(Continued from page 65).
The Government had now a firmer foothold in the country and roads were being made and a railroad was under way. But in the districts where the missionaries had not reached there was often serious trouble between the natives and the Government troops. One of these tribes were so disturbed by the appearance of armed men that they persuaded a lad, who had been used as a guide by the soldiers, to lead them to the “great white mother” for her advice and help. She and they talked long and earnestly and they returned consoled and hopeful. Some time afterward the guide came down on his own account, bringing a few other lads with him. Her influence was such that they wished to become God-men; and they returned to begin the first Christian movement in one of the most degraded regions of Nigeria. Miss Slessor knew nothing of the place save that it was away up in the Northwest, on one of the higher reaches of the river, and a two days’ journey by water. Some months later the young men again came to her, saying that there were forty others ready to become Christians and begging her to come up. She felt hardly able for such a long journey, for she was suffering all the time now, but she could not refuse them. She found the town larger and more prosperous than she had anticipated, but the darkness was terrible and the wickedness shameless. The younger, and more progressive men gave her a warm welcome, but the older chiefs were sulky.
The would-be Christians had begun to erect a small church, with two rooms for her at the end. That they were in earnest was proved by their attitude. She had eager and reverent audiences, and once, on going unexpectedly into a yard, she found two lads on their knees praying to the “white man’s God.” After a short stay in their midst, she returned to her own station promising to return later, but a serious illness prevented her. During the interval twenty young men from the district came to see her, but before stating their business said, “Let us pray.”
On her next visit to this district, Mr. McGregor, the principal of the Industrial Institute at the coast, accompanied her. The natives were delighted and asked if he were the man who had come to lead them out of darkness, and were bitterly disappointed when she told them he was not the man yet.
“Ma, you always say, ‘Wait.’ We have waited two years, and again you come and say, ‘Wait.’ When are you coming to us?” This was as great a disappointment to her as to them, and in the end she went to them herself, “I must go,” she said, “I am in honor bound to go.” She heard that services were being held regularly on Sundays and weekdays, and yet none of them knew more than the merest rudiments of Christian truth; none could read. They were groping for the light, and worshiping what to most of them was the unknown God, and yet were already able to withstand persecution. She lived to see wonderful changes wrought in the hearts and lives of these people. At one of the places where she had stationed native teachers, messages came telling of the persecution of the infant church by the chiefs, who threatened to expel the teachers if they spoiled the old fashions. “And what did you say to that?” she inquired.
We replied, “You can put us out of your country, but you cannot put us away from God.”
“And the women?”
“They said they would die for Jesus Christ.”
As her bodily strength diminished, the work increased and became more difficult, but the “white mother” was always singing in her heart psalms of thanksgiving and gratitude.
If during sleepless nights of suffering she would feel burdened, she would rise and cry, “Calm me, O God, and keep one calm.” Then she would go and look at the sleeping children, and be much comforted by the sight.
“Surely,” she would say, “I have more reason to trust God than childhood has, after all the way He has led me.”
“My life,” she wrote, “is one long, daily, hourly record of answered prayer. For physical health, for mental overstrain, for guidance given marvelously, for errors and dangers averted, for enmity to the gospel subdued, for food provided at the exact hour needed, for everything that goes to make up life and my poor service. I can testify with a full, and often, wonder-stricken awe, that I believe God answers prayer. I know God answers prayer. I have proved during long decades while alone, as far as man’s help and presence are concerned, that God answers prayer. Cavilings logical or physical, are of no avail to me. It is the very atmosphere in which I live and breathe and have my being, and it makes life glad and free and a million times worth living. I can give no other testimony. I am sitting alone here on a log among a company of natives. My children, whose very lives are a testimony that God answers prayer, are working around me. Natives are crowding past on the bush road to attend palavers, and I am at perfect peace, far from my own countrymen and conditions, because I know God answers prayer. Food is scarce just now. We live from hand to mouth. We have not more than will be our breakfast today, but I know we shall be fed, for God answers prayer.”
Not everyone would count it a privilege to live alone so far as companionship of their own kind was concerned, amidst the perils of the African forest, exposed to all the dangers of that tropical climate and amongst a people of filthy habits, but Miss Slessor wrote to a friend, “Mine has been such a joyous service, God has been good to me, letting me serve Him in this humble way. I cannot thank Him enough for the honor He conferred upon me when He sent me to the Dark Continent.”
The love of Christ constrained her and that love transformed everything for her, and that too was the power that transformed the lives of such numbers of those poor people. For even the most degraded of the human race will understand and respond to the touch of real love. Love will overcome all, was her belief; and love, to her, included all the qualities of the Christian faith—simplicity, kindness, patience, charity, selflessness, confidence, hope. It has been said of some, “They loved the praise of men, more than the praise of God,” but how different was it in Miss Slessor’s case. The Governor-General of the Colony and other British officials who knew that her heroic work had done more than anything else to open up the country for the Government, felt that her services should be brought to Royal notice. This was done and the king conferred on her special honor, but the publicity greatly troubled her.
“It isn’t Mary Slessor doing anything,” she said, “but Something outside of her altogether uses her as her small ability allows.” She did not say, “My plan,” or “My scheme,” but “What God wants me to do,” and His approval was the only honor she craved.
She was much broken in health and her friends urged her to return to Britain, to spend the rest of her days in comfort and quietness, but she held to her post to the very last and to the very last doing the very difficult work of a pioneer missionary. To the very last breaking new ground.
Then came those dark days of August 1914, and when word reached her that Europe was at war, the tragedy of it all completely prostrated her. She became very ill and finally lay in a stupor as if beyond help. It was a scene that suggested the final act in Dr. Livingstone’s life. The girls were crying. The boys stood alarmed and awed. Then they lifted her in her camp bed and marched with her five miles through the African forest to the river where they placed her in a canoe and took her two days’ journey down the river to the nearest place where a doctor could be obtained. One of the lady missionaries from another station came to her and helped the girls nurse her back to health. In a very wonderful way she was restored and again took up her work for a short time.
For a time the horrors of the war lay like a weight on her heart. She had been trying to teach the natives that God wanted them to live at peace and now what could she tell them. But after a time she became calmer; she knew God has His own wonderful purposes in all that He allows, and she explained it as best she could to her poor bewildered people, and left the rest with God. To friends at home she wrote, “Thank God our nation is not the aggressor”—and to another, “May our nation be sent from its pleasures to its knees, and the church awed and brought back to Him.”
In January 1915 the end came and she went to be with her Lord and Saviour, whom she had loved and served so long. As many stood about her open grave, weeping, one old colored woman said, “Do not cry—do not cry; ‘Praise God from whom all blessings flow,’ Ma Slessor was a great blessing.”
And there on that far coast of Africa her body lies awaiting that soon coming day, when body and spirit shall be reunited; that day we look and long for, when “the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” (1. Thess. 4:16-17). For “we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” (1. Cor. 15:51-52).
But her spirit had gone to be with Jesus and cannot we follow her to the very gates of heaven. What ‘an abundant entrance’ she would have! Can we not hear the Saviour say, “Well done,” and see His smile of welcome as He received her into the “Home” He had prepared for her. (John 14:11Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. (John 14:1)).
And then there would be her dear mother to welcome her; she had gone to be with the Lord many years before. In the Glory land “we shall know even as we are known.” (1. Cor. 13:12). And there would be also many other loved ones to greet her, and many of her black people whom she had loved, and who through her had learned to love the Lord Jesus, and who had gone before her. Many more would follow after; all to join their voices in the grand redemption song— “Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood.” (Rev. 1:55And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, (Revelation 1:5)).
May the memory of Mary Slessor’s life of self-sacrifice stir our hearts to seek out fresh ways in which we can prove our love to Him, “who loved us and gave Himself for us.” For we hear Him say, “I gave My life for thee, What hast thou given for Me?”