I WAS a wild lassie," was what Mary Slessor said of her own girlhood; but as we turn the pages of her life-story we shall see that, even as a child, she had a more than usual amount of energy and will-power; qualities that might have made her selfish and overbearing, but after her conversion these very qualities used in the service and for the glory of her Lord and Savior made her fearless, and helped her to acquire great influence, not only over wild, lawless boys and youths in the Homeland, but over still more wild and lawless savages in West Africa.
But we shall not be able to understand her missionary life unless we know something about her early days, and see how God in His own wise way was training her for service in the mission field. Mary, the second of seven children, was born when the snow lay thickly on the Scottish hills, and the wind whistled through the boughs of leafless trees, on December 2nd, 1848, in a lowly home not far from the city of Aberdeen.
All who knew her mother spoke of her as an earnest Christian, possessed in no common degree of the beautiful ornament so precious in the sight of God, "a meek and quiet spirit." Her great desire was to train her children for the Lord, and she prayed much and often for each by name. But the good Shepherd who gathers the lambs with His arm, and carries them in His bosom, early took three out of the seven to be with Himself, and when quite a little girl Mary was left with one brother and two sisters, the brother about a year older, but the sisters younger than herself.
Mrs. Slessor took a great interest in mission work, and one of the first things Mary remembered was how in the long winter evenings her mother would gather her children round her and talk to them about the poor black people in Africa, who had never heard of the Lord Jesus and His love, and who often fought with and killed each other.
“Playing school" was one of the favorite amusements of the Slessor family. They were by no means rich in dolls, but that did not matter, as chairs and stools did very well for make-believe scholars, Mary always insisting upon it that they must represent black boys and girls.
Even when quite a child she must often have wondered why her mother's face so frequently wore a sad, anxious look, and why, though her husband could, and sometimes did, earn good wages, it was such a struggle to provide food and clothing for the family. It did not take her long to find out the cause, and as the eldest girl she began to help bear her mother's burdens, and in every way in her power try to lighten them.
Mr. Slessor had acquired a fondness for strong drink, in which by far the greater part of his earnings was spent; and though when sober he was a kind and even affectionate husband and father, his conduct when under the influence of drink often resembled that of a madman. Saturday night was, week after week, a trying and anxious time. For hours after the other children were in bed and asleep, Mary and her mother would sit up, dreading rather than hoping for the return of the husband and father. When at last his unsteady step was heard, they would draw closer to each other, for as sometimes happened, after throwing the supper which they had stinted themselves to procure for him into the fire, he would turn them both out of doors, to pass the night as best they could.
Still, they hoped and prayed on, and none of their friends even guessed the shadow that darkened their home. When, a year or so later, Mrs. Slessor, finding that she could not keep her family upon the small sums of money her husband brought home, went to work in one of the mills, Mary in a great measure took her mother's place in the household. By this time the family had removed to one of the suburbs of Dundee, hoping that when away from his old drinking companions Mr. Slessor would give up his unsteady habits. But though for a few weeks the change worked well, the improvement did not last, and a time of greater hardship than the family had yet known lay before them.
When Mary was only eleven years of age she herself went to work at the mill as a "half-timer," working half the day and attending school the other half. Two or three years later her working hours were from six in the morning till six at night, with some time allowed for meals.
But though it had been her dream, as she herself said in after years, to be a missionary in Africa (and she had been wisely and lovingly trained by her godly mother), she had not been converted. She had never taken her place before God as a lost sinner, and tasted the sweetness of His pardoning love. But the time when she was to pass from death to life was not far distant.
A poor but pious widow, who lived in one room down a close, or court, not far from the mill gates, longed to do something for the troop of working girls who passed her window soon after the ringing of the great bell at the mill set them free, so often invited as many as her room would hold, to leave the cheerless streets and have a warm and cozy talk by her bright fireside. Mary would sometimes be one to accept the invitation; and though I do not think that the widow called her little gathering either a Bible class or an evening school, she would talk in a plain homely way to the girls, and it was during one of those talks that Mary, then about fourteen years of age, was aroused to feel and own her need of personal salvation. But how it came about I hope to tell you in the next chapter.