IT was the dream of my girlhood to be a missionary in Calabar," Miss Slessor had often said, and in the record of her long and useful life, we have, I hope, learned a little of how graciously God in His goodness had not only allowed her to go to Africa, but had made even her early trials, and the fourteen years she worked at the loom, a training for the work that lay before her.
For thirty-nine years, with the exception of short furloughs spent in Scotland, and one delightful holiday of six weeks provided for her by the kindness of friends, which she spent at Las Palmas, Grand Canary, she lived and worked in Africa, doing many things that do not always form part of the work of a missionary.
Though part of Africa had come under British rule, it had been found no easy task to get the inland tribes to obey laws, however wise and good, that they thought were opposed to their old savage customs. The British Consul, and those working under him, had to face very real difficulties. They did not know the people or their language as well as Miss Slessor did, and it can hardly be a matter of surprise that they turned to her for advice and help.
The people of Okoyong loved and looked up to her, calling her "The Great White Mother," and when Government officers pressed her to help them in the native court where those who had willfullya broken the laws were tried and sentenced to fines or imprisonment, though she would much rather have been left free for her own work as a pioneer missionary, she consented, as she knew that her influence would be not only on the side of justice but mercy.
Her work on these new lines was so well and faithfully done, that a report of it having reached His Majesty, King George V., he sent her out, with a most kind message, a really beautiful silver Maltese cross. She did not seem to have been lifted up by the honor paid her, but wrote to a friend, "I can't understand why so much notice should be taken of a puir, weak body, who is one of the most unworthy and unprofitable, and yet, I trust, most willing, servants of the King of kings.”
On one of her visits to Scotland, she took several of the children she had rescued, and though she was careful that they should not be spoiled by having too much notice taken of them, they on their return with her to Africa had many happy memories of the Scottish and English friends who had been very kind to them. One small, black boy, Dan, on the morning of their departure cried to be taken back to the house where he had been staying. On his return to Africa, his English clothes were a never-ending wonder, while gray-headed chiefs would play with his toy train and admire his watch.
But all through these years during which Miss Slessor had gone bravely on with her work her own health had been far from good. Frequent attacks of fever had weakened her, till at last she found herself unable to walk for miles through the bush as she had been used to do. "If I could only have," she wrote, "some kind of a box on four wheels, then the bairns could push and pull me about." A Cape chair was sent to her, and she continued her work, though often in great pain and weakness.
It was not until the outbreak of the World War in 1914 that she broke down entirely. It seemed to her so terrible that so-called Christian nations should be at war with each other. "What," she asked, " can I say to the natives, when they say to me, ' You tell us we should not fight with those who have offended or done us wrong, but love and forgive our enemies, and yet the very people who send you to tell us these things are fighting with and killing each other '?”
Though there was much to sadden, yet there was abundant cause for rejoicing. The gospel had been the power of God to the salvation of many, once heathen, who were simply trusting in the finished work of the Lord Jesus, and who proved the reality of their faith by their earnest, consistent, christian lives.
More than one preaching place had been built, and from time to time a little company gathered to remember the Lord's death. The children she had loved and trained were round her, and during the last year or two she was cheered by visits from fellow-workers. But her strength was, her friends saw, failing fast, though her mind remained clear, and her simple faith in the love and goodness of her heavenly Father was unshaken. To a friend she said, "Why do Christians talk and write about the cold hand of death? It is not that at all, but just the hand of Christ.”
For several days she had been losing strength, and more than once those who watched her thought the home-call had come, but each time she rallied, till just before the breaking of the day, early in January, 1915, her spirit left a body of weakness and pain and went to be with the Savior she had long known and loved.
" Corning, coming, yes, they are,
Coming, coming, from afar;
From the wild and scorching desert,
Afric's sons of color deep;
Jesus' love has drawn and won them,
At the cross they bow and weep.”
C. J. L.
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