^of  the  Viceroy,  is  wanting  in  noth- 
ing, rivaling  any  English  dispensary  in  the  abundance  and 
variety  of  the  drugs,  appliances,  etc.  ;  behind  this  is  a 
roomy  drug  store.  On  the  left  of  the  hall  is  a  large  waiting-- 
room,  with  benches  for  thejconvenience  of  the  patients,  and- 
used  on  Sundays  and  other  days  as  a  preaching  hall.  Be- 
hind, and  to  one  side,  is  the  Chinese  reception-room  always 
to  be  found  in  a  native  building.  The  rooms  are  very  lofty, 
without  ceilings,  leaving  exposed  the  huge  painted  beams,, 
many  times  larger  than  foreigners  deem  necessary,  but  the; 
pride  of  the  Chinese  builder, 

"Running  off  in  two  parallel  wings  at  the  back  are  the 
surgery  and  wards,  the  latter  able  to  accommodate  thirty- 
six  in-patients.  The  wards  in  the  right  wing,  four  in  num- 
ber, are  small,  intended  each  to  receive  only  three  patients. 
The  wai'ds  are  all  furnished  with  kangs  instead  of 
beds,  as  is  the  custom  in  North  China.  These  kangs  are 
built  of  bricks,  with  flues  running  underneath,  so  that  in 


82  KENNETH    MACKENZIE,    CHINA'S    PHYSICIAN 

winter  they  can  be  heated ;  the  bedding  is  spread  upon  a 
mat  over  the  warm  bricks."  This  building  was  opened  in 
the  presence  of  the  Viceroy  and  representatives  of  different 
consulates,  and  the  following  Sabbath  a  thanksgiving  ser- 
vice was  held  there,  attended  by  members  of  the  various 
Tientsin  churches.  ' 

riackenzie's  Assistants.  The  plant  having  been  se- 
cured, proper  assistants  were  required.  With  so  few 
Christians  to  select  from,  it  became  a  matter  for  earnest 
prayer,  just  as  had  the  erection  of  the  hospital.  When  se- 
cured they  needed  to  be  trained,  and  all  this  work  fell  upon 
Mackenzie's  shoulders. 

As  in  every  port,  and  especially  where  a  river  is  ice- 
bound for  three  months  each  year,  thus  necessitating  the 
stay  in  the  city  of  surgeons  of  various  gunboats,  it  was  easy 
to  secure  volu7iteer  assistants.  Some  of  these  men  were 
extremely  helpful  medically,  though  as  they  did  not  kno^v 
the  language  and  were  in  many  cases  not  Christians,  they 
did  little  for  the  spiritual  side  of  the  work. 

The  First  Government  Medical  School.  A  more  com- 
petent company  of  assistants  was  needed  than  his  dispen- 
sers constituted ;  hence  when  the  Government  recalled  the 
students  sent  to  America  under  Yiing  Wing's  Educational 
Commission,  Mackenzie  petitioned  the  Viceroy  for  eight  of 
them,  and  with  them  the  first  Government  Medical  School 
liegan.  While  it  was  a  joy  to  teach  these  bright  fellows, 
and  though  Mackenzie  was  assisted  by  Dr  Atterbury  of 
Peking,  the  community  physicians  and  the  surgeons  on 
duty  at  Tientsin  and  later  by  two  medical  colleagues,  the 
brunt  of  the  work  fell  on  the  Doctor  himself.  The  eight 
proved  apt  students,  and  after  completing  a  full  course,  they 
received  buttons  corresponding  somewhat  to  those  of  civil 
officials  of  the  Empire. 

What  to  do  with  the  graduates  was  then  the  problem. 
Receiving  government  appointments,  they  found  them- 
selves under  the  corrupt  officials  of  army  and  navy,  whose 
peculations  drained  off  all  the  medical  appropriations,  thus 
leaving  them  only  practitioners  of  the  old  sort  to  compete 
with  on  the  basis  of  native  medicines,  which  were  cheap  and 
so  obtainable.     This  was  a  deep  disappointment  to  them 


AS    MEDICAL    MISSIONARY  83 

and  to  their  instructor,  and  only  a  week  before  his  death, 
when  asked  about  his  students,  Mackenzie  said  that  it  was 
his  intention  to  close  the  medical  school  soon.  Happily 
this  was  not  done,  as  that  period  was  the  darkness  before 
dawn,  and  his  successor  was  able  to  report  a  better  state 
of  things. 

Statement  of  Cases.  Dr  Mackenzie's  general  practice 
presents  the  ordinary  features  of  Chinese  hospitals.  Out- 
door patients^  as  usual,  were  unsatisfactory,  as  medicines 
are  often  taken  in  doses  many  times  greater  than  pi'escribed, 
proper  care  and  diet  are  almost  impossible,  and  the  native 
custom  of  running  to  another  physician,  if  relief  is  not  im- 
mediate, militates  against  successful  treatment.  The  com- 
monest diseases  thus  treated  wei'e, — stated  in  descending  or- 
der of  frequency, — dyspepsia,  chronic  rheumatism,  asthma, 
ringworm  and  bronchitis.  In-door  patients  were  in  the 
wards  about  three  weeks  on  an  average,  thus  securing  most 
favorable  health  conditions,  and  furnishing  an  admirable 
opportunity  for  religious  impression  and  instruction.  Dis- 
eases of  the  eye  were  most  common,  and  then  followed 
those  of  the  digestive  system,  of  the  bones  and  joints,  of  the 
respiratory  and  the  nervgus  systems.  Of  operations,  the 
inost  common  were  those  performed  on  the  eye,  after  which 
came  amputations,  dislocations  and  fractures.  This  ab- 
stract hardly  gives  a  fair  account  of  the  diseases  of  China ; 
for,  like  Dr  Parker,  who  in  1834  "opened  China  to  the 
gospel  at  the  point  of  his  lancet,"  Mackenzie  sometimes 
selected  his  patients,  taking  in  those  whom  native  practi- 
tioners could  not  aid,  and  rejecting  those  cases  ^vhich  were 
chronic  or  hopeless. 

Opium  ivork  was  made  much  of,  though  he  hardly  kept 
a  refuge  for  these  unfortunates.  Out  of  an  experience  with 
nearly  a  thousand  such  patients,  Mackenzie  writes  :  "  The 
habit  of  opium  smoking,  prolonged  for  any  length  of  time, 
plays  havoc  with  the  man's  natural  energy,  rendering  him 
indolent  and  enervated.  Few,  in  this  condition,  can,  un- 
aided, combat  the  craving  for  opium  and  effectually  reform. 
The  attempt  is  often  made,  but  as  often  ends  in  disappoint- 
ment. For  a  time  they  persevere,  but  when  the  intolerable 
craving,  accompanied  by  extreme  bodily  depression,  with 


84  KENNETH    MACKENZIE,    CHINA'S    PHYSICIAN 

violent  achings  of  the  joints  and  muscular  pains,  sets  in, 
they  fly  to  their  old  enemy,  and  drown  themselves  in  opium 
stupor."  Concerning  the  treatment,  he  says:  "  There  is 
no  medicinal  specific  guaranteed  to  cure ;  the  object  aimed 
at  is  to  relieve  symptoms  as  they  arise,  and  so  to  help  the 
patient  back  to  health  and  freedom.  I  always  tell  them  the 
medicine  given  them  is  to  relieve  the  pain  and  craving,  but 
they  are  to  pray  to  God  and  believe  in  Jesus,  to  get  the  de- 
sire taken  away  from  their  hearts,  and  new  hearts  given  to 
them." 

Of  course  uitusual  cases  were  encountered,  and  he 
smiled  many  a  time  at  medical  incidents  in  native  practice. 
Thus  he  notices  a  physician  pretending  to  remove  worms 
from  teeth  to  cure  toothache ;  another  thrusts  a  needle 
many  times  into  the  gastric  region  to  cure  dyspepsia ;  a 
young  fellow  comes  for  treatment,  from  whose  arm  a  piece 
has  been  cut  out  and  administered  to  a  sick  father  as  an  in- 
fallible remedy;  a  girl  of  six  is  seen,  upon  whose  stomach 
is  laid  a  large  toad,  while  doses  of  scorpion-sting  broth  are 
given.  On  one  occasion  he  was  called  to  see  a  man  who 
was  laid  out  in  his  grave  clothes,  and  whose  daughter  urged 
him  not  to  delay  his  demise,  as  she  was  ready  for  his  death. 
In  still  another  case  he  is  summoned  to  a  man  w^ho  had  been 
some  time  in  his  coffin.  He  removes  a  tumor  weighing 
twenty-five  pounds ;  he  gives  sight  to  two  girls  blind  from 
birth  because  of  cataract,  and  as  a  result  a  church  of  more 
than  a  hundred  members  springs  up  ;  he  amputates  a  girl's 
foot,  leaving  her  a  heel  to  w^alk  on  ;  he  attends  a  Taoist  priest 
who  had  his  ears  nailed  for  two  days  to  his  temple  door  to 
raise  funds  for  its  repair  ;  he  inserts  a  silver  tube  in  a  man's 
windpipe,  with  the  result  that  he  gained  the  reputation  of 
giving  men  two  mouths. 

The  Question  of  Fees.  Mackenzie  felt  strongly  on  this 
matter.  From  the  poor  he  did  not  wish  to  receive  anything, 
and  in  general,  to  avoid  the  imputation  that  his  work  was 
a  mere  matter  of  business,  he  refused  remuneration.  But 
he  made  it  very  clear  to  well-to-do  patients  that  they  owed 
a  debt  of  gratitude  for  healing  received,  and  from  such  he 
received  enough  so  that  he  laid  by  for  the  hospital  a  reserve 
fund  of  over  $10,000. 


AS    MEDICAL    MISSIONARY  85 

Spiritual  Element  [in  flackenzie's   Work.     His  one 

aim  in  coming  to  China  was  "to  make  medicine  the  hand- 
maid of  the  gospel,  seeking,  through  the  administration  of 
medical  relief,  to  advance  the  cause  of  our  Lord  and  Mas- 
ter Jesus  Christ,  thus  combining  the  healing  of  the  body 
with  the  curing  of  the  soul,  in  accordance  with  the  words 
of  Scripture,  '  And  He  sent  them  to  preach  the  Kingdom 
of  God,  and  to  heal  the  Sick.'  "  We  saw  in  the  previous 
chapter  that  Mackenzie  was  a  believer  in  Chaucer's  doc- 
trine that  the  teacher  of  Christ's  lore  and  that  of  his  apos- 
tles must  first  follow  it  himself.  Looking  to  other  lines  of 
effort,  we  find  the  following  especially  emphasized. 

1.  He  considered  prayer  an  essefitial  part  of  his 
strength.  Opium  patients  and  others,  as  has  been  stated, 
were  bidden  to  pray  for  their  double  healing,  while  the 
Doctor  himself  never  attempted  an  important  operation 
without  special  prayer  for  the  needed  skill.  He  believed 
that  every  medical  missionary  should  be  a  faith  healer  in 
this  sense  :  "He  should  give  all  the  attention  possible  to 
his  case,  use  every  means  he  can  think  of,  every  agency  or 
drug  that  he  knows  of ;  but  he  should  also  do  so  in  humble 
dependence  upon  God  for  His  blessing." 

2.  PreacJiing  was  noT  merely  a  part  of  his  work;  it 
■was  one  of  the  most  important  items  in  the  day's  program. 
He  usually  did  some  of  it  himself  using  such  passages  as 
the  prodigal  son,  the  barren  fig  tree,  blind  Bartimeus  and 
the  palsied  borne  of  four,  as  his  texts.  During  the  entire 
time  that  patients  were  in  the  waiting  room,  someone  was 
either  talking  or  preaching  to  them. 

3.  But  such  formal  work  was  less  profitable  than  con- 
versational and  instructional  work  with  individuals  and 
little  groups.  One  looking  in  upon  the  wards  any  after- 
noon might  see  knots  of  patients  gathered  about  one  or  two 
beds  listening  to  one  of  the  hospital  helpers  as  he  spoke  of 
the  love  of  Jesus  or  tried  to  teach  them  the  elements  of 
Christian  truth.  He  writes:  "Portions  of  gospels  and 
tracts  are  scattered  about  the  wards,  and  as  we  pass  from 
patient  to  patient,  dressing  wounds  and  attending  to  the 
wants  of  all,  we  question  them  upon  the  books  by  their 
side  and  exhort  them  to  think  of  the  truths  of  Christianity, 


S6  KENNETH    MACKENZIE,    CHINA's    PHYSICIAN 

and   thus  have   innumerable   opportunities    for    individual 
dealing." 

4.  To  prepare  assistants  for  such  work,  Mackenzie  em- 
phasized the  Bible  class.  The  work  was  very  interesting 
because  made  as  conversational  as  possible.  One  class  was 
held  daily,  except  Sunday,  for  three  quarters  of  an  hour  in 
the  morning;  another,  on  Tuesday  evening,  was  used  to 
gather  up  the  work  of  the  week  and  for  drawing  the  net ; 
a  third  on  Friday  evening  was  for  helpers  and  Christians 
only ;  and  still  another  was  held  on  Sunday,  when  often 
people  from  the  missionary  ranks  would  drop  in  to  enjoy 
his  teaching.  Much  prayer  accompanied  these  exercises 
and  in  addition  the  medical  students  were  encouraged  to 
hold  private  meetings  by  themselves. 

5.  The  Doctor  tried,  also,  to  keep  hold  of  patients  who 
had  become  impressed  with  the  truth,  but  who  had  gone  to 
distant  ho7nes.  At  one  time,  he  employed  a  special  helper 
to  visit  such  cases  ;  at  another,  he  himself  went  out  touring 
to  find  such  men,  though  the  fear  of  neighbors  that  he  had 
come  to  collect  money  from  former  patients,  sometimes 
made  the  process  of  locating  them  difficult.  Usually  he 
was  received  most  warmly  by  those  who  regarded  him  as 
their  physical  saviour,  and  as  their  dearest  friend. 

6.  The  propag-ation  of  this  evangelical  crusade  con- 
stituted one  of  Mackenzie's  important  duties.  In  1S86  the 
Medical  Missionary  Association  of  China  was  established, 
as  also  its  organ,  "The  Medical  Missionary  Journal." 
Mackenzie's  work  had  been  so  intensely  evangelical,  that 
it  became  perfectly  natural  to  ask  him  to  edit  its  evangelis- 
tic department,  and  during  the  last  fifteen  months  of  his 
life,  he  contributed  often  to  its  pages.  In  one  of  these  arti- 
cles, "The  Evangelistic  Side  of  a  Medical  Mission,"  he 
urges  every  medical  missionary  to  engage  personally  in 
such  work  for  these  five  reasons  :  he  can  best  influence  his 
own  patients ;  his  assistants  w\\\  be,  under  God,  largely 
what  he  makes  them ;  unless  he  attends  to  it,  the  full  value 
of  the  medical  mission  as  a  Chistianizing  agency  will  not 
be  developed  ;  his  own  spiritual  life  requires  it ;  and  it  en- 
ables the  physician  to  soar  above  the  daily  drudgery  and  the 
depressing  influences  of  continuous  labor  among  dirty  and 


AS    MEDICAL    MISSIONARY  Sf 

sin-saturated  wretches  who  throng  missionary  hospitals  and 
dispensaries. 

Tsung  erh  Yen  Chih.  This  phrase,  so  often  used  by 
Mackenzie,  and  meaning  a  concise  summary  of  what  has 
been  said  or  written,  is  not  in  his  case  exhausted  when  we 
say  of  him  that  he  was  a  man  placed  in  a  providential  re- 
lation to  Li  Hung  Chang,  who  largely  through  his  agency 
adopted  modern  medicine  for  army  and  navy,  thus  giving 
it  entrance  into  the  family  of  the  Emperor  himself,  and  fa- 
vorably impressing  many  officials  of  high  rank  with  the 
fruits  of  Christianity.  Another  man  in  his  position  might, 
perhaps,  have  done  as  much  as  he  in  such  a  direction. 
His  service  to  the  great  cause  which  he  represents  lies  in 
the  magnificent  object  lesson  of  his  godly  life,  and  in  the 
bright  and  cheerful  Christianity  which  he  represented  to  his 
medical  students  and  to  the  medical  missionaries  of  China, 
who  knew  him  only  to  admire  and  emulate  his  spiritual 
qualities. 

He  has  given  us  f/ie  g'lst  of  that  successful  life  in  these 
words:  "One  of  the  best  ways  in  which  the  medical  mis- 
sionary can  influence  his  patients  is  by  keeping  up  the  spirit- 
ual life  of  his  assistants  ^v  encouraging  them  to  prayer  and 
the  frequent  study  of  the  Scriptures.  Of  course,  he  can 
only  aid  them  as  he  is  himself  abiding  in  Christ,  and  draw- 
ing strength  and  life  from  his  Saviour.  He  cannot  give 
what  he  has  not  himself  got.  The  knowledge  of  this  should 
stimulate  us  to  a  constant  and  close  walk  with  God.  It  is 
of  little  account  for  us  to  pray  for  the  outpouring  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  upon  our  assistants  or  patients  until  the  great 
cry  of  our  hearts  is,  '  Lord,  fill  me  ! '  and  then  when  we  are 
full,  from  us  will  go  forth  streams  of  living  water  to  those 
around." 

SUGGESTED  READINGS. 

Century  Illustrated  Magazine,  August  1896,  Pages  560-571. 
China  Mission  Hand-Book,  (1896),  Medical  Statistics. 
Coltman  :     The  Chinese,  (1891 ),  Chs,  viii-x. 

Creegan  and  Goodnoxv :    Great  Missionaries  of  the  Church,  (1895), 
Ch.  X. 


88  KENNETH    MACKENZIE,    CHINA'S    PHYSICIAN 

Doolittle:     Social  Life  of  the  Chinese,  (1865),  Vol.  I.,  Ch,  v. 

Douglas:     Society  in  China,  (1894),  Ch.  viii. 

Doivkotmt :     Murdered  Millions,  (1894). 

Dudgeon:     The  Diseases  of  China,  (1877). 

Encyclopaedia  of  Missions, (1891 ),  Article  Medical  Missions. 

Foster:     Christian  Progress  in  China, (1SS9),  Pp.  162-188. 

Hanbury :     Science  Papers.  (1876),  Pp.  211-277. 

Henry  :     The  Cross  and  the  Dragon,  (1SS5),   Ch.  xiv. 

Lockhart:     The  Medical  Missionary  in  China,  (1861),  Chs.  vi-x. 

Lo-we :     Medical  Missions,  (18S7),  Ch.  v. 

Mabie  :     In  brightest  Asia,  (1891  ),  Pp.  91-95. 

Missionary  Review  of  the  World, September,  1896,  Pp.  664-680,  697. 

Smith:     Chinese  Characteristics,  (1894 ),  Chs.  xi.,  xvi. 

Smith:     Contributions  to  Chinese  Materia  Medica,  (1871 ). 

Stevens  and  Markwick :  The  Life  of  Peter  Parker,  M.  D.,  (1896), 
Chs.  VIII.,  IX. 

Tenney :     The  Triumphs  of  the  Cross,  (1895),  Pp.  613-617. 

Williams:     The  Middle  Kingdom  (1882  ),   Vol.  IL,  Pp.  118-134. 

Bryson :  Johh  Kenneth  Mackenzie.  Country  Work  and  P©rse- 
cution,  Ch.  iv. ;  Overcomimg  Prejudice,  Chs.  vi.,  vii. ;  Medi- 
cine and  the  Viceroy,  Ch.  ix. ;  Chinese  Medical  Students, 
Ch.  XI. ;  XII. ;  Strange  Phases  of  Chinese  Life,  Ch.  xiii. ; 
Medical  Review  of  Mackenzie's  Wsrk.  Appendix  II. ;  Spirit- 
ual Side  of  His  Work,  Appendixes  III.,  IV. 


VII 

/ 

MACKAY'S    early    life    and    his    AFRICAN    FIELD 

His  beauty  and  extraordinary  gentleness,  together  with  his  won- 
derful aptitude  for  picking  up  all  kinds  of  handicraft,  speedily  in- 
gratiated him  with  the  workmen,  .  .  .  When  he  appeared  on 
the  scene  he  was  accosted  with  the  question,  "Weel,  laddie  gaen  to 
gie's  a  sermon  the  day?"  and  the  invariable  reply  (in  which  there 
was  something  like  prophetic  instinct)  was,  "  Please  give  me  trowel ; 
can  preach  and  build  same  time." — A»ecdoie  of  Mackay  at  three 
years. 

Birth.  Alexander  Murdoch  Mackay's  sister,  Mrs  Har- 
rison, vividly  describes  that  snowy  15th  of  October,  1849, 
when  one  of  Africa's  greatest  benefactors  first  saw  the  light. 
His  father, — geographer,  Geologist  and  author,  as  well  as 
Free  Chijrch  minister, — i.vfurrounded  in  his  study  by  gazet- 
teers, atlases,  and  books  of  travel,  while  on  a  nail  hangs 
a  map  of  Africa,  and  from  the  walls  Disruption  worthies 
and  stern  reformers  look  down.  The  infant  Alexander, 
brought  in  by  his  nurse  Annie,  is  unnoticed  until  she  has 
listened  to  a  geographico-missionary  discourse  on  central 
Africa.  This  story  is  an  essentially  true  one  and  ends  with 
a  prophecy  when  the  father  says  :  ' '  The  gospel  banner 
will  yet  be  planted  at  the  very  heart  of  this  continent,  al- 
though not  likely  in  your  day  nor  mine,  Annie  ;"  to  which 
the  good  nurse  replied,  "But  may  be  it'll  be  in  your  son's, 
sir  !  and  wha  will  say  he'll  nae  hae  a  han'  in  it?" 

Birthplace.  Alexander  spent  his  early  years  in  the  high- 
lands of  Scotland  at  the  little  village  of  Rhynie,  located 
inland  in  Aberdeenshire.  Surrounded  by  the  scenery  of 
the  Grampians  and  living  at  the  foot  of  picturesque  Tap  o' 
Noth,  the  child  could  not  but  be  responsive  to  influences 
which  have  helped  make  pure,  strong  and  efficient  many 


9©  ALEXANDER   MACKAY,    UGANDA  S    ENGINEER 

of  his  countrymen.  Rhynie  is  a  pastoral  and  sparsely  set- 
tled district  whose  inhabitants,  of  Pictish  origin,  have  al- 
ways been  strongly  wedded  to  religion.  Iron  was  in  their 
blood,  simplicity  marked  their  lives,  and  independence  their 
thoughts.  The  Bible  was  their  household  book  and  God 
their  supreme  and  daily  ruler.  These  Bible  loving  neigh- 
bors, his  pious  nurse,  the  heathery  slopes  of  Noth,  rippling 
burns  running  through  the  peat  moss,  whirring  moor-cocks, 
bleating  sheep  and  modest  flowers  constituted  his  early  and 
helpful  environment. 

Parentage.  Far  more  vital  in  their  influence  upon  him 
than  these  surroundings  were  his  parents.  Alexander  Mac- 
kay  was  to  his  son  what  James  Mill  was  to  John  Stuart, 
though  happily  religion  was  not  lacking  either  in  Mr 
Mackay's  life  or  in  his  conversation.  An  ardent  student 
and  a  born  teacher,  he  found  time  in  his  secluded  parish  to 
prepare  various  scientific  books,  but  it  was  a  greater  delight 
still  to  instruct  his  boy  who  until  fourteen  knew  no  other 
teacher.  He  was  a  conservative  educator,  believing  that 
mathematics  and  the  classics  were  the  best  foundation  for  a 
general  education.  He  had  the  rare  faculty  of  making  in- 
struction inteiesting  and  rote-lear^ning  had  to  give  place  to 
clear  reasoning.  Alexander  responded  to  such  an  instruc- 
tor with  a  craving  for  knowledge  which  found  its  keenest 
satisfaction  in  long  walks  which  were  voyages  of  discovery 
in  the  world  of  nature.  Other  studies  were  also  included 
in  this  peripatetic  school,  and  the  two  often  occasioned 
wonder  as  they  paused  while  the  father  demonstraed  in  the 
sand  by  the  roadside  a  geometrical  proposition,  or  traced 
the  probable  course  of  the  Zambesi.  Minute  observation  and 
thoroughness  were  so  enforced  by  this  teacher  that  Mackay 
might  have  echoed  John  Stuart  Mill's  boast,  "Mine  was 
not  an  education  of  cram."  Nor  was  it  confined  to  material 
and  speculative  matters ;  for  the  cottage  prayer-meetings 
and  "catechising,"  where  the  Scriptures  and  Shorter  Cate- 
chism were  explained,  gave  the  boy  deep  insight  into  the 
thoughts  of  godly  men  and  of  God  himself. 

If  the  father  was  Mackay's  teacher,  his  mother ^  Margaret 
Lillie,  of  Huguenot  descent,  was  the  moulder  of  his  char- 
acter.    She  possessed  much  literary  and  linguistic  ability, 


EARLY    LIP'E    AND    AFRICAN    FIELD  9I 

— extending  even  to  the  Hebrew, — and  so  was  an  additional 
aid  to  Alexander,  who  not  only  acquired  her  style,  but  at 
the  same  time  drank  in  tales  of  Disruption  and  Seceding 
heroes  with  the  same  eagerness  accorded  to  stories  of 
Huguenot  martyrs.  These  recitals  were  usually  followed 
by  the  injunction, 

"  O  3'e  who  boast 
In  jour  free  veins  the  blood  of  sires  like  these, 
Lose  not  their  lineaments." 

Mrs  Mackay  made  Sunday  the  happiest  day  of  the  week. 
After  the  Bible  and  catechism  lessons  were  successfully 
mastered  came  the  reward,  "a  missionary  story,"  which 
she  told  most  interestingly.  In  her  childhood  she  had  been 
deeply  moved  by  a  missionary  sermon  and  the  account  of 
that  experience  gave  Mackay  oue  of  his  Jirst  missionary 
imptilses.  Mrs  Mackay's  life  was  saturated  with  Scripture 
and  Alexander  imbibed  it  most  eagerly ;  though  not  until 
her  death  in  his  sixteenth  year,  when  she  left  him  her  Bags- 
ter's  Bible  with  the  dying  message  to  "  '  Search  the  Scrip- 
tures,' not  to  read  them  only,  but  to  search^  and  then  he 
would  meet  her  again  in  glory,"  did  he  make  them  the  guide 
of  his  life.  ^ 

Boyhood.  The  influences  already  named  produced  their 
natural  fruitage.  Intellectually  he  was  precocious.  He 
read  the  New  Testament  fluently  at  three  ;  at  seven,  "Para- 
dise Lost,"  Russell's  "History  of  Modern  Europe,"  Gib- 
bon's "Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,"  and  Rob- 
ertson's "  History  of  the  Discovery  of  America"  were  his 
text-books,  after  which  his  reading  lesson  was  the  leading 
article  in  the  newspaper  fully  explained  by  his  father. 
Euler's  Algebra  falls  into  his  hands  when  he  is  eight  and 
opens  up  a  fairy  world  to  him.  D'Aubigne's  "Reforma- 
tion," and  indeed  every  other  work  that  he  found  were 
fairly  devoured. 

I?t  practical  things^  also,  he  was  an  eager  learner.  At 
three  he  imitates  stone  masons';  at  four  when  told  to  bring 
a  heavy  bar,  he  carries  it  by  lifting  it  one  end  at  a  time  and 
going  around  it.  At  nine  years  he  feels  that  he  is  old  enough 
to  have  a  printing  press,  because  Luther  has  said  that 
"Printing  is  the  latest  and  greatest  gift  by  which  God  en- 


92  ALEXANDER    MACKAY,    UGANDA'S    ENGINEER 

ables  us  to  advance  the  things  of  the  Gospel ;"  to  which  the 
boy  added  :  "Skill  takes  no  room  in  the  pocket,  . 
and  some  day  I  might  find  it  useful."  The  press  was  bought 
and  years  afterward  did  "  advance  the  things  of  the  Gos- 
pel" on  the  shores  of  Victoria  Nyanza.  From  eleven  to 
thirteen  years  of  age  books  were  thrown  aside  and  the  gar- 
den and  farm,  the  pony,  locomotive  engines,  machinery  and 
handicrafts  of  every  description,  occupied  his  thoughts. 
Though  at  fourteen  he  took  up  his  books  again  at  the  Aber- 
deen Grammar  school,  even  there  the  art  of  photography 
and  the  ship-building  yard  had  a  perfect  fascination  for  him. 

His  spiritual  life  was  always  deepening,  thanks  to  his 
mother's  care.  A  strong  sense  of  rectitude,  dating  from  his 
fifth  year  and  the  Brig  o'Bogie  where  nurse  Annie  threw  the 
leather  "tawse"  into  the  water,  Sunday  teachings,  parish 
catechisings,  "Pilgrim's  Progress'  and  Mrs  Mackay's  pray- 
ers were  used  by  the  Spirit  to  draw  him  to  God. 

All  the  while  that  broader  touch  of  the  luorld,  so  often 
denied  country  children,  came  to  him.  The  best  literature 
and  periodicals,  which  he  was  required  to  read,  made  him 
a  cosmopolitan,  and  his  father's  fame  brought  to  the  manse 
men  like  Hugh  Miller  and  Sirs  Roderick  Murchison  and 
A.  Ramsay,  who  were  greatly  attracted  by  the  boys'  skill  in 
map-drawing  and  type-setting.  Men  and  women  of  the 
Drumtochty  type  also  had  a  hardly  less  marked  influence 
on  him,  provincial  though  they  were. 

Life  In  Edinburgh.  Mr  Mackay  desired  his  son  to  be 
a  minister,  and  the  mother  would  gladly  have  seen  him  a 
missionary,  but  to  neither  of  these  was  he  inclined.  Ma- 
chinery and  engineering  were  his  deepest  love,  and  when 
his  father's  financial  limitations  were  a  baiTier  to  his  enter- 
ing on  these  studies,  he  went  to  Edinburgh  and  taught  three 
hours  a  day  to  meet  his  expenses  while  studying.  Two 
years,  spent  in  the  Free  Chtcrch  Trai?iing  College  for 
Teachers^ — where  he  was  marked  ninety  per  cent,  on  the 
Bible,  Geography,  History,  Arithmetic,  Algebra,  Geome- 
try, Latin,  Greek,  School  Management,  Skill  in  Teaching 
and  Theory  of  Music,  and  where  he  won  prizes  for  draw-  • 
ing, — were  referred  to  in  Africa  as  being  of  great  benefit. 
The  next  four  years  were  busy  ones.     Engineering  and 


EARLY    LIFK    AND    AFRICAN    FIELD  93 

kindred  sciences  were  studied  at  the  University  for  three 
years  and  one  year  was  devoted  to  Surveying  and  For- 
tification. Meanwhile,  besides  his  teaching  and  attendance 
on  evening  lectures,  he  spent  the  afternoons  at  Leith  en- 
gaged in  practical  engineering, 

Sundays  were  days  of  equal  activity.  At  the  church  of 
Dr  Horatius  Bonar,  who  fostered  in  him  "habits  of  rev- 
erent and  constant  fellowship  with  God,  and  daily  study  of 
the  Holy  Scriptures,"  he  gained  weekly  strength.  The  af- 
ternoons found  him  conducting  childrens'  meetings  or  in 
mission  halls,  and  in  the  evening  he  was  a  regular  teacher 
at  the  Sunday-school  connected  with  Dr  Guthrie's  Origi- 
nal Ragged  School. 

In  Germany,  1873-1876.  November  ist  saw  him  en 
route  for  Berlin  whither  he  went  to  master  the  German 
language  as  the  key  to  its  valuable  lore,  to  perfect  himself 
as  an  engineer  and,  above  all,  to  "use  every  opportunity  of 
diffusing  scriptural  truth  and  of  winning  souls  for  Christ." 
He  readily  secured  a  good  position  as  draftsman  on  loco- 
motives and  portable  steam  engines  in  a  large  engineering 
firm,  and  found  his  fascinating  employment  tempting  him 
to  forget  God.  His  felU|l»v'  draftsman,  moreover,  were  infi- 
dels and  blasphemers,  but  he  made  this  an  occasion  for  do- 
ing personal  work  among  them,  for  which  he  seeks  Mc- 
Cheyne's  equipment :  "  Some  believers  are  a  garden  that 
has  fruit  trees,  and  so  are  usful ;  but  we  ought  also  to  have 
spices,  and  so  be  attractive."  Soon  promotion  came  and 
he  was  made  head  of  the  locomotive  department,  with  a 
larger  sphere  of  influence. 

Mackay's  religious  life  and  usefulness  were  greatly 
deepened  and  enlarged  by  notes  of  Dr  Bonar's  sermons, 
sent  weekly  by  his  sister,  and  especially  by  the  friendship 
of  Court  Preacher  Baur,  who  was  drawn  to  the  young  Scotch- 
man and  invited  him  to  live  at  his  own  home  as  his  "dear 
son."  Not  only  did  this  give  him  exceptional  opportunities 
for  learning  German,  but  it  also  brought  him  into  contact 
with  the  highest  Christian  society  of  Berlin,  including  the 
sister  of  Prince  Bismarck.  At  the  Bible  readings  given  at 
Dr  Baur's  and  through  the  Bible  Class  held  on  Sunday 
evenings  he  secured  and  imparted  much  good,  especially  in 


94  ALEXANDER    MACKAY,    UGANDA  S    ENGlNliER 

connection  with  American  students.  Other  activities,  such 
as  personally  inviting  men  to  church  and  distributing  tracts 
to  cabmen,  filled  his  leisure  hours.  What  his  life  was  re- 
ligiously is  described  by  a.  jour?ial  kept  at  this  period^  the 
pages  of  which  are  filled  with  sentences  like  these:  "O 
for  nearness  to  God  !  God  grant  me  I  pray  Thee,  a  deep 
spirit  of  humility — the  broken  will  and  the  contrite  heart." 
"  Slept  in  again.  No  time  for  prayer  or  reading 
God's  Word  in  the  morning.  Yet  the  Lord  is  gracious  to 
me."  .  .  "  Attaining  day  by  day  to  a  little  more  child- 
like faith  in  Jesus,  and  therefore  joy  and  peace." 
"Teach  me,  my  Saviour,  to  speak  to  lost  souls  in  love." 
"Lord,  bless  abundantly  two  or  three  grains  of  seed 
sown.  What  an  idle  day  !  "  .  .  "  Since  I  came  to  Berlin 
I  have  been  enabled  to  study  much  of  the  Word  of  God, 
and  to  find  something  of  the  inexhaustable  mine  of  pure 
gold  it  contains.  If  I  had  been  at  home,  surrounded  by 
so  many  sacred  influences,  the  probability  is  I  might  not 
have  made  so  much  progress.  One  thing  above  everything, 
I  must  make  my  Christianity  a  practical  thing.  '  It  is  more 
blessed  to  give  than  to  receive.'" 

The  Missionary  Call.  Withiji  six  weeks  after  reaching 
Germany  this  call  came  to  young  Mackay.  For  some  years 
he  had  not  read  nor  thought  much  on  missions,  as  his  pro- 
fessional studies  had  crowded  the  subject  into  the  back- 
ground. In  December  an  address  on  Madagascar  by  Dr 
Burns  Thomson  came  into  his  hands,  and  this  appeal,  to- 
gether with  his  mother's  early  injunction,  "If  the  call 
comes  to  you,  take  care  that  you  do  not  neglect  it,"  and  Dr 
Baur's  deep  interest  in  missions,  so  fired  him  with  mission- 
ary zeal  that  he  called  it  "a  new  conversion." 

Other  considerations  also  entered  in.  The  texts  coupled 
by  his  mother  in  his  boyhood,  "If  ye  love  me,  keep  my 
commandments,"  and,  "Go  ye,  therefore,  and  teach  all 
nations  ;"  her  quotation  of  Dr  Duff's  words,  "The  advance- 
ment of  the  missionary  cause  is  not  only  our  duty  and  re- 
sponsibility, but  it  is  an  enjoyment  which  those  who  have 
once  tasted  would  not  exchange  for  all  the  treasures  of  the 
Indian  mines,  for  all  the  laurels  of  civic  success,  and  for  all 
the   glittering   splendor   of   coronets.     It   is   a   joy  rich   as 


EARLY   LIFE    AND    AFRICAN    FIELD  95 

heaven,  pure  as  the  Godhead,  lasting  as  Eternity ;"  the 
old  map  of  Africa,  with  the  Mountains  of  the  Moon  lying 
like  a  huge  caterpillar  across  his  future  field;  the  "Nile 
problem"  which  he  and  his  father  discussed  so  frequently ; 
his  puzzling  over  the  reason  why  the  Church  Missionary  So- 
ciety should  secure  its  agents  in  Germany  instead  of  in  Eng- 
land ;  the  charm  of  "  Livingstone's  Travels;"  his  Christ- 
mas letter  of  1S66,  in  which  he  says,  "I  shrink  from  the 
ministry.  .  .  .  Besides  it  seems  to  me  there  are  al- 
ready too  many  ministers.  Three  or  four  wasting  their 
energies  in  each  little  parish  of  Scotland  may  satisfy  a  de- 
sire for  sermon  hearing,  but  is  attended,  I  fear,  with  little 
good;"  the  elaborate  trivialities  of  modern  life  because  of 
which  an  able  writer  savs,  "His  brave  and  active  nature 
would  have  beaten  itself  to  death  against  the  bars  of  Euro- 
pean conventionality  ;"  above  all,  his  sister's  letter  of  Decem- 
ber II,  1873,  accompanying  Dr  Thomson's  address: — all 
these  were  successive  missionary  impulses,  culminating  in 
w^hat  he  deemed  the  voice  of  God  calling  him  to  Madagascar. 

To  be  called  meant  immediate  action  to  Mackay.  The 
select  Christian  circle  in  which  he  moved  were  informed 
of  his  intentions,  and  Dr  ^aur  encouraged  him  to  be  an 
engineering  missionary.  -TLicentious,  drunken  and  infidel 
Berlin  was  a  training  school  preparing  him  to  combat  idola- 
try. The  study  of  Malagasy  was  enthusiastically,  if  un- 
wisely, prosecuted.  He  sees  clearly  that  "if  Christianity 
is  worth  anything  it  is  worth  everything,"  and  that  he  will 
be  fit  to  win  souls  only  so  far  as  he  attains  deep  spirituality 
and  abiding  fellowship  with  his  risen  Saviour.  In  1S75  a 
tempting  professional  offer  came  to  him,  which  he  declined 
as  one  article  of  his  creed  ran  :  "  It  is  not  to  make  money  that 
I  believe  a  Christian  should  live."  He  accepted,  however, 
an  engagement  at  Kottbus,  sixty  miles  southeast  of  Berlin, 
and  there  employed  his  spare  hours  in  sending  to  all  the 
clergy  of  the  Empire  the  German  version  of  Bonar's  "Words 
to  Soul  Winners,"  and  also  arranged  for  the  translation  at 
his  own  expense  of  "Grace  and  Truth." 

Correspondence  with  Missionary  Societies  and  Ap- 
pointment. As  Mackay's  interest  had  been  aroused  through 
Madagascar,  he  wrote  first  to  Dr  Bonar  and  sought  a  posi- 


96  ALEXANDER    MACKAY,    UGANDA'S    ENGINEER 

tion  under  the  London  Missionary  Society  on  that  island. 
Dr  Bonar  thought  mission  work  and  engineering  difficult 
ideas  to  combine,  and  Secretary  Mullens  wrote,  "that  at 
that  time  the  island  was  not  ripe  for  his  assistance."  Mac- 
kay  was  not  daunted,  for  he  had  "one  word  against  such  a 
problem,  'Jehovah  Jireh  !'  "  What  he  wished  was  an  op- 
portunity to  wed  civilization  and  Christianity  in  Africa,  to 
execute  works  such  as  railways  and  mines,  largely  through 
natives  trained  in  religion  and  science  ;  in  a  word,  he  wished 
to  supplement  the  work  of  other  missionaries,  not  to  sup- 
plant it.  This  desire  was  ultimately  satisfied  ;  for  on  a  bit- 
terly cold  night  in  December,  1875,  after  finishing  "How 
I  Found  Livingstone,"  his  eye  fell  on  an  old  copy  of  the 
Edinburgh  Daily  Review"  in  which  the  Church  Mission- 
ary Society  appealed  for  pioneers  to  go  into  Uganda  in 
response  to  King  Mtesa's  invitation  sent  home  by  Stanley. 
Though  after  midnight,  Mackay  immediately  wrote  to  the 
Society  offering  his  services.  Having  heard  of  this  corres- 
pondence, Dr  Duff  urged  him  to  wait  for  an  opening  in 
the  African  missions  of  the  Free  Church  of  Scotland,  or 
else  to  join  the  Established  Church  of  Scotland's  Mission 
on  Lake  Nyassa.  But  it  was  t^o  late,  for  in  the  same  mail 
came  a  letter  from  the  C.  M.  S.  Secretary  accepting  him  as 
their  missionary  to  Uganda,  with  the  understanding  that  he 
was  to  combine  industrial  work  with  religious  teaching. 
And  so  he  turned  from  the  church  of  his  fathers  to  the  Es- 
tablished Church  of  England  and  its  society,  the  greatest 
Protestant  missionary  organization  of  the  world. 

Preparation  for  Sailing.  As  Mackay  was  to  sail  in 
April,  the  succeeding  weeks  were  filled  to  the  brim  with 
preparations.  Captain  Grant,  Speke's  companion  in  Equa- 
torial Africa,  whose  birthplace  was  scarcely  fifty  miles  from 
Rhynie,  gave  invaluable  advice,  and  grandly  seconded  by  the 
C.  M.  S.,  this  youngest  member  of  the  pioneer  party  of  eight 
provided  for  his  own  and  their  needs.  A  boat  for  the  Victo- 
ria Nyanza  had  to  be  secured  with  an  engine  of  his  own  de- 
signing, the  boiler  of  which  was  made  of  welded  rings. 
He  must  learn  more  of  practical  astronomy  and  the  use  of 
the  sextant ;  printing  offices  and  photographers  must  be 
visited  for  last  lessons  ;   vaccination  and  the  use  of  the  stetho- 


KARLY    LIFE    AND    AFRICAN    FIELD  ^^ 

scope  were  yet  to  be  learned,  as  also  the  details  of  iron- 
puddling  and  coal-mi«ing.  During  these  weeks  "there  was 
no  such  word  as  holiday  in  his  vocabulary  ;  his  mission  was 
to  him  a  whole-souled  passion  and  every  hour  was  turned 
to  practical  account  in  picking  up  useful  arts"  Believ-- 
ing  it  not  at  all  likely  that  eight  Englishmen  starting  for* 
Africa  would  all  be  alive  at  the  end  of  six  months  and  that- 
"one  of  us — it  may  be  I — will  surely  fall  before  that,"  but 
assured  that  "it  is  His  cause — it  must  prosper,  whether  I 
be  spared  to  see  its  consumation  or  not,"  he  stepped  aboard 
the  steamship  "  Peshawur  "  on  April,  27,  1876,  and  bade  a 
last  adieu  to  Enp-land. 

En  Route  to  Uganda.  An  uneventful  voyage  of  seven 
thousand  miles  brought  him  on  Alay  30th  to  Zanzibar,  and 
soon  thereafter  on  the  main  land  his  African  career  began. 
Alore  than  two  years  elapsed  before  he  reached  the  shores 
of  his  inland  sea,  during  which  the  kaleidoscope  of  his  life 
exhibits  him  in  all  sorts  of  combinations.  He  is  first  ex- 
plorer of  the  rivers  Wami  and  Kingani ;  then  caravan  leader, 
slave  exterminator,  dying  man,  road  maker,  bridge  builder, 
blacksmith,  physician,  ox  driver,  and  preacher  on  Sunday 
when  all  tools  were  droned.  Now  he  is  wading  chest 
deep  in  a  swamp  :  again  he  is  burrowing  through  the  dense 
reed  tunnels  of  hippo  and  rhinoceros  trails,  and  a  third 
time  while  waiting  for  a  rope  with  which  to  lasso  a  stump, 
on  the  opposite  side  of  a  swift  stream  and  so  make  a  bridge,. 
we  see  him  taking  a  copy  of  "Nature"  out  of  his  pocket 
in  order  to  master  "  Haeckel's  Theory  of  Pangenesis,  or  the- 
undulatory  theory  of  molecules  in  organic  life."  In  salt- 
and  waterless  deserts,  in  unhealthful  mangrove  forests,  on«- 
salubrious  highlands,  he  thirsts  and  feasts  and  starves,  sleep-- 
ing  nights,  after  he  has  written  up  his  journal,  in  tents^ 
hen-houses,  huts  whose  floors  are  mire,  cow  pens  and  ira 
the  open  air  among  zebras,  giraffes,  leopards,  lions,  ele- 
phants and  more  troublesome  pests,  such  as  gnats,  mosqui- 
tos,  scorpions,  and  ants  of  every  variety.  Decamping  car- 
riers, avaricious  leviers  of  tribute  with  whom  one  must 
sometimes  haggle  for  days,  insolent  chiefs,  who  for  the  lux- 
ury of  lighting  a  parlor  match  exact  a  fine  of  twenty-five 
cloths,  frequent  thefts,  a  vast  family  speaking  a  babel  of 


9S  ALEXANDER    MACKAY,    UGANDA'S    ENGINEER 

tongues  none  of  which  Mackay  fully  understood  but  whose 
mouths  must  be  daily  filled,  even  in  the  wilderness,  chiefs 
with  whom  he  entered  into  brotherhood  and  children  who 
loved  him, — these  were  his  companions  and  this  the  pioneer 
who  opened  up  a  road  230  miles  in  length  toward  Victoria 
Nyanza. 

When  on  June  13,  187S,  he  could  shout  his  Thalassa  ! 
on  the  southern  shores  of  the  lake  he  was  by  no  means 
home.  His  fellow  missionaries,  Lieut  Smith  and  O'Neil, 
had  been  murdered  on  the  island  of  Ukerewe  and  no  one 
dared  go  with  him  to  treat  with  their  murderer.  He  ac- 
cordingly went  alone  and  returned  only  after  the  African 
bond  of  blood  brotherhood  had  been  cemented.  Then  kos- 
mos  must  be  made  out  of  tl>e  chaos  found  in  Kaduma's 
huge  hut  where  the  valuable  property  of  the  expedition  had 
been  piled  together  in  hopeless  confusion, — a  ten  days'  task. 
The  Daisy  must  be  patched  and  later  remade,  and  gimbals 
turned,  on  which  Mackay's  pocket  compass  may  move,  be- 
fore he  can  set  sail  on  a  lake  as  large  as  Scotland.  This 
sea  of  storms  wrecked  their  little  craft  within  a  week. 
Two  months  passed  before  they  could  get  away  again,  and 
it  was  not  until  November  6th  tlaat  he  finally  reached  his 
appointed  field. 

Uganda.*  Stanley,  whose  challenge  to  Christendom 
led  to  the  formation  of  the  mission,  called  this  most  influ- 
ential native  kingdom,  "The  Pearl  of  Africa,"  a  name 
which  it  deserves,  as  it  also  does  that  given  it  by  the  Arabs, 
"The  Land  of  the  Grave."  Lying  along  the  northwest 
shores  of  the  greatest  inland  sea  of  the  world  next  to  Lake 
Superior,  it  covers  with  its  dependencies  a  territory  as  large 
as  Missouri,  or  as  New  England  with  an  additional  Connec- 
ticut. While  it  lies  under  the  equator,  its  altitude, — 4000 
feet  and  upward  above  the  sea  level, — and  frequent  rains 


*The  natives  call  their  country  Bu-Ganda,  U-Ganda  being  its 
TiaiTie  in  Suahili,  the  language  of  "the  coast  region.  Similarly  they 
call  themselves  Ba-Ganda  (singular  Mu-Ganda),  and  their  language 
Lu-Ganda,  while  in  Suahili  the  people  are  known  as  Wa-Ganda  and 
their  speech  as  Ki-Ganda.  As  the  early  missionaries  learned  Sua- 
hili first  and  as  it  was  understood  at  the  capital,  these  terms  are 
often  used  indiscriminately. 


EAULV    LIFE    AND    AFRICAN'    FIELD  99 

make  the  climate  cool,  the  annual  temperature  ranjj^ing  from 
50°  to  90°  F.,  though  it  rarely  rises  above  80^  and  seklom 
sinks  below  60°  at  night. 

The  country  is  described  n?,  he\\v:[^\n  some  parts  a  plain, 
but  mainly  a  succession  of  hills,  between  which  lie  im  whole- 
some swamps  through  ^\•hose  masses  of  reeds  and  papyrus 
slimy  streams  slowly  straggle.  Some  of  the  hills  have  a 
tropical  appearance,  due  to  the  lianana  plantati(jns.  iVlost 
of  them,  however,  are  covered  by  a  tangle  of  elephant 
grass  tifteen  feet  high,  impenetrable  save  by  mice  and  ele- 
phants. These  jungles  harbor  enormous  pythons  and  in- 
numberable  wild  beasts,  of  which  the  natives  most  fear  the 
plantation-eating  buffalo,  and  are  vocal  with  the  terrible 
plague  of  mosquitos.  One  standing  on  a  hill  top  at  sun- 
set forgets,  however,  every  disagreeable  feature  and  is  over- 
powered by  the  glory  and  transcendent  delicacy  of  color  on 
cloud  and  hill  and  lake. 

The  soil  \?>  fertile  and  produces  indigenously  plantains, 
cotton,  coffee  and  tobacco.  It  is  also  friendly  to  sweet  po- 
tatoes, beans,  tomatoes,  rice  and  Indian  corn.  The  last, 
which  has  been  the  principal  cereal,  yields  from  three  hun- 
dred to  five  hundred  fold-tJ^  The  best  time  for  sowing  is  at 
the  period  of  the  equinoctial  rains,  yet  as  it  showers  nearly 
every  night,  one  can  sow  and  reap  on  any  day  of  the  year. 
Below  the  surface  lie  iron  in  abundance  and  inexhaustible 
deposits  of  china  clay.  When  the  soil  is  turned  up  its  de- 
caying vegetation  causes  malaria,  which  disease  is  ever  pre- 
sent, though  not  so  deadly  as  the  scourge  of  smallpox  and 
the  plague. 

Early  Visitors  to  Uganda.  Speke  and  Grant  were  the 
first  Europeans  to  reach  this  land.  The  former  resided  at 
the  capital  from  February  to  July  in  1863  and  suggested  it 
as  a  possible  field  for  missionary  effort.  An  officer  of  Col 
Gordon's  again  reached  Uganda  in  1S74,  but  it  was  H.  M. 
Stanley's  visit  in  1S75  that  was  most  memorable.  King 
Mtesa  received  him  hospitably,  while  Stanley,  filled  with 
the  spirit  caught  from  Livingstone,  set  before  the  King  the 
claims  of  Christianity,  and  had  written  for  him  in  Arabic 
the  Ten  Commandments,  the  Lord's  Prayer,  the  Golden 
Rule  and  "Thou  Shalt  Love  Thy  Neighbor  as  Thyself." 


lOO  ALEXANDER    MACKAY,    UGANDA'S    ENGINEER 

Mtesa  showed  his  interest  by  observing  the  Christian  as 
well  as  the  Mohammedan  Sabbath  and  urged  the  explorer 
to  secure  Christian  teachers  for  his  people. 

In  response  to  this  monarch's  request,  we  see  standing 
before  him  in  November,  1S78,  a  Scotchman  in  his  thirtieth 
year,  whom  Stanley,  eleven  years  later,  described  as  a  "  gen- 
tleman of  small  stature  with  a  rich  brown  beard  and  brown 
hair,  dressed  in  white  linen  and  a  gray  Tyrolese  hat," 
"with  calm  blue  eyes  that  never  winked," — "the  best  mis- 
sionary since  Livingstone." 

SUGGESTED    READINGS. 

Colville :  The  Land  of  the  Nile  Springs,  (1895),  Ch.  iv. 

Creegan  and  Goodnoiv  :  Great  Missionaries  of  the  Church,  (1895), 
Ch.  XVII. 

Drummond :    .Tropical  Africa,  (1888),  Ch.  in. 

Encyclopaedia  of  Missions, (1891 ),  Articles  Africa,  Church  Mission- 
ary Society,  and  Alexander  M.  Mackay. 

General  Encyclopaedias,  Article  Uganda. 

Harrison:  Story  of  the  Life  of  Mackay  of  Uganda,  (1891 ),  Chs. 
i-iv.  ^ 

Larned:  History  for  Ready  Reference,  (1S95),  Vol.  V.,  Article 
Uganda. 

Portal  and  Rodd:  The  British  Mission  to  Uganda  in  1893,  (1894), 
Pt.  I.,  Ch.  VIII. 

Stanley:     Through  the    Dark  Continent,  (187S),  Vol.1.,   Chs.  ix., 

XII.,   XVI. 

Harrison:  Mackay  of  Uganda,  (1890).  Boyhood,  Ch.  i. ;  Life  in 
Edinburgh  and  Berlin,  Ch.  11, ;  On  the  Road,  Ch.  in. ;  Arrives 
in  Uganda,  Ch.  iv. 


VIII 

mackay's    parishioners   and    his   work 

He  was  one  of  those  few  who  look  fearlessly  forth  and  seem  to  see 
the  face  of  the  living  God.  He  never  despaired  of  any  person  or 
any  thing.  Qiiiet  he  was,  and  strong  and  patient,  and  resolute,  and 
brave  ;  one  on  whom  jou  might  depend.  He  endured  fourteen  years 
of  Africa,  .  .  .  fourteen  years  of  contradiction  of  men,  black 
and  white,  fourteen  years  of  dangers,  fevers,  sorrows,  disappoint- 
ment— and  in  all  and  through  all  he  was  steadfast,  unmovable ;  a 
true  missionary,  always  abounding  in  the  work  of  the  Lord." 

— Rev  R.  P.  Ashe,  "Two  Kings  of  Uganda." 

The  Baganda.  Looking  out  from  the  temporary  prem- 
ises which  had  been  occupied  by  Mr  Wilson,  Mackay's 
fellow-laborer  and  his  predecessor  by  sixteen  months  at 
the  capital,  one  could  seet^dn  the  hill-side  well  tilled  gar- 
dens surrounded  by  tall  tiger-grass  fences  and  containing  the 
beehive-shaped  grass  or  straw  huts  of  the  Baganda.  These 
houses  are  described  as  having  doors  facing  the  ascent, 
with  clay  ridges  to  prevent  the  flood  of  water  from  running 
into  them.  Their  roofs  are  double,  so  that  there  is  a  good 
circulation  of  air.  "The  sleeping  place  is  curtained  off 
with  bark  cloth,  and  bedsteads  are  used,  consisting  of  a 
framework  of  branches,  which  rests  on  stakes  driven  into 
the  ground,  and  which  is  covered  with  fine  grass  and  a  mat. 
A  large  piece  of  bark  cloth  forms  the  coverlet.  A  square 
is  marked  off  by  four  logs  in  the  middle  of  the  house  for  a 
fireplace,  and  the  cooking-pot  rests  on  three  stones."  Here 
ai'e  prepared  the  two  meals  of  each  day,  consisting  of  ba- 
nanas or  plantains,  beef,  goat's  flesh  or  fish,  liberally  suple- 
mented  by  the  national  drink,  banana  cider.  After  the 
hands  have  been  washed  with  a  banana  stem  sponge,  these 
meals  are  eaten  in  a  little  porch,  around  a  space  covered 
with  green  leaves. 


102  ALEXANDER    JMACKAV,    UGANDA  S    ENGINEER 

A  glance  at  the  Baganda  themselves  shows  us  a  peo- 
ple belonging  to  the  Bantu  race,  though  differing  widely 
from  other  negroes  in  their  habits.  They  are  possessed  of 
some  line  qualities,  and  exhibit  considerable  skill  as  work- 
ers in  iron,  brass  and  copper,  in  dressing  skins  and  in  bas- 
ket making.  The  field  work  is  left  for  the  women,  who 
often  dress  with  great  neatness.  Their  long  robes  are  fab- 
ricated of  fig-tree  bark  or  of  calico,  and  ornaments  of  va- 
rious sort  are  \vorn  about  the  neck,  wrists  and  waist.  Soap, 
made  from  plantain  peelings,  is  used  by  the  higher  classes 
and  their  robes  are  sometimes  of  snowy  whiteness.  The 
women  are  the  barbers,  and  they,  as  also  the  men  and  chil- 
dren, are  shaved  entirely  about  once  a  month.  The  higher 
classes  are  idle,  a  trait  characteristic  to  some  degree  of  all. 

Socially  these  people  are  divided  into  clans, distinguished 
by  clan  animals,  which  are  practical!}^  their  totems.  Woman 
occupies  a  subordinate  position  and  polygamy  prevails. 
The  peasants  are  little  better  than  slaves,  being  attached  to 
some  master,  whom,  however,  they  have  a  right  to  choose. 
Slaves  are  possessed  by  all  classes,  even  the  peasaitts. 
Their  condition  can  be  guessed  from  the  preference  of  the 
women  of  a  vanquished  tribe  v^ho  all  preferred  death  to 
slavery.  Different  communities  prey  upon  each  other, 
soldiers  following  their  chiefs  to  battle  much  as  in  feudal 
times.  Even  in  neighborhoods  where  all  are  supposed  to 
be  friends  the  weak  could  be  openly  robbed,  with  no  redress. 
Laxvs  were  Draconian,  and  even  the  cutting  off  of  hands, 
feet,  ears,  nose,  or  lips  was  considered  a  minor  punish- 
ment. Gross  offences  against  society  were  avenged  by 
hacking  to  pieces  with  sharp  strips  of  reed,  or  cutting  off  the 
limbs,  after  which  the  luckless  victim  was  slowly  roasted. 

Their  religion  included  a  belief  in  Katonga,  a  supreme 
Creator,  but  as  he  was  said  to  have  delegated  his  authority 
to  spirits,  hibares^\X\ey  were  most  highly  regarded,  especially 
Mukasa,  the  Lubare  of  the  lake.  Spirits  of  the  earthquake, 
of  thunder,  and  of  various  other  natural  phenomena,  as 
well  as  of  certain  persons,  were  feared,  though  no  worship 
beyond  the  erection  of  roadside  shrines  and  the  suspension 
of  charms  and  amulets  on  doors  or  on  the  person  seemed 
to  be  given  them. 


PARISHIONERS     AND    WORK  IO3 

Uganda's  Roya!  Family.  A  legendary  Kintu  was  the 
reputed  founder  of  the  monarchy,  though  Captain  Speke  be- 
lieves the  government  to  have  been  established  only  nine 
generations  ago.  The  royal  family  are  of  Bahuma  extrac- 
tion. Mtesa^  the  first  king  known  to  the  Europeans,  and 
who  received  Mackay,  was  a  capricious  and  sometimesblood- 
thirsty  ruler,  deserving  his  name,  vv^hich  Reclus  translates 
as  "he  who  makes  all  tremble."  The  same  authority  says 
that  he  had  seven  thousand  v.ives ;  but  of  these,  as  of  every 
king's  harem,  only  two  possessed  regal  power.  These  were 
the  Namasole  or  Qiieen  mother,  and  the  Lubuga  or  Qiieen- 
sister,  one  of  the  princesses.  The  king  appointed  his  own 
chiefs  and  council  and  was  more  or  less  despotic,  as  was  his 
prime  minister  and  judge,  the  Katikiro.  On  the  whole, 
Mtesa  showed  himself  a  man  of  considerable  sympathy  and 
enlightenment,  and  helped,  rather  than  hindered,  the  mis- 
sionaries in  their  work. 

His  son,  jShvanga^  the  present  ruler,  succeeded  his  father 
in  1SS4,  being  then  eighteen.  He  was  vain,  weak  and  vic- 
ious. Subject  to  fits  of  almost  demoniacal  madness,  the 
missionaries  were  often  in  danger  of  their  life,  while  bloody 
persecutions  were  once  ar^again  visited  on  their  converts. 
Alackay  was  the  person  who  was  most  necessary  to  him, 
though  in  July,  1887,  even  he  was  driven  away  to  the  south 
of  the  Lake.  Though  temporarily  dethroned  at  the  time 
of  the  revolution,  he,  more  than  his  father,  has  been  a  vital 
factor  in  the  spread  of  Christianity  in  Equatorial  Africa. 

Summary  of  flackay's  Work  in  Central  Africa.  In 
l8y8  Mackay  begins  missionary  buildings.  Knowing  Sua- 
hili,  he  prints  Scripture  portions  in  that  tongue.  He  also 
reads  and  explains  them  to  the  people,  aided  by  Mtesa  and 
the  Katikiro.  .  .  .  iS'/g  witnesses  arrival  of  French 
Catholic  priests,  w^ho  denounce  the  missionaries  as  liars. 
Embassy  sent  by  Mtesa  to  England.  From  June  to  Novem- 
ber great  peace,"  jSItesa  ordering  chiefs,  pages  and  soldiers 
to  learn  the  alphabet,  and  Mackay  being  on  visiting  terms 
with  all  the  chiefs  in  the  capital.  In  December,  Mukasa, 
representing  the  Spirit  of  the  Lake,  influences  Mtesa  to  re- 
turn to  heathenism.  Mackay  is  so  active  in  his  opposition 
to  witchcraft  that  he  is  called  Anti-Mukasa.   .      .      .      1880 


I04  ALEXANDER    MACKAY,    UGANDA'S    ENGINEER 

is  a  year  of  great  trial.  Arabs  circulate  report  that  Mac- 
kay  is  an  insane  murderer.  Though  missionaries  are  in 
great  clanger,  they  teach  lads  who  come  to  them.  . 
j88i.  New  era  begins  in  March,  when  embassay  returned 
from  England.  Poitions  of  New  Testament,  hymns  and 
texts  are  tentatively  translated.  .  .  .  1882.  First  five 
converts  of  the  mission  are  baptized  and  the  French  priests 
depart.  .  .  .  l88j.  Mackay  had  now  printed  the  Lord's 
Prayer,  Creed,  Decalogue,  a  Text-book  of  Theology  and 
Selected  Texts  bearing  on  duties  of  subjects  and  sovereign, 
as  also  spelling  sheets  in  Luganda.  Two  of  Mtesa's  daugh- 
ters learners  and  one  is  baptized.  Twenty-one  Christians 
meet  around  communion  table.  Mackay  builds  the  "Elea- 
nor,"   at    south    end    of  lake,    doing    the    work    himself. 

.  1884.  Mtesa  dies  and  trouble  arises  with  Mwanga's 
accession.  At  close  of  the  year  eighty-eight  had  been  bap- 
tized in  all,  and  two  of  Mtesa's  daughters  and  one  grand- 
daughter were  in  the  church.  The  Lubuga,  or  Queen-sister, 
a  baptized  Christian.  .  .  .  188^.  Beginning  of  j^erse-, 
cution,  three  boy  converts  being  roasted  to  death.  New 
English  missionaries  not  arriving,  Mwanga  invites  back  the 
French  priests.  Bishop  Hannin-gton  murdered  in  October. 
Mackay's  life,  often  in  danger,  is  spared  on  account  of  his 
mechanical  skill.  In  November  first  sheet  of  Matthew  in 
Luganda  printed.  .  .  .  j886.  The  year  of  "The  Great 
Tribulation."  the  church  in  exile.  In  spring  bitter  perse- 
cution breaks  out  and  fifty  or  sixty  Romanist  and  Protest- 
ant converts,  who  die  of  fire  or  the  sword,  display  a  forti- 
tude unsurpassed  in  Apostolic  times.  Midnight  interviews 
continue,  and  twenty  baptisms  take  place  within  a  month 
of  the  martyrdom.  Dr  Junker,  a  Russian  traveler,  is  aided 
by  Mackay  to  escape  from  Mwanga.  .  .  .  i88y.  Mac- 
kay alone  in  Uganda.  In  March  entire  Luganda  Matthew 
corrected  in  manuscript.  Expelled  to  south  of  lake  and 
never    returns.      Gordon    takes    his    place    at    the    capital. 

.  J 888.  Year  of  revolutions,  the  first  ^one  due  to 
Mwanga's  attempt  to  destroy  Christian  ofiicers.  Mwanga 
exiled  and  Kiwewa  king,  with  Romanist  and  Protestant  as 
two  chief  officers.  Temporary  religious  freedom  and  pros- 
perity broken  by  second  rebellion — Mohammedan .   Mission- 


PARISHIONERS    AND    WORK  IO5 

aries  again  expelled  Uganda.  Mackay  offers  exiled  Mwanga 
protection.  .  .  .  i88g.  Romanists  advise  Mvvanga's 
forcible  restoration.  Protestants,  advised  by  Mackay  not  to 
use  force,  join  Romanists  before  his  reply  is  received.  A 
third  revolution  meanwhile  ends  in  Kiwewa's  death  and  Kal- 
ema's  enthronement.  Mwanga,  at  first  unsuccessful,  as 
a  penitent  suppliant,  beseeches  Mackay  to  reinstate  him. 
Christian  army  vanquishes  Kalema  and  Mwanga  is  restored 
as  king,  with  Protestant  Kagwa  Apollo  as  prime  minister. 
The  king  appeals  to  British  East  African  Company.  Mac- 
kay revises  his  Luganda  St  John,  prints,  constructs  wagon 
for  hauling  boat  timber,  and  finally  finishes  its  steam  engine 
and  pumps.  In  August  Stanley  with  Emin  and  Soo  peo- 
ple visits  him,  .  .  .  i8go.  Mwanga  makes  treaty  with 
Germans  leading  to  division  among  Christians.  Mission- 
aries advise  submission  and  church  prospers  until  torn  with 
grief  by  news  of  Mackay's  death  which  occurred  in  Feb- 
ruary. A  detailed  account  of  these  years  is  full  of  interest, 
but  only  leading  features  of  the  master  workman's  charac- 
ter and  labors  can  be  touched  upon. 

Some  Personal  Characteristics.  Social  qualities^  so 
necessary  to  a  pioneer,  ^u^e  quite  prominent  in  Mackay. 
From  the  children  who  instinctively  gathered  about  him, 
to  Lkonge,  Smith  and  O'Neill's  murderer,  and  the  two  im- 
perious kings  of  Uganda,  there  was  not  one,  unless  it  were 
the  Arabs,  who  did  not  yield  before  his  winning  friendli- 
ness. Mackay's  bravery  was  equally  marked,  and  few 
men  have  been  called  upon  to  so  frequently  exhibit  it.  His 
resolution  was  such  that  the  king  involuntarily  exclaimed 
at  a  signal  exhibition  of  it,  "Mackay,  you  are  a  jnanl" 
Marvellous  ferseverance  was  his  and  with  Carey  he  could 
explain  much  of  his  success  by,  "I  can  plod."  Trained 
during  the  first  two  years  in  the  school  of  patience^  he 
exhibited  it  when  his  colleagues  utterly  lost  theirs.  Dili- 
gence is  absolutely  necessary  where  one  lives  in  an  at- 
mosphere of  interruptions,  and  here  Mackay  is  a  model  for 
the  moment  miser.  Foresight,  to  which  he  attributed  much 
of  his  countrymen's  success  in  engineering,  characterized 
his  entire  missionary  life. 

African  experiences  did  not  destroy  his  ititellectuality. 


Io6  ALEX^\NDER    MACKAY,    UGANDA'S    ENGINEER 

"Books!  Mackay  has  thousands  of  books;  in  the  dining- 
room,  bedroom,  the  church,  everywhere.  Books  !  ah,  loads 
upon  loads  of  them  !  "  is  the  ejaculation  of  a  Zanzibar  head- 
man, quoted  by  Stanley.  These  volumes  covered  the  field 
of  African  discovery,  the  latest  scientific  utterances,  the 
strongest  secular  periodicals,  the  best  devotional  and  theo- 
logical writings,  and  current  religious  and  missionary  mag- 
zines,  among  which  he  especially  values  "The  Missionary 
Review  of  the  World," — all  these  enlivened  by  produc- 
tions as  widely  different  as  "Helen's  Babies,"  and  the  plays 
of  vShakespere.  Africa  by  its  many  problems  marvellously 
broadened  a  mind  already  admirably  trained. 

The  hidden  life  of  IMackay  was  deep  and  vital.  The 
Sible  was  the  man  of  his  daily  counsel,  and  he  speaks  of 
Alford's  New  Testament  as  falling  to  pieces  in  his  hands. 
An  old  African  letter  of  his  reads  :  "I  feel  every  day  that 
it  is  only  by  prayerful  reading  of  much  of  God's  own  Wo^rd 
that  I  can  in  an}^  way  succeed  in  living  as  a  Christian. 
It  is  just  as  hard  here  as  in  Berlin,  or  anywhere 
else,  to  keep  in  the  right  path."  Like  every  missionary,  he 
learned  on  the  field,  as  never  at  home,  the  power  of  prayer. 
Alone  often,  and  amid  dangers  th;it  made  the  bravest  quail, 
he  was  not  alone,  for  he  communed  with  the  Almighty  in 
the  secret  place,  and  like  William  of  Orange,  was  "calm 
in  the  midst  of  storms."  His  prayer  life,  linked  on  to  the 
study  and  teaching  of  the  Word,  begot  in  him  a  Paton-like 
trust  in  God. 

A  life  so  dowered,  and  so  reenforced  by  divine  grace, 
could  only  be  a  co?isecrated  one.  Work  he  must  while  it 
was  day ;  work  always  and  with  every  one,  though  most 
profitably  perhaps  with  evening  Nicodemuses,  despised 
Samaritan  women  and  youthful  Davids  of  the  court.  So 
consecrated  was  he  to  Africa  that  only  a  month  before  his 
death,  when  it  was  proposed  that  he  return  to  England,  he 
replied,  "But  what  is  this  you  write — 'Come  home?' 
Surely  now,  in  our  terrible  dearth  of  workers,  it  is  not  the 
time  for  any  one  to  desert  his  post." 

Mackay's  Program.  The  eightfold  aim  underlying 
his  labors  seems  to  have  been  :  to  disarm  the  prejudice  felt 
by  most   newly   visited  tribes,  especially  in  a  land  where 


PARISHIONERS    AND    WORK  IO7 

Arab  slavers  have  terrorized  the  people  ;  to  win  their  abid- 
ing friendship,  and,  so  far  as  possible,  enter  into  blood- 
brotherhood  with  influential  chiefs ;  to  destroy  the  depend- 
ent, beggarly  spirit  entertained  toward  the  missionary  ;  to 
render  noble  and  manifestly  useful  manual  labor,  so  de- 
spised by  influential  Africans ;  to  enter  perpetual  protest 
against  cruel  and  unjust  laws ;  to  do  everything  possible  to 
drive  out  Africa's  triad  of  evils,  rum,  slavery  and  war;  to 
educate  in  everything  the  nation;  above  all  and  in  all,  to 
win  by  his  teachings  and  life,  souls  for  Uganda  and  for  God. 

Tne  Mechanical  Missionary.  As  an  industrial  mis- 
sionary I\Iackay  felt  that  he  could  do  his  work  best.  It  is 
true  that  his  letters  repeatedly  speak  of  the  irksomeness  of 
such  a  ministry,  and  he  even  went  so  far  as  to  attempt  to 
remove  a  disability  existing  in  the  case  of  laymen,  by  study- 
ing for  orders  in  the  Church  of  England.  Yet  sober  re- 
tlection  induced  him  to  continue  in  his  less  exalted  sphere 
labors  which  were  so  signally  blest.  His  grimy  hands, 
whirling  luthe  and  grindstone,  marvellous  machine  which 
charmed  paper  so  that  it  talked,  the  unending  application  of 
rotary  motion,  so  largely  unknown  to  the  Baganda,  were 
object  lessons  which  oftcjijuelicited  clapping  of  hands  and 
the  chorus  Makay  litbarel  Makay  lubare  dalail — Mac- 
kay  is  the  great  spirit,  he  is  truly  the  great  spirit ! 

The  usefulness  of  his  service  commended  him  to  king 
and  subject  alike.  Repaired  guns,  healed  bodies, — for  Mac- 
kay  was  perforce  a  lay  physician, — the  wonderful  cart  upon 
which  he  could  with  one  hand  move  a  tree  that  200  men 
had  wasted  their  strength  upon,  the  well  on  a  side-hill  spit- 
ting out  through  a  battered  pump  pure  water,  bridges  and 
roads,  monster  flagstaff  for  the  king,  the  two  royal  coflhis, 
especialy  the  Xamasole's,  as  large  as  a  cottage  and  requiring 
many  workmen  and  a  month  of  Mackay's  best  strength, — 
these  and  a  host  of  other  miracles  wrought  by  the  canny 
Highlander,  made  him  indispensable.  He  was  not  only 
alwavs  busy,  but  he  so  often  spoke  to  the  people  of  the  no- 
bility of  work,  its  utility  and  necessity,  that  they  called  him 
Mzungu-zva  Kazi^  w4iite  man  of  work.  "His  readiness 
of  resource  in  emergency  (for  which  his  training  as  an  en- 
gineer had  peculiarly  fitted  him),"   was   most  useful  to  the 


lo8  ALEXANDER    MACKAY,    UGANDA'S    ENGINEER 

Mission  also ;  for  because  of  it  starvation  was  repeatedly 
held  at  bay,  and  in  times  of  hostility,  even  life  was  spared. 
His  labors  as  an  industrial  missionary  justified — at  least  for 
uncivilized  lands — his  thesis:  "  Mechanical  work  is  prob- 
ably as  legitimate  an  aid  to  missions  as  medical ;  nor  do  I 
see  why  one  should  not  be  as  helpful  to  missionary  work  as 
the  other,  except  for  the  difficulty  of  getting  out  of  the  rut 
our  ideas  run  in."  Lovedale  in  South  Africa  conspicuously 
emphasizes  Mackay's  view. 

Among  the  People.  Their  presence  in  Mackay's  house 
or  shop,  by  night  and  by  day,  left  little  time  for  visits 
among  them  ;  but  when  such  opportunities  offered  he  gladly 
embraced  them.  Eating  with  them  in  their  tiny  porches, 
journeying  with  friend  and  foe,  gave  him  glimpses  into 
their  speech  and  life  and  thought,  which  were  denied  him 
when  his  foreign  environment  made  thein  the  questioners 
and  learners.  If  his  companions  were  Christians,  he  was 
in  a  third  heaven  of  bliss.  Their  upbuilding  and  his  joy 
in  the  converts  reminds  one  of  Paul's  experiences.  Nor 
could  he  hold  his  peace  when  heathenism  was  rampant,  as 
■when  the  fleet  of  fourteen  canoes  in  which  he  sailed  robbed 
three  Buzongora  canoes.  His  pi'otest  and  threat  to  spear 
the  captain  of  the  fleet  unless  the  property  was  restored, 
caused  robbers  and  robbed  to  be  stronger  friends  than  be- 
fore. This  was  the  same  fleet  whose  belief  in  potent  charms 
was  shattered  by  the  missionary  who  bought  one,  discoursed 
on  its  Aveakness  and  on  God's  power  and  then  proved  his 
words  by  burning  it  in  a  fire  lighted  by  a  small  pocket  lens, — 
a  good  illustration  of  his  method  of  teaching  and  preaching. 

At  Court.  Naturally  such  a  man  was  frequently  called 
to  stand  before  kings ;  though  much  to  his  relief,  his  col- 
leagues, especially  the  witty  O'Flaherty,  relieved  him  of 
much  of  this  labor.  Of  course  he  was  a  priest  of  civili- 
zatio7i  there.  At  one  time  bringing  in  and  explaining  a 
glazier's  diamond  and  an  ox  yoke,  Mtesa  says,  "There  must 
remain  nothing  more  for  white  men  to  know — they  know 
everything."  At  another,  Mackay  writes  out  a  list  of  san- 
itary regulations  intended  to  prevent  and  stay  the  terri- 
ble ravages  of  the  plague,  and  Uganda  suddenly  begins  to 
clean  house.     In  general  he  embraces  every  proper  oppor- 


PARISHIONERS    AND    WORK  IO9 

tunity  to  amplify  a  text  which  greatly  impressed  the  king, 
"My  forefathers  made  the  wind  their  slave  ;  then  they  put 
WATER  in  the  chain  ;  next  they  enslaved  steam  ;  but  now 
the  terrible  lightning  is  the  white  man's  slave,  and  a 
a  capital  one  it  is  too  !" 

But  destructive  work  needed  to  be  done  before  the  king- 
dom was  free  to  enter  upon  the  higher  civilization.  Super- 
stitions^ especially  those  connected  with  the  Neptune  of  the 
lake,  the  great  Mukasa,  bound  king  and  peasant  with  steel 
fetters.  Mackay  boldly  takes  his  stand  on  the  Scriptures, 
and  as  a  "Servant  of  Almighty  God,"  begs  the  king  to 
have  nothing  to  do  with  the  lubare.  In  Socratic  style  he 
makes  all  admit  that  if  he  is  a  god,  there  are  two  gods  in 
Uganda,  the  Almighty  and  Mukasa;  if  he  is  a  man, — the 
one  in  question  was  a  woman,  he  afterwards  learned, — there 
are  two  kings  in  the  land,  Mtesa,  whom  all  honor,  and 
Mukasa,  who  pretends  to  be  supreme,  and  who  practically 
incites  to  rebellion.  Though  the  witch  had  her  way  with  the 
king,  the  people  could  say  nothing  in  answer  to  such  logic. 

Hardly  less  obstructive  to  Africa's  civilization  is  slavery 
and  the  Scotchman  goes  boldly  before  the  greatest  slave 
hunter  of  his  day  where,  ^ith  Huxley's  plates  to  illustrate 
the  circulation  of  the  blood,  "he  dwelt  on  the  perfection 
of  the  human  body,  which  no  man  can  make,  nor  all  the 
men  in  the  world ;  and  yet  the  Arabs  wished  to  buy  a 
human  being  with  an  immortal  soul,  for  a  bit  of  soap  !  " 
The  interested  king,  can  only  add  as  a  corollary  to  this 
demonstration,  "From  henceforth  no  slave  shall  be  sold 
out  of  the  country." 

As  a  preacher  of  righteousness  Mackay  is  a  second 
Paul  before  Agrippa.  Diplomatic,  fearless  of  death,  con- 
stantly appealing  to  "  the  Book,"  he  illustrates  and  en- 
forces the  truth  of  God,  whether  it  bears  on  subjects  perse- 
cuted for  righteousness'  sake,  religious  liberty  for  all  faiths, 
or  kings'  vices  and  their  need  of  a  Saviour.  Adversaries 
were  at  court,  especially  the  Arabs,  who  regarded  the  mis- 
sionary as  their  worst  foe  because  opposed  to  slavery.  Mac- 
kay is  again  a  Paul  answering  Islam's  Tertullus,  and  right- 
eousness and  truth  are  vindicated.  Alas  that  such  preach- 
ing found  in  Mtesa  and  Mwanga  an  Agrippa  and  a  Felix  ! 


no  ALEXANDER    MACKAY,    UGANDA  S    ENGINEER 

The  Wider  Court.  Mackay's  voice  was  heard  in  Chris- 
tian Europe.  Africa's  open  sores  and  her  "heart  disease," 
needed  foreign  physicians.  Chapters  xii.,  xiv.-xvi.  of 
"  Mackay  of  Uganda,"  are  wise  utterances  of  a  missionary 
statesman,  and  they  were  heeded.  Ah'eady  the  measures 
pleaded  for  have  been  partially  adopted,  namely,  limitation 
in  sales  of  arms,  ammunition  and  rum,  increased  vigilance 
along  the  coast,  a  cordon  of  police  in  the  interior,  and  im- 
proA'ed  communications  with  Central  Africa.  The  railroad 
to  the  Lake,  657  miles  long,  has  already  reached  Dunan- 
tabe,  and  cheapened  transportation — which  formerly  cost 
$1400  a  ton  and  countless  lives — will  soon  change  Uganda. 

Mackay  has  been  charged  with  interfering  'with  Afri- 
cati  politics^  but  this  interference  was  in  the  interests  of 
outraged  humanity  and  international  justice.  Tempting 
offers  to  become  an  officer  under  General  Gordon  and  the 
Imperial  East  African  Company  were  not  accepted,  because 
he  ^vas  not  so  much  a  British  citizen  as  an  embassador  of 
the  Prince  of  Peace  appointed  to  Central  Africa  to  estab- 
lish there  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  To  this  cause  he  sum- 
mons Christendom's  best  blood  in  his  last  message. 

flackay's  Passing.  A  real^  king  of  Uganda,  Carlyle's 
canny  man,  had  done  his  work.  The  excalibar,  wrought  by 
his  mechanical  genius,  was  to  disappear  from  the  mighty 
Lake.  Chiefs  and  commoners — become  members  of  his 
Table  Round,  the  Church  Council — had  caught  his  spirit. 
On  February  Sth,  1890,  the  summons  came  to  the  exile  at 
Usambiro.  Fever,  Africa's  executioner,  silenced  the  crafts- 
man and  the  expositor  of  John's  Gospel,  and  after  four 
days  of  delirium,  in  which  solicitude  for  converts,  plans 
for  future  work,  and  longings  for  fresh  laborers  found  ex- 
pression, the  soul  of  St  Paul  of  Uganda,  flitted  upward  to 
the  dear  home  land. 

"All  hail  the  power  of  Jesus'  name"  was  sung  by  Ba- 
ganda  boys  over  his  open  grave,  and  then  they  went  back  to 
establish  the  200  churches  of  to-day,  to  build  a  cathedral  ac- 
commodating 7000,  and  to  invite  the  multitudes  who  are 
now  pressing  into  the  Kingdom.  Hannington  wrote  from 
the  northeast  of  the  lake  :  "Mackay's  name  seems  quite  a 
household  word ;    I  constantly  hear  it,  but  of  the  others  I 


PARISHIONERS    AND    WORK  I  I  I 

scarce  ever  hear  a  word."  Similarly,  Jephson,  one  of  Stan- 
ley's officers,  writing  of  the  southwestern  lake  region,  says  : 
"For  many  days  before  we  reached  his  Mission,  we  heard 
from  the  natives  of  jNIackay,  nothing  but  Mackay — they 
seemed  to  care  for  and  know  no  one  else.  Such  a  man 
cannot  die  in  Africa  ;  and  in  Britain,  when  in  May  of  1S95, 
the  first  detachment  of  ladies  to  enter  Uganda  and  five  new 
men  were  sent  to  reap  in  the  fields  where  jVfackay  had  sown, 
his  old  letters  were  the  clarion  note  which  sounded  the 
charge.      "He  being  dead  yet  speaketh." 

SUGGESTED   READINGS. 

A$hc  :     Chronicles  of  Uganda,  (1894),    Pp.  55-143. 

Two  Kings  of  Uganda, (1SS9),  Ch.  xxiii. 

Church  Misssionarv  Gleaner,  May,  1S96. 

Church    Missionary  Intelligencer,  April  and  May,  1S96. 

Drummojid:     Tropical  Africa,  (1S8S),  Ch.  iv. 

Encyclopedia  of  Missions, (1S91 ),  Articles  Church  Missionary  So- 
ciety and  Alexander  M.  Mackay. 

Harrison  :  Story  of  the  Life  of  Mackaj  of  Uganda,  (1891),  Chs. 
vi-xxi,  t, 

Lar)icd:  History  for  Ready  Reference,  (IS95),^^ol.  V.,  Article 
Uganda. 

Latimer:  Europe  in  Africa  in  the  Nineteenth  Century,  (1S95), 
Ch.  yii. 

Lugard:     Rise  of  Our  East  African  Empire,  (1S93 ),   Vol   I.,    Chs. 

VII.,  VIII. 

Peters:     New  light  on  Dark  Africa,  (1890),     Pp.  379,  ff. 
Reclus:     Uniyersal  Geography,  Vol.  X.,  Pp.  88,  ff. 
Stanley:     In  Darkest  Africa,  (1890),  Vol,  II.,  Pp,   423-431. 
White:     The  Deyelopment  of  Africa,  (1890),  Chs.  v.,  vi.,  ix. 
Wilson  and  Felkin :     Uganda,    (1883),  Vol.  I.,  v.,  vii.,   viii. 
Harrison:     Mackay  of  Uganda, (1890),  Description  of  the   People, 

v.,  VII. ;   Tide  ebbs    and    flows,   Chs.   viii. ;    Tribulation,  Chs. 

ix-xi. ;    African  Problems,   Chs.  xii.,  xiv-xvi. ;  Last  Things, 

Chs.  xiii.,  XVII. 


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