The picket line of missions; sketches of the advanced guard

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THE PICKET LINE
OF MISSION

Sketches of the Advanced CuArd>#.«j,^>| v

BY

w. F. Mcdowell j. t. gracey

A. T. PIERSON S. L. BALDWIN

JENNIE M. BINGHAM W. F. OLDHAM

MARY LOUISE NINDE W. H. WITHROVV

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

Bishop W. X. NINDE

NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS
CINCINNATI: CURTS & JENNINGS

1S97

Copyright by

EATON & MAINS,

1897.

The General Cabinet of the Epworth League, who select
the books for the Epworth League Reading Course, thereby
commend the general thought contained in them. They do
not wish, however, to be held responsible for every detail
of treatment and statement which may occur in the volumes,
EDWIN A. SCHELL,

General Secretary.

Contents

PAGE

Introduction ^. 5

By Bishop W. X. Ninde, D.D., LL.D.

s/' I

David Livingstone^. 23

By W. F.^IcDowell, D.D.

y

Alexander M. Mackay, the Hero of Uganda 67

By J. T. Gracey, D.D.

Ill

The Hon. Ion Keith-Falconer, Pioneer in Arabia 117
By Arthur T.^ierson, D.D.

SiA Sek Ong. . . . y, 151

IV

By S. L."^Bald\vin, D.D.

V

John Kenneth Mackenzie, Medical Missionary

TO China .^ 185

By Miss Jennie M. Bingham.

v^ VI

James M. Thoburt^. 211

By W. F. Oldham, D.D.
8

Contents

/ VII PAGE

Mary Reed ^C 245

By Miss Mary Louise Ninde.

VIII.

Polynesian Missions : John Williams, the Martyr
OF Erromanga ; John "Hunt, the Apostle of

Fiji ^ 277

ByW. H. Withrow, D.D.
4

Untrobuction

We here present for our Reading Course
a book which we trust will inspire the hearts
of all Epworthians with a freshened enthu-
siasm for Christian missions. Nothing
seemed more likely to effect this than to
bring our young people into close touch
with the hearts and life work of a select
number of our noble missionaries, some
sainted, others still living. While some of
the characters here sketched are not as famil-
iar as others that might have been chosen,
yet each one is truly heroic, and the writers
were well fitted for their task, all by genuine
sympathy, and some by long and intimate
acquaintance with their subjects. We are
sure that the book will well repay a careful
reading.

The wonderful century just passing has
been called the age of Protestant misvsions.
It is true that the modern missionary move-
ment began a little before the dawn of this

Introduction

century, but the great mission boards have
been formed and the work of missions vig-
orously pushed within that period. How it
stirs the heart to read of the trials, labors,
and achievements of the unbroken line of
devoted missionaries along the tide of a
hundred years?

In 1 760 Voltaire rashly predicted that the
opening of the nineteenth century would
witness the extinction of the Christian re-
ligion. About that time was born William
Carey, ' ' the morning star of modern mis-
sions," which have since borne the standard
of the cross into every land in the wide
world.

For many years after the dawn of the
modern missionary movement the visible
rCvSults were scanty and discouraging. The
interest of the home churches was feeble and
faltering, and had it not been for the heroic
devotion of godly men and women who felt
themselves specially called to labor in these
distant and difficult fields, and whose self-
sacrificing zeal kindled anew the flickering
flame of missionary interest among the
Christians of favored Europe and America,
all effort to convert the heathen might have
been abandoned or indefinitely postponed.

Introduction

The marked success of the missions to the
Sandwich Islands and some of the South Sea
Islands put a new heart into the movement
for the world's evangelization. The Metho-
dist Episcopal Church, relieved somewhat of
the pressing demands of the home work, en-
tered with its accustomed vigor upon the
mission work abroad. Our first missionaries
to China sailed for that distant land just
fifty years ago, and planted our first mission
in the treaty port of Foochow. The first ten
years was a rayless night of unrequited toil.
At the end of that period the first converts
were baptized, and since then the mission
has expanded with marvelous growth, em-
bracing flourishing fields in South, North,
Central, and West China, with the prospect
of still greater conquests in the near future.
Ten years after entering China our mis-
sion was organized in British India. It was
successful from the start, and its evangeli-
zing progress of late years has been phe-
nomenal and most gratifying. Our mis-
sions are now spread over most of the vast
peninsula and have all the elements of
prodigious strength and efiiciency.

Protestant missions in Japan followed
the treaty which opened up that long

Introduction

sequestered empire to the commerce of the
Western world and allotted to foreigners,
under cumbersome limitations, certain priv-
ileges of residence and travel. As recently
as 1869, Bishop Kingsley made the first
Episcopal visitation of our own missions in
Eastern Asia. We had no mission in Japan
at the time, but on its way to China the
bishop's steamer touched at Yokohama in
Japan. He went ashore, and found a Pres-
byterian missionary who told him there were
probably not more than eight native Chris-
tians in the empire. There are now five
Methodist Boards operating in Japan with a
numerous and efficient force of missionaries
and native preachers, and a large clientele
of native members and adherents. A con-
siderable number of the native preachers,
and of the teachers in the mission schools,
were educated in this country.

More recently our mission was planted in
the Kingdom of Korea, once termed the
*' hermit nation," but now surpassing almost
all other heathen countries in its kindly wel-
come and treatment of foreigners and es-
pecially of Christian missionaries. No
mission in the list makes a more grateful
showing of rapid and substantial progress

Introduction

than that which cultivates so well this lim-
ited but most promising field.

Our historic mission — the one first planted
and manned by our Church — is that of
Liberia, on the western coast of Africa.
When the American Colonization Society
purchased that wild territory and deported
thither some thousands of free Negroes,
many of whom were members of our Church,
our duty seemed imperative to provide them
with the Christian ordinances. It was also
hoped that our Liberia Mission would sooner
or later prove the gateway of the Gospel to
the inaccessible millions in the interior of
the *' Dark Continent." That mission was
for years a keen disappointment and partial
failure. Large appropriations were ab-
sorbed by the mission with scanty results.
The explorations of Livingstone and Stan-
ley and the formation of the Congo Free
State afforded the long-coveted opportu-
nity to reach the interior of the continent
with the priceless blessings of the Christian
Gospel. The hour for a grand advance had
come and the man was not wanting. That
world-wide apostle and missionary, that bold
and intrepid hero in Christian service, Will-
iam Taylor, accepted the high office to which

Introduction

God and the Church had called him, and be-
came the first Methodist Bishop for Africa.
The record of his faithful labors, journeys,
privations, perils, and successes are the
heritage of a grateful Church whose behest
he obeyed, and whose standard he ever bore
with unswerving devotion. His honored
successor has just entered his new field with
equal courage, devotion, and faith, and un-
der the most encouraging auspices.

While the spread of missions has been
truly marvelous, even within the memory
of people now in middle life, the interest of
the Churches in the world's conversion is
far short of what it should be. The great
mass of professing Christians probably
never contribute a penny or a prayer for
the salvation of the heathen world. It is
difficult to account for the apathy which
prevails so widely. No doubt it is largely
due to the slight attention given to the sub-
ject. Home and personal interests preoc-
cupy and absorb the minds of our people
and blind them to the needs of the far-
distant millions. Many persons strangely
insist that our efforts should be concentrated
in meeting the needs of the ' ' heathen at
our doors," rather than be divided in try-

10

Introduction

ing to Christianize the heathen in another
hemisphere.

The sordid question is often asked : * ' Do
missions pay? What have they to show in
visible results for the vast outlay of money
and precious lives? " This inquiry is often
made, not for the purpose of eliciting infor-
mation, but as a supposed unanswerable
argument in interrogative form against
the maintenance of foreign missions. It is
hastily assumed that such missions are a
practical failure, and mission statistics are
quoted to show the inconsequential results
of missionary labors.

It is further questioned by some who
would excuse their indifference to the cause
of foreign missions, whether the Christian-
izing of the heathen nations is really im-
portant or even desirable. We are told
that these nations are by no means so irre-
ligious as we had thought ; that they have
their own faith and creeds, well adapted to
their racial peculiarities, which inculcate a
morality so high and pure, and a spirituality
so refined, as to challenge the admiration
of even Christian minds. Representatives
of the chief pagan religions, we are re-
minded, have recently visited this country,
11

Introduction

who were shocked at the carnal and ma-
terial character of our own boasted civiliza-
tion, and whose intelligence, eloquence,
devout- spirit and manner, and profound and
subtle teachings, filled great audiences with
admiring wonder. Why should we send
missionaries to convert such men and those
they represent to our peculiar ways of
thinking and believing?

Again, there are found, especially among
the foreign residents in heathen lands,
those who loudly insist that the heathen are
not worth saving. The indifference and
even aversion of many of the foreign bank-
ers, traders, and diplomats, residing in
pagan cities, to the missionaries and their
work, is largely due to the unchristian con-
tempt and sometimes violent hatred which
they feel for the masses of the native peo-
ples among whom they dwell. They see
heathenism in its undisguised vileness, and
being destitute of benevolent impulses and
a proper sense of Christian duty learn to
despise and abhor both the prevalent pa-
ganism and its pitiable victims.

At the indignation meetings held by
the foreign residents of Shanghai, China,
following the cruel Hwasang massacres,

12

Introduction

sentiments were expressed by reputable
merchants and others toward the Chinese
race as a whole that might well have
shocked a gathering of untutored vSavages.

The highest sanction and strongest mo-
tive to v/orld-wide missionary effort is our
Saviour's explicit command to ' ' Go into all
the world and disciple all nations." The
early apostles were to begin their work at
Jerusalem, but by no means to remain
there until all the Jews had been
converted. Almost at once they began
missionary work among the Gentiles. Con-
sidering the meager facilities of those
early times, the spread of the Gospel in the
first century of the Christian era is the
marvel of history, and is a standing rebuke
to the feebleness of our faith and the lan-
guor of our zeal. Our Lord's mandate is
surely no less binding now than it was
then. Indeed, as the door of opportunity
widens it becomes the more imperative.
When we think that the great heathen
countries are now open through their vast
extent to the Christian evangelist; that
residence, even in West China, is ordinarily
as safe for the missionary as it would be in

London or New York ; that in India, Japan,
2 13

Introduction

and even Korea, he is under the protection
of friendly governments; when we are re-
minded, too, of the conveniences of travel
and the facilities for prosecuting all kinds
of mission work, and especially of the acces-
sibility of the heathen peoples and their in-
creasingly kindly disposition toward the
''foreign teachers," we are amazed that a
sense of its duty to the wretched and neg-
lected heathen has not more vStrongly im-
pressed itself upon the Christian world.
There is vast wealth in the hands of the
saints. God is calling more men into the
ministry than we can possibly find work for
in the home field. Marked providential
tokens clearly reveal our duty to the be-
nighted millions beyond the seas.

And how vSadly do they need our Chris-
tian sympathy and labors. At the recent
*' Parliament of Religions " in Chicago,
after listening one day to addresses from
representatives of several of the promi-
nent pagan faiths, an English missionary
who had long lived in China remarked in
his address which followed, that whatever
good and kind things might be vSaid of some
of the ethical elements of those pagan be-
liefs, nevertheless the importation of Chris-

14

Introduction

tian ideavS into those heathen landvS was of
incalculable value. That true and impress-
ive statement was after all but a mild and
inadequate putting of the case as between
Christianity and heathenism. Those living
in the field, and even transient visitors to
heathen lands, can see few lines of similar-
ity or points of contact between Christianity
and the best pagan creeds. Undisguised
practical heathenism is indescribably barren
and horrid. It is not even a partial substi-
tute for the Christian Gospel. It may be
gladly admitted that heathen can occasion-
ally be found who are decidedly better than
the besotted masses about them : that now
and then a truly godly man or woman ap-
pears who gives clear evidence of the law
written in the heart ; yet such cases are too
rare to relieve the monotonous vileness of
the dominating superstitions. He who im-
agines that the heathen faiths can be reha-
bilitated and invested with a regenerating
power is cherishing a pleasing but illusive
dream. Nothing will save these Christless
lands but the full acceptance of that Gospel
which is '' the power of God unto salvation
to every one that believeth."

In estimating the results of foreign mis-

15

Introduction

sions the candid inquirer will take many
things into the account. The statistical
showing might prove disappointing, but no
one accustomed to historical researches will
be warped in his judgment by the meagei
exhibit of Christian converts. The member-
ship in the mission churches of southern and
eastern Asia may vSeeni hardly worth con-
sidering when compared with the vast and
unreached heathen population. Yet to
those intimately familiar with the changed
personal and family lives of the Christian
converts it is worth all the expenditure of
money and toil to have saved even the com-
parative few from the chains of a heathenism
indescribably debased and hopeless.

The ground of our large hope for the
Christianizing of the heathen nations is the
ever-brightening indications of a nearing
era of mighty changes and unparalleled
successes. The traditional superstitions are
loosening their hold upon the masses of the
people. The Christian Gospel in the purity
of its teaching, and especially as exemplified
in the lives of the Christian converts, is
making a most powerful and healthful im-
pression upon observant heathen. The
burden of conscious sin and the awakened

16

Introduction

but unsatisfied longings for spiritual free-
dom and peace are creating a widening and
deepening interest in the Christian religion.
There can be no doubt that millions of the
best minds among the heathen are in a sus-
pensive mood. They have lost faith in the
prevailing heathenism, and though hesita-
ting to accept the social ostracism inevitably
following an open Christian confession
they are candid inquirers, and may soon in
great masses become brave and happy con-
verts to the Christian faith. Indeed, in
some pai'ts of India and China the move-
ment has already begun, and its increasing
flow has only been arrested by the sad ina-
bility of the missions, through their strait-
ened resources, properly to care for and
train the new converts.

No just estimate can be made of what
Christian missions have effected in their
short history without considering the indi-
rect results of missionary labors. The mis-
sionaries as a class have impressed them-
selves strongly upon the native peoples.
The simplicity and purity of their lives;
their strict truthfulness and honesty, in
broad contrast with the character and con-
duct of many other foreigners ; their uniform

17

Introduction

kindness and unselfishness manifested on
all occasions, but especially in their care for
the poor and the suffering ; their readiness
to espouse the side of justice as between
natives and foreigners, have given them a
high place in the esteem of the heathen
among whom they live, and to whom they
would gladly minister. Missionaries have
often suffered from scandalous and baseless
stories fabricated by powerful and unscru-
pulous enemies, resulting in occasional riots
and massacres; but to an ever-increasing
extent the unsophisticated masses are learn-
ing the truth and giving their frank and
warm confidence to those whom they are
coming to regard as their true and steadfast
friends.

If there be a single high vocation for the
Christian young people of our day, it is the
conquest of the unchristianized world for
their divine Lord. The " set time to favor
Zion " has surely comCo He reads the
signs of the times to little profit who is not
impressed with this manifest fact. The
doors of opportunity are thrown widely
open. Boundless resources are at our com-
mand. Insuperable difficulties have
strangely vanished. Appealing voices call

18

Introduction

to us from above, from beyond, from with-
in ! Shall we not respond to these voices?
Shall we not hail with gladness our day of
visitation ?

This is the day of great things — of great
plans, undertakings, and achievements.
Projects of small and feeble import fail to
rivet attention and kindle enthusiasm.
None like the young feel the thrill of this
new spirit of the times. Unless the youth-
ful Church can seize upon some object of
Christian endeavor large enough to fill their
holiest ambitions and tax their most strenu-
ous energies, they will languish in inglori-
ous apathy, or waste their golden opportuni-
ties in the mad chase of worldly phantoms.
Among our bannered mottoes let this take
highest place: '' Christ for all the world,
and all the world for CHRIST."

W. X. NiNDE.
19

I

Davib Xivingatone

BY

W. F. McDowell

{picket Xine of HIMssions

I

David Livingstone

David Livingstone is a name to conjure
with. This Scotch physician appeals to con-
noisseurs in manliness. Blaikie, his princi-
pal biographer, and Thomas Hughes, author
of the best brief biography of Livingstone,
are both known as lovers of true manliness.
Mr. Hughes writes the Manliness of Christ,
the ''Tom Brown" books, dj^d, Livingstone
for the " Men of Action " series, studying
in each case a different personality, but not
a different theme.

March 19, 18 13, David Livingstone was
born in Blantyre, Scotland. '' My own in-
clination would lead me to say as little as
possible about myself." The world, how-
ever, has forced into print all that could be
gathered about him. He records two items
about his ancestors : ' * My great-grand-
father fell at the battle of Culloden, fight-

23

The Picket Line of Missions

ing for the old line of kings, and my grand-
father was a small farmer in Ulua, where
my father was born." And this: ''The
only point of the family tradition that I feel
proud of is this — one of these poor islanders,
one of my ancestors, when he was on his
deathbed, called his children around him
and said : ' Now, lads, I have looked all
through our history as far back as I can find
it, and I have never found a dishonest man
in all the line, and I want you to understand
you inherit good blood. You have no ex-
cuse for v/rongdoing. Be honest.'" When
honors were finally laid in profusion at Liv-
ingstone's feet he wrote affectionately of
" his own people, the honest poor."

Students of history will have no difficulty
recalling the historical conditions existing
in 1813. Six years earlier England had
abolished the slave trade. Two years later
Waterloo came. The ''Consecrated Cob-
bler " had awakened the Churches of Eng-
land to their missionary duty, and there
were a dozen societies then in their youth
eager to spread the Gospel in foreign lands.
The charter of the American Board was a
year old when Livingstone was born. The
Wesleyan Missionary Society was organized

24

David Livingstone

in 1 8 12, the Methodist Episcopal Mission-
ary Society in 1819. It was the day of ex-
ploration and inquiry, the day in which the
modern missionary movement began. Into
the kingdom at such a time and for such a
time Livingstone came. At the age of ten
he went to work in the cotton mills. Out
of his first week's wages he saved enough to
buy Ruddiman's Rudiments. The employers
provided a schoolmaster to give evening in-
struction. When Livingstone could have
the master's assistance he took it, when he
could not get it he toiled on alone. Thus
he mastered his Latin. He was not brighter
than other boys. He was not precocious in
anything save determination. Early his
scientific tastes revealed themselves. While
he had the passion for reading he had
equally the passion for exploration and for
such sports as swimming and fishing. ' ' ^ly
reading in the factory," he says, ** was car-
ried on by placing the book on a portion of
the spinning jenny, so that I could catch
sentence after sentence as I passed at my
work. I thus kept a pretty constant study,
undisturbed by the roar of machinery. To
this I owe the power of completely abstract-
ing my mind, so as to read and write with

25

The Picket Line of Missions

perfect comfort amidst the play of children
and vSong of vSavages." At nineteen he was
promoted in the factory. At twenty he
'* lighted upon the admirable works of Dr.
Thomas Dick, The PJiilosopJiy of Religion
and TJie PJiilosopJiy of a Future State, and
was gratified to find that he had enforced
his own conviction that religion and
science are friendly to one another." At
about this time a missionary society was
established in the village. He became ac-
quainted with missionary biography. The
Life of Henry Martyn stirred his blood. The
story of Charles Gutzlaff, medical mission-
ary to China, was as a trumpet call. Almost
simultaneously came his conversion, bring-
ing peace and power and this missionary in-
fluence. Young Epworth Leaguers will pause
over the statement that at twenty he had
resolved to devote to the missionary cause
all he could earn and save. Then Gutzlaff
appealed to the Churches of Great Britain
and America for aid in behalf of China,
and Livingstone offered not his earnings,
but his life. ''It is my desire,'* he said,
" to show my attachment to the cause of
Him who died for me by devoting my life
to his service," and " from this time my

26

David Livingstone

efforts were constantly devoted toward this
object without any fluctuation." This lavSt
sentence shows influence of a faithful Sun-
day school teacher who had said to him,
"Now, lad, make religion the everyday
bUvSiness of your life, and not a thing of fits
and starts." Livingstone did not propose
to go as a missionary without preparation.
He went on with his studies for six or seven
years from the date of the resolution quoted
above. When at last he went it was with
the strength and training of a man . He was
accepted by the London Missionary Society,
whose object — " to send neither Episcopacy
nor Presbyterianism nor Independency, but
the Gospel of Christ to the heathen" — exactly
agreed with his ideas. He wanted to go as
a medical missionary to China, but the
opium war shut him out. He grew weary
of waiting, but never faltered in his purpose.
One day Robert Moffat came home to plead
for the South African Mission. He told
Livingstone that he had "sometimes seen
in the morning sun the smoke of a thousand
villages where no missionary had ever been .
That settled the question for Livingstone.
It was God's hand leading him into the

•Dark Continent. In 1840 he was ordained

27

The Picket Line of Missions

and received his medical diploma. Speak-
ing of the latter, he said, ''With unfeigned
delight I became a member of a profession
which with unwearied energy pursues from
age to age its endeavors to lessen human
woe." On the evening of November i6,
1840, he wxnt home to visit for one night
with his parents. He proposed to sit up all
night. His father had the heart and soul of
a missionary. He was the kind of man por-
trayed in "The Cotter's Saturday Night."
Far into the night they talked of the pros-
pects of Christian missions. They talked
of the coming day when rich and great men
would think it an honor to support whole
stations of missionaries instead of spending
their money on hounds and horses. At five
the next morning they had breakfast, and
then gathered around the family altar for
prayers. David read the 121st and 135th
Psalms and prayed. It is a scene for an
artist. Father and son walked to Glasgow.
" On the Broomiclaw they parted, and never
met again on earth." The father set his
face toward home, the great son resolutely
starting toward the " smoke of the thousand
villages."

December 8, 1840, he sailed for Cape

28

David Livingstone

Town, at the southern extremity of Africa.
It is an historic date in the history of Africa
and in the history of the Christian Church.
When he arrived at the cape he found Dr,
Philip, acting agent for the London Mis-
sionary vSociety, desirous of returning home
for a vacation, and anxious to find some one
willing to take his place as minister to the
congregation at Cape Town. The place,
with good compensation, was offered to
Livingstone. Then he remembered that
Moffat had said to him, ''You -will do
for Africa if you do not go to an old
station, but push on to the vast unoccupied
districts to the north." He declined the
easier position and pushed on toward Dr.
Moffat's station at Kuruman, seven hun-
dred miles to the north. These seven
hundred miles formed the crust of heathen-
ism as dense as night. On into it this
fearless man went. He practiced medicine
as he went. The people believed him to
be a wizard. They thought him able to
raise the dead. The sick and the curious
crowded about his wagon, but not an article
was stolen. One day the chief of a savage
tribe said : "I wish you w^ould change my

heart. Give me medicine to change it, for
3 29

The Picket Line of Missions

it is proud, proud and angry, angry al-
ways." The physician and the scientist,
the minister and the reformer, are all com-
bined in this one man. He heals the sick ;
he notes the scenery, classifying the plants,
birds, and beasts, noting that forty-three
fruits and thirty-two edible roots grow wild
in a certain district ; he gathers specimens
for a London college ; he rescues a little
girl about to be sold into slavery ; he re-
joices that God had conferred upon him the
privilege and honor of being the first mes-
senger of mercy that ever trod those regions.
He writes home :

" This is the country for a medical man,
but he must leave fees out of the question.
These people are excellent patients, too.
There is no wincing ; everything prescribed
is done instanter. Their only failing is
that they get tired of a long course, but in
any operation even the women sit unmoved.
I have been astonished again and again at
their calmness. In cutting out a tumor an
inch in diameter they sit and talk as if they
felt nothing. ' A man like me,' they say,
' never cries. It is children that cry.' And
it is a fact that the men never cry; but
when the Spirit of God works on their

30

David Livingstone

minds they cry most piteously, trying to
hide their heads in their karosses, and when
they find that won't do they rush out of
church and run with all their might, crying
as if the hand of death were behind them."
Meantime visions of planting colonies
here float before him. He explores for
Jesus Christ. He covers his letters with
maps of the country. Every new tract is
a new field for the Gospel. He studies the
African fever, the tsetse fly, and dreams of
the lake. The details of these years cannot
be given here. Four years go by. During
this time occurred the adventure with the
lion, of which adventure he writes that " he
meant to have kept it to tell his children
in his old age." It was during his second
missionary year. He says of it : " He
rushed from the bushes and bit me on the
arm, breaking the bone. I hope I shall
never forget God's mercy. It will be well
before this letter reaches you. Do not
mention it to anyone. I do not like to be
talked about." He never voluntarily re-
ferred to it. But of the wound then
received Sir Bartle Frere writes in an
obituary notice before the Royal Geograph-
ical Society : ' ' For thirty years afterward

31

The Picket Line of Missions

all adventures and exposures and hardships
were undertaken with an arm so maimed
that it was painful to raise a fowling-piece
to his shoulder." In putting- up' a new
mission station he broke it over again, but
barely mentioned the fact. Thirty years
afterward — after his remains had been car-
ried one thousand miles to the coast by
faithful African followers, and thence to
England, to be deposited in Westminster
Abbey among the illustrious dead — a com-
pany of royal surgeons identified the body
by the scar and compound fracture made
by the lion's teeth.

Four years he toiled on alone, putting
aside all thoughts of matrimony; but at
last, in 1 844, he writes : ' ' After nearly
four years of African life as a bachelor 1
screwed up courage to put a question be-
neath one of the fruit trees, the result of
which is that I became united in marriage
to Mr. Moffat's eldest daughter, Mary."
The young couple spent their first year at
Mabotsa ; then on to Chonuane, forty miles
north. ''The chief, Sechele, here was his
first convert, and in a few weeks was able
to read the Bible, his favorite book being
Isaiah. * He was a fine man, that Isaiah ;

82

David Livingstone

he knew how to speak.' " In his newborn
zeal Sechele proposed summary methods of
conversion. '* Do you think you can make
my people believe by talking- to them?"
he urged. " I can make them do nothing
except by thrashing them, and if you like
I shall call my headman, and with our
whips of rhinoceros hide we will soon
make them all believe together." This
offer was declined, and vSechele soon began
to understand Livingstone's spirit and to
adopt his methods, though their apparent
failure grieved him sorely. He began
family worship in his house, and surprised
Livingstone by the simple and beautiful
style in which he conducted it ; but except
his own family no one attended. ' ' In
former times," he complained, '' if a chief
was fond of hunting, all his people got dogs
and became fond of hunting, too. If he
loved beer, they all rejoiced in strong
drink. But now it is different. I love the
word of God, but not one of my brethren
will join me."

After a time they go still farther north, to
Kolobeng. Livingstone is never idle. He
gathers information, heals the sick, and tells
the natives of Jesus, ending every article,

88

The Picket Line of Missions

every letter, and every prayerwith the words,
"Who will penetrate Africa?" He hears
of a doctrinal controversy going on at home,
and it makes him sick at heart to know that
millions perish while well-fed brethren split
theological hairs. He gains few converts,
but only reports the actual number, saying
that five good ones are better than fifty poor
ones, though fifty sounds better in the sta-
tistics. At this period his brother Charles
came to America to secure an education
that he might be a missionary. He had not
money enough to get it in England. He
landed in New York with ten dollars, where
he bought a loaf of bread and a piece of
cheese and started for Oberlin College.

In 1849 Livingstone discovered Lake
N'gami, the first European to look upon its
waters. But at once he declared that the dis-
covery was a part of theenterprise forChrist's
kingdom, and would open the way into
the interior. He never forgot the ' ' smoke
of the thousand villages." Discovering
lakes and exploring new tracts were only
means to ends. In 1850 one of his chil-
dren, a babe six weeks old, died. A little
later Charles proposed to him to come to
America and settle, which brought forth

34

David Livingstone

the famous declaration : ' ^ am a missionary,
heart and soul. God had an only Son and
he was a missionary and a physician. I am
a poor, poor imitation of him, or wish to be.
In this service I hope to live, in it I wish to
die." But this missionary physician had
the plans and visions of a statesman. The
slave trade fairly froze his blood. He set
aside small plans for large ones. He saw
the traffic in human beings intrenched from
coast to coast. He felt that a path must be
opened across the continent from east to
west so that lawful commerce and Chris-
tian civilization could enter. Men at home,
men who had never seen a mission field, the
men who always know at a distance far
more than the man on the ground — these
men complained. They styled Livingstone's
efforts as ' ' wanderings." They wanted him
to settle down, to teach, to train a few souls.
He knew that to be a noble work, but not
his at that time. He writes to his father:
" The conversion of a few cannot be put
into the scale against the truth spread over
the whole country." The word ''wander-
ings," he said, contained a lie like a serpent
coiled up on its bosom.

On April 23, 1852, Mrs. Livingstone and
35

The Picket Line of Missions

the four children started for England. It
was a very great trial to them all, but it was
necessary. The children could not be edu-
cated in that heathen land. But Livine:-
stone spoke two or three sentences in con-
nection with this event which ought to be
written in letters of light before all mana-
gers of missions and missionaries. These
are the sentences: ''Missionaries expose
their children to a contamination which they
have had no hand in producing. We ex-
pose them and ourselves for a time in order
to elevate those sad captives of sin and
Satan who are the victims of the degrada-
tion of ages. None of those who complain
about missionaries sending their children
home ever descend to this. The mark of
Cain is on your foreheads, your father is a
missionary. Our children ought to have
both the sympathies and prayers of those
at v/hose bidding we become strangers for
ire.

David and Mary Livingstone consecrated
themselves to the redemption of Africa, her
consecration being as true and as willing as
his. The separation was as painful for her
as for him. She had no enjoyment in Eng-
land with her noble husband in Africa.

30

David Livingstone

And yet they said, if merchants, explorers,
and seamen could separate from their fam-
ilies for years for love of gain, could not
they endure as much for Christ? There
were those, most of them comfortable souls
sitting at home, who said that this separa-
tion was for the mutual pleasure of this he-
roic pair ; that Africa was more agreeable
to David with Mary in England, and Eng-
land more attractive for her with the doc-
tor in Africa. Listen to one of his letters :

**My Dearest Mary: How I miss you
now, and the children! My heart yearns
incessantly over you. Hov\^ many thoughts
of the past crowd into my mind ! I feel as
if I could treat you all much more tenderly
and lovingly than ever. You have been a
great blessing to me. You attended to my
comfort in many, many ways. May God
bless you for all your kindnesses ! I see no
face now to be compared with that sunburnt
one which has so often greeted me with its
kind looks. Let us do our duty to our Sav-
iour, and we shall meet again. I wish that
time were now. You may read the letters
over again which I wrote at Mabotsa, the

sweet time you know. As I told you before
37

The Picket Line of Missions

I tell you again, they are true, true ; there
is not a bit of hypocrivSy in them. I never
show all my feelings ; but I can say truly,
my dearest, that I loved you when I mar-
ried you, and the longer I lived with you I
loved you the better. . . . Let us do our
duty to Christ, and he will bring us through
the world with honor and usefulness. He
is our refuge and high tower ; let us trust
in him at all times and in all circumstances.
Love him more and more, and diffuse his
love among the children. Take them all
around you and kiss them for me. Tell
them I have left them for the love of Jesus,
and they must love him too, and avoid sin,
for that displeases Jesus. I shall be de-
lighted to hear of you all safe in Eng-
land. . . ."

Being left thus alone, he turned his face
toward the interior, vivSited numerous tribes,
preached everywhere, went alone, carrying
neither purse nor scrip ; living on what he
found or what was given to him, walking or
vsleeping in the midst of hostile tribes in
absolute fearlessness. Part of the country
was flooded, and the travelers had to wade

all day, forcing their way through sharp-

;;s

David Livingstone

bladed reeds, with hands all raw and
bloody, emerg-ing- with knees, hands, and
face cut and bleeding. It required all his
tact and power to prevent the guides and
servants from deserting him. Every one
but himself was attacked with a fever, and
he writes : "I would like to devote a por-
tion of my life to the discovery of a remedy
for this terrible disease." At last he was
smitten down, and we find in his journal :
' ' Am I on my way to die in the Sebituanes
country? Havel seen the end of my wife
and children? O Jesus, fill me with thy
love now, and I beseech thee accept me and
use me a little for thy glory. I have done
nothing for thee yet, and I would like to do
something."

Then some of the missionaries in South
Africa accused him of worldly ambition.
They said that he was sinking the mission-
ary in the explorer. But this is what he
writes about it :

**The natives listen, but never suppose
the truth must be embodied in actual life.
... A minister who had not seen so much
pioneer service as I have done would have
been shocked to .see so little effect pro-
duced. . . . We can afford to work in faith.

39

The Picket Line of Missions

. . . When we view the state of the world
and its advancing energies by childlike — or
call it childish — faith we see the earth filling
with the knowledge of the glory of God —
aye, all nations seeing his glory and bowing
before Him whose right it is to reign. We
work toward another state of things. Fu-
ture missionaries will be rewarded by con-
versions for every sermon. We are their
pioneers. They will, doubtless, have more
light than we, but we served our Master
earnestly and proclaimed the same Gospel
they will do."

And again he writes : ' ' I place no value
on anything I have or possess except in re-
lation to the kingdom of Christ. It is not
the encountering of difficulties and dangers
in obedience to inward spiritual promptings
which constitutes tempting Providence, but
the acting without faith, proceeding on our
ov/n errands with no previous convictions
of duty and no prayer for aid and direction.
Help me. Thou who knowest my frame and
pitiest me as a father! "

His whole mind was set to find a way to
the west coast. He knew that the attempt
was in the nature of a forlorn hope, but
still it was worth trying. He wrote : ' ' Can-

40

David Livingstone

not the love of Christ carry the missionary
where the slave trade carries the trader? I
shall open up a path to the interior or per-
ish." Now, it does not matter very much
what the world says or thinks of a man with
that spirit. For years he saw no white
face. For years he lived alone in the heart
of the Dark Continent ; battled with polyg-
amy, with cannibalism, incest, and slavery,
and with every conceivable form of detest-
able sin. But the difficulties of this jour-
ney to the west coast did not discourage
him. He calmly made up his mind that
he was as like as not to die on that jour-
ney, so he made his will, and this is what
he says :

' * May Christ accept my children for his
service, and sanctify them for it ! My bless-
ing on my wife. May God comfort her ! If
my watch comes back after I am cut off it
belongs to Agnes; if my sextant, it is
Robert's; the Paris medal to Thomas,
and the double-barreled gun to Zouza. Be
a father to the fatherless and a husband
to the widow, for Jesus' sake. The Boers,
by taking possession of all my goods,
have saved me the trouble of making a
will."

41

The Picket Line of Missions

On November ii, 1853, he l^^t Linyanti,
almost in the center of lower Africa, and
seven months later arrived at St. Paul de
Loanda, on the west coast. There is no
way to describe this journey. It is full of in-
cident. But the most impressive thing about
it all was the horrors of the slave trade as
witnessed on this long journey. Every day
he saw families torn asunder, dead bodies
along the way, gangs chained and yoked,
skeletons grinning against the trees and by
the roadside. As he rowed along on the
river Shire the paddles of his boat were
clogged in the morning with the bodies of
women and children who had died in the
slave-chained gangs and been thrown into
the river at night. The air was thick with
vultures following them. He counted
bodies in the stream by the score as they
came floating down. He found the horrible
system intrenched from the center of the
continent to the coast. It is scarcely sur-
prising, therefore, that he felt that the ex-
posure of this gigantic iniquity must be his
principal work. So he writes to his father
that he cannot settle down to teach and
train and turn a few souls to Christ. The
conversion of a few cannot be put into the

42

David Livingstone

scale against the truth spread over the
whole country. This lonely missionary
opening up a highway across the continent
for commerce, for civilization, for the Gos-
pel, rose to the stature of a statesman.
Beautiful incidents occurred on this trip
showing the devotion of his men. Listen :
'' Some of my men proposed to return
home, and the prospect of being obliged to
turn back from the threshold of the Portu-
guese settlements distressed me exceed-
ingly. After using all my powers of per-
suasion I declared that if they now returned
I should go on alone, and, returning into
my little tent, I lifted up my heart to Him
who hears the sighing of the soul. Pres-
ently the headman came in. ' Do not be
disheartened, * he said ; ' we will never leave
you. Wherever you lead we will follow.
Our remarks were only made on account of
the injustice of these people.' Others fol-
lowed, and with the most artless simplicity
of manner told me to be comforted — ' they
were all my children; they knew no one
but Sekeletu and me, and would die for
me ; they had spoken in bitterness of spirit,
feeling they could do nothing.' "

It was seven months before he finally

48

The Picket Line of Missions

reached the west coast. The hardships had
been incredible. Thirty attacks of fever
had so weakened him that he could scarcely
mount his ox or hold an instrument for a
simple calculation. Once more, near the
end, the hearts of his men began to fail,
and they hinted their doubts to him, and
he said : '' If you suspect me you can return,
for I am as ignorant of Loanda as you.
But nothing will happen to you but hap-
pens to me. We have stood by each other
hitherto, and will do so until the last."
When they reached Loanda Livingstone
was poor and ragged, a vskeleton, almost
consumed with dysentery and famine. It
seemed for weeks that he could see nothing
but visions of naked men with spears and
clubs, bodies of slaves dead and dying, pes-
tilence walking at noonday, destruction
wasting at midnight, a land covered with
skeletons, pre5^ed on by fever, looted by the
slave driver, appealing hands everywhere,
and no deliverer, no physician.

When he reached the coast a Portuguese
gentleman gave him a suit of clothes, and
Livingstone blessed him in the name of Him
who said, " I was naked, and ye clothed
me." Dr. Gabriel, the English commis-

44

David Livingstone

sioner for the suppression of the slave
trade, received him with the utmost kind-
ness, giving him his own bed, of which
Livingstone said : ' ' Never shall I forget
the luxurious pleasure I enjoyed in feeling
myself again on a good English bed after
six months* sleeping on the ground." And
yet great disappointment awaited him here.
There were no letters from home, no ti-
dings from family or friends. An English
vessel lay in the harbor and a berth was of-
fered him. No one would have complained
if he had accepted the opportunity to go
home. He prepared his journals, made
reports and observations, put them aboard
the Forerunner, turned his back on the ship
and let it set sail. The ship was lost off
Madeira, and all her passengers perished
but one. Of course, all Livingstone's papers
were lost. Upon hearing of it he stopped,
reproduced his dispatches and maps. It
was like Carlyle's rewriting his French
Revolution after its destruction in Mill's
household. Why did he not go home? He
had promised the natives that he would see
them home. He had pledged his word to
Sekeletu that he would return with the men,
and his word to the black men of Africa

4 45

The Picket Line of Missions

was just as sacred as it would have been if
pledged to the queen. He kept it as faith-
fully as an oath made to Almighty God. It
involved a journey nearly two years in
length, a line of march two thousand miles
long, through jungles, swamps, and desert,
through wscenes of surpassing beauty. But
it was two years from that day before he
came out on the east coast at Quilimane,
and from this time he v/as the best known,
best loved, and most perfectly trusted man
in Africa. Everywhere and every day he
had preached. He had healed the sick of
their diseases. He had discovered the Vic-
toria Falls and the two magnificent ranges
which were free from the fever and the fly.
At the junction of the Loangwa and Zam-
bezi rivers he thought that his end had
come, and he writes in his diary, " O Jesus,
grant me reliance on thy powerful hand
and resignation to thy will." Then, think-
ing of home and of what he might say if he
could get back to England, he adds: '* But
wilt thou not permit me to plead for Africa?
See, Lord, how the heathen rise up against
me, as against thy Son. A guilty, weak,
andhelpless worm, on thy kind arms I fall."
Then the vScotch pluck asserts itself, and he

4G

David Livingstone

writes : ** Should such a man as I flee ! Nay,
verily, I shall take observations of latitude
and longitude to-night, though they be my
last. I feel quite calm now, thank God.
O Lord, remember me and thy cause in
Africa." And from the perils of this day
the Lord delivered him, and he was able to
make his report, transmitting to the Lon-
don societies a map of Central Africa, a
map of the highest value.

At this very time Sir Roderick Murchison
writes him of the honor paid him by the
Royal Geographical Society for the great-
est triumph in geographical research effected
in our times, and tells him why the society
has conferred its gold medal upon him.
But the heart of the doctor is larger than
the heart of the explorer, and his chief hu-
man joy was that he had discovered what
he believed to be a remedy for the deadly
fever.

It was now sixteen years since he had left
England, and there was no reason why he
should not return. So, on the 9th of Decem-
ber, 1856, he reached his home once more,
and found himself almost the most famous
man in London. Honors poured upon him

enough to turn a man's head. The Royal
47

The Picket Line of Missions

Society held a special meeting- of welcome.
He was introduced as the man who had
traveled over eleven thousand miles of Afri-
can ground, had done incalculable service in
the way of exploration, had opened a whole
world of immortal souls to the Gospel, and
had glorified the British name by faithfully
keeping his word to the black men to whom
he had given it. Mrs. Livingstone stood
by his side, and Lord vShaftesbury paid her
equal tribute with her husband, and all Eng-
land said Amen. Livingstone was pre-
sented to the royal family, and honored
with the freedom of London. Everywhere
the most distinguished honors were paid
him. He remained in England less than
two years, working night and day upon his
books, dedicating the profits immediately to
the cause of opening Africa. But all the
time he was thinking, not of England, but
of the Dark Continent. He said of himself
and his wife, '* Whoever stays, we will go."
He had further plans of exploration. ' ' But
always," as he writes, ** the end of the ex-
ploration is the beginning of the enterprise."
His own country — Scotland — honored him
with the freedom of its cities. Its univer-
sities gave him their highest degrees. There

48

David Livingstone

were public receptions and a public testi-
monial. There were farewell meetings, at-
tended by nobles and scholars, and at last,
as he started away, Sir Roderick Murchison
said: *' Notwithstanding months of lauda-
tion and a shower of all university honors,
he is the same honest, true-hearted David
Livingstone as when he came forth from the
wilds of Africa." At Cambridge he de-
livered a memorable address, in which he
said : " It is deplorable to think that one of
the noblest of our missionary bodies, the
Church Missionary Society, is compelled to
send to Germany for missionaries. The sort
of men who are wanted for missionaries are
such as I see before me. I beg to direct
your attention to Africa. I know that in a
few years I shall be cut off in that country
which is now open. Do not let it be shut
again. I go back to Africa to try to open a
path for commerce and Christianity. Do
you carry out the work which I have begun.
I leave it with you."

Sixteen months he remained at home,
and went away with the net result of his
visit, as was said at the farewell dinner, that
he had found Africa the Dark Continent,
and left it the most interesting part of the

49

The Picket Line of Missions

globe to Englishmen, He went back as the
queen's consul, wearing the gold band about
his cap, but he went once more for the same
old enterprise. A public reception was
given him at Cape Town, where six years
before they had hated him. In 1858 he ex-
plored the Zambezi, in '59 the Shire, in '60
he discovered Lake Nyassa, and in '61 he
explored the river Rovuma. He estab-
lished the sites of mission stations, preached
constantly, and carried on a religious and
scientific correspondence with the leading
societies of England. His purpose, recorded
away back at the beginning, grew stronger
rather than weaker. In 1862 he preached
to the tribes on the shores of Lake Nyassa.
He found that twenty thousand slaves were
dragged from that region alone and sold at
Zanzibar, and he learned that as many more
were cruelly murdered. His letters thrilled
the civilized world as he exposed the iniq-
uity of this horrid traffic.

Mrs. Livingstone returned to Scotland in
1859, placed the children in school, and in
1862 rejoined her husband in Africa. For
the Dark Continent they intended to live
and die together, but less than six months
after her return her health gave way, and

50

David Livingstone

on the banks of the Shire the daug-hter of
Robert Moffat, the wife of David Living-
stone, lay down to her everlasting rest.
Then the man who had never feared the
face of beast or foe, who had faced death
countless times, cried out like a stricken
child, " For the first time in my life I want
to die." The body of Mary Livingstone was
buried under a baobab tree at Shiipanga.
But Livingstone's work was not done. Even
grief must not hinder him from doing it. He
must penetrate to the fountains of the Nile,
and he must break up the infamous slave
trade. In 1 864 he returned to London again,
with two objects in view: the exposure of
the slave trade, and the securing of means
with which to open a new mission above the
Portuguese lines. On the first of August,
1864, he was with his mother and children
at Hamilton. Only his eldest boy, Robert,
a boy of eighteen, was absent. The boy
had gone to Natal in the hope of reaching
his father. Failing in that, he had crossed
to America, enlisted in the Federal army,
had been badly wounded, taken prisoner,
died at last in the hospital, and was buried
in the National Cemetery at Gettysburg.
There is something very fitting in all that.

51

The Picket Line of Missions

The father was giving his life for the per-
fect liberty of the black man in the Dark
Continent ; the boy giving his for the lib-
erty of the black man and the integrity of
the nation, and was buried at last in the
spot over which sounded Lincoln's immortal
words.

Livingstone was everywhere received with
the highest honors. He was with the Turk-
ish ambassador when the crowd cheered,
and Livingstone said, ''These cheers are
for you." And the ambassador replied,
' ' No, I am only what my master made me ;
you are what you made yourself." Back
again after a few months in 1866, he reached
the African coast, ascended the Rovuma,
disappeared for three years, visited Lakes
Meroe and Tanganyika. Meantime he
preached the Gospel to thousands and
tens of thousands. He still found the vil-
lages of which Moffat had spoken to him
years before, where the name of Jesus had
never been spoken. And this was his faith :
' ' It is a mistake to suppose that God is
too exalted to notice our smallest affairs.
A general attends to the smallest details
of his army. A sparrow cannot fall to the
ground without your Father. With his

52

David Livingstone

ever-loving eye upon me I may truly go
to the front with the message of peace and
good will." The Portuguese intercepted
his letters and cut off his supplies. He
writes that he is near the source of the
Nile, and possibly in the wilderness where
Moses once was.

In 1 87 1 his strength utterly failed. His
feet ulcerated, his teeth came out, he lay
in his low hut for eighty days, and read his
Bible four times through. He writes upon
the fly leaf, '' No letters for three years. I
have a sore longing to finish and go home,
if God wills." Relief, letters, and supplies
had all been sent to him, but he never re-
ceived them. Many of the letters that he
wrote never reached their destination. But
he had accomplished his purpose. He had
exposed the slave trade. In 1871 he reached
Ujiji, a worn, exhausted, skeleton of a man.
The world had not heard from him for years,
and the anxious question everywhere was,
'* Is he dead or alive? " The Royal Society
sent out a search expedition.

One day Henry M. Stanley was sitting at

a hotel in Madrid, when a telegram was

handed to him which read : " Come to Paris

on important business. Bennett." On his
53

The Picket Line of Missions

arrival Mr. Bennett said, ''Where do you
think Livingstone is?" The correspond-
ent could not tell — could not tell whether
he was alive, of course. '' Well," said Mr.
Bennett, '' I think he is alive and that he
may be found, and I am going to send you
to find him." And this was the order:
*' Take what money you want, but find
Livingstone." In January, 1871, Stanley
reached Zanzibar, and began to organize his
expedition. For eleven months this deter-
mined man went on through incredible
hardships. He coaxed the weary, whipped
the stubborn. The feet of some were bleed-
ing from thorns ; others foil by the way,
but on they went. Once in his journey
Stanley wrote : ' ' No living man shall stop
me. Only death can prevent me ; but death
— not even this. I shall not die ; I will not
die ; I cannot die. Something tells me I shall
find him. And write it larger, y?;/^ ///;//, find
him!" Even the words are inspiring. One
day a caravan passed and reported that a
white man had just reached Ujiji. Stan-
ley's heart thumped as he asked them, '' Was
he young or old? " '' He is old; he has
white hair on his face; he is vsick." So

Stanley pushed on night and day until they
54

David Livingstone

came in sight of Ujiji. " Unfurl the flags
and load the guns," said Stanley, his nerves
quivering with excitement. And the flags
floated out, and the guns thundered over
the plain. And they were answered by hun-
dreds of Africans with shouts. Suddenly
Stanley heard a voice say, in good English,
" Good morning, sir." He was startled,
and asked abruptly, " Who the mischief are
you? " "I am Susi, the servant of Dr. Liv-
ingstone." Then a thrill went through
Stanley's soul, and all the fatigues and the
perils of that year were forgotten. Let
Stanley tell the story himself:

* * First his two servants appeared ; by
and by the doctor. As I advanced slowly
toward him I noticed he was pale, looked
wearied, had a gray beard, wore a bluish cap
with a faded gold band around it, had on a
red-sleeved waistcoat and a pair of gray
tweed trousers. I would have run to him,
only I was a coward ; would have embraced
him, only did not know how he would re-
ceive me. vSo I did what cowardice and false
pride suggested, walked deliberately to him,
took off my hat and said, * Dr. Livingstone,
I presume ? ' * Yes,' said he, with a kind smile,
lifting his cap. I replaced my hat, he his

The Picket Line of Missions

cap, and we grasped hands. And I said,' 1
thank God I am permitted to see you,' and
he answered, * I feel thankful that I am here
to welcome you.'

Of course Stanley was supplied with all
that the good man needed. He brought
Livingstone letters for which he had pa-
tiently waited for years. He brought him
news. It was two full years since Living-
stone had heard anything from Europe.
The coming of Stanley revived Livingstone's
spirits.

Stanley remained with him for months.
The correspondent of the New York Herald
took his first lessons in exploration at the
hands of the master. He grew into enthu-
siasm and hero worship. He wrote: *'You
may take any point in Dr. Livingstone's
character and analyze it carefully, and I
will challenge an}^ man to find a fault in
it." And he had discovered Livingstone's
vSecret. " His religion," he writes, "is a
constant, earnest, sincere practice. It is
neither demonstrative nor loud, but mani-
fests itself in a quiet, practical way, and is
always at work. In him religion exhibits
its loveliest features ; it governs his conduct,
not only toward his servants, but toward

56

David Livingstone

the natives, the bigoted Mohammedans, and
all who come in contact with him. Without it
Livingstone, with his ardent temperament,
his enthusiasm, his high spirit and courage,
must have been uncompanionable and a hard
master. Religion has tamed him and made
him a Christian gentleman, the most com-
panionable of men and indulgent of mas-
ters." Stanley received and mastered a true
lesson in the treatment of natives. He tried
to induce the doctor to go home with him.
But Livingstone's heart was resolute. The
old explorer set his face as a flint. He did
not feel that his work was done. Stanley
started eastward, and the old man in the
gray clothes, with bended head and slow
steps, returned to his solitude. '' I took one
more look at him," said Stanley. " He was
standing near the gate of Kwihaha, with
his servants near him. I waved my hand-
kerchief to him, and he responded by lifting
his cap." This was Livingstone's last sight
of a white man. The old world has borne
on her surface few nobler or more pathetic
figures since time began.

In 1S72, March 19, he writes: ** My birth-
day! My Jesus, my King, my Life, my
All! I again dedicate my whole self to

51

The Picket Line of Missions

thee. Accept me. And grant, O gracious
Father, that ere this year is gone I may
finish my work. In Jesus's name I ask it.
Amen."

May I , lie writes : ' ' Finished a letter to
the New York Herald to elicit American zeal
to stop the east coast slave trade. I pray for
a blessing upon it from the All-Gracious."
The last sentence of this letter is the one
finally inscribed on Livingstone's tomb.
'* All I can add in my loneliness," it runs,
**is. May Heaven's rich blessing come
down on everyone^ — American, English,
Turk — who will help to heal this open sore
of the world! "

Weary months followed — months of plans,
of travels, of toils, of hardships — and the
last of April, 1873, a year after Stanley had
left him, he had reached the village of Ilala,
at the southern end of Lake Bangweolo.
He had made his observations and written
his journal carefully ; had drawn maps and
given his orders. The heroic spirit was
still struggling to finish the heroic work.
But on the morning of the first of May,
1873, at four o'clock, the boy who lay at his
door called in alarm for Susi, fearing their
master was dead. " By the candle still

68

David Livingstone

burning they saw him, not in bed, but kneel-
ing at the bedside with his head buried in
his hands upon the pillow. The sad yet
not unexpected truth soon became evident ;
he had passed away without a single at-
tendant on the farthest of all his journeys.
But he had died in the act of prayer — prayer
offered in that reverential attitude about
which he was always so particular; com-
mending his own spirit, with all his dear
ones, as was his wont, into the hands of his
Saviour ; and commending Africa — his own
dear Africa — with all her woes and sins and
wrongs, to the Avenger of the oppressed
and the Redeemer of the lost."

The behavior of his African servants
after his death is beyond all praise. First,
they removed and buried his heart. Then
they dried his body in the sun, wrapped it
in cloths, lashed it to a pole, and set out on
their homeward march. It was a weary
journey; exposures, sickness, oppositions,
all combined to make it difficult. Nine
weary months tested their steadfastness and
devotion, and on Saturda}^ April i8, 1874,
nearly a year after his death, the remains
of the great missionary were committed to
their resting place in Westminster Abbey.

The Picket Line of Missions

The black slab that marks the end of the
pilgrimage bears this inscription :

Brought by Faithful Hands

Over Land and Sea,

Here Rests

DAVID LIVINGSTONE,

Missionary, Traveler, Philanthropist.

Born March 19, 181 3,

At Blantyre, Lanarkshire.

Died May i, 1873,

At Chitambo's Village, Ilala.

For thirty years his life was spent in an unwearied
effort to evangelize the native races, to explore the un-
discovered secrets, and abolish the desolating slave trade
of Central Africa, and where, with his last words, he
wrote :

" All I can add in my loneliness is, May Heaven's rich
blessing come down on everyone — American, English,
Turk — who will help to heal this open sore of the
world."

The tributes are all of a kind. This
from Sir Bartle Frere will answer as a speci-
men of all the rest :

''As a whole, the work of his life will
surely be held up in ages to come as one of
singular nobleness of design and of un-
flinching energy and self-sacrifice in execu-
tion. It will be long ere any one man will
be able to open so large an extent of un-
known land to civilized mankind ; yet

60

David Livingstone

longer, perhaps, ere we find a brighter ex-
ample of a life of such continued and useful
self-devotion to a noble cause. I could
hardly venture to describe my estimate of
his character as a Christian, further than by
saying that I never met a man who fulfilled
more completely my idea of a perfect
Christian gentleman, actuated in what he
thought and said and did by the highest and
most chivalrous spirit, modeled on the pre-
cepts of his great Master and Exemplar."

His heart lies buried under the tree in
Ilala, his bones in Westminster Abbey;
but ' ' the end of the exploration is the be-
ginning of the enterprise," and his life goes
steadily on. Long ago Melville B. Cox
wrote : ' ' Though a thousand die, let not
Africa be given up." And that word, with
Livingstone's last prayer there, is as quick
and powerful in the Church as it has ever
been. Such men as Livingstone constitute
Christianity's last answer to heathenism.
Christianity makes such men as this. This
is why it is worth while to send Christianity
to all the world. But Christianity must go
in the person of such men as this. It is
said that the Protestant Church is liberal in
its use of Bibles, and the Roman Catholic

5 61

The Picket Line of Missions

Church liberal in its use of men. The
Church which shall redeem Africa must be
liberal with both. We must send our men,
living epistles, with the open book in their
hands. The methods of Livingstone and
the spirit of Livingstone have perpetual
value for the evangelization of that Dark
Continent. In Stanley's great address be-
fore the Methodist preachers of New York
he used these words :

* * Now, cast your eye at the south part of
Africa. There the European has come,
and he is spreading his beliefs and his
creeds and his religion in like manner, and
introducing his system of civilization ; and
they are advancing steadily and slowly to-
ward the equatorial region, until by and by
they are arrested in like manner as they
come under the influence of the Zambezi.
But one bold man, a missionary, left the
ranks of those who were pressing on toward
the north, and pushed on and on until he
came to the Zambezi. He felt that influ-
ence, but, undaunted, he pressed on and
crossed Africa to St. Paul de Loanda. He
returned again with his native followers to
Linyanti, and the chief of the Makololo
gave him permission to take them to the

62

David Livingstone

seacoast. The faithful natives of inner
Africa waited for the return of their master
near the banks of the Zambezi, close to the
sea. Livingstone went home, received due
honor for what he had done, and returned
to Africa. He took up his march back, and
made journeys, and finally died in Ilala, at
the southern end of Lake Bangweolo. But
if you look at the illustration of his route
you will see that it is the rude figure of the
cross. And now you may be able to draw
the moral point I have to tell you. You
have asked me what have been the causes
of missionaries being imperiled. Wherever
that good man went he was received. A
few rejected him, but the majority listened
to him calmly and kindly, and some of them
felt quite ready to be of his profession and
of his belief. But- the words that he
dropped were similar to those of the angels
heard over Bethlehem, ' Peace on earth,
good will to men.' On the other hand, in
northern Africa it was an attempt to in-
vade by violence, and it failed, and there
v/as not one that had the courage to step
out of the ranks and press on. They re-
turned. But this lone missionary pressed
on and on until he had drawn the rude

63

The Picket Line of Missions

figure of a cross on the southern continent of
Africa, and then he said with his dying
words : ' All I can add in my loneliness is,
May Heaven's rich blessing come down on
everyone — American, English, Turk — who
will help to heal this open sore of the
world.' And the 'cross turns not back.'
The open sore will be healed. Africa will
be redeemed."

64

n

aieyanber fl>* flDacha?, tbe Ibero
of 'Ulflanba

BY

J. T. Gracey, D.D

Alexander M. Mackay

II
Alexander M, Mackay/ the Hero of Uganda

A STUDENT of the operations of divine
Providence is frequently surprised with the
marvelous connections established between
men and events widely separated from each
other by place and time. A striking illus-
tration of this, or rather, many such, are
found in the modern history of missions on
the continent of Africa, the grouping of
which requires a bold hand.

A little African lad is stolen by slavers
from his home in West Africa, allotted to a
chief, swapped for a horse, sold again in
the slave market, and again to Portuguese
slavers, shipped for foreign parts, captured
and released by a British man-of-war, sent
to school at Sierra Leone, educated for the
ministry, becomes Bishop of the Niger
and Archdeacon of the English Church.
He was a lad of a dozen years on the deck
of the man-of-war which captured the
slaver. There was on this vessel a young

*Mackay is pronounced Mac-kay', the emphasis being on
the last syllable.

6Y

The Picket Line of Missions

officer, whose son, George Shergold Smith,
furnishes a link in this story which will be
mentioned later on.

The noble life of Adjai, the slave boy
baptized as Samuel Crowther, who became
Bishop of the Niger, was devoted to mis-
sionary work on the west coast of Africa
and up the valley of the Niger ; while far
away on the east coast of the continent, dis-
tant as far as San Francisco from Ireland,
in Abyssinia, another young missionary,
John Ludwig Krapf , entered upon his work
almost simultaneously with Samuel Crow-
ther on the west coast, who had as im-
portant a providential work to perform in
the redemption of Africa as any man whose
biography has been given to the world.
He was a great linguist, a great explorer,
who endured exposure, suffering, and sick-
ness, was abandoned by his servants in an
enemy's country, came well-nigh dying of
famine, buried his wife and child among
wild tribes, nevertheless prosecuted his
mission from the northeast coast into the
Galla country, and dying, bequeathed ' * to
every missionary coming to East Africa "
the "idea of a chain of missions" across
the entire ''Dark Continent." " Every-

68

Alexander M. Mackay

one," he wrote, '' who is a real patriot will
open this bequest and take his portion out
of it as a fellow-partaker of the tribulation,
of the patience, and of the kingdom of our
God."

Krapf did not quail at the cost. He said,
"The first resident of the new mission ground
is a dead person of the missionary circle ;
our God bids us first build a cemetery before
we build a church or dwelling house, show-
ing us by this lesson that the resurrection
of East Africa must be effected by our own
destruction." When three mechanics died
he wrote: '''That is fine business,' you
will say, ' the heavy part of the army is
beaten, and the light division completely
unnerved, and yet you will conquer Africa,
will draw a cham of missions between the
east and the west."

But Crowther at the west and Krapf at
the east welded the first links of that chain
which in the succeeding half-century were
destined to be joined to others till the whole
is now in sight of being constructed.

Krapf's explorations conduced to the
greater acquaintance with the interior of
northern Africa. But they did far more.
The discovery of snow-capped mountains,

69

The Picket Line of Missions

where the maps had shown only sandy des-
ert, excited European geographers, but they
did not half so much arouse Europe as did
his hints gathered from natives from time
to time about the existence of a great lake
which they declared could not be traversed
from end to end in a hundred days. This
information stirred the mind of western
Europe. It resulted in the expedition of
Burton and Speke to discover the sources
of the Nile, and the ultimate revealing of
the great chain of lakes so familiar to us
now, of East Central Africa, one of which —
Nyassa — was reached also by Livingstone
from the south. In 1861 Speke and Grant
explored the Nyanza, naming it Victoria
Lake, and showed the Nile flowing out of
it northward. It is a great inland sea,
3,300 feet above sea-level, covering a terri-
tory *' larger than that of Scotland." Stan-
ley came a little later to find the hut where
Livingstone had died on his knees, to turn
Mtesa, King of Uganda, from Mohammed-
anism to Christianity, and to appeal to
Christendom to send missionaries into his
kingdom; and then, still later, to discover
the Congo and reveal a water highway
' ' from salt sea to salt sea." All this power-

10

Alexander M. Mackay

fully stirred the Christians of western Eu-
rope, and a vigorous missionary policy for
the lake region of East Central Africa was
inaugurated.

We return for a moment to the west coast
to show another ''link" in the providential
development of this transcontinental chain
of missions. We have alluded to the young
officer on the man-of-war which rescued the
slave boy who became a bishop in the great
Church of England. When the Church of
England determined on attempting the
great lake missions of East Central Africa,
and looked about for a competent person to
organize and conduct their expedition, in
whom should they find their agent but in a
son of the young officer of the British man-
of-war which set the little slave lad free on
the west coast? This was none other than
Lieutenant George Shergold Smith, a name
sacred forever in missionary history. He
had gained experience in campaigning in
Africa in the Ashantee war ; later became a
student of theology in England, and in de-
claring his love for the African said to the
Society, ' ' Send me to Africa. I am willing
to take the lowest place." This son of the

Royal Navy officer, now a young captain
11

The Picket Line of Missions

and theological student, was immediately
joined by another, the son of a Free Church
of Scotland minister — Alexander M. Mackay
— whose story it is proposed now briefly to
sketch.

'' Mackay of Uganda," as he is familiarly
spoken of, was never in ''Orders" as a
minister of the Gospel, but his illustrious ex-
ample as a layman furnishes inspiration to a
far more numerous company than that of
the ministry, and will impel others who have
never felt called of the Holy Ghost to take
upon them the vows of the sacred office to
join the great band of clerical workers.
There are indications that the body of the
Church — laymen — are to find vast opportu-
nity in the missionary fields of the world,
along not only professional lines as physi-
cians and educators, but also along well-
nigh all the vocations as mechanics and
tradesmen, as engineers, inventors, and
'' pathfinders," in the introduction of Chris-
tian civilization as a handmaid to the Gospel
minister. The career of Mackay of Uganda
should be carefully considered by all ad-
ministrators of missionary schemes, for the
light it will shed on the great questions con-
nected with the employment of lay mission-

72

Alexander M. Mackay

aries, in all countries — eminently in Africa.
But Mackay's character and career will re-
pay close examination by the entire body of
the laity of the Christian Churches, specially
by young men, as affording them help in
character-building. The heroic element is
so prominent, the experiences so thrilling at
times, and the noble balance of all manly
qualities so remarkable, that, in fact, there
is no class of readers who will not be in-
structed and interested by the life story of
this man, who, when gauged by his mighty
achievements, " was not too young to die."
Alexander M. Mackay was born in the
village of Rhynie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland,
October 13, 1849. His father. Rev. Alex-
ander Mackay, LL.D., was a fine specimen
of the " plain living, high thinking " north-
ern Scotch; the manse was the resort of
other ''high thinkers," brainy and brawny
men, and his sister, in the Preface to the
biography of her brother, says of the father,
his * ' painstaking interest in the training
and early education of his children laid the
foundation of the noble self-sacrificing life "
of this pioneer missionary of the Church
Missionary Society of Uganda. At three
years of age we find the subject of our sketch

V3

The Picket Line of Missions

reading the New Testament ; at seven, Par-
adise Lost, Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire, and kindred literature, and
for four years thereafter he was a great de-
vourer of books. His father taught him
geography, astronomy, and geometry. From
the age of eleven till he was thirteen his in-
terest was diverted from books to engines,
blacksmithing, and the trades; at thirteen
his interest in book study revived, and he
made progress in mathematics, but was at
odd bits of time interested in photography,
shipbuilding, and the like. His mother
died when he was sixteen, charging him to
search the Scriptures. At eighteen he en-
tered a teacher's training college, and after-
ward studied applied mechanics, engineer-
ing, higher mathematics, physics, and, one
year, surveying and fortification. He was
twenty-four years old when he went to Ger-
many, where he became the draughtsman
of a large engineering establishment at Ber-
lin. He was intent on spreading a knowl-
edge of evangelical truth among the Ger-
man people while prosecuting his studies
and occupied with his emxployment. In 1875,
when twenty-six years of age, he offered
himself for service in missionary work in

V4

Alexander M. Mackay

Mombasa, but the place was already filled.
He again offered himself for service in Af-
rica, when Stanley's call for men for Uganda
reached him in Germany. The Church of
England Missionary Society accepted him
gladly, the next candidate after Lieutenant
Smith, and the party left England April 25,
1876, for Lake N3^assa.

There could be no question as to the
motive which inspired him in tendering his
services to the Missionary Society. Zinzen-
dorf cried out, '' I have but one passion; it
is He, He alone." " God first put into my
heart a compassion for the poor souls of
these Indians," says the devoted Eliot. '' I
remembered a time, out in the woods back
of the Andover Seminary," wrote Judson,
' ' when I was almost disheartened. Every-
thing looked dark. No one had gone out
from this country. The way was not open.
The field was far distant and in an un-
healthy climate. I knew not what to do.
All at once that ' last command ' seemed to
come to my heart directly from heaven. I
could doubt no longer, but determined on
the spot to obey it at all hazards for the
sake of pleasing the Lord Jesus Christ."

Thus has it been with all great mission-

75

The Picket Line of Missions

ary souls. Thus was it with the young
engineer Mackay. He was pushing the
acquisition of his knowledge in this secular
line, but his whole soul "burned for the
deliverance of Africa."

The heroic element dominated him from
the start. "Though a thousand fall, let
not Africa be given up," said the devoted
Melville B. Cox, when, as the first Ameri-
can Methodist missionary to any foreign
country, he was starting for Africa. And
thus Mackay's words on the threshold of
his departure for Uganda rank among the
great utterances of the world's greatest
souls. The farewell interview of the repre-
sentatives of the Missionary Society under
whose auspices he and seven others were
about departing as notable missionary
' ' pathfinders " was about concluded. They
had listened to tender words of encourage-
ment and received their final instructions,
delivered by Rev. Henry Wright, the hon-
orary secretary. Each in turn made re-
sponse. Mackay came last because he was
the youngest of the invincible band. His
words are worthy to be written in gold.
" There is one thing," he said, "which my
brethren have not said, and which I want

16

Alexander M. Mackay

to say. I want to remind the committee
that within six months they will probably
hear that one of us is dead." The words
startled everyone present, and there was
profound silence. '' Yes," he resumed, *' is
it at all likely that eight Eng-lishmen should
start for Central Africa and all be alive six
months after? One of us at least — it may
be I — will surely fall before that. But
what I want to say is this," and the solem-
nity deepened as he concluded, ' ' when the
news comes do not be cast down, but send
some one else immediately to take the va-
cant place." The soldiers in the great
charge of Balaklava who rode into the
"jaws of death," with "cannon to right
of them, cannon to left of them, cannon
in front of them," were brave and dis-
ciplined, and the "rush" was under the
immediate passion of the moment, but
Mackay was not in the " fray; " there was
no great audience ; it was in a quiet mis-
sionary committee room in Salisbury Square,
London, that he uttered these cool words
of noblest courage and consecration.

Of the eight who started on that mission
from the qiiiet little mission room in Lon-
don only three ever reached their destina-
G 77

The Picket Line of Missions

tion on the shores of Lake Nyassa. James
Robertson, a skilled artisan, died of fever
shortly after his arrival on the coast of
Africa, before the last of the party started
inward. It was again true, as in Krapf's
case, " the first resident" was a dead per-
son of the missionary circle. The medical
member of the expedition, Dr. John Smith,
soon after succumbed to sickness, and the
leader of the expedition. Lieutenant George
Shergold Smith, son of the Royal Navy of-
ficer who witnessed Samuel Crowther's re-
lease, was murdered, and with him Mr. T.
O'Neil, second in command of the little
craft Daisy, scarcely more than launched on
the west side of Lake Nyassa. W. M. Rob-
ertson and G. J. Clark returned to England
— only two of the original eight were left,
Rev. C. T. Wilson on the shore of the lake,
and Mackay hundreds of miles away, not
yet having reached the field.

THE ROAD-BUILDER

Little idea can be had of an African jun-
gle even where forest trees are neither large
nor numerous. The thicket of vines and
underwood is such that Mackay, speaking
of the road from the coast to the interior,

78

Alexander M. Mackay

said he could not ''pull a donkey througli
it." He undertook to construct a rough
road for bullock-wagons with only native
laborers ignorant of such work. He equipped
forty men with American hatchets, English
axes, Snider sword-bayonets, picks, spades,
and saws, cocoanut-ropes, a small grind-
stone, and a donkey load of nails, and for
fifty miles cut this road through dense
jungle, w^here even when a tree was " cut
down " it would not fall over by reason of
the thick creepers clustering in festoons
from one tree to another. Over one great
ravine he built a bridge hard as iron, to the
astonishment of the inhabitants who gath-
ered about their fires in the evening to talk
about the ''big road," which was finished
in about a hundred days. Mackay walked
backward and forward the two hundred and
fifty miles which he constructed, a half-
dozen times over. This was done with such
food as could be got, and sleeping, as he
says, in a cowbyre, a sheepcote, a straw
hut not larger than a dog kennel, a hen-
house, and often no house at all, caring
little which, so he could get tolerably clear
of ants and mosquitoes ; the black ants he
declared w^orse than any pestilence of the

19

The Picket Line of Missions

plagues of Egypt. His English food was ex-
hausted because thieves took a fancy to it,
and he subsisted on thick porridge, which
tasted like sawdust and ashes. He believed
this native food might be good enough for
Europeans if only the natives were not too
greedy to cook it properly, or cleanly enough
to keep the sand out of the meal when
grinding it. He had through all these months
been exposed to the jealousy of native tribes,
who looked upon his " big road " as only a
highway for Europeans who hated the slave
trade. Enormous stretches of the country
through which he passed were mercilessly
devastated by Arab slave-hunters, great car-
avans of whom were carrying tons of ivory
to the coast, each with ' ' a string of living
little ones trotting on with necks linked to-
gether to be disposed of to the highest bid-
der at the coast."

A good deal of the detail of this road-
building experience has one way and another
been preserved to us, though, like most such
explorers, Mackay far preferred making his-
tory or civilization to writing about it.
Speke was used to say he would rather walk
across Africa again than write an account of
his first journey, and Mackay declared he

80

Alexander M. Mackay

would rather brave a hundred days in this
unsettled country than set his mind to report
the events of a single day.

It must be borne in mind that Mackay 's
party had set sail from Teignmouth harbor,
March ii, 1876, in the Highland Lassie, an
eighty-ton sailing yacht. But Mackay did
not sight the Victoria Nyanza till June 12,
1878, having, as we have seen, been taken
ill on the journey to the coast, and sent back,
and, after recovering, set at building two
hundred and thirty miles of road from the
coast inland to Mpwapwa, which occupied
him more than two years, though his chief
work was to have been to take out the small
steamboat, the Daisy, and set it up on the
great Victoria Nyanza. Others did this be-
fore Mackay arrived ; six of the members
of the mission perished ; and v/hen at length
he reached the inland sea he found the
little craft sadly out of repair.

With his first glance at the lake, just be-
fore reaching Kager, he shouted ' ' Tha-
lassa ! Thalassa ! " We will let him tell his
own story of what he found on his arrival ;
the freed slaves and runaway slaves of Zan-
zibar, having been left in charge after Lieu-
tenant vSmith was murdered, had helped

81

The Picket Line of Missions

themselves to what they valued, and the
rest was sadly spoiled. Mackay wrote :

" In a huge hut, lent us by Kaduma, the
chief of the place, I found all that was left
of the valuable property of the expedition,
except such articles as have already been
taken to Uganda. Piled in heaps promiscu-
ously lay boiler shells and books, cowrie -
shells and candle-molds, papers and piston
rods, steam pipes and stationery, printers'
types and tent poles, carbolic acid, cartridges
and chloroform, saws and garden seeds,
traveling trunks and toys, tins of bacon and
bags of clothes, pumps and plows, portable
forges and boiler fittings, here a cylinder,
there its sole plate, here a crankshaft,
there an eccentric. Despair might well be
found written on my features as I sat down
after two years' march to rest and look
round on the terrible arrangement."

He found the Daisy without a sound plank
in her ; the rays of the sun had split them,
the teeth of the hippopotamus had pierced
them, and the white ants had honeycombed
them. All the parts were, however, here,
after having been separated into manloads
of seventy pounds, and carried seven hun-
dred miles overland.

82

Alexander M. Mackay

Day after day the natives stood round in
wonder while Mackay patched the planks and
calked the cracks, sprawled on the ground,
with hammer and chisel, copper plates, zinc
sheets, cottonwood, nails, screws, bars of
iron, brass rods and bolts, the use for which
no native could guess, beneath the vessel,
which gradually grew before the admiring
natives, who, like all Africans of Central
Africa, knew of no better way to fasten two
pieces of wood together than lashing.

THE COUNTRY OF UGANDA — POLITICAL, SO-
CIAL

We have said nothing of the country or
people of Uganda to whom Mackay and his
companions were designated as missionaries,
the first from any civilized country. It will
be well to keep in mind the root-word Ganda,
to which prefixes are attached. U or Bu be-
fore it makes it the country of Ganda ; as
Uganda, Buganda. If the prefix be Wa or
Ba it indicates the people of the country,
Waganda or Baganda ; if the prefix used is
Ki, Lu, or Ru, it means the language of
Ganda.

Uganda, or Buganda, covers, with its de-
pendencies, some seventy thousand square

83

The Picket Line of Missions

miles bordering on the northeast coast of
Lake Nyanza, or Victoria Lake, the second
largest lake in the world — second only to
Lake Superior. Uganda contains the rich-
est and most fertile part of the section of
the great lakes of eastern equatorial Africa.
The people (Waganda or Baganda) are sup-
posed to belong to the great Bantu family,
and number about five million souls. The
Swahili language, which dominates the east-
ern coast and is extensively used over large
parts of central and southern Africa, is
spoken fluently in the capital of Uganda
and generally in the market towns.

The government of Uganda is a moder-
ately limited monarchy, the king being su-
preme and absolute master of the land,
though in state affairs his power is measur-
ably controlled by three hereditary vassals,
called " wakungu;" the Governor of Udi, a
sort of " mayor of the palace," being also a
member of the council, and, in the king's
absence, takes his place. He is nominated
by the king. The governing body is com-
posed of these four persons, together with
other grand persons, feudatory lords of the
district and palace dignitaries, which to-
gether constitute a privy council, or a sort

84

Alexander M. Mackay

of cabinet. The three ''wakungu" select
the successor of a king, on his death, from
among his children.

Polygamy prevails, and there are more
women than men, as in war the Waganda
kill the males and make captives of the fe-
males. The women perform all the labor,
the strength of the men being reserved for
war. A young man only works till he can,
by purchase or by war, get wives enough to
perform the labor in his stead. They treat
their slaves with gentleness and the stran-
ger with kindness, but have small regard
for human life. When Speke first entered
their country he found them well clad, and
they have made much progress since that
time.

In matters of religion they are in strong
contrast with natives of the west coast.
They agree in recognizing one God; but
these of East Central Africa have no idols or
fetiches, while their Supreme Being, who
made the world and mankind, is esteemed
to be too exalted to pay any attention to
human interests. Their worship is chiefly
confined to inferior deities, good and bad
demons supposed to inhabit special locali-
ties, known by the general name of hibari

85

The Picket Line of Missions

(spirits). The principal of these is a sort
of Neptune who inhabits the lake to control
its waters, and whose influence extends
more or less over the whole country; he
enters some human beings, through whom
he speaks as an oracle, and becomes the
source of disease, and controls the rain, war,
famine, or pestilence, and also foretells
events. When about to make a voyage the
Waganda seek to propitiate this spirit;
canoes are gathered together, the chief
holding a banana on the uplifted paddle of
his canoe over the water, praying at the
same time for a prosperous voyage ; or they
may pray to other spirits supposed to abide
in hills for protection for their cattle, each
being known by his specific name. There
are also river spirits, and former kings be-
come demigods. They are specially super-
stitious and constantly use charms of pieces
of wood, horns, or rubbish for protection
against evil. Medicine men have peculiar
power with them as regular doctors as well
as in the role of fortune-tellers. Foreign
religions have made but little impression
upon them. Moslems, after sixty years
among them as traders, made no converts.
Mtesa would never submit to circumcision,

80

Alexander M. Mackay

and though at times he favored Moham-
medanism, the Arabs never claimed him as
a convert. Mr. Wilson, missionary, how-
ever, thought on his first acquaintance with
the people that the lower classes could be
drawn to Christianity.

THE MISSIONARY MECHANIC

Mtesa, King of Uganda, had received
Wilson, the only other survivor besides
Mackay, at his court, and erected for him a
tiger-grass hut a mile from the palace. He
was fairly friendly, and allowed religious
services to be held regularly on Sunday
mornings when the king hoisted his " flag,"
a * ' nondescript thing consisting of pieces
of red, blue, and white calico sewn to-
gether." Passages of Scripture were read
in Kiswahili, the king translating into Lu-
ganda, even at times exhorting the people
to become Christians, though he never did
so himself. For three months Wilson lived
in Uganda alone. He returned to the south
end of the lake, where he met Mackay, ar-
rived from the coast.

Wilson and Mackay started for Uganda,
arriving, after being wrecked in the Batsf
on the way, February 14, 1879. Mackay

87

The Picket Line of Missions

soon had two workshops of wickerwork
plastered with clay, and built a carriage for
the king to be drawn by bullocks. He was
always finding time, if only late at night, to
teach the natives letters. He was occu-
pied, too, in trench-making, translating,
making a vocabulary, learning the lan-
guage, washing, ironing, brick-making and
candle-making, planting, printing, and a
host of things besides. More than fifty
men and boys came to him daily for in-
struction. His house and his workshop
were filled with visitors admiring his versa-
tility of genius and the results of it. The
king even asked for baptism, but on condi-
tions which could not be complied with.
Mackay's teaching was by what he called
the '' look-and-say " method, for which he
prepared large fly-sheets in the Uganda
language. He carved wooden types for
making reading sheets, giving away and
teaching alphabets from the types as he
finished cutting them. Many a day he
worked hard at vice and lathe to get plan-
tains, which was the substitute for bread ;
but pupils were at his side while he worked
at the bench, even chiefs shouting out their
sheets side by side with their slaves. He

Alexander M. Mackay

even had a limited font of lead types, cast
by himself, before one year had passed at
Uganda

OPPOSITION

The Arabs had no fondness for the mis-
sionaries, because they antagonized not only
Mohammedanism, but the slave trade, of
which they were the principal agents.
Mohammedanism has been spread all
through this country by firearms. A vil-
lage was selected by the slave hunters, sur-
rounded at night, the able-bodied men
slaughtered or captured, and the whole
secured for transportation to the coast at
Zanzibar for the slave market. They were
frequently, however, offered the alternative
of turning Mohammedans, in which cavSe
those able for war were made to join the
raid on other villages. All those captured
were taken, not out of the country, but traded
for elephants' tusks, ivory being as great an
object with the Arabs as slaves. These Mos-
lems had extended their influence greatly
through Uganda, and Mtesa, the king, was
turned from allegiance to that faith by Mr.
Stanley, who translated some portions of the
Scriptures for his use, and induced him to
appeal to England for teachers of Christianity.

89

The Picket Line of Missions

The old heathen element, however,
stoutly held its influence, and there came a
great revival for /udari worship ^ which burst
suddenly one day on the king and the mis-
sionaries. They sought to compel the king
to forbid Mackay teaching his religion, and
to reinstate the lubari at court. Mackay
wrote: '' For several months I have found
the word lubari more or less in every one's
mouth. Many spoke the name with awe,
while others refused to say anything, good
or bad, of such a being." He then learned
that the lubari was a spirit personified in an
old woman living on the lake. Traders
were unable to cross the lake just now be-
cause the lubari was about to visit this sec-
tion of the coast of the lake. This lubari
(woman) was coming to the capital to cure
the king of his sicknesses. This goddess was
known by the name of Mukasa, and Mac-
kay so actively antagonized the lubari that
he gained the title ''Anti- Mukasa." Added
to all else the Jesuits reached Uganda and
were doing all in their power to proselyte
the Christians and gain control of the king.
Thus the complications thickened.

Poor Mtesa was vacillating, now asking
for baptism, now refusing to hoist the flag

90

Alexander M. Mackay

over the chapel for Sunday service, and
again ordering the return of the old Moslem
worship and theory *' Allah Akbar." He
was Christian, Moslem, or worshiper of
the liibari^ all in turn, or neither of them,
as the whim or the passion of the hour pre-
vailed. But he had unlimited power of life
and death, was weakened by inherited
superstitious fears, and everyone, without
exception, in his realm knew that at
Mtesa's order his head might come off any
hour, with or without cause, be he noble,
chief, or peasant.

Human sacrifices were performed on a
large scale at Mtesa's court. His diviners
recommend these at times as a remedy for
the king's disease, and the executioners are
ordered out to collect victims.

FIGHTING SUPERSTITION

Mackay or any other missionary was no
less subject to the whim of this spoiled,
flattered, vacillating tyrant than was any
other person in his realm. Hence it may
be seen that it required coolness, courage,
and infinite tact to make any headway with
him without losing one's own head. That
was a contingency never absent, and Mac-

91

The Picket Line of Missions

kay was never free from peril from the mon-
arch nor from the superstitious people.

*' I sit before you," said Mackay to the
king one day, '* your servant and the serv-
ant of Almighty God, and in his name I
beg of you have no dealings with this
lubari, whether a chief tries to persuade you
to do so or a common man advises you."
** If this Mukasa is a liibari then he is a
god," he continued, when arguing at court,
*'and thus there are two gods in Uganda
— the Lord God Almighty and Mukasa;
but if Mukasa is only a man, as many say
he is, then there are two kings in Uganda
— Mtesa, whom we all acknowledge and
honor, and this Mukasa, who gives himself
out as some great one."

The adroitness with which Mackay kept
up the religious discussion with the king,
the court, the Moslems, and the defenders of
the liibari can only be appreciated when
followed day by day with all the turns of
the debate and the complexity of events.

When at last the king declared they would
all leave the Christians and Moslems and go
back to the religion of their fathers, Mackay
reminded him that he was in Uganda be-
cause the king had requested Stanley to ask

92

Alexander M. Mackay

for white men to teach his people. The
king parried this by saying he wanted them
to teach his people how to make powder
and guns. Mackay said he had never re-
fused to work for the king, and there was not
a chief present for whom he had not done
work, and like Paul, showing his chains, he
exhibited his hands black with working in
iron every day. But as to merely working
for them, he came to Uganda for no such
purpose, and he would return to England if
that was all they wanted of him.

But, strange to say, that was the last thing
either chiefs or king would consent to, so
far as Mackay was concerned. Other mis-
sionaries might leave, be put out of the
country, or be put to death in it, but
Mackay was their wizard at work, all the
while rendering himself so necessary to
them as artisan, inventor, road-builder, boat-
builder, house-builder, engineer, printer,
doctor, or what not ; and though always as
shrewd a theologian as he was anything
else, he was not to be dispensed with.
Thus it occurred that the lay missionary
was in favor, had influence and permanence
of position, which the mere teacher and
preacher had not.

7 93

The Picket Line of Missions

It was not merely to the king and his
court that Mackay was a missionary, nor was
he confined to his industries as a teacher.
One day he bought a powerful charm
to give the crowd a lesson in the worthless -
ness of idols. Some said, in answer to his
questions, that the Inbari or spirit was in the
charm. ''Will it burn?" asked Mackay.
" O no, the lubari will not burn." '' Is not
this charm mine? Did I not buy it?"
said Mackay." "Yes, yes, it is yours."
** Then may I not do with it what I like? "
**0 yes." ''Very good," said the mis-
sionary. Then taking out his pocket lens
he made fire with the sun's rays, gathered
a bundle of wood, and soon had a brilliant
blaze. " Can your witches make fire out of
the sun as I have done? " he asked. " No,
no." " Then you see I am clevererthan these
gods whom you worship?" "Yes, you
make magic," they said. " Well, you say
there is magic in this charm which I have
bought?" "Yes." "Well, let us see;"
and he threw the charm into the fire, and it
was vSoon ashes. "You are a god," some
said ; others, " You are a devil ;" but, being
neither the one nor the other, he was ever
on the alert to instruct the people in the

94

Alexander M. Mackay

truth, a veritable powerful missionary to
the common people.

We have no space to interweave a history
of the Uganda Mission, not even an account
of the reinforcements from time to time
arriving from England and their part of the
work, especially the church organization
which fell to them as clergymen. But
Mackay had been training native Baganda,
and many whom he brought to Christ
afterward suffered martyrdom. The other
missionaries were greatly indebted to
the foundation work of Mackay. Mr.
O' Flaherty, one of the missionaries, wrote:
*'We have a text-book of theology, the
Lord's Prayer, the Creed, the Decalogue,
texts of vScripture so arranged that they
teach the plan of salvation, the duties of a
subject to his sovereign, and sovereign to
subject, and all to Christ." These had
been printed by Mackay — three hundred
copies, besides an equal number of alpha-
betical spelling sheets in Luganda, * ' no
small work on a toy press," as Mr. O'Fla-
herty said. These two years, 1882 and
1883, were altogether a time of encourage-
ment. The Rev. R. P. Ashe, whose name

is linked with the after history of the Mis-
95

The Picket Line of Missions

sion, arrived in Uganda in April, 1883. A
few converts had been baptized. Four
lads were baptized March 18, 1882, and
Sembera, a slave of one of the chiefs, who
had received instruction under Wilson and
Mackay, had learned to write without ever
having" a lesson in writing, wrote his appli-
cation for baptism to Mr. Mackay in
Luganda with a painted piece of speargrass
and some ink of ''dubious manufacture,"
received baptism, taking the name of
Mackay.

A NEW KING ''THE GREAT TRIBULATION "

In October, 1884, Mtesa died, and died
a heathen. His son, Mwanga, a weaker and
far wickeder man than the father, came to
the throne. From various causes he soon
began a persecution against the Christians.
The Arabs reported that the missionaries
were harboring malefactors, and orders
were given to arrest all Baganda found on
their premi.ses. Mr. Mackay a^sked leave of
the king to crOvSS the lake. An army was
raised intended to entrap and kill him the
next morning. Some of the native Chris-
tians were arrested, taken to the borders of
a dismal swamp, a rough scaffold was erected

96

Alexander M. Mackay

and heaped with firewood. The crowd
mocked their poor victims. The chief said,
'* O, you know Isa Masiya (Jesus Christ),
you believe in the resurrection. Well, I
shall burn you, and see if it be so." The
lads behaved bravely, and one report says
they sang in Luganda, ''Daily, daily, sing
the praises." They were tortured before
death, their arms being cut off and flung
upon the burning scaffold. The youngest
pleaded that they would do him the one
favor of throwing him unmaimed upon the
flames, but they would not heed his request.

That night Mackay wrote in his diary,
*' Our hearts are breaking." The death of
the young martyrs was only the beginning
of persecution that acquired the title of
" the great tribulation."

Bishop Hannington and all his party, re-
cently arrived in Africa from England,
were all murdered at the king's command
as they approached Uganda by the north-
eavSt end of the lake, that being called " the
back door of Uganda," and everyone was
forbidden to approach the country by that
route — a fact unknown to the bishop. This
w^as owing to political jealousies which can-
not be here narrated. Mackay wrote Octo-

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The Picket Line of Missions

ber 20, ' ' After dark Ismail came to tell ns
that messengers had returned from Busoga
with the tidings that the white men had
been killed and all their porters. O night
of sorrow! What an unheard-of deed of
blood!''

The year 1885 ended in great sorrow to
the missionaries. What was there to pre-
vent Mwanga from taking their lives when
he had not stuck at murdering their chief ?
The king complained that the missionaries
knew all his secrets from his own pages —
Christian lads — who with wonderful devo-
tion and courage continued to visit the
mission houses to apprise the missionaries,
from time to time, of their peril. Roman
Catholics and Protestants were alike in
jeopardy, and all became far more so after
Hannington's murder, as Mwanga feared
vengeance on the part of Great Britain. The
missionaries knew they were more and
more in peril, and Mackay tried to get the
boats (twelve miles distant) in order, to
facilitate their flight when necessary and if
possible.

June 28, 1886, Mackay, writing to his
father, said, ''Only a month ago a violent
persecution against Christians broke out,

98

Alexander M. Mackay

and they have been murdered right and
left. * The Christians are disobedient and
learn rebellion from the white man. I shall
kill them all,' said the king. He ordered
their arrest, and a dozen were hacked to
pieces the first day and their members left ly-
ing in all directions on the road. Bands were
sent out in all directions to catch and kill."

ALONE

The king gave out that the missionaries
would not be allowed to leave the country,
but would be held as hostages, as he feared
the English would be upon him for the
murder of Hannington. August 28, 1886,
Mackay wrote to his father: " Recently
Ashe and I have been trying to get per-
mission to leave. This was refused. Next
we tried to get leave for one of us to go.
The king has again and again absolutely
refused permission for me to leave the
country, but he has allowed Ashe to go. . . .
I must be content to remain alone, yet not
alone. I can ever be of service to the
scattered remnant of the infant Church ; and
our God will prepare the way for better
things to come."

Mackay was now left alone, the sole sur-
99

The Picket Line of Missions

vivor once more of all the mission force, for
eleven months, in Uganda. His position
was extremely uncomfortable and disquiet-
ing, being constantly suspected by the
chiefs and king of having some secret
understanding with the government of Eng-
land to obtain possession of the country.
Not only was he restricted in his move-
ments, but again and again plots were laid
to destroy him, though he made no attempt
to escape, but continued busy, now making
an enormous flagvStaff for the king, now
translating Scriptures, now freely using the
printing press, and now seeking to bring
Mwanga to his plans for free communica-
tion with Emin Bey. He wrote to his
friends in England that he had not the
slightest desire to escape if he could do a
particle of good by staying. The Eleanor
was in port twelve miles away, and he might
possibly make a dash for it, but he did not
feel himself warranted in doing so at this
time. Meanwhile he was endeavoring
amid the multiplicity of his industries to
complete the translation of the gospel of
Matthew, which he did, rewriting the whole
to the end, having it in type as far as the
twenty-third chapter. In case of sudden

100

Alexander M. Mackay

expulsion the manuscript, he thought, might
be saved and the mere printing done some-
where else. Books and papers continued to
be purchased, and it was difficult to keep his
stock well up. His sheets of the Litany
were exhausted, and he had but a few copies
of the hymns on hand.

Although the rest of the missionaries had
been permitted to leave Uganda, and the
king refused to let Mackay go under the
pretension of his great affection for him, yet
his enemies, the Arabs, never intermitted
their purpose either to kill or to get rid of
him. He had, from the first, been the op-
poser of their wicked deeds, and they could
recognize that he had the ear of the king.
They endeavored to arouse the king's distrust
and anger against him by representing his
object as a political one. After much dis-
puting and questioning the king at last de-
cided that Mackay should leave the country
on condition of sending another missionary
to take his place. This spoiled the plans of
the Arabs, who had it in their thought to
plunder the station after Mackay had gone.
The last plan of Mackay's arch-enemy was
to get himself appointed as a messenger to
take him across the lake, which plan, how-

101

The Picket Line of Missions

ever, Mackay was able to avert. On July
2 1, 1887, Mackay locked up the mission
premises, " left the keys with the French
priests, and worn with, worry, work, and
farewells, started for the port, where he
had to patch and repair the Elemior before
starting on his voyage to the south end of
the lake," where he arrived on August i.

"■ We do not want to see Mackay's boat
again in these waters," were the words of
the Mohammedans as they drove out the
missionaries in October, 1888, and never
again was it to touch the shores of Uganda.
The vessel had done its work and was worn
out. '' The man who had put her together
and completed another boat to replace her,"
says Miss vStork in the Story of Uganda,
* * the man whom all Uganda knew and re-
spected, whom heathen and Mohammedan
feared, the man whom they looked upon as
inseparably connected with the cause of
Christ in these regions, was never again to
revisit the land for which he had toiled and
prayed ; but the cause of Christ, his Master
and King, triumphed over all foes and all
obstacles, and before he closed his eyes on
earth he saw this, the greatest and most

tyrannical power in all East Africa, in the
102

Alexander M. Mackay

hands of men who rejoiced in the name of
Christian.'

REVOLUTION IN UGANDA

Leaving Mackay for the present, we wall
continue our glance at the immediately suc-
ceeding history of events in Uganda.
Mwanga's cruelties had disgusted the people.
He had a large bodyguard, consisting of
Mohammedans and Christians, and it was
ascertained that he had a plot to destroy
them all : the Mohammedans because they
would not eat the king's meat, and the
Christians because they would not work on
Sunday. His plan was to have them carried
to a small island in the lake and leave them
there to starve. Most of the young chiefs
of the country had forsaken the worship of
the Inbari (spirits), and were alarmed at
Mwanga's cruelties, as were the people at
large. In September this bodyguard, be-
coming aware of Mwanga's scheme for their
destruction, quietly rose up against him and
in a single day effected the most peaceful
and satisfactory of revolutions.

They immediately reorganized the gov-
ernment with Kiwewa, an older son of
Mtesa, as king, and making a Roman Catholic

103

The Picket Line of Missions

Christian chief judge, a Protestant Chris-
tian the next high officer, put Christians
and Moslems in all other important posts.
Religious liberty was proclaimed, and the
real feelings of the people of Uganda
toward the missionaries were manifested
by a rush, to them for instruction. The
Mohammedans, however, soon fell out with
the Christians, and after a brief struggle
overcame them, killing the Christian ad-
miral and some others, placing Moslems in
all offices, and summoning the missionaries
before them.

Mackay had been allowed to leave Uganda
on condition of sending some other mission-
ary in his place, probably with the purpose
of holding him as a hostage in case the Eng-
lish attempted to visit with vengeance the
murder of Bishop Hannington. Mr. Gordon
and Mr. Walker were sent to the Mission, but
on arriving at court were seized and impris-
oned in a miserable hut for seven days, the
Mission property being destroyed at the time
when they were summoned to court. The
upshot of the whole matter was that the mis-
sionaries were driven out of Uganda and
most of the native Christians fled the coun-
try, finding shelter imder the protection of a

104

Alexander M. Mackay

native prince in the adjoining country im-
mediately west of Uganda. How many of
them thus found refuge it is impossible to
say, but Mr. Stanley, in a letter written to
the Church Missionary Society presently
afterward from Ankoli, which was supposed
to be tributary to Uganda, but at the fall of
Mwanga became semi-independent, makes
the statement on their own authority that
they numbered between two and three thou-
sand. Mr. Stanley gives in this letter an
account of an interview with Samuel and
Zachariah, of the Protestant Mission of
Uganda, who told him the wonderful story
of the deposition of Mwanga and the growth
of the Christian Mission. Mr. Stanley says :
'' I would have liked nothing better than to
have had one of these two men in London
to have told it in their own Swahili, and to
have got some interpreter to interpret sen-
tence after sentence. It was most graphic,
most beautiful." He says: " Now I notice
that as soon as they left my presence they
went to their own little huts and took out
little books that they had in their pockets
in their clothes, and one day I called Samuel
to me and asked him, ' What book is that
you have? I did not know Uganda read

105

The Picket Line of Missions

books;' and that was the first time I knew
they had the gospel in Luganda. Then I
took greater interest, for I found that al-
most every one of the party had a small
pamphlet in Ltiganda — prayers and the gos-
pel of Matthew, and, I think, of Luke. I
remember very well seeing the word Ma-
thaio, or Matthew, on the top of the book on
its title-page. I noticed that after the con-
ference where the princes and leaders of
Ankoli ceded their country they retired to
their huts and threw themselves upon the
ground, and took out the books and began
to read them ; and they gathered together
and began to talk. And the question was
asked me by one of them, with a sort of dep-
recating smile, ' Are all white men Chris-
tians?' That was more than I could ven-
ture to say, though I hoped, of course,
they were. Then he put a point-blank
question to me and said, ' Are you a Chris-
tian ? ' Then I asked him, ' Do you consider
yourself 2i Christian? ' 'Of course I do,' he
replied. ' How long have you been a Chris-
tian? ' ' Well,' he said, ' I am one of Mac-
kay's pupils, and learned from him ; and this
book was given to me and to every one
of us. There are about twenty-five hun-

106

Alexander M. Mackay

dred of us, all belonging to Mackay's
Mission.' "

MACKAY AT THE SOUTH END OF THE LAKE.

It is not possible for us to follo^v the his-
tory of the Mission in Uganda in further de-
tail, as our object is to follow Mackay, who
had removed to the south end of the lake
and was occupied in the mission at Usam-
biro, in the territory of a friendly chief.
Bishop Parker arrived there just out from
England soon after, and a missionary con-
ference, composed of six brethren, was held
for days at the station. One of the mis-
sionaries, and also the bishop, were within
a fortnight suddenly smitten with fever and
died. The others removed to other mission
stations, except Mr. Ashe, who remained a
little while longer, and was obliged on ac-
count of ill health to return to England,
leaving Mackay once more alone. Mackay
carried on his retranslation of St. John's
gospel, and also occupied himself with gath-
ering the material in the forest for building
another steam launch. In a letter of April
23, 1888, he says: "Twice within a fort-
night Ashe and I have performed the sacred

duty of commending our dying brethren to
107

The Picket Line of Missions

the Saviour whom they served, and closing-
their eyes. On both occasions I read the
funeral service at the grave, in Swahili, a
score of African Christians from Freretown
standing around. It has indeed been a
heavy time of sorrow to us all, but more so
to the distant friends will the news bring
sudden grief. The conquest of Africa has
already cost many lives, but every one gone
is a step nearer victory. The end to be
gained is, however, worth the price paid.
The redemption of the world cost infinitely
more." On August 8, 1888, he wrote: *' I
have my hands full preparing to build our
new boat. I have to cut the timber some
twenty miles distant and have it carried
here. You will probably be disgusted at
hearing that I am busy just now in making
bricks to make a house in which to construct
the vessel. Within the last fortnight we
have made some ten thousand. That is
doubtless poor work to be occupied with in
a mission field, but it must be done, and
in even such humble occupation I hope the
good Lord will not withhold his blessing.
Mission boats, unfortunately, do not grotv
of themselves; they have to be built, every
inch of them, but trees have been growing

108

Alexander M. Mackay

for ages, of the Lord's planting, and as we
fell them I like to think that he ordained
them for this purpose."

Within less than a month he found him-
self with smallpox raging everywhere, and
the duty fell to him of vaccinating hosts of
people, old and young. Smallpox in some
Eastern countries, as in India, is not so
generally fatal as in other countries ; but in
Africa it is a dreadful scourge. Before the
year closed a number of the Christian peo-
ple of Uganda, who had succeeded in es-
caping from the country, found their way
to Mackay at Usambiro and were hoeing
ground and planting seeds. Mackay was
meanwhile engaged in translating and push-
ing the building of his steam launch for facili-
tating communication on the lake, on the
shores of which they hoped to have several

stations.

mackay's death

On January 2, 1890, Mackay wrote his
last message to English ChrivStians, in which
he appealed for reinforcements. He wrote
as follows : ' ' Mwanga says, ' I want a host
of English teachers to come and teach the
Gospel to my people.' I write, imploring
you to strengthen our Mission, not by two

8 " 109

The Picket Line of Missions

or three, but by twenty. Is this golden
opportunity to be neglected, or is it to be
lost forever? "

mackay's ascension

It was about a month after this that
Mackay himself received a call to ' ' come
up higher." His only fellow-laborer, Mr.
Deekes, was suffering from ill health and
about to return home, but on the morning
Mr. Deekes was to start Mackay was taken
ill with fever, was four days delirious, and
Februarys, 1890, at 11 P. M., he died, a
few months more than forty years old.

A coffin was made for him out of the
wood he had gathered for the boat, and the
village boys and the Christians from
Uganda sang in the Luganda language at
his grave on the following Sunday after-
noon, *' All hail the power of Jesus' name."

Colonel Grant, who, with Speke, discov-
ered this lake, wrote: "I had the utmost
confidence in him and looked forward to
the time when he would sail around the
lake in his own steamer, and when we should
have him among us to tell all he knew of
that deeply interesting country which I

almost love — Ufifanda. The blow to civili-
no

Alexander M. Mackay

zatioii in Central Africa which has fallen on
us is not easily repaired, for a score of lis
would never make a Mackay." A great
burst of lament and of admiration swept
over the Christian world as it learned of the
death of Mackay. The Church of England
missionary authorities confessed frankly
that, as much as they had admired him, they
had not at all realized the position he had
gained in the public mind, and declared
that they were not in the least prepared
for the burst of admiration elicited by the
tidings of his death. The London Times
correspondent at Zanzibar wrote of the "ir-
reparable loss to the cause of African civi-
lization" involved in his death. The Pall
Mall Gazette called him " The St. Paul of
Uganda." The Leeds Mercury, Manchester
Examiner, and other great provincial daily
papers gave much space to the considera-
tion of Mackay and his work. One of his
missionary associates, Mr. Ashe, declared
that ** the missionary work done in Uganda
could never have been accomplished if it
had not been for his determination to hold
on at all costs. He had learned the secret
of being steadfast and immovable. He

had his temper wonderfully under control.
Ill

The Picket Line of Missions

Sometimes the Highland fire would flash
out, but never betrayed him into unworthy
deeds. I remember him especially during
our days of cruelest trial in Uganda, how
on that first miserable day of persecution,
when the bloody Mujasi seized us and our
followers, Mackay, though only just recov-
ering from fever, was perfectly cool and
collected, and seemed not to feel the fatigue
of the long and harassing march back ; how
clearly he stated our case to the unjust
judge ; how wise he was in counsel, how
prudent in his dealings with the fickle
Mwanga; and I believe, had it not been
for Mackay's influence with the old chiefs,
the Mission would hardly have weathered
the three distinct storms of persecution
Vv'hich burst over it in Mwanga's first years
as king."

Mackay's career exhibited such versatility
of talent as rarely centers in one man. He
could grapple with Mohammedans in sharp
theological controversv, or sit for hours
teaching boys to read, or patiently translate
the vScriptures into a language that had
neither grammar nor dictionary, and was
thus a many-sided and intense missionary;
while the great variety of his industrial and

112

Alexander M. Mackay

civilizing agencies made him, all in all, the
noblest lay missionary the Church and the
world has seen, and the loftiest exemplar of
which there is any record of what lay mis-
sionaries and industrial missions mean.

It is not for many to be so possessed with
"diversities of gifts," but it is with all of
us to present whatever gifts we have upon
the same altar on which ^lackay consecrated
his.

" We plow it, and we dig it, and we sow the

fill rowed land,
But the growing and the reaping are in the

Lord's own hands."

ORA ET LA BORA.
113

^be

m

Ibon. Hon Ikeitb^J'alconer,
pioneer in arabia

Arthur T. Pif.rson

Ill

The Hon* Ion Keith-Falconer, Pioneer in Arabia

History is " philosophy teaching by ex-
amples;" precept reduced to practice; the
Book of Life presented in an illustrated,
sometimes an illuminated, edition.

The heroic young man whose brief biog-
raphy is now to be recorded represented
the very flower of British civilization ; and
the lesson of his short but beautiful career
may be comprehended in one sentence : The
best is not too good for God's work, and
the length of life is not the measure of its
service.

Oliver Wendell Holmes quaintly but pro-
foundly said that the training of the child
begins a hundred years before its birth. In
other words, character has its law of hered-
ity; it transmits, at least, its aptitudes.
There is something in blood, in breeding,
literally construed; and young Keith-Fal-
coner might well be proud of his lineage,
for in more senses than one it was noble.
He could trace the stream of his family life
117

The Picket Line of Missions

back through eight centuries. In the year
loio, when Malcolm II was King of Scot-
land, Robert Keith, his remote ancestor, by
his valor and prowess in the battle with the
Danish invaders, won the title of Heredi-
tary Great Mareschal of Scotland; andv/hat
Robert Keith did in battle for the Scottish.
crown his descendant, long after, did for
the crown and covenant of the King of kings
— he became a standard-bearer on the battle-
field where the Moslem and the Christian
powers meet, to contend for the victory of
the ages ; and lie won a higher honor and
title than can be conferred by human sover-
eigns as one of the Knights of the Cross.

It is now a little over forty years since
Ion Keith-Falconer was born in Edinburgh,
Scotland; and just then began an eventful
era in missions, when more new doors were
suddenly thrown open for missionary labor
than in any previous decade of years since
Christ's last command was given to his
Church. Born in 1856, he died in 1887 —
his brief life-story on earth covering only
about thirty years. Yet, if * * that life is long
which answers life's great end," Vv'-e must
cotmt these thirty years as spanning eter-
nity, for they wrought out God's eternal
n s

The Hon. Ion Keith-Falconer

purpose, and left a lasting legacy of blessing
to the young men of all generations, the true
wealth and worth of which only eternity can
compute.

This biography may perhaps best be stud-
ied from four points of view: his boyhood,
his college life, his home work, and his pio-
neer enterprise on the shores of the Red Sea.

The first period we may rapidly sketch, as
the materials are not' abundant. He was
marked, as a boy, by four conspicuous qual-
ities: a certain manliness, magnanimity,
piety, and unselfishness — rare traits indeed
in a lad. He loved outdoor sports and ex-
celled in athletics. Six feet and three inches
in height, and well formed, his physical
presence, w^hen he attained full stature, was
like that of Saul, the first king of Israel,
and made him conspicuous among his fel-
lows. No wonder that he was a favorite
with the modern advocates of mUvScular
Christianity, since at twenty he was Presi-
dent of the London Bicycle Club and at
twenty-two the champion racer of Britain,
distancing in a five-mile race, in 1878,
even John Keen himself. Four years later
he was the first to go on his wheel from
Land's End to John O'Groat's House — very

119

The Picket Line of Missions

nearly one thousand miles ; and he trium-
phantly accomplished that feat in thirteen
days — an average of nearly eighty miles a
day.

If his stalwart manhood won applause,
much more his sterling worth as a man of
inward strength and symmetry. Let us not
forget that this champion in the race for
muscular superiority was too strong and
brave in soul to be 'overcome of his own
lusts, or enticed. He loved truth in the in-
ward parts, and had no patience with shams
or frauds ; and he recalls to our thought the
famous statue which represents Veracity,
standing with open face, the mask of dissim-
ulation lying at his feet, cleft with the sword
of Sincerity. He was not ashamed to make
the Bible the one book he loved and stud-
ied ; and from the earliest dawn of his in-
telligence he was a faithful and loyal student
of God's Holy Word, and sought by obedi-
ence to get ever-increasing knowledge of its
true spirit and meaning.

Better than all, yet by no means inde-
pendent of the rest, were his unselfish piety
and charity. To impart is the highest
blessedness, though most of us do not learn
the bliss of giving, if at all, until late in life.

120

The Hon. Ion Keith-Falconer

A true benevolence is the ripest fruit, and
grows on the topmost branch of holy living.
Yet this lad early showed a deep sympathy
with sorrow and suffering, and his boyhood's
days are even yet remembered for his sim-
ple ministries to those who needed help.
His old nurse has told how he went about,
a boy of seven, reading and, in his way, ex-
plaining the Bible in the cottages of poor
peasants ; and how, having on one occasion
spent his pocket money for some baker's
choicest cakes, he bestowed them all, un-
tasted, upon a hungry boy. What a proph-
ecy all this of the man who was to give his
short life to teaching the ignorant, and him-
self to become one of God's barley loaves to
feed dying souls !

We come now to glance rapidly at his
college life. Keith -Falconer was an ex-
ample of concentrated pov/ers of mind as
well as of body, of a fine quality of brains
as well as brawn. He mastered '^ short-
hand," for instance, and rivaled Pitman
himself. Those who want to see how a
young man may distinguish himself in this
difficult art would do well to read his article,
' 'Shorthand," in the Encyclopcedia Britannicay
which is a model of careful and compre-

121

The Picket Line of Missions

hensive statement as to the science and art
of phonography. Although he might not,
perhaps, have been accounted a genius, he
had the genius of industry, and, by ** plod-
ding," like William Carey, achieved distinc-
tion. He was conscientious in his curricu-
lum, and applied himself to hard tasks, and
patiently and persistently overcame ob-
stacles, until he rose to an enviable rank
and won honors and prizes which the indo-
lent and indifferent never secure. We shall
see, later on, how he was appointed to the
professorship of Arabic at Cambridge Uni-
versity— a fitting crown to his academic
career, in which he successfully mastered
not only the regular and ordinary tasks,
but theology, Hebrew, the Semitic lan-
guages, and kindred studies, and learned
the Tonic Sol-fa system of music.

The missionary spirit burned in him,
even in college days and within college
walls, though the atmosphere of a univer-
sity is not very stimulating to aggressive
and evangelistic piety. The lad whOj at
Harrow School, not yet fourteen years old,
was, by the testimony of the masters, '' en-
ergetic, manly, and vigorous," although
** neither a prig nor a Pharisee," was, dur-

122

The Hon. Ion Keith-Falconer

ing his brilliant career at Cambridge, which
began in 1874, not only fearless in the
avowal of his Christian faith, but was moved
by that passion for souls which compels
unselfish utterance and effort in behalf of
others. In temperance and mission work
he both used and tested his powers and
adaptations as to a wider field of service.
He became the leader of a band of Chris-
tian students who, in the old theater at
Barnwell, near Cambridge, carried on rag-
ged school work and similar Gospel evangel-
ism. From among themselves and friends,
he and his fellow- workers raised about eight
thousand dollars to purchase the building,
and there a wide-reaching service began,
whose harvest is not yet wholly gathered
and garnered. In this sphere Keith-Fal-
coner earnestly and vigorously wrought,
and when he spoke uttered the clear com-
mon sense which is better than ambitious
oratory.

Afield in London next drew him. When
yet but a lad of fifteen he had met F. N.
Charrington, then a young man of twenty-
one, who, while going afoot through Aber-
deenshire, had paid a visit to the house of
his father, the Earl of Kintore. Between

123

The Picket Line of Missions

Keith-Falconer and Charrington, notwith-
standing six years' difference in their ages,
a very intimate friendship at once sprang
up, which bore that most blessed fruit, fel-
lowship in holy work for God and man. Mr.
Charrington, now so conspicuously known
as the founder and leader of the Tower
Hamlets Mission in the East End of London,
had, two years before meeting young Keith-
Falconer, consecrated his life, at the cost of
surrendering a princely fortune as a brewer,
to uplifting and redeeming the East End
drunkards and outcasts. When, late at
night, he watched the wretched wives and
mothers anxiously waiting for their hus-
bands outside the vile drinkshops over which
the name of ''Charrington, Head & Co."
shone in gold and azure, he felt a mighty
impulse within him to break off the yoke of
the drink traffic; and, resigning the eldest
son's birthright share in the business, he
accepted a smaller portion, and even that he
laid on the altar of humanity, resolved that
the money, largely coined out of human
woe, should be dedicated to human weal, in
raising out of drunkenness and vice the
very classes that the beershop had dragged
down. Charrington began his work in a

124

The Hon. Ion Keith-Falconer

hayloft ; from there he was crowded into a
larger hall; then a big tent, until, in 1877,
a larger AvSsembly Hall was opened — now
twenty 3-ears ago — where two thousand peo-
ple were gathered night after night for
nine years.

Keith-Falconer's name is inseparable from
the grand work of Charrington, and there-
fore it is no digression to give that noble
enterprise ample mention. The two young
men, moved by a similar impulse, were di-
vinely knit together, as were David and Jon-
athan. During his Cambridge days Keith-
Falconer often went to London to visit his
friend, watch his work, and give it help. He
also took his share of the opposition and
persecution that made Charrington its tar-
get. He accepted, with him, the " mob-
bino: " which rewarded unselfish service to
the degraded slaves of drink, going with
him to the police office, when his friend was
arrested on false charges, as one that was
turning the world upside down. Like
Charrington, also, he had his reward. He
saw drunkards reformed, gangs of thieves
broken up, public houses dCvSerted and for
sale at half their cost, and homes redeemed

from tbe curse of rum and crime.
9 1^5

The Picket Line of Missions

During the fearful winter of 1879 ^^^
feeding of hungry multitudes occupied the
attention of Charrington and his helpers,
and led ultimately to the erection of that
new hall which, at a cost of $200,000, stands
with its buildings as a perpetual benediction
to the neighborhood, and in which for over
ten years untold blessing has been imparted
to thousands and even millions. In that
larger Assembly Hall the writer has more
than once spoken, and in the personal ac-
quaintance of the founder and father of the
enterprise he rejoices. From personal ob-
servation, therefore, he can testify that in
that grand audience room on Mile End Road
five thousand people gather under the sound
of one voice ; there, every night, a Gospel
service is held ; the days of mob violence
are over, and Mr. Charrington finds stalwart
defenders in the poor victims whose yoke
he has been the means of breaking, and the
whole East End is gradually being redeemed
from its social anathema.

In all this work Keith-Falconer has an
eternal vshare, as in its reward. It was he
who, as honorary secretary, issued the neces-
sary appeals, himself becoming a beggar for
funds and a donor to the extent of $10,000.

126

The Hon. Ion Keith-Falconer

As a college student he would hurry off to
the metropolis for a week at a time, lend a
hand and a voice as needed, visit the poor,
teach the word, aid in administrative de-
tails, and then hurry back to Cambridge
and its duties. In his Memorials of Ion Keith-
Falconer Mr. Sinker says :

'' In the summer of that year (1886) I ac-
companied Keith-Falconer to see the build-
ing, and we were taken by Mr. Charrington
to the central point of the upper gallery of
the great hall, to gain the best general view
of the room. As we sat there I could not
but be struck with the similar expression on
the faces of the two men. It was one in
which joy and keen resolve and humble
thankfulness were strangely blended. One
great work for God which Keith- Falconer
had striven hard to further he was allowed
to see in its full completeness, carried on by
men working there with heartiest and pur-
est zeal. Not while any of the present gen-
eration of workers survive will the name
of Keith-Falconer fade out of loving re-
membrance in the great building in Mile
End Road."

All this work he did as a humble layman,
who did not often speak in public, but who

127

The Picket Line of Missions

had learned the secret of *' having' a talk
with a man," and one man at a time — as
Jesus did with Nicodemus and the Samari-
tan woman. This was his form of evangel-
istic and missionary work, getting in touch
with an individual .soul, and finding the se-
cret key that unlocked the heart — a personal,
private conversation about the most impor-
tant matters. Such a method of service courts
no publicity and escapes observation, but
does not fail of recognition in God's book
of remembrance, where a special record is
kept of those who think upon His name and
speak often one to another.'^' For example,
while on a bicycle tour with a friend in
vSutherlandshire, in 1884, he wrote to his
wife : ' ' We had a job to get across the Kyle.
It was very low water, and we had to wade
some distance before we got to the boat. We
had a talk with the boatman, who said he
had been praying and searching for years,
but couldn't find Him." This modest, un-
pretending sentence, written to her he loved
best, reveals the habit of the man.

The fourth and last period of his life is
forever linked with Arabia. After he
passed his last examination at Cambridge,

* Mai. iii, i6.
128

The Hon. Ion Keith-Falconer

ill 1880, Keith-Falconer gave himself, with
all his concentration of mind, to the study
of the Arabic, including the Koran. First
he got from books what preparatory knowl-
edge of that difficult tongue he could, and
then went to the Nile, and at Assiout resided
for some months with that well-known
missionary, Dr. H. W. Hogg, to acquire
the colloquial language, learn the temper
of the Arabic mind, and study the Moslem
faith. Then he again sought the univer-
sity halls, and for three years longer carried
on his research, translating the KalilaJi and
DimnaJi,'^ and meanwhile filling the post
of Hebrew^ Lecturer at Clare College and of
Theological Examiner.

Here then is a young man, not yet
thirty, married to a charming woman, Miss
Be van, and in the midst of the finest clas-
vsical surroundings. Everything was calcu-
lated to root him at Cambridge, where
before him lay a future of almost unlimited
possibilities. He might have grown in

* These were the so-called " Fables of Bulpai " or Pilpai,
an Indian Brahman and gymnosophist, of great anticpiily.
Scarcely any book but the Bible has been translated into
so many tongues, and its history is a part of the history of
human development. Bidpai has been called chief of the
philosophers of India.

129

The Picket Line of Missions

such a soil until, like the palm, he over-
topped others and blossomed into a sur-
passing fruitfulness, as well as a scholarly
symmetry. Fame had her goal and laurel
wreath in sight. But a higher calling and
a fadeless crown absorbed him. He left all
behind him to carry the Gospel message to
distant Aden.

The life of Dr. John Wilson, of Bombay,
had opened his eyes to the possibilities of
a missionary career, and about the same
time General Haig had called attention to
Arabia as a neglected field, and to the
strategic importance of this particular sta-
tion on the Red Sea as a point of approach
and occupation. Aden as a military posi-
tion controls the Red Sea, and in a mercan-
tile and nautical point of view sustains a
relation to Asia and Africa similar to that
of Gibraltar to Europe and Africa. In the
year of Victoria's coronation — 1838 — the
Arab sultan was persuaded to cede the
peninsula to England, and it was made a
free port. It is but five hundred miles
south from Mecca and six hundred and
fifty from Medina. Thousands from all
parts of Arabia enter the British territory
every year and are compelled to see how

ISO

The Hon. Ion Keith-Falconer

the peace, order, freedom, and good gov-
ernment, there prevalent, contrast with the
tyranny and anarchy elsewhere found.

Keith-Falconer had an interview with
General Haig, and in 1885, in the autumn,
went to Aden to prospect. On his way he
began inducting his wife into the mysteries
of Arabic, and quaintly wrote : ' ' Gwen-
dolin struggling with Arabic. Arabic
grammars should be strongly bound, be-
cause learners are so often found to dash
them frantically on the ground."

The result of his prospecting tour was
that he determined to fix on Sheikh-Othman,
near by, as his station, leaving Aden to the
Church Missionary Society. He explored
the neighborhood, and personally proved
to the people that not all Europeans are
*' clever people who get drunk and have no
religion to speak of." He found camel-
riding not very pleasant, and saw one of
those brutes seize and shake a man vio-
lently; and he adds, *'a camel will some-
times bite off a man's head!"

In the spring of 1886 he and his wife
were again in England, and on Easter Day,
in the Assembly Hall at Mile End, Keith-
Falconer delivered, on "Temptation," the

131

The Picket Line of Missions

most striking address of his life. Was it a
reflection of the inward struggle he was
then experiencing, with the parting of the
ways before him? with nobility, wealth,
distinction, on the one hand, and seclusion,
self-denial, and obscurity, on the other? In
May he spoke before the General Assembly
of the Free Church of Scotland on Moham-
medan missions, an address equally impress-
ive in its way, which reveals his purpose and
clear conception of the possible service to
which Arabia appealed. He said that he
had been again and again urged to go to
Arabia and set up a school, and that one
day a Mohammedan, asking for a piece of
paper, wrote in a mysterious fashion, '*If
you want the people to walk in your way,
then set up schools.'' The man was a Had-
jee, returning from a pilgrimage to Mecca,
where he had been thoroughly stripped of
all his money. Keith-Falconer offered him
a copy of John's gospel, but he would not
accept it ; and, being farther questioned,
acknowledged that he liked the historical
parts, but other parts made him fearful.
He pointed to the talk between Christ and
the woman at Jacob's well, " If thou knew-
est the gift of God," etc., '' and," said the

132

The Hon. Ion Keith-Falconer

Hadjee, '' that verse makes my heart trem-
ble, lest I be made to follow in the way of
the Messiah."

This young Semitic scholar, already the
greatest living orientalist, saw the way to a
great work at this southern station in
Arabia. He would have a school, a med-
ical mission, and a depot for distributing
the Holy vScriptures. He must study medi-
cine himself and secure a Christian physi-
cian as his coworker. He would put him-
self under the Foreign Mission Board of the
Scottish Church, but he would pay all costs
of the misvsion himself.

Just at this point, and greatly to his sur-
prise, he was made Professor of Arabic at
Cambridge. The position v/as partly hon-
orary, its active teaching depending mostly
on an associate; and so it was accepted,
undoubtedly not because of a divided pur-
pose, but because his mind was set on
Arabia, and his Cambridge work would
augment his power to turn attention to its
needs. He gave a course of three lectures
on ''The Pilgrimage to Mecca," and on the
evening after his last lecture was again off
for Aden with his wife and his accom-
plished colleague. Dr. Stewart Co wen.

133

The Picket Line of Missions

This was November, 1886. He laid the
foundation for his mission premises and
work, and the force of his character was
already making an impression on the Mos-
lem mind, so that, within a few months,
there were but few who came in touch with
this Cliristlike man who were willing to ad-
mit that they were followers of Mohammed ;
but they were w^ont to say, '' There are no
Moslems here!" The Gospel in Arabic
found both purchasers and readers with
those who had read in this grand man the
living epistle of God.

But the Aden fever proved a fatal foe.
Both Keith-Falconer and his wife were
stricken in February, 1887, and fresli at-
tacks rapidly weakened his stahvart consti-
tution until, on May 1 1 , he sank into quiet
slumber and could no more be awaked
for service in this lov/er sphere. His biog-
rapher, Mr. Sinker, beautifully writes : ''It
was indeed the end. Quietly he passed
away. God's finger touched him and he
slept. Slept? nay, rather awakened, not in
the close, heated room where he had so long
lain helpless — the weary nurse, overcome
with heat and watching, slumbering near —
the young wife, widowed ere she knew her

134

The Hon. Ion Keith-Falconer

loss, lying in an adjoining room, herself
broken down with illness as well as anxiety
—the loyal doctor, resting after his two
nights' vigil — not on these do Ion Keith-
Falconer's eyes open. He is in the pres-
ence of his Lord; the life which is the life
indeed has begun."

After five months of labor in his chosen
field the body of Keith-Falconer was lov-
ingly laid to rest in the cemetery at Aden
by British officers and soldiers of her maj-
esty fitting burial for one of the soldiers of

a greater King, who, with his armor on and
his courage undaunted, fell with his face
to the foe. The martyr of Aden had en-
tered God's Eden.

And so Great Britain made her first offer-
ing- and it was a very costly one — to

Arabia's evangelization.

No doubt there be those who will exclaim,
" To what purpose is this waste! " for this
flask of costly ointment, broken and poured
out amid Arabia's arid sands, might have
been kept in the classic halls of Cambridge,
and even yet be breathing its perfume where
scholars tread and heroes are made. To
this and all such cavils of unbelief there is
but one answer, and it is all-sufficient, for

135

The Picket Line of Missions

it is God's answer : ' ' What I do thou know-
est not now, but thou shalt know hereafter."

The Free Church, whose missionary he
was, declares : ' * The falling asleep, in the
first months of fervent service, of the Hon.
Ion Keith-P^alconer, in the extreme Asian
outpost in South Arabia, gives solemn ur-
gency to his last appeal to the cultured, the
wealthy, and the unselfish, whom that de-
voted volunteer for Christ represented when
he addressed them in these v/ords:

' ' ' While vast continents are shrouded in
almost utter darkness, and hundreds of
millions suffer the horrors of heathenism or
Islam, the burden of proof lies upon you to
show that the circumstances in which God
has placed you were meant by Him to keep
you out of the foreign mission field.' "

God makes no mistakes, and we are '' im-
mortal till our work is done," if we are fully
in His plan. We may not penetrate the ar-
cana of His secret purposes and read the
final issue of our disappointments, but, as
Dr. J. W. Dulles used to say, they are,
rightly read, "His appointments." The
short career of Keith-Falconer is a lesson
such as never has been more impressively
taught — that nothing is too good to be given

136

The Hon. Ion Keith-Falconer

to God on the altar of missions. Keith-
Falconer's death sent an electric shock
through the British kingdom and the wider
Church of Christ. But it was his distinction
and accomplish inents that made it impossi-
ble for his life's lesson to remain unread.
His fame gave a trumpet voice to his words
and made his life vocal with witness. Ad-
miration and love united to draw others to
follow in the steps of a heroism so divinely
self -oblivious. The Church asked for one
volunteer to step into the breach, and thir-
teen of the graduating class of the New
College at once responded ; but the response
did not end then or there. The very year of
Keith-Falconer's death Robert P. Wilder
and John N. For man were going about
among the colleges and theological schools
of the United vStates and Canada, appealing
for volunteers, from the very best of the ed-
ucated young men, for the foreign field.
And now, during the ten years that have
passed since this martyr spirit of Aden went
up to God, ten thousand lives of young men
and women in Britain and America have
been offered to God, quickened by this ex-
ample of consecration. The Henry Martyn
Memorial Hall at Cambridge, the Hanning-

13*7

The Picket Line of Missions

ton Memorial Hall at Oxford, and many
other monuments of the dead and living
who have given themselves to God's mis-
sion work are keeping alive the testimony
of the Cambridge orientalist. He, being
dead, yet speaketh, and no voice of the last
half century is heard more widely by the
young men of the Church of Christ.

He sought to '' call attention to Arabia ; "
he has done it in a way and to an extent that
he never imagined. The workman fell, but
the work goes on. Under Rev. W. R. W.
Gardner and Dr. Young new currents of in-
fluence are flowing into and through Aden^
In 1888 a large number of Abyssinian chil-
dren, who had been carried into Arabia from
ruined homes and massacred families, for
enslavement, were rescued by a British man-
of-war and put into school in this mission
for Christian training, to be sent back to
Abyssinia as missionaries. Christian teach-
ers, evangelists, and physicians have since
gone to this port on the Gulf of Aden to
take up the work Keith- Falconer laid down.
And on both sides of the Red Sea, in Africa
and Asia, the mission which he begun is likely
to be the seed of other enterprises looking
to the evangelization of both continents.

138

The Hon. Ion Keith-Falconer

The Keith-Falconer Mission to Arabia has
not come to its grave because its founder
sleeps in the dreary cemetery at Aden. On
these southern shores of Arabia stand the
' ' Scots Church " and the Church of Eng-
land edifices, one of which latter is largely
built from collections made in the mail
steamers that ply across those waters. The
Scots Church, which is now building, is
partly the result of the money raised by the
children of the Free Church of Scotland, and
under the supervision of an Arab contractor
and workmen, some of whom are Jews. And
so, curiously enough. Christians, Arabs, and
Jews unite to erect Christ's houses of prayer
in the land of Ishmael ! Dr. George Smith,
who recently visited Aden, testifies to the
prosperity and hopefulness of the congrega-
tion there worshiping in connection with
the Scots Church, and says that in the
pioneering stage of the Arab mission it
supplies the spiritual life and enthusiasm
of common worship and evangelical effort.
Dr. Young acts as military chaplain for the
British infantry and artillery located at
Aden, and with his colleague undertakes not
only to furnish two sermons a week, but to
meet the demands made on two medical

139

The Picket Line of Missions

missionaries for Arab and Somali, Jew and
Parsee ; thus on one hand nourishing piety
in the British residents, and reaching out
on the other to the various foreign, Mos-
lem, Parsee, and other populations that need
Gospel effort.

The British camp and the native town of
Aden lie in the crater of an extinct volcano.
What a typical place in which to plant the
Bible, with the tree of knowledge and of
life ! And the Bible is planted there. On
a busy corner of the main street the British
and Foreign Bible Society's depot stands, and
Mr. and Mrs. Lethaby are its devoted v/ork-
ers. Near by stands the square and well-
fenced inclosure, with its somewhat rude
entrance, which is the resting place of the
body of Keith- Falconer. In the middle of
a row of graves of British officers and men,
each with a single cross above it, may be
seen the tomb of the first missionary that
Scotland gave to Arabia; who, as Dr. Smith
says, ' ' died at thirty, one year younger than
Henry Martyn, and was followed by the
aged bishop, Valpy French, on the eastern
shore at Muscat. A massive block of white
Egyptian marble covers the grave, while
there rises at its head an exquisitely pure

140

The Hon. Ion Keith-Falconer

slab, with an inscription, under a coronet
which might well represent the martyr's
crown. There Dr. Cowen, who was then
his medical colleague, and several officers
and men of her British majesty's Ninety-
eighth Regiment, as the sun set, laid all that
was mortal of the young Scottish noble,
scholar, and self-consecrated missionary of
the Free Church of Scotland. The sacred
spot is the first missionary milestone into
Arabia."

Dr. Smith further says — and we quote
the words of this distinguished correspond-
ent as the latest available information from
this field :

'' As the Keith-Falconer Mission, bearing
its founder's name and generuosly supported
by his famil}^ this first modern mission to
the Arab may be said to have begun anew
in the year 1889. First of all. Principal
Mackichan, when on his return to Bombay,
after furlough, carefully inspected the
Sheikh -Othman headquarters, and, with the
local medical authorities, reported in favor
of continuing and extending the plans of
its founder. The mission is now, as a re-
sult of past experience, conducted by two

fully qualified men, one of whom is married ,
10 141

The Picket Line of Missions

who are working in most brotherly harmony,
preaching the Gospel in Arabic as well as
healing the sick. Its Arabic and English,
school is taught by Alexander Aabud, a
married member of the Syrian Evangelical
Church, from the Lebanon, but trained in
the American mission in Egypt.

' ' All over this neighborhood the med-
ical mission founded by Keith-Falconer is
making for itself a name, and its doctors are
received, or visited at their dispensary, as the
messengers of God. European and native
alike, natives from India and Africa, as well
as the Arab camel drivers and subjects of
the Sultan of Lahej — himself and his fam-
ily patients of the Mission — turn to the
missionaries with gratitude and hope, and
will do them any service. Nowhere has the
influence of medical missions in this early
stage, of course preparatory, been so re-
markable as in this Yemen corner of Arabia
during the past seven years." ^

It is, perhaps, proper, before we add the
last touches to this imperfect sketch of one
of the finest, brightest, and noblest young
men of the century, that we indicate some

* Letter lo the Tvv^ Church of Scotland Aloiithly, liy
George Smith, LL.D.

U2

The Hon. Ion Keith-Falconer

of those special traits which shone in him and
provoke us to emulation. Among them we
select the following as most pertinent to the
particular purposes for which mainly this
book is prepared, and with the prayer that
many of those who read these pages may
follow him as he followed the supreme Ex-
emplar of us all.

First, his simplicity. The childlike char-
acter, refined of what is merely childish, is
the divine ideal of human perfection. We
must not outgrow the simple artlessness,
humility, docility of childhood, but rather
grow backward toward it perpetually.
The ideal child is inseparable in our minds
from faith, love, truth, and trust; and these
are the cardinal virtues of Christian charac-
ter. To learn to doubt, to hate, to lie, to
suspect, is to learn the devil's lessons, and
any approach to these is just so much prog-
ress in Satan's school. This pioneer to
Arabia never lost his simple childlikeness.
His manhood was not an outgrowing of his
boyhood, in all that makes a child beautiful
and attractive. He never put on airs of
any sort, but hated all hollow pretense and
empty professions. His was that highest
art of concealing all art ; in his most care-

143

The Picket Line of Missions

ful work he did not lose naturalness, and
in his most studied performances there was
no affectation. He acted out himself — a
genuine, honest, sincere man, who con-
cealed nothing and had nothing to conceal.
Second, his eccentricity. We use this
word because it has forever had a new
meaning by his interpretation of it. He
was wont to say that a true disciple must
not fear to be called " eccentric." '' Eccen-
tric," said he, " means * out of center,'' and
you will be out of center with the world if
you are in center with Christ." He dared
to be one of God's ''peculiar people, zeal-
ous of good works." While we are con-
tent to live on the low level of the average
''professor of religion" we shall exhibit
no peculiarity, for there is no peculiarity
about a dead level. But if, like a moun-
tain rising from a plain, we dare to aspire
to higher and better things, to get nearer
to God, to live in a loftier altitude and at-
mosphere, we shall, like the mountain, be
singular and exceptional, we cannot escape
observation, and may not escape hostile crit-
icism. Blessed is the man who, like Caleb
and Joshua, ventures to stand compara-
tively alone in testimony to God ; for it is

144

The Hon. Ion Keith-Falconer

such as these who go over into the inherit-
ance of peculiar privileges and rewards.

Third, his unselfishness. Few of us ap-
preciate the deformity and enormity of the
sin of simply being absorbed in our own
things. One may be a monster of repulsive-
ness in God's eyes through qualities that ex-
hibit little outward hatefulness and ugliness
to the common eye. Greed, lust, ambition,
pride, envy and jealous}'-, malice and un-
charity, may not be forbidden in man's deca-
logue, but they eat away the core of char-
acter like the worm in the apple's heart.
Balzac, in one of his stories, revives the old
myth of the magic skin which enabled the
wearer to get his wish, but with every new
gratification of selfish desire shrank and
held him in closer embrace, until it squeezed
the breath of life out of him. And the
myth is an open mystery, to be seen in
daily life. Every time that we seek some-
thing for ourselves only, without regard to
God's glory or man's good, our very success
is defeat ; we may get what we want, btit
we shrink, in capacity for the highest joy
and the noblest life.

Fourth, his concentration. Paul writes to
the Philippians, '' This one thing I do."

145

The Picket Line of Missions

In the original it is far more terse and dense
with meaning. He uses two little Greek
words, the shortest in the language (ev 6e),
" But one ! " an exclamation that no words
can interpret. All his energies were directed
toward and converged in one. Our lives are
a waste because they lack unity of aim and
effort. We seek too many things to attain
anything great or achieve anything grand.
Our energies are divided, scattered, dissi-
pated. Impulse is followed, and impulse is
variable, unsteady, and inconstant, while
principle is constant, like the pole star.
We are too much controlled by opinions
which change with the hour, instead of by
convictions which, being intelligently
formed, hold us, like the girdle of truth in
the Christian armor, instead of our merely
holding them. It is possible for a man or
woman to gain almost any goal, desirable
or not, if the whole energy be concentrated.
How immense the importance, then, of get-
ting a right purpose to command the soul,
and then making everything else bend and
bow before it!

God speaks to the young men and women
of our day as in trumpet tones: '* He that
hath ears to hear, let him hear ! " An exam-

140

The Hon. Ion Keith- Falconer

pie like that set before us in this life-story
is one of God's voices. In Keith-Falconer
**the Holy Ghost saith," ^'Stop and con-
sider! " What way is your life-stream run-
ning? Are you living for yourself or for
God and for man ? Every man is his broth-
er's keeper, and it is fitting that the first
man who questioned this should have been
Cain, his brother's murderer! Did it ever
occur to the reader that every one of us is
either his brother's keeper or slayer ? Every
life is saving or destroying other lives. We
lift men up or we drag them down ; there is
no escape from responsibility.

Keith-Falconer saw that no man liveth
unto himself and no man dieth imto him-
self. Life is bound up in a bundle with all
other life. We are none of us independent
of the others, and we cannot escape the ne-
cessity of influencing them for good or evil.
Eternity alone can measure the capacity for
such influence, for eternity alone can give
the vision and the revelation of what life
covers in the reach and range of its mighty
forces. It is a solemn and august thought
that, to-day, each one of us is projecting
lines of influence into the unending here-
after. The life span is infinite.
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The Picket Line of Missions

So looked upon, this short career of thirty
years did not end at Aden ten years ago.
That was the laying of a basis for a building
that is going on unseen and silently, and
whose spires will pierce the clouds. That
was the planting of a seed for a tree whose
branches shall shake like Lebanon, and
wave in beauty and fertility when the
mountains are no more. That was the
starting of a career which is still going on,
only that the cloud is between us and its
hidden future, and we cannot trace its on-
ward, upward path.

Let us turn once more to that grave at
Aden and read the simple inscription :

TO
THE DEAR MEMORY OF

THE HON. ION KEITH-FALCONER,

THIRD SON OF

THE EARL AND COUNTESS OF KINTORE,

WHO ENTERED INTO REST

AT SHEIKH-OTHMAN, MAY II, 1887,

AGED 30 YEARS.

" If any man serve me, let him follow me ; and where I
am, there shall also my servant be : if any man serve me, him
will my Father honor."

148

IV
Sia Seh ®ng

BY

S. L. Baldwin, D.D.

Sia Sek Ong

IV.

Sia Sefc Ongf

EARLY LIFE.

It is well that in a series of missionary
biographies there should be one of a native
preacher upon a mission field, and I have
chosen Sia Sek Ong, of the Foo-Chow Mis-
sion, as one suitable to be enrolled in this
missionary book.

He was born in the mountain village of
Yek-iong, about nine miles west of the city
of Foo-Chow. His father was a farmer, who
also gave much attention to literary pur-
suits, a man having many .strong points of
character, of incorruptible honesty, and
very amiable and pleasant in his intercourse
with the people. His mother was an ex-
cellent woman, and was of much repute in
helping people who were in sorrow and
need. He was the oldest child in a family
of five. Opportunities for schooling were
given him as soon as he was able to com-
mence study. The chief object in Chinese
education, aside from acquiring a sufficient

151

The Picket Line of Missions

knowledge of reading and writing to be
able to conduct business, is to become ac-
quainted with the Confucian classics. He,
therefore, made early acquaintance with
these books. In regard to some of his early
experiences he says himself: " One day at
school I saw a book with pictures represent-
ing the punishment awaiting the wicked.
One was snatched up at death by the prince
of devils and sawn asunder, while others
were roasted at a copper pipe to which they
were chained. It also gave an account of a
good man's death, and the glory and honor
that are his reward. I had a vague belief
in future retribution, and exerted myself in
doing good so that I might obtain happiness
on earth and escape punishment hereafter."
He also intimates that when he was about
thirteen years old, beginning to realize the
burden and care of parents in rearing chil-
dren, he resolved to study more diligently
and become a good man, cherishing in-
wardly the hope that the gods would be
pleased with him and protect him, so that he
might live to reward his parents for their
care of him.

His mother died when he was sixteen
years of age, and, his father's burdens in-

152

Sia Sek Ong

creasing, at the age of eighteen he left
school and began teaching in a neighboring
village. This relieved his father of the ex-
pense of tuition and also increased his in-
come by the money which the son was able
to contribute.

In these early years he frequently wor-
shiped at heathen temples, hoping to gain
from the gods or the spirits of his ancestors
help in leading a good life and protection
from evil spirits. It will thus be seen that
this man without any knowledge of Chris-
tianity was trying to do the best he could
with such knowledge as he had, and that he
had a sincere purpose to lead a good life.

HIS FIRST KNOWLEDGE OF CHRISTIANITY

When Sia was in his eighteenth year he
first heard of people who believed in Jesus.
They were known as hong-kaii (followers of
doctrine). This name ought not to imply
any evil, but such were the associations in
the minds of the people connected with
the term that the young lad thought they
were persons of whom he should be afraid
and whom he ought to avoid. Unexpect-
edly meeting a Christian one day at a school
taught by a friend, Sia asked him to tell

153

The Picket Line of Missions

him something of Christian doctrine, and
then heard for the first time the Bible ac-
count of the creation. He says in regard
to this conversation, '' Having heard him
to the end, I felt in my heart that the nar-
rative was true." Afterward a Christian
teacher visited his own school and preached
there, but Sia says that he was like a deaf
man, that not a word entered his heart.
Nevertheless, after the teacher had gone he
began to reflect upon his sincerity and pa-
tience, and to think that men ought to be
like him. At that time he received two
Christian books, but when the preacher
came again and asked him whether he had
read them, not having read them at all, he
replied, " I have looked at them," and lis-
tened to the preaching with great prejudice
against the preacher.

The next year he taught school near a
Christian chapel, and one day attended the
services. Of his experience on that day he
says: ** I would fain have got up and fled,
but .something seemed to bind my feet. It
seemed as if the seat I occupied were full of
needles. From this time on I gradually
comprehended that idols are nothing, and
felt a constant desire to proclaim such of the

154

Sia Sek Ong

doctrines as I understood. Whenever I met
a person who hated Christianity I tried to
defend it." Listening once to a preacher
at Ngu-kang, who spoke of God as the ruler
of heaven and earth, light seemed to break
in upon his mind as he listened, and the
conviction came to his heart that there truly
is a God ; and he testifies that from this time
he made considerable progress in Christian
knowledge, realized that the Scriptures
helped him to discriminate between the true
and the false, and that he must obey the truth
if he would be a true man. He also records
that in the winter of that year another
preacher told him of the judgment to come,
and for a long time he was troubled and with-
out comfort, but took refuge in the thought
that he was young, and that he need not
trouble about death, and tried to avoid hear-
ing Christianity preached. He purposely
went to a village where there were no Chris-
tians, but found no comfort of heart, there
being nothing in his new associations that
could satisfy him.

It was about this time that he first came
into contact with Rev. Nathan Sites, and
says that he was as happy in meeting Chris-
tian people in connection with the mission-

155

The Picket Line of Missions

ary as one is who returns from a foreign
country and meets his relatives, and that he
felt it was really the society of Christian
friends for which he had been longing dur-
ing his absence.

COMING TO CHRIST

I do not remember the precise time at
which Sia Sek Ong became the personal
teacher of Dr. Sites, but it was not far from
the time of which we have just been speak-
ing. He had the reputation of being an ex-
cellent teacher, and although he was a proud-
spirited Confucianist and a worshiper in
heathen temples he was employed as the
personal teacher of Dr. Sites because of his
ability. The chapel and mission residence
at Ngu-kang were under one roof, the side
door of the chapel opening into the study of
the missionary. One day Sia was sitting in
the study with the door open between the
study and the chapel. Li Yu Mi, a black-
smith who had been converted but a short
time before, was preaching in the chapel.
Among other things that he uttered he said :
" There is but one name that can save ; that
is the name of Jesus." Sia was angry. He
arose and shut the door with a very em-

J66

Sia Sek Ong

phatic bang and walked the floor, saying to
himself : ' ' I'll not listen to such talk as this.
How does this blacksmith, who can scarcely
read his own language, dare to tell us that
there is only one name that can save, and
that the name of a foreigner we never heard
of until a few months ago? "

But he could not get rid of the words
which had entered his mind. Talking with
me about it years afterward, he said that
when he went home at night and tried to
sleep he could not get rest, seeming to hear
in both ears all the time the words, " Only
one name that can save !" The next day he
found that this continued, and in the midst
of his duties he was continually hearing
these words. After a great struggle he
finally began to reason with himself, ''After
all I need a Saviour. Confucius tells me
nothing about what is after death nor about
my relations to the great power above. All
men need a Saviour, and if he did not come
from China how do I know but he may have
come from Judea, and may be the very Jesus
to whom my heart has been so opposed?"

This led to more wSerious thought, and
gradually he yielded his obstinate opposition
and began to pray to the true God for guid-

11 157

The Picket Line of Missions

ance and help. He was not, however, to
come at once into the light and be relieved
of all further trouble. He passed through
many severe experiences, sometimes lying
awake through the night in great agony.
On one such occasion he seemed to realize
that his own hardness of heart was the
cause of his sorrow, and determined to give
up worldly joys and trust to God's mercy.
He confessed his sins and prayed, but still
the conflict seemed to be going on. He
speaks of it as if two giants were fighting
within him. When he arose in the morn-
ing it was with the fear that after all the
preaching he had heard, remaining hard-
hearted, perhaps the Lord had utterly cast
him off. He narrates that at ten o'clock in
the forenoon, as he was walking to and fro,
a voice seemed to say to him, ''The Lord
has heard your prayers and forgiven your
sins." In describing this voice he says, ''It
seemed to be above me, at my side, and
within me." And he further records, " My
sorrow disappeared ; I could not tell how or
at what moment a peace and joy unspeak-
able filled my soul." He began to read his
Bible regularly, and while teaching school
he required his pupils to sit still and listen

158

Sia Sek Ong

to the preaching of a Christian minister who
visited them.

In 1864 he united with the Methodist
Episcopal church at Ngu-kang. Of course
he stopped making any payments to the
temples of his native village and idolatrous
processions, which led his neighbors to
threaten to confiscate his property and to
expel him from his home. For two years
he suffered much trouble on this account,
having the opposition of his family as well
as that of the people. But he received
help from on high and continued a faithful
member of the Church. Some of his neigh-
bors began to listen to the Gospel, and by
the end of two years from his union with
the Church some fifteen of them had be-
come Christians.

ENTERING THE MINISTRY

Like all the other new Christians of those
days, as soon as Sia became a Christian him-
self he began to proclaim the truth to others.
Just as the early Christians went about
preaching the word so did these Chinese
Christians. Without waiting for license or
ordination they told to others what they
themselves had felt and experienced.

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The Picket Line of Missions

Dr. Sites asked Sia Sek Ong to accompany
him to the villages which he visited and
proclaim the doctrine. Poinding that he had
'* gifts, grace, and usefulness," he gave him
exhorter's license, and after a few months
sent him to Ming-chiang, a city on the
other side of the river Min. There he
rented a chapel and preached daily for one
year, and while engaged in this work be-
came satisfied that he must leave all secular
occupation and devote himself to the preach-
ing of the Gospel. This was in 1865. At
the Annual Meeting of the Foo-Chow Mis-
sion, held in the autumn of that year, he
was received as a preacher and appointed to
the Hok Ing Tong Circuit, which included
the East Street Church in the city of Foo-
Chow, with Ngu-kang, Yek-iong, his native
place, and several other country stations.
He met with many trials, often suffering
persecution, but preaching with earnestness
and fidelity. He was much troubled con-
cerning the death of an uncle whom he had
often exhorted to repent, but upon whom
he had not been able to make much impres-
sion. This uncle dying very suddenly, it
caused the preacher great anxiety and sor-
row ; but he says that one night it seemed

160

Sia Sek Ong

as if the Saviour stood by him and bade him
touch his hands and his side, and thereupon
his heart was filled with peace and joy.

For the three years following, from 1 866 to
1869, he was appointed to the Hok-chiang
Circuit. This was a very difficult part of
the country in which to labor, as many un-
ruly people were to be found there, and be-
sides the troubles which he met from those
outside of the Church he also experienced
severe trials among false brethren. Speak-
ing of his experiences during these years
he says they were like those of a knife on a
whetstone. Sometimes he was in deep sor-
row because the people did not understand
the truth, and at other times because many
of those who did understand it rebelled
against it. It was here that he became so
impressed with the fact that the Gospel was
hindered because of the common saying that
the preachers ate the foreigners' rice and
therefore spoke the foreigners* words, that
he determined to decline all support from
the missionary treasury. This becoming
known to the people, when they found him
sad and weeping over their lack of under-
standing and their failure to come to the
truth, they supposed that he was in trouble

161

The Picket Line of Missions

because he was receiving no money. But in
the midst of all these sorrows he was driven
nearer to God and came into the enjoyment
of great peace of soul.

SELF-SUPPORT

At the Annual Meeting of the Mission fol-
lowing he declared his determination to take
this step. During the year he was often in
great straits, and did not know where the
necessary supplies for the sustenance of his
family would come from.

While planning to attend a meeting at
Keng-kiang he was dismayed by the terri-
ble rain that was falling. He knew that the
chapel had only a wet mud floor, that the
church members had not sufficient room in
their houses to entertain him, that it would
require a great exercise of the voice to be
heard by the people while a heavy rain was
falling upon the roof, that in his weakness
of body it was simply torture to be shut up
in such quarters as he must have there with
people who were noisy, and many of whom
smoked tobacco, and that if the rain con-
tinued he would be compelled to stay for
days. He remarks that while thinking in
this way he was overcome by sleep, and sud-

162

Sia Sek Ong

denly heard a voice calling, '' Sia Sek Ong,
how do you know there is such a thing as a
human soul ? If there is no soul then you are
very foolish to trouble yourself so about go-
ing to that meeting." He turned and lis-
tened, but hearing no one he opened the
door and asked the assistant preacher
whether he had spoken, but the assistant
was sound asleep. He could not determine
whether the voice came from within or with-
out, and said to himself, '* This voice comes
near sound reason." All day long he felt
that the doctrine of the soul was mere con-
jecture, and he began to plan for moving
his family home lest he should spend his
strength for naught. While such thoughts
as these were still agitating his mind in the
night suddenly a bright light filled the
room, and the cross of Jesus shone in inde-
scribable splendor before his eyes. He
realized that he had been tempted, and said
to himself, "If man has no soul, then what
means the Saviours cross?" With this
peace returned to his heart, and he deter-
mined to go on with his duty as a preacher
without regard to the joy or sorrow that
might await him, and without inquiring
whether men knew any of his trials or not.

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The Picket Line of Missions

When the time of the Annual Meeting
again arrived he found that all he had re-
ceived in money, fuel, and food during the
year was about enough to support a family
of eight persons three months. But as he
had then only his wife and one child they
had managed to live a year on this income,
although during the year he had been
obliged to pawn some of his clothes.
Brethren from other districts collected
enough money to enable him to redeem
them.

During the first few years in which he
was on self-support he never spoke about
his financial affairs to anyone, and his true
condition in this respect was not known.
There were some who suspected that he
was secretly getting help from the mission-
aries, and when Bishop Harris visited the
Mission in 1873 one of these publicly stated
his suspicions in a speech at the Annual
Meeting. He then replied that since 1870
his hand had not handled a foreign dollar,
and the discussion tended to increase the
movement toward self-support in the Mis-
sion.

Two years later, when he was appointed
to Hinghua, a brother tried to dissuade

164

Sia Sek Ong

him from moving his family on the ground
that they would not be properly provided
for; but when he reached the parsonage
he found a month's food awaiting them,
and as he started upon his first round the
preachers and members had his quarterage
ready and handed it over to him. He
makes record that all the finances were ad-
ministered in the disciplinary way, and
matters improved from year to year. We
give his own words as to his experiences at
this time : "I saw the darkness and super-
stition of the world and felt a strong desire
to build up a church in men's hearts, so that
with new hearts they might accept the
truth and lead true lives. I considered this
the greatest work of life, and with this as
my sole purpose I could leave the matter
of salary to the judgment and good will of
the native Christians. Thanks be to God,
who thus enabled me to carry out the princi-
ple of self-support on three districts. Al-
though many hated my course and tried to
put difficulties in my way it nevertheless
became brighter and brighter, so that I
could see that it was of the Lord, and must
succeed in the end. I seemed to see the
day of self-support almost from the outset."

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The Picket Line of Missions

Not long after this time he was put to a
severe test, when, in the judgment of the
Mission, it was necessary to station him on
the Yong-bing District. This was entirely
a missionary district. There were no na-
tive Christians who could support him.
There was much ground to be occupied,
and it was absolutely necessary to give sup-
port to the person who should be appointed
to preside over it. It was more of a trial
by far to him to consent to go receiving
missionary support than it had been to en-
dure all manner of trials because of the
lack of money while he was on self-support.
Yet, when convinced of the duty, he took
up the work and went forward with great
energy.

It will be in place before leaving this
matter to say that the work of self-support
has steadily grown until a considerable
number of stations or circuits now entirely
support their preachers, and some of the
districts give full support to their presiding
elders. In November, 1896, Bishop Joyce,
by the authority of the General Conference,
set off the new Hinghua Mission Conference,
starting with nearly 6,000 members and
probationers, and leaving over 7,000 in the

166

Sia Sek Ong

old Foo-Chow Conference. This new Con-
ference has grown out of the work in which
Sia Sek Ong was engaged when he first
traveled the district on self-support. The
whole work in the district is more than half
self-supporting, and the Rev. W. N. Brew-
ster, who is the superintendent, expects to
secure full self-support of the native preach-
ers in the Conference within a few years.
Much of this result is due to the early and
faithful labors and sacrifices of Sia Sek Ong
in this direction.

PROGRESS AND ENCOURAGEMENT

The visits of the bishops from time to
time were sources of great encouragement
and help to the native preachers, and to
none more so than to Sia Sek Ong. The
first visit was made by Bishop Thomson in
1865, but Mr. Sia was not then a member
of the Church. The next was in 1869 by
Bishop Kingsley, for whom Brother Sia
formed a very strong attachment. The
bishop recognized the strength of his mind
and the Christian spirit which animated
him, and wrote many hearty words of ap-
preciation in his letters from the field.

A very joyous love feast was held during

167

The Picket Line of Missions

Bishop Kingsley's sojourn, at which Sia,
among others, gave cordial expression to his
joy and gratitude over the bishop's visit.
At this time he was ordained both deacon
and elder, and although he was not ap-
pointed presiding elder, yet the emergencies
of the work in a very few months required
him to do practically the work of a presiding
elder on a large district. When Bishop Har-
ris visited the Mission in 1873 much prog-
ress had been made in the work, and Sia
Sek Ong was appointed Presiding Elder of
the Foo-Chow District. The bishop greatly
endeared himself to the native preachers
during his short stay, and their grateful tes-
timonies on the last day of the Conference
session were accompanied with tears and
deep emotion such as up to that time had
rarely been seen in a Chinese congregation.
In 1877 Bishop Wiley, who had been a
missionary a quarter of a century before
in this very field, came to organize the Foo-
Chow Conference. Having toiled in the
dark days when there was no convert to
greet the labors of the missionaries it was a
great joy to him to see such a body of
earnest, faithful ministers of the truth as he
found at that time. He speaks of Sia Sek

168

Sia Sek Ong

Ong as the John Fletcher of the Mission,
and in many respects this was an appropriate
characterization .

When Sia Sek Ong first felt impelled to
start out as a preacher of the Gospel it was
with the stern opposition of his sturdy
father, who believed that his son was doing
despite to the memory of his ancestors in
going out to preach this foreign and hated
doctrine. After some time had passed,
however, his father sent for him to come
home, saying that he could not bear to be
separated from him, that if his son would
be a Christian that was something which he
could not control, but he wished still to have
an affectionate feeling between them. The
father then began to examine the Bible
himself, *' to see what had crazed the mind
of his son," the result of which was that the
same kind of insanity seized upon himself
and he soon became a trusting Christian.
It was with great pleasure that at the Con-
ference of 1877 we saw Sia Kai Luang, the
venerable father of Sia Sek Ong, ordained
as local deacon in our Church, an office
which he filled with fidelity and very
acceptably to the people to the end of his
life.

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The Picket Line of Missions

LITERARY LABOR

Among other eminent services rendered
by Mr. Sia to the Mission his literary work
is prominent. He has been connected for
many years with the publication of the
Fookie7i CJitn'cJi Gazette^ which is the CJiristian
Advocate of the Foo-Chow Mission. In con-
nection with the foreign missionaries who
have had charge of the paper he has done
much valuable work, disseminating a great
deal of information concerning foreign
countries, as well as articles on the doc-
trines and history of Christianity.

He is the author of various tracts and
leaflets, one of the best known of which is
the tract entitled, Who is Jestis? which was
written in response to an offer by Rev. Y. J.
Allen, editor of a Church newspaper pub-
lished at Shanghai, of a premium for the
best essay on the text, '' But whom say ye
that I am? " There were many essays sent
in, and after full examination the premium
was awarded to Sia Sek Ong. The essay
was afterward published as a tract at the
Mission Press in Foo-Chow, and was also
translated and has for twenty years been
published as an English tract by our Tract

170

Sia Sek Ong

Society. The conception of it is that of
Jesus himself answering the question . Some
extracts are appended to give the reader an
idea of his style :

' ' The facts concerning me are these :
Though originally without form, yet I have
a form ; though originally without a body,
yet I have a body. Though I have a form,
I do not depend on it for life; though I
have a body, I have no solicitude for it. I
am the resurrection and the life. Except
by me none can ascend to heaven. Except
by me none can escape hell. I am an ex-
ample of righteous living for all men ; I am
the beginning of a new life for all mankind.
I am the revealer to sinful men of their just
condemnation ; the giver of repentance for
past transgressions ; the guide of the peo-
ple to God ; the Saviour of the people from
their sins; a redeeming sacrifice for the
sins of the world ; the leader of the resur-
rection to all the dead. I was rich, but for
your sakes became poor; I was exalted, but
for your sakes humbled myself and conde-
scended to become a man, taking upon me
the form of a servant. These things you
twelve men have already heard and known.

* * Think ! Who is he that will not break
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The Picket Line of Missions

the bruised reed ? Who is he that will not
quench the smoking flax? Who is he that
dies for sinners? Who is he that prays for
his enemies? Who is he who when he
suffers, threatens not, and when he is re-
viled, revileth not again? Who is he whom
men regard as a root out of dry ground,
treat as a criminal, see in him no beauty
that they should desire him, appoint him
his grave with the wicked ? Of what family
is he the son, think you? To what house-
hold does he belong? Is he one of the
prophets returned to the world, or John
raised from the dead?

" Are not ye the twelve whom I have
chosen ? Ye ought to know me ; but every
day ye show that ye have not yet appre-
hended me. Therefore ye ask, ' Who shall
be greatest in the kingdom of heaven ? '
Therefore ye are filled with indignation
against John and his brother. Therefore
ye dispute by the way who shall be great-
est. Therefore ye ignorantly talk of build-
ing tabernacles on the Mount of Transfigu-
ration. When I speak of my approaching
death and resurrection, ye rebuke me.
When I walk on the sea, ye think it is a
spirit. When I rebuke the wind, ye say,

172

Sia Sek Ong

' What manner of man is this? ' When I
would wash your feet, ye refuse me. When
ye walk on the water to come to me, ye are
still afraid.

^* Now ye have walked by my side and
been intimate with me for three years. You
have heard of my changing water into
wine. You saw my transfiguration on the
mountain. You know that with a word I
defeated the devil and escaped from his
snares. You saAv me feed the multitude
with five fishes, and yet have fragments to
gather up. And greater things than these :
the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk,
the dumb speak, the lepers are cleansed,
the maimed are healed, all diseases are
cured, the dead are raised. These things
the holy prophets of old desired to see, but
saw not ; and to hear, but heard not. But
blessed are your eyes, for they see, and
your ears, for they hear. Now, carefully
reflecting upon what you have seen and
heard, whom say ye that I am? "

' ' Somewhat in this manner I suppose Je-
sus talked with his disciples. I now leave
this question, ' Who is Jesus? ' with the
reader, praying that the Holy Spirit may
guide him in his meditations upon it, until

12 .173

The Picket Line of Missions

with Thomas he shall joyfully exclaim,
' My Lord and my God ! '"

His sermons were always extempore, so
far as the wording" was concerned. But
they were thoroughly studied, as a rule, be-
fore being delivered. His sermon on Sun-
day morning, during Bishop Kingsley's
visit, was one long to be remembered. It
was from the text, ' ' If any man will come
after me, let him deny himself, and take up
his cross, and follow me." I give a few
words from it: ''You must, then, first
think what manner of man Jesus was. He
was not rich, nor honored, nor great. He
was poor, despised, lonely. We must be
willing to be the same. We must not try
to meet him in the dark when nobody can
see us, like Nicodemus, but we must openly
follow him. We must not follow him, like
the five thousand, for the loaves and fishes,
nor, like the sons of Zebedee, for worldly
honors. We must not follow him to dwell
on the mountain top, but follow him be-
cause he has the words of life and there is
no one else who can give them to us. If
we follow him our enemies will be those of
our own households, but we must still fol-
low. Whether the road be smooth or rough,
1Y4

Sia Sek Ong

or if it carries us into the waves of the sea,
still we must follow. We cannot go on to
the mountain top and build three tents and
stay there. We must follow him out of the
city, into the garden of Gethsemane, to the
mockery of the soldiers, to being spitten
upon, to Calvary, to the cross ! We must
hear him exclaim, ' Why hast thou left me,
O my God? ' and still follow him. Follow
him to death, to the grave. And shall we
stop here? O no ! Who can keep Jesus in
the grave? Nobody! nobody! We will
follow him in the resurrection to life. But
we will not stop there. The Head has as-
cended to heaven, the members shall also.
There is no help for it, but they must fol-
low their Head. Then we will look back
over the way, see the dangers, the unnum-
bered trials we have passed, and as we
tremble God himself shall wipe away the
tears from our eyes. Then, when we think
upon the means of our salvation, we will
find it has not been by our good works, or
deeds of merit, but just by following Jesus
wherever he has led, until all the dangers
of the way have been surmounted.

"Fathers, brethren, sisters, up and be
doing. Gird yourselves for the work. You

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The Picket Line of Missions

may not be able to bear other burdens or
exert strength in other directions, but you
may bear the great burden of the cross, for
Jesus is your strength ; and when we have
followed him into heaven we will rejoice
and shout. Glory to God and the Lamb for-
ever ! May we all with diligence and pa-
tience bear the cross and reach eternal
life."

VISIT TO THE UNITED STATES

It is not necessary to follow with any de-
tail the subsequent years of this personal
history. In the work of a presiding elder
on different districts, as a skillful and faith-
ful instructor in the Theological School, as
a pastor in charge of our most important
churches, this man has demonstrated him-
self ' ' a workman that needeth not to be
ashamed, rightly dividing the word of
truth." Everywhere his ministry has been
faithful, and he has secured the respect of
those who remain heathen and the affec-
tion of the Christian congregations which
he has served. In some regions he was
more successful, apparently, in securing the
conversion of souls than in others; but
whether his field was one ripe unto the

176

Sia Sek Ong

harvest and he was engaged in the delight-
ful work of reaping, or whether it was a
barren wilderness where he was sowing the
seed of truth with little in immediate re-
sults to encourage him, he alike preserved
his serene confidence in the Master whom
he served and was faithful to the duty of
the hour, I do not think he ever under-
took to sum up the conversions which have
taken place under his labors. It is safe,
however, to say that hundreds of souls
have been brought to Christ through his
ministrations, and that perhaps even more
important work has been done by him in
the patient instruction and edification of the
professed followers of Christ.

At the Conference of 1887 he was elected
a delegate to the General Conference, which
met in New York in 1888. He was accom-
panied to the United States by Rev. Dr.
Sites, who acted as his interpreter during
his visit. He had the pleasure of visiting
some of our largest institutions, and was
deeply impressed with all he saw and heard.
When he was at the De Pauw University
at Greencastle, Ind., showing great delight
in the sight of so many students seek-
ing the higher realms of knowledge, he

177

The Picket Line of Missions

was asked, '' What has impressed you most
of what you have seen here? " His answer
was, ''The fact that so many hundreds of
young men and young women can study
here together; " and his quick mind saw in
this fact one of the great revolutions that
Christianity was destined to work for the
people of his own country.

There were great revelations to him in
the immense factories, the machine shops,
the railways, and in fact in all the great,
busy, bustling life of the young republic.
He was a faithful listener to all the debates
of the General Conference, the purport of
which was made known to him by Dr. Sites,
gave careful study to the important ques-
tions that came before the body, and came
to independent decisions in regard to them.
One instance of this is found in his view of
the eligibility of women to the General Con-
ference. He listened very carefully to the
interpretation of the arguments on both
sides, and although his interpreter, friend,
and instructor was himself of the view that
the women elected delegates were not eli-
gible, Mr. Sia remarked at the close of the
discussion, " Many strong arguments have
been presented against them, but neverthe-

178

Sia Sek Ong

less I am seven tenths in favor of their ad-
mission ; " and he voted according-ly.

One pleasant incident of the session oc-
curred when the newly elected bishops were
consecrated. Bishop Joyce had requested
that the delegate from China might take
part in his ordination. So it happened that
the friend of Bishop Wiley from far-off
China was one of those who laid hands in
the consecrating rite upon the head of that
other dear friend of the bishop who was
about to be ordained to the highest office of
the Church.

I was at the time pastor of St. John's
Church, Boston, and it was an indescribable
joy to have him preach in my pulpit and to
interpret to my people his earnest words;
and especially to have him join in the ad-
ministration of the Lord's Supper to my
American congregation. I thought of the
days when he was a heathen on the hillside
at Yek-iong, and of all his faithful ministry
since his conversion, and my heart was too
full for utterance as I saw American Chris-
tians receiving from his hands, as those of
an honored minister of Christ, the emblems
of the broken body and shed blood of our
Redeemer.

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The Picket Line of Missions

His address to the Boston Preachers'
Meeting was full of the earnest spirit of a
consecrated Christian minister, and produced
a most favorable impression upon all who
listened to it. Wherever he went the at-
tention of our people was secured, higher
ideas were fonned of the possibilities of
Christian grace among the Chinese, and
deeper interest aroused in the work of God in
China.

While at our parsonage, Mrs. Baldwin
said to him, " Now you have seen our coun-
try, how does it impress you as compared
with your own ?" With exceeding sadness
of face and tone, he replied, '' Your country
is alive ; my country is dead !"

A SERENELY CLOSING LIFE

On his return to China Mr. Sia went
among the churches lecturing upon the
United States, and awakened intense inter-
est as he told of the wonderful things he
had seen and of the mighty evidences of
the superiority of Christianity as shown in
the development and progress of a great
Christian country. Many of the things he
had to tell, as those which he had actually
seen, seemed to the natives almost incred-

180

Sla Sek Ong

ible, and they listened with delight as one
wonder after another was brought to view
in his vivid descriptions. But while awak-
ening their interest in the material progress
of our land he did not fail to enforce the les-
sons of Christian experience which he had
learned in his visits to many of our churches.
The whole influence of his utterances was
of a spiritually beneficial character.

During the progress of the war with
Japan he felt called upon to preach a
series of sermons in regard to the needs of
China. They were exceedingly able dis-
courses, commanded the attention of his
congregations and stirred them to a more
profound interest in the welfare of their
country than they had before experienced.
The leading thought in these sermons was
that China was suffering because of her
blind adherence to the past, that she was
forever looking backward and living in the
remote ages of antiquity, while she ought
to be alive to the immense progress of the
present age and the great possibilities of
the opening future; that she must cease
looking to the past, and look forward with
hope and with a determination to be felt
as a power among the nations in the days

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The Picket Line of Missions

to come. He showed how necessary it was
that she should become Christian in order
to have the impulse which comes from the
life of Christ in the heart, the awakening of
intellectual power, and the stimulation of
all the noblest faculties of the human soul.
He is now nearly laid aside from active
service, but, no doubt, can say, as another of
our veterans, Hu Po Mi, recently wrote me :
* ' I do not wish to become an idle servant
of Christ. It is my desire to do his work
till my eyes close for a newer and happier
world."

After the above had gone to the printer,
the sad news of the death of Sia Sek Ong
came in a letter from his eldest son, Sia
Tieng Ang, now a student in the Illinois
Wesleyan University. He died March 24,
1 897 ; but we are as yet without any par-
ticulars. The temporal life has merged
into the eternal ; the mortal has put on im-
mortality. An eminent and faithful minis-
ter of Christ has gone to his reward ; but
his work abides in the hearts and lives of
those whom he brought to Christ, and in the
influences he set in motion for the awaken-
ing of a new life among his people.

182

3obn Ikenneth fIDacftensic, fIDe&lcal
flDieeionari? to Cbina

BY

Jennie M. Bingham

John Kenneth Mackenzie

V

John Kenneth Mackenzie, Medical Missionary
to China

EARLY LIFE

August 25, 1850, at Yarmouth, on the
Isle of Wight, John Kenneth Mackenzie
was born. His father was a Scotchman
and his mother Welsh, people of earnest,
simple-hearted piety. The boy Kenneth
was noted for his reserve and a very quick
temper. He had great strength of will,
which made him undaunted in the presence
of the great difficulties of his after life.
His parents removed to Bristol, where his
youth was spent. " He showed little liking
for study and left school at the age of fifteen
to become a clerk in a merchant's office."

TWO DAYS

He, with his chums, joined a Bible class
held in the Young Men's Christian Associa-
tion rooms Sunday afternoon. A certain
May Sunday the subject was, ''A Good
Conscience." The Bible study was followed

185

The Picket Line of Missions

by an address from Mr. Moody, who was
there on his first visit to England. Mac-
kenzie was among those who rose for prayer.
The year that followed was full of doubt
and questioning. He realized his need of
help from a higher source than himself, but
found it difficult to believe. Finally he left
the Bible class altogether.

The anniversary of that day when he arose
for prayers found him in his place at the
Young Men's Christian Association rooms.
An Association secretary from London spoke
and asked those young men to refuse or ac-
cept Jesus Christ. Kenneth arose and sev-
eral young men with him, one of whom after-
ward followed him to China as a missionary.

He afterward said, " My doubts and ques-
tionings have all been met in the person of
Jesus Christ himself."

ACTIVE SERVICE

At once he threw himself into Christian
work. He held open-air services, visited
lodging houses and ragged schools, dis-
tributed literature at street corners, worked
at the Midnight Mission, and was remark-
ably successful with notorious criminals.
Feeling a need of proficiency in public

186

John Kenneth Mackenzie

speaking he and his friends formed a
unique training college. They met in a
broken-down cow shed, two miles out in the
country, at five o'clock in the morning.
Here they took turns in delivering carefully
prepared sermons and knelt on the earth-
floor in earnest prayer. Kenneth's talks are
declared by his companions to have been
" most interesting and full of Bible."

He worked at the evangelistic services
held every winter in the Bristol Theater, and
here met a friend, Colonel Duncan, to whom
he first spoke of his desire to become a foreign
missionary. Colonel Duncan's answer was :
*' You are still young. Study medicine and
go to China as a medical missionary." He
put in his hands a pamphlet, entitled Tke
Double Ctire ; or, What is a Medical Mission ?

This led Mackenzie to his decision. His
first difficulty was the objection of his
parents, ' ' which was withdrawn in answer
to prayer."

OFF FOR CHINA

Very little is known of his student life
except that it was very thorough and his
preparation complete. He took post-gradu-
ate courses in a London eye hospital.

He wrote to his Mission Board : " I am

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The Picket Line of Missions

engaged to be married, but shall follow the
advice of missionaries and wait a couple of
years to learn the language before I marry.
I can understand that a missionary's life
must be a lonely one, and a wife a solace and
help."

AT HANKOW

Hankow is the great commercial city of
China, at the junction of two great rivers,
the Yang-tse and Han, and with its two
large neighboring cities is called the heart
of the empire. The tea trade alone amounts
to fifteen million dollars annually. The
first Sunday after his arrival Mackenzie
went on board the ships in the harbor and
did evangelistic work there. If he could
not yet speak Chinese he could speak Eng-
lish and do missionary work among English
sailors. The next day he began work in the
hospital and his struggle with the language.
A hospital had been built and put tempora-
rily into the hands of the foreign community
physician. At once he had more medical
duties than he wanted. He wrote :

** I am besieged with eye disea.se. Two
sisters, blind from birth, came to the hospi-
tal. I operated upon them, and both can
see well. They became deeply interCvSted

188

John Kenneth Mackenzie

in the truth and were baptized before leav-
ing. A woman restored to sight after a
blindness of fifteen years prayed at a hos-
pital prayer meeting that the blessing of
the one true God of whom she had learned
might rest upon the foreign doctor for what
he had done for her.

' ' After a successful operation on a little
girl her father, belonging to the proud lit-
erary class, went down on his knees and
knocked his forehead on the floor to express
deep homage. I lifted him up and told
him to kneel only to God. While here in
the hospital he was thoroughly instructed
in the Christian faith."

DAILY PREACHING

Daily preaching is carried on in most of
the mission chapels in China. A shop in a
crowded street is rented and fitted up as a
*'Glad Tidings Hall," where the foreign
missionary and his native assistant for
many hours every day proclaim salvation
through Jesus to those coming in. No
regular service is held, but as the coolies
resting from their burdens, the countryman
with his basket, the peddler with his bun-
dle come in for a while the preacher, in
13 isy

The Picket Line of Missions

colloquial fashion, addresses questions to
individuals and tries by patient repetition
to show the love of God in Jesus Christ.
They have never before heard anything
like this '' new doctrine." Frequently they
come again and again, and in some cases
the missionary will see a genuine interest
shown. Then he knows there will be con-
verts.

COUNTRY WORK

In six months Mackenzie began giving a
little address in Chinese to the people. He
says : * ' From the first I was determined to
learn Chinese. There is no work so useful
as that of the medical missionary, but he
must combine the cure of the soul with the
cure of the body ; otherwise medical missions
are little more than benevolent institutions."

With Mr. Griffith John, who had first
opened up work in Hankow, he went out
to towns and villages where missionaries
had never been. Their plan was to go to a
tea shop, where Mr. John would begin to
talk to the people. Soon there would be a
great crowd. He would tell them that his
companion was a doctor, and at once they
would rush off and bring all the sick people
in the place. Every sixth case would be

190

John Kenneth Mackenzie

eye disease, with occasionally a leper. One
result of these visits was that patients
would come to the hospital from these vil-
lages, and thus the teaching could be fol-
lowed up.

PERSECUTION

A native by the name of Wei, coming to
Hankow on business, was converted, and in
his own community became the center of a
little Christian group. The plan was to
visit his village, and Wei met them at an
appointed place to conduct them thither.
The two Englishmen attracted a great deal
of attention. When they landed from the
boat several hundred men and boys were
assembled. They had '* no leisure so much
as to eat," and, preaching to crowds, they
moved on to the next town ' ' with almost
the whole village at their heels."

Soon the behavior of the people began to
change. From being curious they began to
be rude, and then to shout, '' Go back to
Hankow and preach your Jesus there ; you
shall not come here." Then they threw
hard clods at the missionaries (fortunately
there were no stones), and the missionaries
found themselves the center of a howling
mob of about one thousand men and boys.

191

The Picket Line of Missions

Mackenzie guarded his head with his
hands, but Mr. John was struck in the
mouth and nearly fainted from loss of blood.
He also had a scalp wound. The native
Christians behaved nobly, one of them say-
ing, '' You may kill me, but don't kill my
pastor." At the crossing of a creek the
doctor and Mr. John fell back until most
had gone over the plank bridge, and then
broke through the crowd and escaped. A
native Christian followed them. They
were wondering where they could find shel-
ter in that strange, hostile land. The na-
tive Christian beckoned them to follow him.
He took them to a house whose master wel-
comed them and told them he feared not to
take them in. They were about to give
their names when he interrupted and said
he had been a patient at the hospital and
knew them. He then prepared a delicious
feast for these battered pilgrims, who had
eaten nothing since early morning.

When they departed next day he refused
to be paid. On a subsequent visit to these
villages Mackenzie said : ' ' These men are
athletic, manly, simple, and fearless. We
made it a special point to call at the villages
where we had been molested and preach

192

John Kenneth Mackenzie

the Gospel of peace and good will to the
inhabitants."

This work, begun amid great opposition
and danger, has been greatly successful.
These people raised money among them-
selves and built two chapels in this very dis-
trict, and now every year new houses of
worship are erected there.

CHINESE MEDICINE

Chinese doctors know very little about
anatomy or physiology. They attribute
disease to the '' five elements." Most won-
derful hea-ling properties are attributed to
dragons' teeth, fossils, tigers* bones. Dr.
Mackenzie was called to see a child very
sick with bronchitis. She was being fed
on the stings of a scorpion. In sickness
idols, astrologers, and fortune-tellers are con-
sulted. The priests teach that disease is due
to the anger of the gods or to a visitation of
evil spirits. Charms are written out and
pasted around the sick room. Sometimes
these marvelous bits of paper are burned
and the patient is ordered to drink the ashes.
Idolatrous rites are performed with gongs
and firecrackers, the terrible noise being
most distressing to a sick person. The

193

The Picket Line of Missions

Chinese believe that a spirit can wield
greater power when separated from the
body; from this comes ancestral worship.
Persons desiring to take vengeance upon
their enemies will often commit suicide to
obtain their end.

One day a young man came to the dis-
pensary with a large wound on his left arm,
evidently caused by some cutting instru-
ment. He said he had a sick father who
failed to respond to Chinese treatment. The
relatives decided that the son must sacrifice
his own flesh to save his father's life. A
large piece of flesh was cut out of his arm,
cooked into a savory meal, and given to the
patient. He died, and the family decided
that filial piety was lacking in the son, as
shown in the fatal effect of eating his flesh.
The poor boy not only had a bad arm, but
was also condemned and an outcast.

If the child of a rich Chinaman is sick,
the priest will tell them that some ancestor
is suffering, and it will require a large sum
to set him free. After this has been paid
the priest will tell them that the ancestor is
still in agony, and as much more must be
paid. This goes on till the priests get all
they possibly can.

194

John Kenneth Mackenzie

Mackenzie was called to a case of typhoid
fever. The native doctor had been treating
the woman by burning her body with in-
cense. Her body was covered with blisters
and scars.

A man with dyspepsia was treated by hav-
ing six needles thrust into his body at the
pit of his stomach.

A woman with asthma had her back beaten
with a huge club to give her relief. Truly
the tender mercies of the heathen are cruel.

As the fame of the skillful Western phy-
sician spread it was no unusual thing for
him to be called to bring dead people to life.
On one occasion a man brought his de-
mented son to be restored.

OPIUM PATIENTS

In one year the doctor treated seven hun-
dred cases of opium smoking. He says:
''As most of them come from long distances
and support themselves while in the hos-
pital we feel it wrong to turn them away,
since they carry to their homes a knowl-
edge of Jesus. I always tell them the med-
icine is given to relieve the pain and crav-
ing, and that they must pray to have the
desire taken from their hearts and new

195

The Picket Line of Missions

hearts given to them. We cannot know
how many are permanently cured, but when
this question is asked new arrivals, * What
brought you to the hospital for treatment? '
the almost invariable answer is, * I have
friends and neighbors who have been cured
here.'"

MARRIAGE

In December, 1876, the lady to whom Dr.
Mackenzie was betrothed came from Eng-
land to Shanghai, where they were married.
Mrs. Mackenzie entered with enthusiasm
into her husband's work. He wrote to his
brother, "We are now established in our
pretty home, which looks thoroughly home-
like and comfortable, thanks to Millie's deft
fingers."

This year he treated over a thousand per-
sons in the wards and almost twelve thou-
sand in the dispensary. In one case where
he saved a life by opening the windpipe
and inserting a silver tube great interest
was manifested. Soon he was called in hot
haste to a similar case, and was requested to
bring with him ' ' the tube for making two
mouths! "

He wrote to his friends : ' * My one aim is
to make medicine the handmaid of the Gos-

196

John Kenneth Mackenzie

pel. My commission is the Scripture verse,
* And he sent them to preach the kingdom
of God and to heal the sick.' '*

In October Dr. Mackenzie's heart was
gladdened by the birth of a little daughter,
who was baptized at the public Chinese
service and named Margaret Ethel.

A NEW HOME

When Mackenzie had been four years
abroad he felt that it was best to leave the
trying climate of Hankow and go farther
north. Amid loving farewells he left for
Tien-tsin, his new field.

He says concerning traveling by carts:
' * They are heavy, ugly contrivances, so
small that only one person can conveniently
sit or lie inside, for there is no seat except
the floor of the cart. Having no springs, and
the road being frightfully cut up with ruts,
the jolting is simply awful. We line the
interior with our bedding and pillows, but
to prevent coming in contact with the sides
of the cart you have to seize hold of the
vehicle itself. The soil is soft and full of
soda. With only a slight wind you are soon
covered with dust, which penetrates your
mouth and nostrils. In wet weather you

197

The Picket Line of Missions

plow through mud, getting stuck every few
minutes."

POWER OF PRAYER

When he reached Tien-tsin "there was
neither money nor drugs to open his work,
and it would take five months before help
could come from the home Board. It was
suggested by a missionary that a written re-
quest for funds be sent to the viceroy, who
was Li Hung Chang, the famous Chinese
statesman, setting forth the advantage of
establishing a hospital for the benefit of the
Chinese.

It was presented through the consul, but
no answer came. Two months passed, and
not a word from the viceroy. Meanwhile
the little mission circle was praying might-
ily that the viceroy's heart might be opened.

On August I the prayer meeting subject
was, '' Ask, and it shall be given you."
That very day a member of the English le-
gation noticed the sad face of the viceroy.
On inquiry the viceroy said, *'My wife is
seriously ill — dying. The doctors told me
this morning that she cannot live."

*' Why don't you get the help of the for-
eign doctors ? " asked the Englishman.

The viceroy objected that it would be

198

John Kenneth Mackenzie

quite impossible for a Chinese lady of rank
to be attended by a foreigner, but soon his
common sense triumphed, and he sent for
Dr. Mackenzie and his colleague.

It was a very extraordinary proceeding
for these men to be admitted to Lady Li's
sick room. When they returned to the Mis-
sion they reported, '' She is very sick; we
must all pray for her recovery."

They attended faithfully and saved her
life. When convalescent Mackenzie sug-
gested that Miss Dr. Howard, of the Metho-
dist Episcopal Mission in Peking, be sent for.
She came for a month's stay, and the result
was that Lady Li established a woman's
hospital and put Miss Howard at the head.

In an Eastern city if a great ruler takes
you by the hand the country is yours. At
once Dr. Mackenzie's pathway was thronged
with suppliants to be healed. He proposed
that the viceroy should witness a surgical
operation, and he did so, showing much in-
terest in the skill and ease of Western sur-
gery.

The viceroy at once gave one of his rooms
for a dispensary, and this becoming so
thronged as to impede the business of the
court his excellency set aside a part of the

199

The Picket Line of Missions

temple, one of the finest buildings in Tien-
tsin, and furnished money for its support.
Dr. Mackenzie speaks of seeing two hun-
dred patients a day.

As this temple hospital was three miles
from the Mission compound he determined
to build one in a more convenient location.
He appealed to the natives, and as he had
several rich patients he refused pay from
them, and instead asked for subscriptions to
the new hospital. He received gifts of
money in generous measure. The hospital
was built, and publicly opened by the vice-
roy amid imposing ceremonies, at which the
British and Russian consuls spoke.

The North China Daily News said : ' ' Unique
interest attaches to the work carried on by
Dr. Mackenzie during the last fifteen months,
seeing that all the funds for its support
have been derived from native sources."
*' Whether believers in Jesus Christ or not,"
remarked the viceroy on one occasion, " we
are all of one mind in wishing to aid in the
healing of the sick."

A MORNING IN THE HOSPITAL

The doctor wrote to his friends : ' ' Let
me take you to our Chinese hospital. As-

200

John Kenneth Mackenzie

cending a broad flight of stone steps to the
veranda we pass into a lofty hall and enter
the waiting room. Benches are ranged
down the whole length of it, and at both
sides texts of Scripture in Chinese decorate
the walls. The hour is nine o'clock and the
gong is sounding for morning prayers.
Already groups of men are collected from
the city and villages around with a bundle
of bedding by their sides. TJiere a blind
man is led in, here comes a lame man on
crutches. Men v/ith enormous tumors, men
feeble from dysentery and consumption file
in, and the emaciated opium smoker is also
there. The in-patients who are sufficiently
convalescent come trooping in with their
bandages and dressings on.

' ' The Gospel hymn is given out and a
portion of Scripture read, very likely a case
of healing. It is explained and lessons are
drawn from it. The patients are very quiet
and attentive.

' ' Then the medical missionary goes to
the dispensary, while the native evangelist
continues to talk to the patients as they
wait for their turn. One by one the patients
come into the dispensary. First a case of
eye disease. The patient is told he must

201

The Picket Line of Missions

become an in-patient and undergo a slight
operation. He will probably start back in
dismay exclaiming, ' Cut ! No, never ! *

* * I call an assistant to lead this patient to
one of the wards to rest a while. There he
is sure to meet a similar case, and the testi-
mony of his own countryman brings him
back to the dispensary for an operation.

' * An official's servant appears with a large
red piece of paper in his hand. It is his
master's visiting card. I treated the gov-
ernor of this province for bronchitis, and
when he came to pay his official visit his
retinue extended a hundred yards up the
street.

*' We proceed to visit the wards. Look
at that man sitting on his bed, with his bed-
ding still in a bundle instead of being com-
fortably spread out. He is a newcomer
full of fears. By to-morrow he will be as
jolly as his bodily ailment will allow. By
one bedside sits the native evangelist with
his open Bible. Portions of the gospels are
scattered about the wards, and as I go from
patient to patient, dressing wounds and at-
tending to their wants, I question them
about their reading, and urge them to bring
their sinsick souls to the great Physician."

202

John Kenneth Mackenzie

SURGICAL WORK.

Rewrote: ''It would be difficult for a
medical man in England to comprehend my
anxiety over serious surgical cases. At
home consultants are called in, and what-
ever operation is undertaken, whatever the
result, it is accepted that the best thing has
been done for the patient. Here I am alone.
The Chinese, though they see a man very
ill, don't realize that unless operated upon
he must die. If he should die after the
operation they would spread abroad the
news that the operation had killed him.

' * Though God has not given to his serv-
ants miraculous powers of healing, yet so
greatly has he enlightened us that the man
fully instructed and doing his work in
humble dependence upon divine help will
achieve such success that in the eyes of the
Chinese it appears to be well-nigh miracu-
lous."

A CHINESE MEDICAL SCHOOL

A delegation of young Chinamen, who
had been sent to the best schools and col-
leges of America, and had been after a few
years recalled to China because it was feared
they would become Americanized, attracted

203

The Picket Line of Missions

Mackenzie's attention. He asked that eight
of these young men be given him to be
trained in medical science. He wrote con-
cerning this work :

" I am not merely training surgeons for
the Chinese government. This is a rare op-
portunity to influence educated young men
from a Christian standpoint. My hands are
left perfectly free by the viceroy, and the
young men are entirely under my charge.

' ' I have to be a whole medical faculty in
myself, and it sorely taxes my time. The
more I know of the Chinese, especially their
educated men, the more I feel there is a
mine of wealth here."

At this period of his life, when Dr. Mac-
kenzie so much needed the comforts of
home and family, his wife's health failed
and she was obliged to go to England.

A CHINESE DECORATION

In recognition of the valuable service
rendered to the students of the medical
school the Emperor of China bestowed on
Dr. Mackenzie an imperial decoration. It
was called ' ' The Star of the Order of the
Double Dragon." It was made of gold,
with a precious stone in blue, corresponding

204

John Kenneth Mackenzie

with the blue buttons worn by mandarins.
The doctor wrote :

*' It was accompanied by an embroidered
ribbon to be worn with it, and the whole
was incased in an ebony cabinet with a dis-
patch to explain the reason of the gift. It
is kindly meant and a gracious gift, and
as such I value it. In Chinese official soci-
ety, too, it gives me a certain rank which is
not to be despised by one living and work-
ing here."

HARD WORK

His work, which pressed so heavily
in many different departments— teaching,
healing, preaching — care and responsibility
enough for ten men, began to tell upon him
physically. He says:

" I no longer have time to read anything
but the Bible. The verse, ' In nothing be
anxious,' has proven a great comfort both
in regard to family sorrows and hospital
cares, for with so many patients, and most
of them surgical operations of the greatest
severity, I could scarcely have borne the
strain.

" It is very delightful to see around you
spiritual growth. It is worth suffering
much (though I have no cause to talk of suf-

14 205

The Picket Line of Missions

fering, my joy has been so full) and com-
ing a long way to see Chinamen drink-
ing in the living water. You would be
interested in the sight going on in the hos-
pital wards nearly every afternoon — little
groups of patients gathered round one or
two beds, and one of the hospital helpers
busy teaching them. It is wonderful how
God has used this medical work to spread
into the district all around the news of sal-
vation.

** The medical missionary has this great
advantage over his clerical brother, the
people seek him, he has not to trouble about
seeking them. As in our Lord's day, they
come only for material benefits.

' ' There are many depressing influences
in our medical work. A visitor once said
to me:

*' ' How can you spend your life among
these dirty wretches? '

' ' We have to work with imperfect instru-
ments in the shape of clumsy, if willing,
men in place of the intelligent and tender
nurses of our home hospitals. We have to
put up with ideas of cleanliness different from
our own. To counterbalance this we need
the elevating influence of service for God."

206

John Kenneth Mackenzie

DEATH

After a few days' illness from smallpox,
contracted from his patients, Dr. Mackenzie
died. A few hours before death he was
told he was better, and was asked if that
pleased him. He answered, **I am quite
ready whichever way it is. I only want
the Lord's will to be done. It would be
nice to stay and do a little more work, if
that is his will."

Very early in the morning while it was
yet dark, on Easter Day, God's finger
touched him and he slept.

From the viceroy's palace to the poorest
hovel there was sorrow and dismay.

''How can the sick be healed now?"
they cried.

' * There will never be such another physi-
cian," they said.

'' I never thought Chinamen could be so
affected, " said one who knew only the
stolid side of their natures.

Chinamen thronged the little church and
cemetery, the viceroy sending two high
officials to represent himself and Lady Li.
Thirty-six different men were bearers,
changing places as they moved, to give all

20Y

The Picket Line of Missions

who requested the privilege a chance to
carry the body a little way.

The large congregation sang together the
beautiful hymn,

*' Sleep on, beloved, sleep and take thy rest,
Lay down thy head upon thy Saviour's breast ;
We love thee well, but Jesus loves thee best.
Good night! "

Very tenderly they thought of the wife
and child and old father in the home land
to whom the sad message had been sent the
day before.

There in the land he loved, amid the
people whom he served so well, the tired
body lies sleeping.

" Until the Easter glory lights the skies,
Until the dead in Jesus shall arise,
And he shall come, but not in lowly guise.
Good night ! "
208

VI
3ames fH>. tiboburn

BY

W. F. Oldham, D.D.

James M. Thoburn

VI
James M. Thoburn

The great battles of Christianity are those
fought against cultivated and literary non-
Christian systems. That the cannibal sav-
ages of the Pacific or some of the wild tribes
of Africa should quickly yield to the pres-
ence of the missionary and the preaching
of the Gospel is, indeed, matter for glad
thanksgiving. But the greater triumphs of
the cross are achieved against the fortified
systems of religious error. When the
powerful and polished systems of the Greeks
and the religion of imperial Rome con-
fronted the early Christian Church, and with-
out prestige and social advantage young
Christianity overcame them by the might of
her moral earnestness and the fullness of
her spiritual life, the victory was greater
and more wonderful than those she achieved
later through her dauntless missionaries
among the wild Goths and savage Teutons
of northern Europe.

Of the great religious systems that stand

211

The Picket Line of Missions

opposed to Christianity to-day Hinduism,
with a following of about two hundred mil-
lions, is among the most numerous and is, in
many regards, the most difficult to attack.
It is a purely ethnic faith, and is confined to
one people. These are the inhabitants of
that vast and populous peninsula of southern
Asia known as India. The difficulties pre-
sented by India to the spread of the Gospel
are many ; some are common to all oriental
countries, and some peculiar to this land.
Of the former, perhaps the chief are the
national conservatism and dislike for inno-
vation, particularly for imported novelties in
religion, the moral inertia of every great
mass of paganism, and the utter deadening
of the conscience by centuries of gross sin.
Peculiar to India are the difficulties of a rigid
caste system, which destroys individual
liberty, and a dreamy pantheism, which
tends to confuse the moral sense and almost
destroys conscience, while conservatism
deepens into passionate devotion to the cus-
toms of the past.

This vast land, thronging with people
among whom the ascendency of the British
government gives easy access and perfect
safety, could not but early attract the atten-

212

James M. Thoburn

tion of a missionary-hearted Church. The
Methodist Episcopal Church, which had
spent the first half century of her life in
laying those broad, deep foundations in the
home land which continue to make her the
first of American denominations, had al-
ready sent her first missionaries to Liberia in
1833, and to China in 1847, when the ardent
gaze of that great missionary secretary. Dr.
Durbin, was attracted to India. In 1852 it
was determined to open a mission wherever
on the broad bosom of the Indian peninsula
a suitable territory, unoccupied by other
missions, could be found. After much de-
lay a suitable leader was found in William
Butler, 7to)nen prcuclartun ct vcncrabile, of the
New England Conference. He was a man
of marked and varied ability, whom time has
crowned as one of the great and enduring
names of the Church, and to whom was
given the added honor of afterward opening
another great foreign mission field of the
Church — Mexico.

Dr. Butler reached Calcutta September
25, 1856, and, in consultation with the
leaders of other missions, selected as the
Methodist Episcopal mission field a small
territory in North India. A little later this

213

The Picket Line of Missions

territory was somewhat extended. About
twenty years from then it was found that
Methodism could not be contained in any
narrow limits; and now the Methodist
Episcopal Church is coterminous with the
Indian empire, and has gone beyond into the
island region of Malaysia. The wisdom of
the early choice of territory is, however,
demonstrated by the abundant fruitage of
the missions in the first India mission field,
where to this day more than one half of all
our converts are found. Scarcely had Dr.
Butler gotten to work when the world was
startled by the outburst of Mohammedan
fanaticism and Hindu bigotry in the ' ' Indian
mutiny." The thrilling story of those try-
ing days, the narrow escape of the Butlers,
and the heroic martyrdoms of our early
MethodivSt converts is told in that mission-
ary classic which ought to be in all our
libraries, a volume more fascinating than
any romance — T/ie Land of the Veda, by
William Butler.

The mutiny deeply stirred the Christian
world, and on the restoration of order the
India Mission was reinforced by two mis-
sionaries and their wives, and, in the fol-
lowing year, by what was then considered

214

James M. Thoburn

a large party — six men, five of them mar-
ried and accompanied by their wives. Of
these nine male pioneers seven remain to
this day, having rendered among them an
aggregate of about two hundred and fifty
years of missionary service. Drs. Parker,
Messmore, Waugh, and Humphrey are still
active men, and Dr. Baume has but recently
retired. Their leader, William Butler, who
lives in Newton Center, Mass., quietly waits
for the morning, while his son, the Rev.
John W. Butler, happy inheritor of his
father's ability and zeal, builds wisely and
well the nascent Methodism of Mexico. The
record is unparalleled.

It is the purpose of this sketch to narrate
briefly the career of but one of this band of
pioneers — and he the youngest — who, in the
providence of God and by the appointment
of the Church, has come in these later years
to the leadership of the Methodist Episco-
pal forces in India and Malaysia. In any
article so brief as this must be but scant
attention can be given to the absorbingly
interesting fields of missionary enterprise
entered, the intricate and distracting prob-
lems faced, and the wondrous achievements
accomplished, in the face of the most for-

215

The Picket Line of Missions

midable difficulties, tinder him of whom we
write. Even of the leader himself our words
must be few.

James Mills Thoburn, of an old Irish
family of Thorburns, was born near St.
Clairsville, O., in March, 1836. His father
was a small farmer, a man of active piety and
rare good sense ; his mother was a woman
of extraordinary parts and force of charac-
ter. All her children received from her
such inspiration for life as will abide for all
time. The family consisted of five boys,
of whom James was the youngest, and five
girls. Three of the brothers have died —
one of them killed in battle ; all the sisters,
including Isabella, the well-known India
missionary, and Mrs. General Cowen, the
equally well-known Woman's Foreign Mis-
sionary Secretary, live in useful service.

Of the boy James the record among his
earliest friends is that he was a lad of un-
ceasing activity and of kindly nature. The
words that best characterize the outstanding
traits of his boyhood are *' mischief and
generosity." The overflowing spirits and
incessant movement of the restless boy were
always condoned by the fact that he was
ever willing to suffer for others' escapades.

216

James M. Thoburn

When he was but fourteen years old his
father died, but his mother determined that
nothing should interfere with the lad's
schooling. Graduating from the public
schools of his native place, he entered Al-
legheny College, at Meadville, Pa., greatly
encouraged by the prediction of his neigh-
bors that so mischievous a fellow would on
leaving home surely go to destruction. His
mother knew her boy better, and the event
proved her right. Perhaps his neighbors*
doleful forecast helped to put the young man
on his mettle.

In Allegheny College then, as now, the
spirit of earnest Methodist evangelism was
present. The glory of the Christian college
is that it ministers to the religious as well
as the mental needs, and so trains for time
and eternity. Epworth Leaguers will do well
to note that the schools which have bred the
great builders of the kingdom of Jesus
Christ have been those taught by God-fear-
ing and loving-hearted men. Allegheny
College, modest and unpretentious, has yet
enrolled a noble band of students which in-
cludes such names as Bishop Kingsley,
Senator Allison, Dr. Long, of Roberts Col-
lege, Bishop Thoburn, President McKinley,

211

The Picket Line of Missions

and hundreds of other worthies. Here at
the '' Old Brick Church "—hallowed spot in
the memory of hundreds of scarred and
grizzled veterans in God's army — James M.
Thoburn was soundly converted to God.

On his graduation he became a member
of the Pittsburg Conference, which then in-
cluded much of Ohio, and was appointed to
a circuit in what is now in the territory of
the East Ohio Conference, and included the
towns of Greentown and Marlboro. Here
the young preacher on one hundred dollars
a year pursued his active and busy life, until
with deepening consecration to his Master's
service there came to him a clear call to leave
home and kindred and turn his face to an
unknown land in a far-off region, to pro-
claim among the Christless millions the
grace that had saved him. So many young
Christians are solemnly pondering the ques-
tion of a call to foreign mission service that
it might be well to quote from his own
words at a later date the personal experience
of the young circuit rider. The persuasion
grew upon him that somehow his work in
Ohio was drawing to a close. ** How this
definite and disquieting conviction began I
cannot tell. I never could recall its origin

218

James M. Thoburn

or tell how it had taken possession of my
mind. I only knew that the issue must
soon be decided definitely for all time to
come." God's calls to his children to spe-
cific enterprise are always accompanied by
an ''open way" along which to walk in
answer to the call. In a broad, general way,
it might be said the voice of the Church is
the echo of the voice of God, and one attests
to any hearer the message of the other.

At this time appeared in The Christian
Advocate the " call for six missionaries" to
reinforce the India Mission. The young
preacher read it with burning heart and
streaming eyes, and immediately gave him-
self in humble consecration to God for India.
He started to find his presiding elder, D.
P. Mitchell (afterward of Kansas), to advise
with him ; but before he spoke his thoughts
he learned that the elder was seeking him
with a commission from Bishop Janes for
service in the India Mission. The offer
was immediately accepted. ' ' I went up stairs
to the little prophet chamber and knelt
down to seek for guidance from above, but
I could not pray. God poured his Spirit upon
me from on high, and my heart so over-
flowed with a hallowed feeling of love

219

The Picket Line of Missions

and joy that I could not utter a word. It
was not so much a call to India that I re-
ceived as an acceptance for India." '* That
hour stands out in my life as the burning
bush must have stood in the memory of
Moses." Not all calls to foreign service are
alike, but it is well that men and women
called to most arduous and difficult enter-
prise should definitely know that they are
commissioned from above for their high
tasks.

One more quotation from the missionary's
experience because of its truth and pathos.
The entire party was being farewelled in
the Lynn Commons Church, in Lynn, Mass.
''The church was so crowded I could only
get room to stand in the vestibule, near the
door. I was leaning against the stairway
listening to a thousand children singing.
Turning to a stranger, I said, ' What sweet
singing ! ' ' You'd better enjoy it all you
can,' he replied, * for you will never hear
such singing again.' The words dropped
upon my heart like lead ; my unbelieving
heart did not then dare to hope that in other
tongues I should hear the vsongs of Zion
warbled by the glad young voices of thou-
sands rescued from the worship of idols, and

220

James M. Thoburn

that the praises of Christ were to be taken
up by all the little ones of earth."

The party soon after sailed for India, and
after one hundred da3^s found themselves in
the Hooghly River, where the first object
that impressed them was the massive out-
lines of a temple of Juggernaut. India's
gods are many. Their stories and their
temples fill the land. A perfect saturnalia
of idolatry possesses the whole country.
Under every tall tree, on every high moun-
tain, worship is continually being offered to
some one of the multiplied millions of pol-
luting gods. Whatever the earliest Hindu-
ism may have been, it is to-day a system of
unspeakable grossness in many of its teach-
ings, and its gods and goddesses reach such
depths of shameless iniquity as cannot but
deprave their worshipers. It was signifi-
cant that the first thing to attract the mis-
sionary's gaze was the temple of one of these
many gods against whom he was to exalt
Jehovah to their overthrowing.

After a brief council in Calcutta, followed
by the Annual Meeting in Lucknow, he pro-
ceeded to Naini Tal to begin his missionary
labors. The location of this station, seven
thousand feet above sea level, the little

15 221

The Picket Line of Missions

straggling town picturesquely nestling above
a beautiful mountain lake, left nothing to
be desired in the way of climate or scenic
beauty. Indeed, it is a great mistake to sup-
pose that a missionary's deprivations are in
these matters. God's world is beautiful
everywhere, and the Church does not will-
ingly expose its servants to physical hard-
ships beyond what is necessary to effective
service. The great trials of a missionary's
life arise from the loss of social and religious
privileges. To live in the shadow of a solid
wall of heathenism, to resist the chill and
moral malaria of a Christless mass, to look
into a thousand faces and look in vain for
any response to the thoughts that fill his
own soul, to receive no help from any fel-
low-worshiper— this is the trial, this the
deprivation of the missionary. But none
even of these things moved the ardent
young soul who, among the mountains of
India, gave himself with unwearying fidelity
to the building of the kingdom. While the
way along which he was called to walk was
strange and unfamiliar, one presence went
with him, and the Christ who saved him in
the old brick church in Meadville cheered
the heart of his young herald as he moved

222

James M. Thoburn

among the multitudes of the untaught in
far-away India.

The favorite picture before the eyes of
many in America, as in imagination they see
the missionary at his work in distant lands,
is that his progress is marked by the has-
tening together of thousands of eager hear-
ers who thirst to hear the preaching of the
Gospel, and that the missionary's course is
marked by something like a popular ovation.
Very different were the facts, as the young
preacher discovered, in these early pioneer
days. Preaching to a handful of white sol-
diers, stammering in broken words, eager
to tell of the great salvation to little groups
of wondering natives ; the teaching of a few
pupils with difficulty persuaded to run the
risk of contamination by contact with a
Christian; little humble services under try-
ing and often under disappointing circum-
stances— these were the early experiences ;
but during these days faith deepened, con-
secration reached new depths, and data for
the solution of a hundred future problems
was being stored by the man who with open
eyes and with teachable spirit and quench-
Icvss ardor was building even then better
than he knew.

223

The Picket Line of Missions

He now took avS his companion the widow
of his fellow-missionary, and was married to
Mrs. Downey. Their married life was brief,
but it was long enough to teach him the value
of woman's work among women. A babe
was born. He is now the Rev. Crawford
Thoburn, the talented and successful presi-
dent who is laying the foundations of a
great university at Tacoma, Wash. Four
weeks later the young wife and mother took
her flight to that heaven which, thank God,
is to his dear children as near India as any-
where. Two weeks later the sad-hearted
man with his babe and a young mountain-
eer convert, whom many in America re-
member as Harkua Wilson, came down to
Bareilly, and a year after returned to his
native land feeble in health but with imper-
ishable love for the people to whose evan-
gelizing God has called and sealed him.

What pen can picture the home-coming
of God's anointed servants? To look once
more upon the face of mother and kinsfolk,
to strike glad hands with friends and old ac-
quaintances, to be in the life of Christendom,
to feel the throbbing fervor of Christian
communities, to move where Christ is known
and loved — this itself is tonic and health.

224

James M. Thoburn

Not that the foreign missionary has not eyes
to see the defects and blots upon the life of
the home land ; he is often its most faithful
censor; but only he who has stood amid
the moral desolations of heathenism in un-
speakable loneliness of spirit can quite un-
derstand what Dr. Duff meant when he
wrote, " It will be to me for rapture of joy
to throw myself upon my face and kiss the
heath of my native land."

Young Mr. Thoburn found an open door
awaiting him at home. At Conference ses-
sions, at camp meetings, in many of the first
pulpits of the land the returned mission-
ary's voice was heard, and wherever he spoke
interest was aroused, zeal quickened, and
enlarged gifts flowed into the treasury of the
Society. If our missionary treasury is to-
day below the requirements of our world-
wide missions, if something of debt op-
presses us, and if retrenchment in the very
hour of marvelous success is forced upon
our remonstrating missionaries, there are
but two ways to mend the situation : first,
to seek a deeper consecration in carrying out
God's program on earth, '' Go ye forth and
disciple all nations," and, second, to get more
definitely informed concerning the religious

225

The Picket Line of Missions

destitution of the larger half of the race. A
wider use of our returned missionaries, such
a use of the men as the women's societies
make of the returned women, would help us
much.

After a longer stay than he desired
James Thoburn returned to India. In his
absence the Mission had been visited by a
Methodist bishop, the first to administer
the Mission, Edward Thomson. He was a
man of rare ability and such singular insight
that it is a question whether any Church
official ever visited a foreign land who saw
so easily and clearly into the heart of vexed
and difficult problems as he. The Mission
was organized into a Conference by Bishop
Thomson, and Missionary Thoburn's ap-
pointment was changed to Paori, in the
mountains of Gurhwal, eight days' journey
from Naini Tal, or as far in time as from
New York to Berlin. On his way to his ap-
pointment, a year later, he preached from
place to place, and that the reader may catch
a glimpse of the missionary at work there is
subjoined a passage from his own pen :

* ' We found ourselves in a little courtyard
about forty feet square, with a small banyan
tree in its center. Three small houses opened

226

James M. Thoburn

into it, and the three families living in these
houses had a joint interest in the property.
Under the banyan tree, on a small earthen
platform about twelve inches high, was a
rude private shrine for the use of the own-
ers. The people followed us into the court-
yard and filled it in every part, while others
leaned over the mud wall or stood outside,
where they could both see and hear. After
singing and prayer I stood on the mud plat-
form close beside the gods and told the
people about Jesus and his salvation. They
listened with eager attention, and the sight
of their dusky faces upturned in the bright
moonlight acted like an inspiration upon me.
The idols by my feet gave no one a thought ;
all seemed to feel that a new message from
God had come to them, and as I glanced up
and saw the bright moonbeams straggling
down through the thick foliage of the ban-
yan tree it seemed as if God's everlasting
light was shining upon us, and faith rose up
in new strength to claim an assured victory.
We prayed that night that God would give
us that idol shrine and all the souls that
bowed down to those images of stone and
clay, and lay down to sleep in thankfulness
and hope. I shall never forget the luxury

22V

The Picket Line of Missions

of preaching I enjoyed that night. It was
an unmixed joy to preach in such a place to
such a people with such a hope. . . . Very
soon after Brother Mansell baptized the man
who had invited us to hold the meeting in
his courtyard, . . . and a small room which
opened into the square w^as fitted up as a
chapel." Out of hours like these are born
the tidal waves that are to sweep the nations
into the Church of God. Two years of labo-
rious but successful activity saw the planting
of many Christian enterprises in Gurhwal.

Meanwhile the w^hole India Conference
was strengthening its foundations, and much
of the preparatory work of organization was
being done. Foundation laying attracts but
little attention, and yet the stability of the
future structure lies here. Much of the wider
success of these later years must be attrib-
uted to the beginnings so carefully nursed
in that earlier time. It was a day of small
things. But faithfulness and ardor and con-
fident trust in God soon bring larger things,
and so the India Conference was to prove.
In 1869 the Conference appointment read,
'^Moradabad District, J. M.Thoburn, P.E. ;"
and in the following year Bishop Kingsley
transferred him to the eldership of Lucknow

James M. Thoburn

District, perhaps the most responsible posi-
tion of the Methodist Church in India.

Meanwhile, without design, he had helped
in a transaction which was fraught with un-
told good to Eastern lands and to the Church
at large. Some time before he had written
his sister Isabella in her Ohio home to join
him as a missionary helper. She forthwith
consented. Mrs. Parker and seven other
ladies about this time met in Tremont
Street Church, in Boston, and organized the
Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the
Methodist Episcopal Church. One of the
first two ladies to embark for India, under the
auspices of this Society, was Miss Thoburn.
Her work has been no whit behind that of
hei distinguished brother, and the help con-
veyed to the darkened nations of the world
by the ministry of earnest-minded and de-
voted women deserves to be told in a sepa-
rate article by some facile pen in fingers
urged by a heart throbbing with intelligent
gratitude to God, who discovered to the
Church this mighty source of new power.

While at Lucknow, where Dr. Thoburn
was joined by his sister, another event hap-
pened, fraught likewise with largest bless-
ing to India and Indian Methodism. This

229

The Picket Line of Missions

was the invitation extended by the Metho-
dist missionaries to William Taylor, the
World Evangelist. He had been greatly
used of God among the pagan tribes of
Africa, his ministry had been blessed to
thousands in America and Australia. The
India missionaries, longing to see some de-
cided break in the mighty masses around
them, sent to Taylor, asking for his pres-
ence, and prayed God to bless his com-
ing. The evangelist came. The word was
with power in Lucknow, in Cawnpore, in
other places. But it was the nominally
Christian world that was moved. The
''raw heathen " did not seem to respond.
A few notable conversions occurred, but in
almost every case it was among those who
had already formally joined the Christian
camp.

Devoutly waiting upon God for further
leading, William Taylor found himself in
Bombay, where he saw many English-
speaking people, Europeans, Eurasians, and
natives, soundly converted to God. There
was no Methodist church, English or Ameri-
can, in Bombay. The territory lay hun-
dreds of miles outside the bounds of the
India Conference. The missionary au-

230

James M. Thoburn

thorities were thousands of miles away ; be-
sides, Taylor jealously maintained the fact
that he was not the agent of any society,
but a servant of the Lord, belonging to the
Methodist Church. He had already con-
ceived the project of using the scattered
English people as a base of operations
among the natives who were outpoured
around them. From the beginning our
missionaries had served English congrega-
tions within their borders. The religious
life of bands of nominal Christians living
in the sight of the heathen world must al-
ways be a matter for deepest concern to the
missionary. Bishop Walden, on his return
from China and Japan, in his most intelli-
gent survey of the situation urges the open-
ing now of churches among the English-
speaking foreigners along the coasts of
eastern Asia. The godlessness of Euro-
peans scattered among non-Christian Asi-
atics is one of the capital hindrances to the
spread of the Gospel. William Taylor's
thought was to turn this obstacle into a
help by the active evangelization of these
nominal Christians.

There was supposed to be a tacit agree-
ment that the American Methodists wxre

231

The Picket Line of Missions

to be confined to the territory occupied by
their India Conference. He was not to be
deterred, however, by any vsuch compacts,
real or implied ; so he went forward boldly
and organized a Methodist Episcopal church,
first in Bombay, and later in other points as
far apart as Madras and Calcutta, the oppo-
site ends of India. The most difiicult of
these enterprises was that in Calcutta, where
the dauntless man-, with scarcely a friend to
begin with, sang and prayed and preached
his way into the hearts of a considerable
following, whom he formally organized and
established in a plain, commodious church
building. These scattered congregations
were afterward organized by Bishop Harris,
in 1873, into the India Mission, and later, in
1876, by Bishop Andrews, into the South
India Conference, although part of its terri-
tory lay hundreds of miles north of the old
" India Conference," which was now named
the *' North India Conference."

William Taylor's plan for India's evan-
gelization has never in any sense wholly
succeeded. There are many reasons which,
had he known India better, would have
warned him that no single plan can be re-
lied on to Christianize so vast a mass with a

232

James M. Thoburn

comparative handful of migratory English-
men. The English and their descendants
in India are so constantly on the move that
our churches lose twenty per cent of their
membership yearly by removals. A very
large proportion of the membership, too,
has but the smallest acquaintance with the
vernacular. But while it were vain to rely
wholly upon such a shifting and unsatisfac-
tory basis as the only means for reaching
so vast and well-organized a heathen sys-
tem, the splendid heroism and self-sacrifi-
cing spirit of the Taylor movement helped
to put iron into the blood of the young
Methodist Church, and more accent was
put everywhere upon self-support, and
wider use has everywhere been made of
scattered English communities since his
day. Above all, his scattered churches
committed us to the evangelization of all
India, and Methodism must now do her full
share in the salvation of a widespread and
multitudinous nation.

While Taylor was planting these churches
and elaborating and illustrating his theory
of '' self-support " in the South India Con-
ference God was strangely preparing Tho-
burn to succeed Taylor and to conserve his

233

The Picket Line of Missions

work by gradually methodizing it, and by
eventually coordinating it with the existing
Methodist missions. It was he who was
largely to evolve from these a united Metho-
dism which holds all that is good in both the
methods, the ''regular society" and the
* 'self-support" methods. The friction that at
one time threatened to divide India Metho-
dism into two camps has entirely passed
away, and the man who more than any other
has brought about the present compacted
and aggressively militant Methodism of
India, north and south, east and west, was
peculiarly fitted for the task. As Presiding
Elder of Oudh District he gave up his Mis-
sionary Society salary because it seemed to
him better when dealing with questions of
wages among the native preachers to him-
vself rely on the local resources. But he
had no word nor thought of reproach against
his brethren. He refused to make it a
party cry, but trusted the missionaries who
'disagreed with him in policy and worked
heartily with them. Presently Taylor would
be gone. Philip-like, the Spirit would carry
him to a distant shore. Among his own
men there were none who either had large
experience or had risen to anything like

234

James M. Thoburn

marked leadership. The movement was
but four years old in the oldest church, and
the men were young and inexperienced.
Who should lead this scattered, zealous,
enthusiastic, but inexperienced band ?

Bishop Harris selected Dr. Thoburn from
the North India Conference for the
manning of Calcutta, the most important
point, perhaps, in the Taylor work. Here
the work was first to develop the English
church and from this base to engage so far
in the evangelizing of the great city of
nearly a million of people, speaking a Babel
of languages, as strength and skill and
resources would permit. The English con-
gregation increased so rapidly that it soon
became necessary to erect a larger building,
which is among the largest Christian audi-
toriums in India. So high did the enthusi-
asm run that on the day of dedication the
congregation raised thirty-six thousand
rupees, while in the evening twenty peni-
tents bowed at the altar as the sign of the
divine presence and approval. From the
English-speaking, the revival spread among
the Bengalis, and before long a strong native
church grew up, and in connection with
these two congregations all manner of mis-

235

The Picket Line of Missions

sionary activities were projected whereby
Dr. Thoburn's name became a household
word among all classes of the people in
India's chief governmental city.

Nor were his activities confined to Cal-
cutta. The whole Bengal- Bombay Mission
felt his presence, and his long years of ex-
perience in the India Mission, his clear in-
sight into the difficulties that beset the new
work, his splendid constructive ability, which
was able to suggest such modifications of
the Discipline and such departures as the
circumstances called for, all combined to
make him easily the leader of Indian
Methodism and its trusted representative in
the councils of the Church. He was ac-
cordingly elected to the General Conference
of 1876, and while there secured the recog-
nition of the Bengal-Bombay Mission as a
prospective Annual Conference.

On his return from America he immedi-
ately resumed charge of the work in Cal-
cutta with the presiding eldership of the
district. Now it was that the great Cal-
cutta church was dedicated free of debt,
and all India felt that a vigorous type of
evangelical religion which ministered to all
people in various languages had come into

236

James M. Thoburn

the main cities to be supported largely from
local resources. From his Calcutta pulpit
as a place of power Dr. Thoburn projected
schools and new mission stations and many-
forms of evangelical aggression. Loved
and trusted by a multitude of many denomi-
nations, he was intrusted with means to do
good by all manner of people, and was at
once one of the most useful and most hard-
worked men in India.

But even this wide field did not absorb all
his energies. Across the Bay of Bengal
from Calcutta lies Burmah, Adoniram Jud-
son's field! Methodists from India were
constantly going and coming to and from
Burmah. From the great city of Rangoon
came urgent cry for help. With scarcely
enough money to pay their passages. Dr.
Thoburn and R. E. Carter entered Ran-
goon, and proceeded at once to preach and
lay the foundations of a Methodist mission
to supplement the work of our Baptist
friends among eight millions of people. It
Avill now be generally conceded that the
coming of the Methodists to Burmah has
quickened all existing missionary enterprise
and has given the cause of Christ marked
impetus.

16 237

The Picket Line of Missions

In nothing, perhaps, has the constructive
ability and clear statesmanship of Dr. Tho-
burn served the Church better than in the
part he has taken in outlining on the field
and securing in the home councils such
modifications and readjustments of our dis-
ciplinary provisions as the peculiar circum-
stances of a far-away land call for. The
flexibility of our polity and the hospitable
temper of the home authorities, too, has been
as frequently illustrated by the readiness to
suffer these changes when their reason was
made clear. The presence of Dr. Thoburn
in the General Conferences since 1876 has
been invaluable in this connection. Mild-
tempered, gentle, but shrewd and of keen-
est insight, never engaging in unnecessary
debate, and always speaking with that inner
glow that comes from intense conviction, he
rarely fails to carry his point. He has thus
secured invaluable legislative concessions
for the mission fields. His deep anxiety for
the progress of the work in his own field
may seem sometimes to have blunted his
perception of the claims of others, but those
who know him best know that Dr. Thoburn
is a wide-eyed, catholic-spirited man, who
rejoices with a full heart in all the triumphs

238

James M. Thoburn

of the Redeemer, wherever won. And if,
in his splendid enthusiasm, he sometimes
betrays a touch of impatience at what seems
to him the laggard movement of the Church
of his love, let it be remembered that his
great Master once cried to the disciples of
his day, '' O, slow of heart to believe!"
To one who sees the largest conquests just
ahead, who has already entered into the
beginnings of victory, the comparative
apathy and dullness of the great army
seems at times almost incredible. Shall
we wonder if sometimes he comes near
losing patience? Were it not better we
should quicken our steps? Leaguers, for-
ward ! The great generals at the front of
the army call for quickened pace in the
storming of the strongholds of paganism.
Men and supplies to the front ! The flag
of Jesus is presently to wave on the dis-
mantled ramparts already closely invested.

In 1884 Dr. Thoburn found in Kingston,
O., a gracious lady, a graduate in medicine,
Miss Anna Jones, who consented to become
his partner in toil and triumph. Mrs. Tho-
burn proves to be a lady of rare gifts of
mind and heart.

In 1885 Malaysia, an island empire of

239

The Picket Line of Missions

forty millions of people, was opened by Dr.
Thoburn to Methodist missionary effort,
and one of the most successful of our young
missions was planted there. Meanwhile
there had grown up throughout our wide-
extended India missions, whose greatest
length is now close to four thousand miles,
a firm conviction that they needed the con-
stant presence of a bishop. Much as they
valued the annual visits of the general su-
perintendents, they felt that the incoming
of a new man every year, who stayed w^ith
them but three months, did not give them
the close and continuous superintendency
needed to unify and coordinate their wide-
spread movements. In the General Confer-
ence of 1888 this matter came to a focus,
and it was determined by that body to ap-
point a '* Missionary Bishop for India and
Malaysia." There was but one name se-
riously considered. Dr. Thoburn was
elected and consecrated as the diocesan of
this vast domain. How magnificently he
has administered his trust, how grandly
God's work has gone forward among that
noble band of missionaries whose trusted
friend and leader he is, a very brief recapit-
ulation of the India statistics will show.

240

James M. Thoburn

The most marked and continuous revival
of religion on the face of the earth to-day
is among our humble brethren in India.
Read the figures. In 1888 there were two
Conferences and one Mission ; there are
now five Annual Conferences and one Mis-
sion Conference.

Sunday Schools. Scholars. Day Schools. Scholars

1888 703 27,000 545 14,000

1892 . 1,376 50,000 1,039 29,000

1896 2,249 72,000 1,297 30,000

The membership has increased from
24,000 to 84,000, while the Christian com-
munity during the eight years has increased
at the rate of a thousand a month ! The
Ep worth League, recently introduced, al-
ready numbers 140 chapters with 7,000
members, and elicits from Bishop Thoburn
the remark, '' The success of the Epworth
League in India has from the first been
surprising. " The number of workers under
appointment has reached the astonishing
figure of 3,000, of whom but a handful are
foreign missionaries. Great urgency is
being put upon the development of "self-
support," and quaintly interesting and
deeply pathetic are the reports of the dis-
trict meetings on " self-support day," when

241

The Picket Line of Missions

htimble men and women, who but recently
were idol worshipers, bring the produce of
the field and barnyard, and even the scant
savings from their meager daily meals, to
make possible among them and their hea-
then neighbors the preaching of the Gospel
of Jesus Christ. The whole land is deeply
moved. Amid the din of contending voices,
the decay of ancient religions, the collapse
of hoary and oppressive systems, there rises
among the multitudinous and polyglot peo-
ple of India the outlines of the cross and
the form of One who is set forth as * ' evi-
dently crucified " for them. From his pale
lips they hear the cry, " Come unto me, all
ye that labor and are heavy laden," and
poor, religiously heavy laden, but deep-
hearted India hears her Saviour's call and
hastens to lay at the foot of the cross the
burden she has borne for centuries. Mar-
shaling the hosts of Methodism, leading in
the very van of the movement for the re-
demption of this land, is the brave-hearted,
enthusiastic, keen-eyed, wholly devoted
man whom God in his providence has
raised up to be the Francis Asbury of India
— James M. Thoburn, Bishop of India and
Malaysia.

242

vn

fIDar? IReeb

BY

Miss Mary Louise Ninde

'* Measure thy life by loss instead of gain ;
Not by the wine drunk, btit the wine poured forth ;
For love's strength standeth in love's sacrifice,
And whoso suffers most hath most to give/'

-Ugo Bassi,

Mary Reed

VII
Mary Reed

In northern India, where the snow-clad
Himalayas look down in solemn grandeur
upon the smiling- valley at their feet, and
far removed from the blighting heat and
turmoil of the plains, stands a modest little
home. The early morning beams gild the
tiled roof and the afternoon sun lingers
lovingly on the whitewashed walls ere it
sinks to rest behind the '' everlasting hills."
In this secluded retreat dwells a sweet-faced
young woman, with abundant brown hair
combed back from a peaceful brow, and ten-
der eyes that sometimes turn a little wist-
fully toward the crimsoned West, where
thousands of miles away lies the land of her
birth, whose shores her feet will never tread
again. "Set apart" by her heavenly
Father for a special work, she daily min-
isters to the forsaken and suffering ones,
whose piteous cries for help were never
unheeded by the Master when on earth.
The influence of a consecrated, heroic life

245

The Picket Line of Missions

is not bounded by ocean or continent, and
wherever, the world over, the story of Mary
Reed is known faith grows stronger and
the hearts of men and women are made
purer and better.

Miss Reed was born in Ohio, in a little town
bearing the curious name of ' 'Crooked Tree."
She was converted at the age of sixteen, and
early received her call to be a missionary.
In 1884 she sailed for India, under the aus-
pices of the Woman's Foreign Missionary
Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
and was appointed to Cawnpore. This old
Mogul city, situated on the western bank of
the Ganges, is one of our most important
centers of work. It was occupied during
the early days of the Mission, and Bishop
Thoburn refers to his experience in crossing
the river and entering this new field as
*' crossing the Indian Rubicon," so signifi-
cant a move was it felt to be. Cawnpore
was the scene of terrible carnage during the
Sepoy rebellion, and one of the most sadly
interesting spots in the city is the historic
well, now covered by a marble shrine, sur-
mounted by a statue of the Angel of Peace,
where the bodies of the two hundred women
and children, so cruelly murdered by the

246

Mary Reed

Sepoys, were thrown. Miss Reed was put
in charge of the zenana work in this place.
'' Zenana " is a Persian word, and signifies
the part of the house reserved for the
women. It is only by house-to-house visit-
ation that the native women can be reached,
vsince they are kept in strict seclusion,
except those of the very lowest class.

How well I remember my first visit to
Cawnpore! It was a busy time, for Miss
Reed, filled herself with a consuming zeal
for the work, was eager that I should see and
learn as much of it as possible during my brief
stay. I never grew tired of accompanying
her on her daily round of calls at the homes
of the people. We usually set out about ten
o'clock in the morning, in the zenana ghariy
an oblong, boxlike vehicle, with shutters at
the sides to exclude the sun, which even in
winter must be carefully avoided by Euro-
peans. Driving through the city till the
streets became too narrow to proceed fur-
ther, we would alight and slowly edge our
way on foot among the jostling crowds to
our first zenana. Up dark flights of stairs
to stifling, uninviting chambers ; into inner
courts, damp and chilly, generally reached
by passing through the stable among the

247

The Picket Line of Missions

oxen and buffalo; sometimes in homes of
wealth, but oftenest in those of extreme pov-
erty ; usually received gladly, but occasion-
ally met with averted glances and a drawing
away from contact with our clothes, or even
the polluting influence of our shadow, on we
went, from zenana to zenana. Seated at Miss
Reed's side on a low bed of woven rope, the
best substitute for chairs most of the houses
afforded, I was a sympathetic listener while
she sang and talked to the group of dark-
eyed women and children gathered around
us on the floor. Patiently she answered
their childish little questions, and again and
again drew back their wandering attention
to the simple Gospel truths she was so ear-
nestly trying to impress on their minds.
We had no support for our backs, and I
often tried to rest by leaning first on one
hand and then the other. But Miss Reed
vseemed utterly oblivious to personal discom-
fort and fatigue, and only the increasing pal-
lor of her face, as the hours wore on, con-
vinced me that she also was succumbing to
the weariness she was too absorbed to heed.
At two o'clock we returned home. After
lunch it was always necessary for Miss Reed
to hurry away to write letters, to plan the

248

Mary Reed

next day's work, to receive native callers,
and to look after the affairs of the home, for
she was a model housekeeper and kept
everything under her careful supervision.
'' Do you never rest?" I asked her once.
'' I seldom have time," she replied, brightly,
and truly she impressed me as one whose in-
most soul was imbued with the thought that
''the King's business requires haste." It
was her habit each morning to meet with
the native Bible women who assisted her in
zenana visiting for an hour of Scripture
study and prayer. One of the sweetest pic-
tures I carry in my memory is that of this
faithful missionary sitting in the midst of
the Christian Hindus at her feet, their dark,
upturned faces framed in clean white chud-
dars, instructing them concerning the things
of the kingdom and then sending them
out, two and two, to sow the seed, as the
seventy went forth of old.

Several times a week Miss Reed visited
the ghats. This was a feature of her work
in which I became greatly interested. The
ghats are the stone steps on the banks of
the Ganges which are built for the accom-
modation of the Hindus, who flock in
crowds to the river early every morning to

The Picket Line of Missions

bathe in its sacred waters. As this is a
privilege in which the women share, the
missionary who visits the ghats not only
has an opportunity to meet a large number
of women at one time, but to talk to many
of the higher castes who are too bigoted to
receive her into their homes. In the dim
light of a December morning, when the
bells in the Hindu temples began to ring,
Miss Reed and I roused from sleep and
wended our way to the river. On drawing
near to it what a scene met our eyes ! The
ghats where the women congregate were
thronged with worshipers. Their rainbow-
tinted draperies made brilliant patches of
color against the gray sky and the yellow
water of the Ganges. The noisy clamor of
voices was almost deafening. Some women
had just arrived, closely veiled, and were
chattering volubly while they removed their
outer coverings. Others, who had finished
their bath, were slowly ascending the steps,
shivering in the cool air and carrying a
small brass cup containing Ganges water,
which was to be taken home and placed be-
fore the household gods. Still others were
seated on the wet flagging at the top of the
stairs, busily engaged, by the aid of a tiny

250

Mary Reed

mirror, in painting the marks on their fore-
heads which would show they had per-
formed the required ablutions for that day.
Hundreds of women were in the water, all
praying aloud, though no two in unison,
now gathering the water up in the palm of
their hands and offering it to the sun, and
now circling around or breathing heavily to
frighten away the demons which are sup-
posed to haunt them even in this sacred
place. Miss Reed took her stand where
the crowd was the thickest and began sing-
ing a bhajan — one of the native airs set to
Christian words which the people like so
well. At once the attention of the women
was arrested, and many stopped to listen.
As soon as they were quiet Miss Reed ex-
plained the meaning of the words of the
hymn, which told the story of '' Jesus and
his love." But some laughed and turned
away. Others became angry and retorted
rudely. A few appeared thoughtful and
touched. When her audience had scat-
tered Miss Reed commenced singing again.
To all who would receive it she gave Chris-
tian literature — tracts and small portions
of the gospels. It was indeed scattering
the seed broadcast, and only the all-seeing

251

The Picket Line of Missions

Father knows whether any took root and
brought forth fruit.

I was very anxious to visit Benares, the
sacred city of the Hindus, and as I had
no traveling companion Miss Reed kindly
agreed to go with me. I think at that time
she had never seen Benares herself. The
busy life of a missionary affords little op-
portunity for sight-seeing. Benares is the
Mecca of the Hindus. From all parts of
India innumerable pilgrims find their way
there every year, multitudes making the
journey on foot, many even measuring the
distance with their bodies by lying on their
faces and stretching out their hands, then
rising and placing their toes where their
fingers reached, and thus proceeding for
weary miles. By this meritorious act they
hope to win the especial favor of the gods.
Benares is on the Ganges some distance be-
low Cawnpore. The morning after our ar-
rival Miss Reed and I took a boat and sailed
up and down the river in front of the city.
The banks were lined with temples and pal-
aces and presented a striking and pictur-
esque appearance. Thousands of worship-
ers, men, women, and children, thronged
the ghats and made turbulent the water

252

Mary Reed

around them. At one point on the shore a
column of smoke rising into the air showed
us where the Hindus were burning their
dead, for they never bury them, though the
ashes are afterward gathered up and thrown
into the Ganges. The fire at the " Burning
Ghats," as this place is called, never goes
out. Here and there along the shore we
could discern a dying man lying on the
ground, watched over by an attendant, prob-
ably some near relative, who had brought
him here, it may be, from a great distance,
that he might breathe his last on conse-
crated soil and with his feet dipped in the
waters of the sacred river. iVfter death, in-
stead of being burned, the bodies of these
men are often floated out on the sacred
stream, soon, however, to be seized by a croc-
odile and quickly borne out of sight. After
leaving the river Miss Reed and I roamed
through the city, visiting only the most
celebrated shrines and temples — for their
number is legion, mingling with the pil-
grims in the crowded byways, and confront-
ing heathenism in its most heart-sickening
aspects at every turn. We saw the famous
monkey temple, where hundreds of chatter-
ing little creatures were scampering about

17 253

The Picket Line of Missions

their beautiful home, making grimaces at
the worshipers and evidently leading a very
happy life. We tiptoed our way through
the mud and slush around the sacred '' Well
of Knowledge " and peered down into its
forbidding depths. Its waters are believed
to be peculiarly efficacious in cleansing from
sin, but the rank odor arising from the de-
caying flowers thrown into the well by
countless devotees made us glad to turn
away. In the temple of Shiva we witnessed
a characteristic act of worship. A very aged
woman, whose gray locks, shorn close to her
head, told the sad story of widowhood, went
to one of the silky-skinned cows wandering
over the marble pavement of the outer court,
and, placing a wreath of flowers around its
neck, kissed its forehead; then, kneeling
before it, w^hile the tears trickled down her
cheeks, she bowed her face to the ground
many times. How we longed to tell her of
Jesus, the burden -bearer, at whose feet she
could find peace and comfort for her troubled
heart ! Miss Reed only stayed a day and a
half in Benares. The sights we witnessed
seemed to awake in her a new and almost
overwhelming sense of her responsibility
as a messenger of light to these sin-dark-

254

Mary Reed

ened people : so, leaving me in the home
of a Wesleyan missionary for a few days
longer, she hastened back to her work in
Cawnpore.

After five years of exhausting labor in
India Miss Reed returned to America much
broken in health. It was during this period
of rest in the home land that the Holy
Spirit revealed to her the special work to
which the remainder of her life was to be
consecrated. The surgeon selects with in-
finite care the instruments which are to be
used in the most critical operations. Is it
not ever thus with the great Physician?
As Mary Reed was obedient to her Lord's
first call, so now in the time of this crucial
test she did not waver, but replied, with
childlike trust and triumphant faith, '' Here
am I; send me." Our hearts were torn
with anguish when we saw her enter the
garden with the Master, but she gloried in
her high privilege and followed him gladly.

For some time Miss Reed had been
troubled by a stinging pain in the forefinger
of her right hand. A curious spot also ap-
peared on her cheek, low down near the
ear. One day a voice vseemed to whisper
to her, ' ' You have leprosy ; you must go

255

The Picket Line of Missions

back to India and devote the rest of your
life to work among the lepers." From that
moment she never felt any doubt as to the
true nature of her disease. Her physician
reluctantly admitted that her diagnosis
seemed correct, and sent her to an eminent
specialist in New York, who confirmed her
opinion of the case. Later two noted physi-
cians in London, and also one in Bombay,
were consulted with the same result. It
will probably always remain a mystery how
Miss Reed contracted leprosy, as it is not
known that she was ever exposed to it in
any way. She herself simply explains it
as a providential visitation, the seal of her
divine appointment to work among the
lepers, and very beautifully quotes :

" No chance has brought this ill to me ;
'Tis God's sweet will, so let it be ;
He seeth what I cannot see.

" There is a need be for each pain ;
And he will make it one day plain
That earthly loss is heavenly gain."

As soon as the necessary preparations could
be made Miss Reed bade good-bye to home
and loved ones and hurried back to India,
crossing to England in the same steamer
which carried the Epworth League pilgrims

256

Mary Reed

to the Old World in the summer of 189 1. I
shall never forget the autumn evening when
the news first reached me which fell with
such crushing weight on so many hearts. It
came in a letter from Mrs. Cowen, of Cin-
cinnati, a sister of Bishop Thoburn, and
one whom Miss Reed affectionately calls
" My Missionary Mother." Almost the first
words my eyes fell upon were the appalling
ones, "Mary Reed is a leper! " iVfter a
little while I read on through blinding tears,
' ' Pray for her mother ; she has just learned
the sad news ; Mary did not tell her wdien
she went away ; s/ie did not even kiss Jier
good-bye! " I could not sleep that night. I
am sure there were many who did not sleep
when that awful word was brought to them .
I thought of the mother in her heart-
breaking sorrow, who could never hope to
see her daughter's face again on earth.
Then I thought of the daughter, devoted,
heroic, journeying for the last time toward
the far-aw^ay East. How vividly the days
spent with her in India came back to m.e !
One experience especially stood out in my
memory. During a second visit I made to
Cawnpore I attended a Christmas celebra-
tion for the lepers. About five hundred

257

The Picket Line of Missions

were gathered on a grassy common in a re-
tired quarter of the city — poor mutilated
creatures, in all stages of the disease. It
was a pathetic sight to see them crouched on
the ground, listening with eager interest
while the missionaries sang and prayed and
then told how Jesus healed the lepers of old
and how he still loves them, and though he
may not now work a miracle and cure their
bodies he will enter their hearts, if they
will but let him, and make them clean and
whole. At the close of the exercises each
leper was given a warm blanket and a hand-
ful of salt. On account of its high price in
North India salt is a luxury with the poor
people. Miss Reed and I stood side by side
and looked pityingly on while the lepers
filed slowly past us to receive their gifts.
Many whose feet were reduced to mere
stumps walked with the greatest difficulty.
As each poor sufferer in turn came to the
front the missionary in charge threw a
blanket across his shoulders — for in most
cases his hands were too maimed to hold it —
and then made a bag in a corner of his out-
side garment in which the salt was poured.
I well remember what a relief it was to me
that day to return to Miss Reed's cheerful

258

Mary Reed

home and try to shut out from my mind
for a while the saddening and loathsome
sights of the morning.

During the long hours of that sleepless
night I also lived over again the week I
spent in Moradabad at the time the North
India Conference was in session. What a
happy home-gathering that Conference was !
And with what joyful anticipation the mis-
sionaries told me they had looked forward
to it the whole year through, especially those
in the outlying stations ! Only a missionary
knows the longing of the heart for compan-
ionship in a pagan land. And must Miss
Reed henceforth be denied all these sweet
comforts ? I asked myself. May she never
again join her colaborers in the Confer-
ence prayer meeting? Never again feel
their arms thrown around her in loving
embrace ? Never even sit down to eat with
them at the same table? O the unutter-
able loneliness of such a life ! Can she en-
dure it?

But in the meantime how tenderly was
the loving Father guarding and guiding his
child! In London she became acquainted
with an American lady from New England,
with whom she traveled across the Conti-

259

The Picket Line of Missions

nent. This friend describes most touch-
ingly the days they spent together:^

' ' I wondered instinctively at the ivory pal-
lor of that sweet face and at the cruel spot
that disfigured it, so different from anything
I had ever seen. I wondered, too, as the days
went by, why the forefinger, always covered
with a white cot, refused to yield to healing
remedies. I was not surprised when she
asked permission to accompany us on our
journey southward, which for the Master's
sake was readily granted, although we did
not think she was able to travel rapidly from
place to place. Tears were in her eyes
when she came to my room for the answer,
and she said, ' I think God has sent you
here in answer to my prayers.' Then she
told me how with unwavering faith she had
prayed and waited many days for some one
to come with whom she could travel a part
of her long overland journey to Brindisi,
where she was to meet the steamer for
India. Sympathy grew between us, and
thouofh the sipiis of some dread disease
were ever present to my eyes my lips were

* From An Evening with Alary Reed. This is a com-
plete missionary program, admirably adapted for use by
Epworth I^eac![iies. Price, 15 cents. Address Miss Pauline
J. Waltlen, 36 Bromfield Street, Boston, Mass.
260

Mary Reed

silent. As I came to know her better, I
found that her heart craved companionship.
Under the smiling English skies of Can-
terbury we walked up to St. Martin's, the
little church whose memories go back at
least thirteen hundred years. Near the
chancel the English lassie who guided us
stopped and, pointing to an opening in the
thick wall, said, ' That is the leper's
squint,' The poor sufferers, creeping to
the sanctuary in olden times, might only
listen from without to the words of life.
Eloquent though mute are such barriers
raised and maintained between life and
death ! If I had known then what I knew
afterward my heart would have bled for
the woman at my side. Calmly she stood
there before us with a heavenly light in her
eyes, not a muscle of her face betraying her
heart's secret. In the grand old cathedral
we paused before the stone staircase lead-
ing to a Becket's shrine, and gazed long at
the hollows worn by the kneeling, praying
pilgrims. SJie was making that journey,
so full of pleasure to us, literally on her
knees, sustained and comforted by the power of
prayer.

Here and there we held sweet hours

201

The Picket Line of Missions

of communion, and I, who had been accus-
tomed to see missionaries seeking America
when in her feeble condition, could not re-
frain from asking if it was right for her to
return to India at an unfavorable season,
before her health was established. Her
lips quivered, but her gentle pleading voice
grew steady as she replied, * My Father
knows the way I go, and I am sure it is the
right way;' and at another time she said,
* I am returning to India under conditions
in which no other missionary ever returned.'
' ' It was in Paris that she sang to me the
hymns she loved so well, those song-prayers
that must have ascended like incense to the
ear of her Father. It was in Paris that she
said one evening, ' If I thought it was
right, and you would promise never to speak
of it until you heard it in some other way,
I should tell you my story.' I told her if
aught in me inspired confidence that was
the surest safeguard of her secret. On
memory's walls there will hang while time
lasts for me the picture of that scene. A
wax taper burned dimly on the table beside
her open Bible, that book of all books from
whose pages she received daily consolation ;
and while without Paris was turning night

Mary Reed

to day with light and music and wine,
within, Mary Reed's gentle voice, faltering
only at her mother's name and coming sor-
row, told the secret of her affliction. As
my throbbing heart caught its first glimpse
of her meaning I covered my face to shut
out the swiftly rising vision of her future
even to the bitter end, and almost in agony
I cried out, ' O, not that ! do not tell me
that has come to you." And when in
calmer moments I said that all Christians
ought to unite in prayer for her recovery
her only response was, ' I have not yet
received any assurance of healing ; perhaps
I can serve my Father better thus.'

** I come with sorrow to my last evening
with Miss Reed. I sat in the shadow and
she where the full moon, rising over the
snowy mountains, just touched with a glory
that loved to linger her pale, sweet face.
Again I hear her voice in song :

' Straight to my home above

I travel calmly on ;
And sing, in life or death,

My Lord, thy will be done.'

And with the anticipation of our parting
on the morrow she told me of her last
hours in her Western home, of her father's

263

The Picket Line of Missions

farewell breathed out in his morning prayer,
telling the All-Father and the heart of his
daughter the sorrow that for her sake should
be repressed ; how, upheld by a strength
not her own, she went out as if some day
she might return, and then hastened on to
the land of her exile. On the shores of
Lake Lucerne hand clasped hand for the
last time on earth, and, with eyes blinded by
gathering tears, our farewell was whispered,
' God be with you till we meet again.' "
From the earliest times India has been
peculiarly subject to leprosy. The last of-
ficial report gives the number of lepers in
the country as one hundred and thirty-one
thousand six hundred and eighteen. No
cure has been fotmd for this dreaded dis-
ease, though certain medicines are known
to retard and even in some cases to arrest
its progress. Medical authorities differ
widely as to the danger from contagion.
BivShop Thoburn says : ' ' There are sev-
eral varieties of lepro.sy, and none of them
are at all contagious unless the skin is
broken, which is not always the case, or
when broken the affected part is brought
into contact with a cut or abrasion of some
kind on the skin of a healthy person.

264

Mary Reed

Those of us who have lived long in India
have practically ceased to be afraid of the
lepers." Still, the English government has
increasingly felt the wisdom of segregating
the lepers as a precautionary measure, and
only the expense involved has delayed the
work so long. There are a few asylums,
but their number is wholly inadequate to
the needs. The only missionary society
that works exclusively among this neglected
class, though largely through the medium
'of existing agencies, is a vScotch and Irish
organization called the *' Mission to Lepers
in India and the East." One of its asylums
is at Chandag Heights, among the Hima-
laya Mountains, and is reached from the
railway terminus at the base of the foothills
by a nine days' journey on horseback, or in
a dandi carried on the shoulders of natives.
Miss Reed, on arriving in India, went at
once to the north, and was made superin-
tendent of this asylum. The society with
which she thus became providentially con-
nected, though still receiving her own sup-
port from America, writes of her as follows
in one of their reports: " Most deeply pa-
thetic is the story of how our staff of
workers among the lepers has been so

2G5

The Picket Line of Missions

strangely reinforced by the addition of a
lady missionary of one of the American so-
cieties, who has contracted the disease in
the course of her work in India. The com-
mittee lias appointed her an agent in one of
our asylums, as it is her earnest wish to
spend her remaining strength in this special
work to which she has been so mysteriously
consecrated."

Miss Reed's home at Chandag is in the
midst of ideal scenery, which I will let her
describe in her own glowing words: " The
mountains inclose a lovely valley, called
Shor, like a massive and exquisitely beauti-
ful frame around a magnificent picture.
My home is on the crest of the range which
forms the western boundary of the valley,
or the left side of the picture frame. And
the picture ! A rich and beautiful valley,
containing six square miles, lies more than
one thousand feet below my lofty and lovely
' Retreat,' and is dotted with numerous
villages which are surrounded by clumps
of trees and terraced green fields of rice,
wheat, and other grains. Through this
valley a little river with its tributaries
winds in and out." Three miles from the
asylum is Pithoragarh, where there is a

266

Mary Reed

flourishing' girls' school under the charge of
Miss Annie Budden, of our Woman's For-
eign Missionary Society, and a community
of three hundred native Christians, with
whom Miss Reed has frequent intercourse,
so, as she cheerily writes, *'I am neither
lonely nor alone."

The asylum grounds cover over sixty-
six acres, and are shut in by a low stone
wall. Within the inclosure are the neat
stone houses of the men, surrounded by
carefully kept garden plots, and fifteen
minutes' walk away the homes of the wom-
en. There is also a hospital with dispen-
sary attached where the worst cases can be
treated, a newly finished chapel, and Miss
Reed's little bungalow, besides other build-
ings. The many acres of unoccupied land
are reserved for grazing and farming.
Leprosy abounds in this fair mountain re-
gion as in scarcely any other district in In-
dia. Miss Reed writes : * ' I am told that
within a radius of ten miles there are more
than four hundred patients who ought to be
here in the asylum." Another missionary
adds, however : ' * At first it is often difficult
to persuade these wretched ones to enter
the asylums. They know nothing of Chris-

267

The Picket Line of Missions

tian philanthropy. What can be wanted of
them but to put them to death? The few
first gained are sometimes made use of by
sending them out in carts to advertise to
the others the comforts they may have."
The last report gives the number of in-
mates at Chandag Heights as ninety-six, a
large majority of whom were Christians.

The attendance has steadily increased
each year since Miss Reed took charge of
the work. A visiting missionary from
Scotland tells of a most interesting service
he held at the asylum : '* At 10:30 o'clock
we all assembled at the side of Miss Reed's
house, where the lepers might sit in the
sun and be warm ; it makes such a differ-
ence to them, poor things! At first the
women assembled and employed their time
singing bhajans till the men should arrive
up from Panahgah — ' Place of Refuge ' —
their home. I stood up and walked to the
brow of the hill to see if there was any sign
of the men and boys coming, when a touch-
ing sight met my eye. I saw a long, strag-
gling, white line of very helpless creatures
wending their way up the mountain side
with considerable difficulty. At last they
arrived and we got them all seated, and,

268

Mary Reed

ah ! what a sight it was ! In front of the
women and close to us were seated three
dear little girls with winsome wee faces,
but all far gone in leprosy. Among the
men were several boys with sad, wistful
faces; one, a little Nepalese chap, had a
specially pathetic look on his face. When
all were ready we had a hymn and prayer ;
then I preached to them on an interview
with Christ, illustrated by the story of the
woman at the well. It was precious to tell
out the riches of redeeming love to such an
audience. The appreciative smiles, the
nods of satisfaction, and the verbal answers
I got from time to time showed that they
understood and gladly received what I
preached. We afterward asked those who
had really given themselves to Jesus Christ
and had received the gift of eternal life
from him to rise. Quite a large number,
both of the men and women, did so. I ob-
served the little Nepalese lad hesitating,
but finally he, too, stood up. Later we had
a prayer and testimony meeting. Several
gave the most clear testimony to the blessed
salvation they had received through Christ.
One young woman, in a very beautiful
prayer, thanked God that he had brought
18 '-itiy

The Picket Line of Missions

this disease upon her, as it had been the
means of leading her to Christ. Among
our audience were a father, mother, and son,
all victims of this terrible disease."

Besides the care of the asylum Miss Reed
has the oversight of a very encouraging
and rapidly growing work among the wom-
en and children in a number of the villages
which lie scattered through the neighboring
valleys, and which she carries on by the aid
of native Bible teachers and evangelists.
This work is under the auspices of our
home society and is supported by it.

During the years since Miss Reed re-
turned to India thousands of prayers have
been offered for her recovery, and the re-
port has several times gone abroad that
they were answered and she was healed.
The disease has indeed been "wonderfully
holden," as Miss Reed expresses it, but to a
dear missionary friend. Dr. Martha Sheldon,
she recently said : ' * I am conscious of its
presence within, and have been especially
so during the last few months, but I feel the
power of God upon me in holding me quiet.
There are days, too, when the external
symptoms are aggravated and more notice-
able. Then again they recede. What I

270

Mary Reed

pass through in my experiences no one
knows." And Dr. Sheldon adds: *' I feel
deeply that, as far as human help is con-
cerned, she is walking in the furnace alone,
and that there is only One who can enter in
and comfort her." But what a marvelous
testimony is it to the all-sufficiency of the
divine Comforter in the darkest Gethsem-
ane, when she can write home in words
like these : ' ' God has enabled me to say, not
with a sigh, but with a song, Thy will be
done." "I just couldn't tie myself down
to my writing desk this morning in quiet-
ness of heart till I first sat down at my dear
organ and played and sang with all the thir-
teen stops out,

' I am dwelling on the mountain.
Where the golden sunlight gleams ! ' "

**I see not trouble and sorrow ahead, but
the joy of telling out among the heathen
that our Saviour has power to save to the
uttermost." " The song of my heart is con-
tinually, ' Praise God, from whom all bless-
ings flow! ' " And yet an intimate friend,
referring to Miss Reed's affliction, says of
her, '* She is highly sensitive, and of all my
acquaintance I know of no one who would

by nature more loathe this complaint."
271

The Picket Line of Missions

Soon after Miss Reed went back to India
I received from her in a letter a little card
of pressed ferns gathered near her moun-
tain home. '' These delicate ferns," she
wrote, ' 'will give you an inkling of the beauty
that lies all about me, continually remind-
ing me that the Mighty One is also the Lov-
ing One.'' On the back of the card were
these beautiful verses of Miss Havergal's :

" Alone, alone ! yet round me stand
God's mountains, still and grand I
Still and grand, serene and bright,
Sentinels clothed in armor white,
And helmeted with scarlet light.

His power is near,

I need not fear.
Beneath the shadow of his throne,
Alone, alone ! yet not alone.

" Alone, alone ! yet beneath me sleep
The flowers his hand doth keep ;
Small and fair, by crag and deli,
Trustfully closing star and bell,
Eve by eve as twilight fell.

His love is near,

I need not fear.
Beneath the shadow of his throne
Alone, alone ! yet not alone."

Below the verses were written the words :
'' Mary Reed, in India till the end of life."
As I read them my thoughts went back to

272

Mary Reed

one afternoon in Cawnpore when, as Miss
Reed stood with me on the veranda of her
house, looking out over the tropical garden,
she turned with sudden earnestness and said :
' ' I want to stay and work in India till I am
very old, but then I should like to go home
to die. There is something inexpressibly
sad to me about the thought of being buried
in this land. A short time ago I was visit-
ing one evening with an English lady living
in the next compound. She appeared per-
fectly well, but the following morning when
I awoke I saw her being carried to the cem-
etery. She had been taken sick with chol-
era in the night, and in this hot climate it
is necessary to bury the dead at once. The
cemeteries here are not like ours, they seem
so desolate and lonely. O yes, I hope I can
die at home."

Dear Mary Reed ! Did she think I would
remember the conversation and wish to as-
sure me that she was no longer possessed
by the old dread ? It was as if she would say,
' ' Do not feel troubled about me ; I no longer
fear to die here, but can exclaim with the
missionary who laid down her life on these
shores a few years since, * India is just as
near heaven as America! ' " So this noble

273

The Picket Line of Missions

woman works bravely and hopefully on, con-
tent to know that when her allotted task is
finished she will be laid to rest on alien soil
and under Orient skies, since it is only
* ' until the day break, and the shadows flee
away."

274

vm
Polynesian flDlselons

BY

W. H. WiTHROw^ D.D.

Polynesian Missions

VIII
Polynesian Missions

JOHN WILLIAMS, THE MARTYR OF ERRO-
MANGA^

The countless islands of the Polynesian
Archipelago possess an intense interest to
the Christian, the scientist, and the states-
man. Here some of the noblest triumphs
of the cross have been won. Their social
constitution and history present one of the
most remarkable examples of the civiliza-
tion of once savage races ; and with these
islands are associated some of the grandest
records of Christian philanthropy. These
"Summer isles of Eden lying
In dark purple spheres of sea"

appeared to the first European visitors
among the loveliest and most favored spots
on earth. The breadfruit tree and the

* The principal authorities for this paper are Rowe's Life
of John Hunt, Williams's Fiji and Fijians, and Calvert's
Missionary Labors Affiong the Cannibals, 2 vols. ; Moister's
History of IVesleyan Missions, Cummings's At L/ome in Fiji,
London Quarterly, January, 1882, article " Fiji," and Bishop
Walsh's Biography of John Williams.
277

The Picket Line of Missions

cocoa palm waved their foliage in the balmy

air.

" In a halcyon sea mid the coral grove
The purple mullet and goldfish rove"

Flowers of brightest hues and fragrance
and fruits of richest flavor abounded.
Surely here, if anywhere on earth, were
the Islands of the Blessed, and here must
be found the primeval innocence and happi-
ness of that Golden Age of which poets had
sung!

But how different was the reality ! These
scenes of fairy loveliness were full of the
habitations of cruelty, and were in danger of
becoming depopulated through the abomi-
nable wickedness of the inhabitants. Chronic
wars wasted the islands, and the victors
feasted upon the flesh of their conquered
enemies. Even woman's heart forgot its
pitifulness, and ''mothers slept calmly on
the beds beneath which they had buried
many of their own murdered infants."

' ' What Cook was among navigators, John
Williams was among missionaries. Both
were eminently distinguished for their hero-
ism and their philanthropy. The lot and
labor of both were mainly cast among those
lovely groups of islands whose feathery

278

Polynesian Missions

palms are mirrored in the waters of the Pa-
cific. These islands were made known to
the civilized world by the one ; they were
brought into the fellowship of Christendom
by the other. Both of these distinguished
men lost their lives by murderous hands
upon those distant coasts in the noble
effort to do their duty to God and to be a
blessing to their fellow-men. And if Cook
was a real martyr in the cause of science,
Williams was a real martyr in the cause of
religion."

Tottenham Court Road is one of the most
crowded and busy thoroughfares of London.
It has Methodist associations from the cir-
cumstance that in this region was situated
Whitefield's famous tabernacle. In this
populous neighborhood the future illus-
trious missionary, John Williams, was born,
1796. From his boyhood he exhibited that
mechanical aptitude and manual dexterity
which he afterward turned to such good
account among the barbarous South Sea
islanders. He was familiarly spoken of as
the "handy lad," who repaired the break-
ages of the household utensils and furni-
ture.

Probably in consequence of this natural
279

The Picket Line of Missions

bent he was apprenticed to an ironmonger
in City Road. It was soon observed that
he was more inclined to the anvil and forge,
although exempted by his indentures from
the more laborious parts of the business,
than to the more cleanly and, as some
would think, more respectable department
of the office and store. He thus became an
expert handicraftsman — a sort of Quentin
Matsys in his way — and was frequently em-
ployed by his master in the execution of
orders demanding peculiar dexterity and
skill.

His parents were pious people, and en-
deavored to train up their son in the ways
of religion. But with the natural wayward-
ness of youth he was restive beneath their
restraints, and in the company of fellow-
apprentices sought the frivolous amuse-
ments afforded by the great metropolis.
One Sunday evening, we are told, he was
loitering at a street corner waiting for
some companions to accompany him to
some such place of resort, so unbecoming
the sanctity of the day. The delay of his
comrades gave an opportunity for the com-
punctions of a conscience dormant but not
dead.

Polynesian Missions

Just at that moment it chanced — or was
it chance?— that the wife of his employer
passed on her way to Mr. Whitefield's
tabernacle. ''It proved," says his biog-
rapher, " the turning-point in his life, and
many years afterward, when the successful
missionary was narrating to a breathless
audience, in the same place of worship, the
story of his labors and successes, he pointed
with deep emotion to the door by which he
had entered and to the pew in which he
had sat on that memorable night when the
word of God had been fastened in his heart,
as in a sure place, by the Master of assem-
blies."

The young convert forthwith engaged
earnestly in Christian work, so far as oppor-
tunity offered — and opportunity was not
wanting in that great and wicked city,
greater and, considering the Christian light
and knowledge abounding on every side,
more wicked than ancient Nineveh. These
were the early years of foreign missionary
work. Already the London Missionary So-
ciety was endeavoring to win from heathen-
ism to Christianity those sunny islands of
the Southern Seas which Cook and his fel-
low-discoverers had unveiled to the world.

281

The Picket Line of Missions

Here the Gospel of Jesus had already
been preached, and had won, as amid the
corruptions of Corinth and the cruelties of
Rome, its wonted triumphs. In some of
the islands the natives renounced their
idolatry and gave up their bloody rites.
Across the sea came the cry for more labor-
ers for this field of toil and danger. Among
the first to respond was the zealous young
convert, John Williams, being then only in
his twentieth year. He offered his services
to the London Missionary vSociety, and was
accepted for the work to which he gave his
life.

* ' It was on the 30th of September, 1 8 1 6, "
says his biographer, '' that nine young men
stood side by side in Surrey Chapel to re-
ceive their missionary designation. John
Williams and Robert Moffat were the two
youngest of the band, the former destined
to be the 'Apostle of Polynesia,' the latter
to win for himself a name in connection
with the Dark Continent of Africa only
second to that of Livingstone, his illustrious
son-in-law. The words in which the aged
minister who addressed them gave his part-
ing exhortation to John Williams rang, not
only then, but through all his after life, like

282

Polynesian Missions

a trumpet in his ears : ' Go, my dear young
brother, and if your tongue cleave to the
roof of your mouth let it be with telling
sinners of the love of Jesus Christ ; and if
your arms drop from your shoulders let it
be with knocking at men's hearts to gain
admittance for him there.'"

With his young and devoted wife, who
proved herself a noble helpmeet in many a
time of trial, John Williams set forth for
the scene of his future triumphs and mar-
tyrdom. Men could not then go ''round
the world in eighty days," and a whole year
elapsed before the cocoa groves of Eimeo,
one of the Society Islands, greeted the eyes
of the young missionary, weary with con-
templating the wide waste of the melan-
choly main. Here he remained for vSome
time acquiring the native language. His
extraordinary mechanical skill commanded
the admiration of the islanders, and, gain-
ing their confidence, he soon acquired great
facility in adopting their modes of thought
and expression.

It is remarkable by what means God often
breaks down barriers and prepares the way
for the entrance of the Gospel. Pomare,
the Christian Kins^ of Tahiti, and an En owlish

The Picket Line of Missions

missionary had been driven by a storm
upon the island of Raiatea, the center of
political power of the Society group and the
seat of the worship of Oro — "at once the
Mars and Moloch of the Southern Seas."
The evidences of the superiority of Chris-
tian civilization induced the chief of Raiatea
to petition for missionaries to instruct his
people. To this appeal John Williams joy-
fully responded.

'' There was a grand welcome," says the
record of this Mission, ''at Raiatea for
' Viriamu,' which was the nearest form of
pronunciation that the natives could find in
their speech for the name of Williams. A
present of five pigs for Viriamu, five for his
wife, and five for their baby boy, with
abundance of yams and cocoanuts and
bananas, proved that the people were willing
to accept their new teachers. They were
ready, moreover, to hear Mr. Williams
preach, to observe the Lord's Day, to re-
nounce their idols ; but their moral condi-
tion was unutterably debased, their idleness
inveterate, their habits of theft, polygamy,
and infanticide were abominable, and their
darker and fiercer passions were something
awful when roused to war and vengeance."

284

Polynesian Missions

Here again the mechanical ingenuity of
the missionary proved a valuable aid to his
spiritual labors. As he well remarks in one
of his journals : " The missionary does not
go to barbarize himself, but to elevate the
heathen ; not to sink himself to their
standard, but to raise them to his." Ac-
cordingly he built himself a house, with
window sashes and Venetian blinds, and
filled it with neat and commodious furni-
ture, almost every article of which was
made by his own ingenious hands. He
taught the natives how to make lime from
coral and to build decent houses for them-
selves. When they beheld the firm, smooth
surface of the snow-white plaster their de-
light and astonishment knew no bounds.
Their zealous instructor also set them the
example of gardening and agriculture and
boat building, and rewarded all attempts at
industry by presents of nails, hinges, and
tools.

Soon a place of worship was erected in
their island capable of containing some
three thousand people. Williams took care
to make it, as far as possible, worthy of the
purpose for which it was designed. It was
truly a noble Polynesian cathedral, though

19 285

The Picket Line of Missions

its sides were made of wattles and its pillars
of the trunks of trees. He expended special
care upon the carving of the pulpit and the
reading desk, and fabricated such wondrous
chandeliers for evening service that the
natives were lost in astonishment.

These were, however, but means toward
an end, the salvation of souls. Christianity
began to make its way. The idol houses,
which were often the scenes of cruel and can-
nibal orgies, were pulled down, the gods
were committed to the flames, infanticide was
abolished, cannibalism was at an end, divine
service was held three times every Sunday,
family prayer v/as universal, and the people,
who lately seemed as if possessed by devils,
were "sitting clothed in their right mind."
"With respect to civilization," says Mr.
Williams, "the natives are doing all that
we can reasonably expect, and every person
is now daily and busily employed from
morning till night. At present there is a
range of three miles along the sea beach
studded with little plastered and white-
washed cottages, with their own schooner
lying at anchor near them. All this forms
such a contrast to the view we had here
three years ago, when, excepting three

286

Polynesian Missions

hovels, all was wilderness, that we cannot
but be thankful, and, when we consider all
things, exceedingly thankful, for what God
has wrought."

' 'Williams, " remarks his biographer, ' ' was
a statesman as well as a mechanic. He suc-
ceeded in getting a new and admirable code
of laws established by the votes of the peo-
ple in a great assembly. Trial by jury was
a distinctive feature of this code, and such
an efficient executive was provided from
among the natives themselves that the whole
system worked admirably. He laid the
foundations, moreover, for a remunerative
commerce by teaching them how to culti-
vate cotton and tobacco, as well as by in-
structing them in ropemaking and other
useful arts. He taught them how to pre-
pare the sugar cane for the market, and not
only constructed a mill for the purpose, but
made with his own hands the lathe in which
the rollers for it were turned."

The zealous missionary was not satisfied
with even these results. He organized a
missionary society to carry the Gospel to
the surrounding islands, and these recent
pagans, at the end of the first year, had
given some fifteen thousand bamboos of

287

The Picket Line of Missions

cocoanut oil, the value of which was at
least two thousand five hundred dollars, as
a recognition of their own obligations to
the Gospel and of their earnest desire to
make it known to others.

The missionary had heard among the
natives strange songs and traditions of an
island which they called Raratonga, which
he was anxious to discover and evangelize.
'' I cannot," he said, '' content myself with
the narrow limits of a single reef ; and if
means are not provided a continent would
be to me infinitely preferable; for there,
if you cannot ride, you can walk; but to
these isolated islands a ship must carry
you."

After appealing in vain to the Christians
of England for a missionary vessel he him-
self chartered the schooner Endeavour^ and
with some native Christians set out on his
voyage of discovery. " The story," wSays
Bishop Walsh, " reads like a romance, and
reminds one of Columbus and his search
for the New World. Baffled day after day
in his efforts to discover the traditionary
island, he still persevered. The provisions
were all but exhausted ; the captain came
to the missionary early on the last morning

288

Polynesian Missions

and said, *We must give up the search, or
we shall all be starved.' Williams begged
him to steer on until eight o'clock, and
promised that if the island were not then
in sight he would return home. It was an
anxious hour. Four times had a native
been sent to the top of the mast, and he
was now ascending for the fifth. Only half
an hour of the time agreed upon remained
unexpired, w^hen suddenly the cloud-mist
rolled away, the majestic hills of Rara-
tonga, the chief of the Hervey group, stood
full inview^ and the excited sailor shouted,
' Here, here is the land we have been seek-
ing! '"

Similar results followed as at Raiatea,
and within twelve months of its discovery
the whole population, numbering some
seven thousand, had renounced idolatry
and were engaged in erecting a place of
worship, six hundred feet in length, to ac-
commodate the overwhelming congrega-
tions. " But not even triumphs like these,"
says his biographer, ''could satisfy the
grand aspirations of this devoted man. He
looked out upon the Polynesian world of
islands v/hich still remained unevangelized
around him and beyond him, and he re-

289

The Picket Line of Missions

solved to build a ship of his own, in which
he might roam through the vast archipelago
of the Eastern world."

His account of the building of that ship
reads like another romance, and has been
compared to a chapter in Defoe. With
none to help him but the natives whom he
had raised from savagedom ; with only a
few rude tools, and with no experience save
that w^hich he had acquired as an ironmon-
ger's apprentice, he planned and carried to
completion his ambitious project. The na-
tives looked on in wonder as the teacher
built his ship. One day, when he had for-
gotten his square, he wrote for it to his wife
upon a chip, and told a chief to carry it to
Mrs. Williams. ''What shall I say? " in-
quired the puzzled Raratongan. ** Noth-
ing," replied the missionary; ''the chip
will tell her." When, on reading the mes-
sage, she gave him the square the aston-
ished chieftain ran through the settlement
exclaiming, " O, the wisdom of these
English! They make chips talk!" And
he tied a string to the mysterious messenger
and hung it as an amulet around his neck !

The story of Williams making his first
bellows is well known. There were only

290

Polynesian Missions

four goats on the island, and three of them
were killed to furnish the leather for it.
But during the night the rats of Raratonga,
which were like one of the plagues of
Egypt, congregated in vast numbers and
left nothing of the bellows but the boards.
Williams then ingeniously constructed a
blowing machine on the principle of the
common pump, which defied the rats and
accomplished his purpose. Then the builder
was soon on board his Messenger of Peace,
which the natives called '* The Ship of God,"
and was carrying the glad tidings of salva-
tion to the surrounding shores.

From island to island he sailed, preaching
everywhere the Gospel of the grace of God,
till, of sixty thousand natives of the Samoan
group, fifty thousand were under religious
instruction. The grateful people testified
their love for the missionary in songs and
ballads, of which the following are exam-
ples :

" Let us talk of Viriamu.
Let cocoanuts grow for him in peace for months.
When strong the east winds blow, our hearts forget

him not.
Let us greatly love the Christian land of the great white

chief.
All victors are we now, for we all have one God."
201

The Picket Line of Missions

" The birds are crying for Viriamu,
His ship has sailed another way.
The birds are crying for Viriamu,
Long time is he in coming.
Will he ever come again ?
Will he ever come again ? "

This is the testimony of the heroic mis-
sionary as to the divine power of the Gospel :
*' Christianity has triumphed, not by human
authority, but by its own moral power, by
the light which it spread abroad, and by
the benevolent spirit which it disseminated;
for kindness is the key to the human heart,
whether it be that of savage or civilized
man. Having witnessed the introduction
of Christianity into a greater number of
islands than any other missionary, I can
safely affirm that in no single instance has
the civil power been employed in its propa-
gation."

After eighteen years of hallowed labor
this heroic man was able to say, " There is
not an island of importance within two
thousand miles of Tahiti to w^hicli the glad
tidings of salvation has not been conveyed."
But the results accomplished he regarded as
only stepping-.stones to still greater results
in the future. He therefore resolved to
visit England to tell of the three hundred

292

Polynesian Missions

thousand savages already brought under re-
ligious instruction, to get his Raratongan
version of the Scriptures through the press,
and to arouse the hearts of his countrymen
to the blessed work of giving the Gospel to
the heathen.

''It is not too much," writes Bishop
Walsh, ' ' to say that his visit did more to fan
the flame of missionary interest in England
than any event which had occurred for a
century. When, at the end of four years,
he sailed down the Tliames in the Camden
(a vessel of two hundred tons burden which
had been expressly purchased for his use at
a cost of .^2,600) he was accompanied on
his voyage by sixteen other missionaries
and their wives, and was followed by such
a gale of prayer and interest from the tens
of thousands who had been thrilled by his
narratives as plainly testified how much his
visit had been blessed to hearts at home."

He had set his heart on the conquest for
Christ of the New Hebrides, a group whose
inhabitants were known to be violent and
suspicious. After visiting all his old sta-
tions he resolved on planting a mission at
Erromanga, the key of the Hebrides group.
He seemed to have a foreboding of his com-

293

The Picket Line of Missions

ing fate, and as the text for his last address
to his beloved Samoans he chose the words
of the apostle at Miletus : ' ' They all wept
sore, and fell on Paul's neck, and kissed
him, sorrowing most of all for the words
which he spake, that they should see his
face no more."

Having reached the island, Mr. Williams,
with a small party, went ashore. The na-
tives were shy and sullen, but the mission-
ary frankly offered his hand and presented
some cloth. They accepted his gifts, but
while he was speaking to some children the
cry of '' danger " from the boats caused the
party to run. Two of them escaped, but
the heroic Williams and Mr. Harris, another
missionary, w^ere pierced with arrows and
captured by the natives.

'* There can be little doubt," continues
the narrative of this tragic event, ''that
the horrid orgies of cannibalism followed
closely upon the murder, for when the Brit-
ish ship Favorite visited the island to re-
cover the bodies a few bones were surren-
dered as the only remains of the man w^ho
had done so much good in his day and gen-
eration. These were carried to Upolu and
laid beside his desolate home and widowed

294

Polynesian Missions

church. The noblest monument that could
be raised to his memory was the resolution
of his Samoan converts to carry on that
work in pursuit of which their beloved
teacher fell, and to plant the standard of
the cross upon the soil of Erromanga."

A few years later the saintly Selwyn,
Bishop of New Zealand, on his first visit to
the New Hebrides, touched at Erromanga
with a native teacher. They knelt together
on its blood-stained shore and asked God to
open a way for his Gospel to the degraded
inhabitants. At length, in 1852, two na-
tive Christians from the Hervey Islands
were landed, and one of those chiefs who
were most forward in giving them a wel-
come was the very man who had murdered
Williams. It turned out upon inquiry that
some foreigners had killed his own son and
that he had avenged himself upon the first
white man that came within his reach ; but
the very club that struck the fatal blow was
surrendered to the missionaries, and the
prayer which had been offered up on that
ensanguined beach was at length fully an-
swered.

" Erromanga, however, was to have otlier
associations with the noble army of martyrs

296

The Picket Line of Missions

before that blessed consummation could be
attained. In 1861 Mr. and Mrs. Gordon, a
devoted missionary pair, were savagely
massacred by some of the heathen. A
touching link between their death and two
other martyrs is this, that they were buried
close to the spot where Williams fell and
that the funeral service of the Church of
England was read over their graves by
Bishop Patterson, himself destined to be
the ' Martyr of Melanesia.' "

It is the deliberate opinion of Bishop
Walsh, the biographer of this devoted mis-
sionary, that *' since the days of the apos-
tles no one man was the means of winning
so many thousands to the true faith of Christ
by the preaching of the Gospel as John
Williams." And yet he sealed his testi-
mony with his blood at the early age of
forty-three. His life was short if measured
by 3^ears, but if measured by results — by
noble achievements for God and for man —
it was long and grand and glorious ! His
undying fame is recorded in his brief but
glorious epitaph: ''When he came there
were no Christians, when he left there were
no heathen."

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Polynesian Missions

JOHN HUNT, THE APOSTLE OF FIJI.

We turn now to the remarkable story
of the conversion of Fiji. This name is
given to a group of islands, some two
hundred and twenty-five in number, scat-
tered over an area of two hundred and
fifty by three hundred and seventy miles, of
which about one hundred and forty are in-
habited. The population in 1893 was 125,-
442. The largest of these islands, Vitu
Levu, is about the same size as Jamaica.
The story of this fair and fertile group,
long the habitation of cruelty, is one of in-
tense interest. That a Lincolnshire plow-
boy, who grew up to manhood with no ed-
ucational advantages, should, before his
thirty-sixth year, be the chief instrument
in the conversion to Christianity and civili-
zation of one of the most barbarous races of
cannibals on the face of the earth is one of
the most remarkable events in the annals of
Christian missions.

The father of John Hunt had been a sol-
dier, but deserted and entered the navy.
He was with Nelson at the battle of the
Nile, and, from hearing his fireside stories,
his son resolved to be himself a hero. Young

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Hunt was put, at ten years of age, to the
hard work of plowboy. At sixteen he fell
ill of brain fever, and was brought to the
verge of the grave. His soul was filled with
dread, and on his recovery he began to at-
tend a Methodist chapel. As he followed
the plow thoughts of eternity agitated his
mind and so engrossed his thoughts that,
once being ordered to take a load of corn to
market, he set off with an empty wagon.
He became soundly converted, and, being
full of zeal, he was soon asked to address a
village congregation. His first attempt was
a failure. His thoughts took flight. He sat
down overwhelmed with confusion, and went
home sad and discouraged. Conscious of
his want of culture, he caught at every
chance of training his mind by attending
night school and learning to read and write.
In spite of his uncouth appearance and
rustic brogue he became a favorite with the
rural congregations which he addressed. He
was still a hard-working farm servant. After
walking many miles on Sunday, often not
reaching home till midnight, he was in the
stables grooming his horses at four o'clock
next morning. Being asked if he would like
to become a preacher, he confessed that he

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Polynesian Missions

would like to go as a servant with a mission-
ary to South Africa and teach in a Sunday
school, so modest was his ambition. The
mission secretaries rather laughed at the
idea ; but he was recommended for the min-
istry, and at length was sent to the Hoxton
Training School. He devoted himself with
energy to English, Latin, Greek, and theol-
ogy— hitherto his only books had been a
Bible and Pilgrims Progress — and during
vacation this raw plowboy was sent to
preach, of all places in the world, in the col-
legiate city of Oxford.

About two years before this two Wes-
leyan missionaries had gone as pioneers
from Australia to Fiji. Their account of the
cannibal orgies of the islands was a revela-
tion of horror to England. The Wesleyan
Mission House issued an appeal, ' ' Pity Poor
Fiji," which stirred the societies through-
out the kingdom. Young Hunt and James
Calvert, a Yorkshire lad who had recently
completed his apprenticeship as printer and
bookbinder, were chosen to reinforce that
little band among cannibals. A fellow-stu-
dent condoled with Hunt on the perils
which he must encounter. " That's not it,"
exclaimed the brave-souled man. " There

299

The Picket Line of Missions

is a poor girl in Lincolnshire who will never
go with me to Fiji; her mother will never
consent ! " He wrote at once a manly letter
to his betrothed, releasing her from her en-
gagement. In a few days he burst into his
friend's room, saying, '* It's all right ! She'll
go with m.e anywhere." In a few weeks
they were married and on their way to the
scene of their future trials and triumphs at
the antipodes. At Sydney they met John
Williams, the destined martyr of Erro-
manga, and they sailed the same day to their
different fields of toil.

On reaching Fiji, December 22, 1838, the
young missionary and his wife were ap-
pointed to Rev/a, a solitary station remote
from Christian aid or sympathy. They went
undismayed to their arduous post. '' They
soon found," said Bishop Walsh, ' ' that so far
as the cruelties of the people were concerned
the half had not been told them. The Fiji-
ans were, perhaps, the most deeply degraded
race of human beings that had ever been met
with in any of the South Sea Islands. They
were superstitious, cruel, and revengeful in
the extreme, and addicted to war and blood-
shed, in connection with which they often
committed deeds of savage barbarity a de-

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Polynesian Missions

scription of which would not be fit for the
ears of civilized Christian people."

In personal appearance the Fijians are
vStout and robust. They care little about
clothing, except on state occasions, when
they paint their bodies and pay special at-
tention to the dressing- of the hair, which is
arrayed in the most extraordinary and fan-
tastic manner. We continue to quote as
follows from Bishop Walsh's graphic sketch :

" Infanticide and cannibalism flourished
in even darker forms than in other savage
lands. Two thirds of all the children were
killed in infancy, and every village had an
executioner appointed to carry out this deed
of blood. Those who survived were early
trained to the darkest deeds. Dead bodies
were handed over to young children to hack
and hew ; living captives were given up to
them to mutilate and torture. No marvel
if we read that sick and aged parents were
put out of the way by the clubs of their own
offspring, and that hoary hairs and failing
strength excited neither reverence nor com-
passion. As to cannibalism, it had become
an epicurean art. It was no uncommon
thing for a man to select his best wife or
his most tender child for the dreadful fes-

30 30 1

The Picket Line of Missions

tival, and even to invite his friends to the
awful banquet.

'' Ra Undreundu kept a register by
means of stones of the bodies which he had
eaten, and they numbered nine htmdred !
The horrid practice mingled itself with all
the acts of life and Avorship. The building
of a canoe, the burial of the dead, the pay-
ment of tax, and even the taking down of
a mast, were each accompanied with this
revolting ceremonial. A chief has been
known to kill eight or ten men in order to
make rollers for the launching of his canoe,
and the ovens were previously ablaze to
cook them for his banquet. We must draw
the veil over still darker scenes which will
not endure recital in Christian ears."

Amid all this savagery Mr. Hunt writes:
'' I feel myself saved from almost all fear,
though surrounded with men who have
scarcely any regard for human life. We
are in the hands of a God whom even the
heathen fear when they hear of him. The
people at Lakemba say that their god has
actually left the island because our God has
beaten him till his bones are sore ! " Be-
fore long converts were made to the reli-
gion of the cross, and with conversion came

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Polynesian Missions

persecution of the Christian neophytes,
who were pillaged of their property by the
heathen. Yet the sufferers bore with noble
cheerfulness '' the spoiling of their goods."

After seven months Mr. Hunt, his col-
league, Mr. Lyte, and their two wives, re-
moved to the island of Samosamo, where
only one white man had ever gone, and he
a short time before had been barbarously
murdered. Their reception was disheart-
ening, and the scenes which they were com-
pelled to witness were appalling in the ex-
treme.

Within a week news came that the king's
youngest son was lost at sea. Forthwith an
order was issued that sixteen women, some
of them of high rank, should be strangled,
and, despite Hunt's entreaties, they were
put to death and then burned in front of
the mission houseamid the blast of conchs
and the yells of incarnate demons. Some
months later eleven men were dragged with
ropes to ovens and roasted for a banquet,
and when the missionary's wife closed the
window blinds against the sight of the hor-
rid festival the unfuriated natives threat-
ened to burn down the house unless they
were reopened. War canoes were launched

303

The Picket Line of Missions

on living human bodies as rollers. It was
considered the honorable thing for a wife
to be strangled when her husband died.
Sometimes a dozen or more wives of a chief
were thus put to death and buried with
their husband.

In 1840 Commodore Wilkes, of the
United States Navy, visited the island, and
so deplorable was the condition of the mis-
sionaries that he offered to conve}^ them
away, but they refused to go, although even
the chiefs commanded them to depart.

During this time the cannibal feasts were
more frequent, and barbarous ceremonies
were constantly taking place in the town.
The ovens were so near the mission house
that the smell from them was sickening,
and the young king furiously threatened to
kill the missionaries and their wives if they
vShut up their house to exclude the horrible
stench. Among all the perils and annoy-
ances Mr. Hunt steadily and earnestly went
about his work, always — to use his favorite
expression — " turning his care into prayer."

After three years of apparently unre-
quited toil at Samosamo Mr. Hunt removed
to Viwa, where the last six years of his life
were spent. Though broken in health he

304

Polynesian Missions

devoted himself with increased zeal to toil
and study, teaching, preaching-, translating.
To him belongs the honor of giving the
New Testament to the Fijians in their na-
tive tongue, and it was soon printed on an
imported press. He kept up, also, his per-
sonal studies, reading Greek, Hebrew,
Blackstone's Commentaries, and English lit-
erature, and writing a work on sanctifi cation,
which he illustrated in his own religious
experience.

Such devotion, however, could not fail of
its glorious revv^-ird. A great religious
awakening took place. Among the con-
verts was the Queen of Viwa. "Her
heart," says Mr. Hunt, '' seemed literally
to be broken, and, though a very strong
woman, she fainted twice under the weight
of a wounded spirit. vShe revived only to
renew her strong cries and tears, so that it
was all we could do to proceed with the
service. The effect soon became more cren-
eral. Several of the women and some of
the men literally roared for the disquietude
of their hearts. As many as could chanted
the 7> Dcuin. It was very affecting to see
upward of a hundred Fijians, many of
whom were a few years ago some of the

The Picket Line of Missions

worst cannibals in the group, and even in
the world, chanting, ' We praise thee, O
God ; we acknowledge thee to be the Lord,'
v/hile their voices were almost drowned by
the cries of broken-hearted penitents."

Soon a bitter storm of persecution burst
on the Christians of Viwa. The neigh-
boring heathen made relentless war upon
them. ''O, if you missionaries would go
away!" they said. ''It is your presence
that prevents us killing them. If you
would go away before long all these Viwa
people would be in the ovens!" ''It is
very easy," said the Christians, " for us to
come to Mbau and be cooked ; but it is very
difficult to renounce Christianity."

Mr. Hunt's continuous toil at length told
seriously upon his health. The man of iron
strength, who had come up to London from
the fields of Lincolnshire only twelve years
before, was evidently dying. Of him, too,
might it be truly said, " The zeal of thine
house hath eaten me up." The converts
from heathenism, with sad faces, flocked to
the chapel and prayed earnestly for the
missionary. " O Lord," Elijah Verani cried
aloud, " we know we are very bad, but
spare thy servant. If one must die, take

30G

Polynesian Missions

me ! take ten of us ! but spare thy servant
to preach Christ to the people ! "

As he neared his end the missionary
confidently committed his wife and babes
to God, but was sorely distressed for Fiji.
Sobbing as though in acute distress, he
cried out, "Lord, bless Fiji! save Fiji!
Thou knowest my soul has loved Fiji ; my
heart has travailed for Fiji !" Then, grasp-
ing his friend Calvert by the hand, he ex-
claimed again : *'0, let me pray once more
for Fiji! Lord, for Christ's sake, bless
Fiji! save Fiji!" Turning to his mourn-
ing wife, he said, '' If this be dying, praise
the Lord!" Presently, as his eyes looked
up with a bright joy that defied death, he
exclaimed, "I want strength to praise Him
abundantly !" and with the note of triumph,
*' Hallelujah," on his lips, he joined the
worship of the skies.

The next day his coffin was borne by na-
tive students to the grave. It had on it no
emblazonry, and no record but this:

REV. JOHN HUNT,

SLEPT IN JESUS, OCTOBER 4TH, 1848,

AGED 36 YEARS.

The good work so auspiciously begun by
Hunt and his associates has been carried

307

The Picket Line of Missions

on with o;lorious results. The mission band
has been reinforced, till, in 1892, there were
employed, besides about a score of European
missionaries, 70 native preachers, 1,126
catechists, 2,081 local preachers, 3,405 class
leaders, with 106,000 attendants on public
worship, out of a population of 120,000.
The people have erected for themselves
979 chapels, which are out of debt, and 334
other preaching places. Every Sunday
there are 1,200 pulpits filled by native Fiji
preachers, and during the week 1,951 day
schools are conducted for the instruction of
over 38,307 scholars, each village support-
ing its own schools.

In 1874 the islands became, by petition
of their inhabitants, a crown colony of Great
Britain, and the following year Sir Arthur
Gordon was appointed first governor. The
British governor receives a salary of $10,000
a year, paid by the colony. One hundred
and sixty native chiefs are employed in
administrative capacities, besides 33 native
stipendiary magistrates, associated with 13
European magistrates, in the administra-
tion of justice.

Fiji abounds in magnificent harbors. In
natural beauty it is a perfect '^ land of the

308

Polynesian Missions

lotus-eaters," with volcanic peaks and love-
ly vales covered with richest vegetation.
Among its products are cotton, coffee, tea,
sugar, sago, cocoa, rice, India rubber, and
spices. The revenue of the country in-
creased in four years from ;^ 16,433 in 1875
to £So,6yS in 1880.^

In 1885 the jubilee of Christianity was
celebrated in Fiji. Mr. Calvert, then

* The foreign trade of these, till recently, cannibal people in
1891 amounted to £727,383, the exports being £474,334 and
the imports £253,049. There are in the colony eleven sugar
mills, which in 1892— the latest figures we have — exported
18,883 tons, valued at over £300,000, Among the imports
of 1892, amounting to £253, 586, were drapery, £48,022 — when
the missionaries went there first their drapery bill was a very
small one ; meat, £11,844 ; breadstuffs, £28,449 ; fertilizers,
£10,600; coal. £18,449; ""O" ware, £18,889; machinery,
£8,251. Other exports are tea ; bananas, £62,442 ; peanuts,
£7,074; copra, or dried kernel of cocoanut, 5,937 tons,
valued at £49,723.

Daring the year 1892 63 steamers and 28 sailing vessels ar-
rived at the colony, besides 331 local vessels, 241 of which
are owned by natives.

In 1892 there passed through the post office in local
correspondence 216,588 letters, 131,467 papers, and 150,071
book packets; and in foreign correspondence 110,251 letters,
94,074 papers, and 8,967 book packets.

This moral elevation, these churches and schools, these
many thousands of changed lives and happy deaths are the
direct result of Christian missions, and this wonderful
development of commerce and civilization, perhaps, is a
scarcely less direct consequence.
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The Picket Line of Missions

seventy- two years of age, left England to
attend it. Referring to this visit he said :
*'In 1835, when the Mission commenced,
there was not a single Christian in Fiji. In
1885 there was not an avowed heathen in
all the inhabited islands. Out of a popula-
tion of 110,000, 104,585 were attendants on
public worship. Now marriage is sacred,
family worship regularly conducted, schools
are everywhere established, law and good
government firmly laid, and spiritual
churches formed and prosperous. The
language has been reduced to written form
and made one, doing away with the plague
of many dialects. Eight thousand copies
of the Bible in two editions and fifty thou-
sand of the New Testament have been pur-
chased. Catechisms, with Scripture proofs.
Banyan's Pilgrini s Progress, and three edi-
tions of John Hunt's invaluable CJiristian
Theology have been widely circulated. We
had no night of toil. God was with us from
the beginning, and ever confirmed his word
with signs following. These converts were
whole-hearted, and very true and faithful.
Their thorough change of heart, wrought
by the Holy Spirit, was manifest to all.
They became living epistles, read and

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Polynesian Missions

known and felt by all who knew them.
This personal Christian experience told
amazingly among the dark and simple-
minded Fijians, and it tells everywhere.
The Fijian Church is also continually send-
ing native missionaries to other distant
lands to preach Christ in other tongues.
This many of them do successfully."

Levuka, the capital of Fiji, has three
handsome European churches, a govern-
ment house, supreme court, Masonic, Good
Templars', and Odd Fellows' halls, Me-
chanics' Institute, club room, bank, two tri-
weekly papers, stores, hotels, and — another
sign of civilization — a single cab.

Many are the testimonies given as to the
success of the Wesleyan missions by persons
in no wise prejudiced in their favor. One
of the most striking of these is the follow-
ing, by the chaplain of the British man-of-
war Brisk, as to the success of Fiji missions :

** Never was I so much impressed," he
says, " w^th the power of divine truth as
when I stood in the midst of a native con-
gregation at Bau of over seven hundred ;
the king, seated in a dignified manner in
an armchair, with his large Bible before
him ; the queen, the finest specimen of ' the

311

The Picket Line of Missions

human face divine ' that I ever saw, in a
conspicuous place among the women ; and
heard the Gospel preached by a native min-
ister, and the accents of their praise ascend-
ing on high like the voice of many waters.
The church is a large native building,
capable of holding one thousand persons,
and displays great ingenuity in its style of
architecture. It is situated within a few
yards of the ruins of an old heathen tem-
ple, where human sacrifices were wont to
be offered to the gods previous to their
being cooked and eaten. The ovens which
were used for this revolting purpose of
cooking the victims are still to be seen,
filled with earth, and quite close to the
church."

But the fullest testimony is that of Miss
C. F. Gordon Gumming, a lady of celebrit}^
as a traveler and author, who, by invita-
tion, accompanied Sir Arthur and Lady
Gordon as a member of their family. Miss
Gumming spent two years in Fiji, during
which time she explored most of the inhab-
ited islands, mingled freely with the people
in their homes and at social and public
gatherings, and was a careful observer of
their cUvStoms, manners, and morals. She

812

Polynesian Missions

vividly describes the wonderful transition
which has ensued from the most savage
barbarism to Christian civilization by the
introduction of the Gospel.

'•Strange, indeed," she writes, ''is the
change that has come over these isles since
first the Wesleyan missionaries landed here
in 1835, resolved, at the hazard of their
lives, to bring the light of Christianity to
these ferocious cannibals. Imagine the
faith and courage of the two white men,
without any visible protection, landing in
the midst of these bloodthirsty hordes,
whose unknown language they had in the
first instance to master, and day after day
witnessing such scenes as chills one's blood
to hear about. Many such have been de-
scribed to me by eyewitnesses. Slow and
disheartening was their labor for many
years ; yet so well has that little leaven
worked that, with the exception of Kai
Tholos, the wild highlanders who still hold
out in the mountain fastnesses, the inhab-
ited isles have all abjured cannibalism and
other frightful customs, and have lotutcd
(that is, embraced Christianity) in such good
earnest as may well put to shame many

more civilized nations.
;n3

The Picket Line of Missions

*' I often wish that some of the cavilers
who are forever sneering- at Christian mis-
sions could see some of their results in these
isles. But first they w^ould have to recall
the Fiji of ten years ago, when every man's
hand was against his neighbor and the
land had no rest from intertribal wars, in
vvdiich the foe, without respect of age or
sex, were looked upon only in the light of
so much beef — the prisoners deliberately fat-
tened for the slaughter ; limbs cut off from
living men and women and cooked and
eaten in the presence of the victim, who had
previously been compelled to dig the oven
and cut the firewood for the purpose ; and
this, not in time of war, when such atrocity
might be deemed less inexcusable, but in
time of peace, to gratify the caprice or ap-
petite of the moment.

' ' Think of the sick buried alive ; the ar-
ray of widows who were deliberately stran-
gled on the death of any great man ; the
living victims who were buried beside every
post of a chief's house, and must needs
stand clasping it while the earth was gradu-
ally heaped over their devoted heads; a
time when there was not the vslightest se-
curity for life or property, and no man knew

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Polynesian Missions

how quickly his own hour of doom might
come; when whole villages were depopu-
lated simply to supply their neighbors with
fresh meat !

''Just think of all this and of tlic change
that has been wrought, and then just imag-
ine white men who can sneer at missionary
work in the way they do. Now you can
pass from isle to isle, certain everywhere to
find the same cordial reception by kindly
men and women. Every village on the
lightly inhabited isles has built for itself a
tidy church and a good house for its teacher
or native minister, for whom the village
also provides food and clothing. Can you
realize that there are nine hundred Wesleyan
churches in Fiji, at every one of which the
frequent services are crowded by devout
congregations; that the schools are well
attended, and that the first sound that greets
your ear at dawn and the last at night is
that of hymn singing and most fervent wor-
ship rising from each dwelling at the hour
of family prayer?"

One great chief after another was con-
verted, but the most remarkable of all was
the conversion of King Thakombaw, the
powerful monarch of Fiji. Captain Erskinc,

ol5

The Picket Line of Missions

of Her Majesty's steamship HavannaJi, who
visited Fiji in 1849, "^^^^^ describes Tha-
kombaw : * * It was impossible not to admire
the appearance of the chief. Of large, al-
most gigantic size, his limbs were beauti-
fully formed and proportioned. His coun-
tenance, with far less of the Negro cast than
among the lower orders, was agreeable and
intelligent. In 1857 he was publicly bap-
tized. He had been requested to address
the assembly after his baptism. He did so.
What a congregation he had! Widows
whose husbands he had slain ; people whose
relatives had been strangled by his orders ;
those whose friends he had eaten ; and chil-
dren, the descendants of people he had
murdered, and who had vowed to avenge
the wrongs inflicted on their fathers. A
thousand stony hearts heaved with fear and
astonishment as Thakombaw said :

**'I have been a bad man. The mis-
sionaries came and invited me to embrace
Christianity, but I said, "I will continue to
fight." God has singularly preserved my
life. I desire to acknowledge him as the
only and the true God. I have scourged the
world.'

*' He was deeply affected, and spoke with

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Polynesian Missions

great diffidence. He showed his sincerity
by dismissing his many wives and publicly
marrying the chief one, Andi Lydia Sa-
manunu. From this time he took no retro-
grade step. His thirst for knowledge grew,
and the touching spectacle was often wit-
nessed of his efforts to learn to read, taught
by his own little children. The Rev. J.
Nettleton, who was his chaplain for seven
years, said he never met with a more de-
voted, earnest, and consistent Christian. He
died in 1883, and the Fijian Times, a secu-
lar paper, said : ' His influence on the side
of Christianity and of good in general has
been greater than that of any chief or com-
bination of chiefs throughout the islands.
Since his conversion and baptism he has led
a worthy life, and, eminent before for
tyranny, licentiousness, and disregard of
human life, he has since been free from re-
proach, chaste in conduct, and considerate
of the people ! ' "

The conversion of Fiji was preeminently
God's work — the work of the Holy Spirit.
The work at Ono was a remarkable in-
stance of this. Ono is the chief island of a
group situated one hundred and fifty miles

south of Lakemba, and the most southerly
21 317

The Picket Line of Missions

extremity of Fiji. Without any prompting
except that which must have come from
God's good Spirit, these people began to
grope from their own deep heathen dark-
ness toward the light :

" An infant crying in the night.
An infant crying for the light,
And with no language but a cry."

In 1835, about the same time that the
Mission to Fiji was commenced, a desire
arose among these people for better gods
than they had. One of their chiefs had
heard from a Friendly Islander that there
was but one God, and that one day in seven
ought to be set apart for his worship. As
soon as this news reached them they deter-
mined to worship this unknown God. A
difficulty arose as to who should officiate for
them. In their dilemma they sent for the
heathen priest. Moved either by fear or
compassion or honor, he consented, and
asked this new God to keep and bless the
people, at the same time acknowledging
that he himself worshiped a different god
and that he was only acting as spokesman
for his neighbors. This kind of worship
continued, while the longing for more knowl-
edge grew upon them every day.

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Polynesian Missions

It was a long time before their wishes for
a teacher could be made known. A storm
drove a boat full of Tongans, returning
home, far out of their course. They landed
on an island fifty miles from Ono. One of
them was a Christian, and when he heard
of what was going on at Ono went there
and taught them what he knew. When a
regular Christian teacher reached them he
found one hundred and twenty persons who
had renounced heathenism. The work
spread on every hand. The missionaries
bore testimony that ' ' of all the work in
Fiji that at Ono has been the most perma-
nent and successful. More native teachers
have been raised in proportion to the popu-
lation than in any of the other islands."

The genuine and sturdy character of the
religion of these Fijian converts has proved
itself on many signal occasions. Manfully
have many of them endured persecution,
exile, and death rather than compromise
their principles. Forty native Fijians have
gone as missionaries to New Guinea, a land
more degraded than even their own had
been, and through their labors two thou-
sand three hundred of the inhabitants be-
came Christians. The Fijians make good

319

The Picket Line of Missions

missionaries; difficulties do not dishearten
nor perils affright them. Where one falls
tinder the club of a savage — and many have
so fallen — others are ready to take up his
work and proclaim to his murderers both
the law and the Gospel.

In 1877 M^- Brov/n, a Wesleyan mission-
ary, with nine native Fiji preachers (seven
of them married, and accompanied by their
wives), sailed in the Mission brig John
Wesley to carry to the savages of New
Britain the Gospel of Christ. Before they
sailed the British consul remonstrated with
them on the peril of the attempt, but they
replied, ''We know the danger; we are
willing to go. If we get killed, well ; if we
live, well."

News was soon received that four of them
were eaten, and that their wives and little
ones were threatened with a similar fate.
''These distressing tidings," says Miss
Gordon Gumming, " reached Fiji just as a
fresh detachment of teachers was about to
start for New Britain. Their determina-
tion was in no degree shaken. One of them
expressed the determination of them all
when he said, ' If the people kill and eat
my body I shall go to a place where there

320

Polynesian Missions

is no more pain or death; it is all right.'
One of the wives was asked whether she
still intended to accompany her husband to
a scene of so great danger. She replied,
* I am like the outrigger of a canoe — where
the canoe goes, there you will surely find
the outrigger ! ' Brave helpmeets, these ! "
Bishop Walsh, a prelate of the Anglican
Church, pays this generous tribute to the
lowly Lincolnshire plowman whose life and
work we have sketched : ' ' Fiji is not only
a gem in the British crown, but a precious
jewel in the missionary diadem; and to
John Hunt, above all other men, belongs
the honor of having placed it there ! "

THE END.

321

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