“Take my life, and let it be
Consecrated, Lord, to Thee.”
The prayer of Mrs. Mackay not only shaped the destiny of her son, but influenced the whole history of Africa. This is only one additional testimony to the illimitable influence which good and true women have exercised in the world; it is another proof that very often mighty influences spring from apparently trivial things.
In 1867 a great change came over the family. The little village of Rhynie was left, and residence was taken up in the busy, but picturesque, city of Edinburgh, “the modern Athens,” the most beautiful city in the United Kingdom. Vastly different scenes surrounded the family, but on the whole they were beneficial in giving fuller scope to the constantly developing faculties of the youth whose history we are following.
Alexander, determined upon the pursuit of teaching, entered the Free Church Training College for Teachers, of which the Rev. Dr. Maurice Paterson was principal. To this sterling Christian, Mackay owed a great deal, and of him he always spoke in enthusiastic and affectionate terms. For two years he remained there, and retired with the very highest laurels. Of the students sent for the examinations by the Free Church he stood the highest, and he also received a valuable prize from the Art Department of South Kensington. Three years’ study at the Edinburgh University increased alike his knowledge and his reputation. His studies were applied more particularly to the highest branches of handicraft, with an earnest search into classics more by way of relaxation than anything else. Mechanics and engineering, higher mathematics, natural philosophy, surveying, and fortification building: these were his pet studies, and at them he labored with an industrious application which commanded the best results, not only, in the examinations, but in the greater tests which followed.
For a time all intention to enter the ministry was abandoned. To say that this determination was a disappointment to his father is using the mildest possible phrase applicable, but, like a man of sound judgment, he did all he could to ensure His son’s proficiency and success in the pursuit of a profession for which apparently nature had eminently fitted him. For a time, Alexander held a morning engagement as a college teacher, and then, after donning the roughest of clothes, he went down to Leith, and spent the afternoons toiling hard and patiently in the engineering works of Messrs. Miller and Herbert. Then back to Edinburgh he went, and most of his evenings were spent at the school of arts, where he earnestly studied chemistry, geology, and other sciences.
Very few of those who then knew him apprehended the momentous fact, but in God’s hands this varied educational experience was but the training for his history-making, history-brightening labors in the dark land which provided him with a tomb. Of course it matters little where his body lies; we know where his spirit is, and that is the sole importance which surrounds the whereabouts of a man who has passed out of the range of man’s contracted vision.
It was during his terms at the Edinburgh University that he began to take an active, personal part in Christian work. He attended the church of the Rev. Horatius Bonar, who never failed to exercise a very powerful influence over him. The Sunday afternoons he filled up, not by visiting the picturesque sights of the magnificent city, but by conducting special services chiefly for the outcast and ragged children who exist in large numbers even there, and in the evenings he and Dr. John Smith were amongst the most faithful of the teachers at Dr. Guthrie’s ragged school which, at the time referred to, was under the superintendence of that devoted Christian, Mr. Robert Simpson. The future missionary was always happy amongst children, and if we wish to estimate the measure of his self-sacrifice for the sake of Africa, and for Christ’s sake, we must pursue our investigation by taking into account the beautiful home life he might have lived if he had been content to pass away his life in the profession which would undoubtedly have yielded him a greater degree of wealth than his soul craved for.
For several reasons, Mackay, in November, 1873, left Scotland for Germany. One reason is plain enough — he was enamored of the Getman tongue and the wealth of legendary lore which it covers. He secured a lucrative appointment as draftsman in a large locomotive factory just outside the imperial city of Berlin. At that time German religious thought was in a strange state of unrest. Thousands were literally wrenching themselves away from the old creed which enabled, or compelled, Luther and Gustavus Adolphus to win their immortal, though opposite, victories. Both these warriors fought on German soil, and secured the same ends with vastly different weapons — the liberty to read the Scriptures, and to worship God according to its dictates.
Mackay in his new sphere was surrounded by many young men who considered it an evidence of intellectual superiority to keep their infidelity and their godlessness perpetually under the eyes of all beholders. This caused the young Christian draftsman much anxiety, and many prayers he offered up on behalf of those who too frequently indulged in jeering scoffs at his earnestness. There were over a thousand men employed at the works, and Mackay was ever anxious to so conduct himself before them that he would lead at least some to come to a right conception of the Christianity which was the motive power of his useful existence. Once he wrote home the following pithy sentence — “Here I am amongst a heathenish people; almost all are infidels, but agree in so far acknowledging God as to continually use the expression ‘Ach Gott!’ often more than once in a single sentence.”
He prayed much and was sustained. In May, 1874, he went to reside at the home of Herr Hofprediger Baur, a man of earnest Christian life, and full of a deep sympathy for foreign missions. Here the young man was brought into close personal contact with the elite of Christian society in the city, and to a far greater extent than hitherto he dedicated his life to Christ’s service.
In the same month (4th May, 1874), the following passage, which is perhaps the most significant foreshadowing of future events ever recorded, appears in his diary — “This day last year Livingstone died, a Scotsman and a Christian, loving God and his neighbor in the heart of Africa. Go thou and do likewise!” And in God’s good time he did go and do likewise, and today, whilst both fell on sleep under the hot sky of Africa, they stand, in the estimation of their countrymen, linked together as the two greatest missionaries and explorers of modern times.
This seems to have been the period in which he solemnly and reflectively dedicated himself to the work of foreign missions. Somehow he felt that he would be called to the work in Madagascar, which at that time was creating a good deal of public interest and sympathy. He consequently began a close study of the language, and of the sciences which he considered would be most suitable to him as a missionary in that interesting, though afflicted, island.
His dedication to the work came about in a simple manner. God was guiding his life. His sister, living in Edinburgh, attended a meeting of the literary association which was held in Chalmers’ Memorial Church. Dr. Burns Thompson delivered an interesting address on Madagascar, and appealed to the young men present to dedicate their lives to the work of medical missionaries out there. She forwarded a lengthy description of the address to her brother, who was fired with a holy zeal for the work. Almost immediately he wrote to his old friend and pastor, Dr. H. Bonar, offering himself for mission work in Madagascar. To him, and also to his sister, he wrote, “Well, I am not a doctor, and therefore cannot go as such; but I am an engineer, and propose, if the Lord will, to go as an engineering missionary.”
This was a perfectly novel idea, and Mackay knew it, and was therefore not surprised when, in reply, Dr. Bonar told him that he thought the ideas difficult to combine — mission work with engineering — but at the same time he offered to make all necessary inquiries.
Another letter home shows how intense was his desire for mission work. “Do not think me mad. It is not to make money that, I believe, a Christian should live. It will indeed be a trial of all trials to part with you all, to go to such a country, where so many Christians (2,000) were not very long ago put to death. Such persecutions I do not expect will occur again. At any rate, Christianity should teach men, of course, how to be saved for eternity, but also how to live comfortably and healthily together.”
At the time he wrote this letter he was not quite twenty-five years of age. Naturally the world was tinged with a roseate hue, and, like most young men, he was ambitious to make his mark in it. Nor did he relinquish his ambition with his dedication to foreign missionary labor. Nothing definite was done for a long time about his offer to go to Madagascar. Patiently he prepared himself, so that when the call should come he would be ready to accept it. His twenty-fifth birthday came round and on the 13th October, 1874, he jotted in his diary, “Twenty-five years old this day. ‘Bless the Lord, O my soul,’ for all His goodness. Man is immortal till his work is done. Use me in Thy service alone, blessed Saviour.”
He was always thinking about a missionary’s life. In 1875 the Church Missionary Society appealed for the services of a lay superintendent to take the secular oversight of a settlement for liberated slaves, to be established near Mombasa. Mackay instantly offered himself for this arduous duty, but the position was filled up before his letter reached London.
In September of the same year the engineering company at Berlin dissolved, and Mackay was thrown out of employment. One of the directors, a Jew, however, offered him a partnership in a similar enterprise at Moscow. This would have sealed Mackay’s fate. Africa would not have been the better for the devoted labors of one of the noblest missionaries who ever lived and died there; and Alexander Mackay would, perhaps, have now been living in opulent prosperity as an engineer in the ancient capital of Russia. The offer was one that would have allured most young ambitious men. It was an encouraging testimony to the manner in which he had performed his work at Berlin; it was an evidence of the Jew’s belief in the vastness of his future prospects. He prayed much as to the way in which he should turn, and having in mind the glory of his after career, who dares to say that God did not listen to, and answer, every petition sent up by the young anxious one?
The offer was refused. This was one of his first great sacrifices. It gave him strength to make many more in after life. He afterward accepted an appointment as chief constructeur in a similar firm at Kottbus, sixty miles from Berlin. Few men of twenty-six receive such onerous appointments; still fewer have the moral courage to vacate them because they inwardly feel that the finger of God points towards poverty and duty, hardship and the glory of being engaged in Christ’s service.
His change of residence did not lessen his sympathy with work for the Lord. He was soon hard at work in his new sphere. He translated into German one or two of Dr. Bonar’s devotional works, and, at much trouble and expense, sent copies to a large number of ministers in Germany.
Then came the great crisis of his life. Two offers of missionary labor in Africa were received by him on the same day, the 26th of January, 1876.
Most people are acquainted with the genesis of the Uganda Mission. The intrepid explorer, Mr. H. M. Stanley, in his travels, came into personal contact with Mtesa, the king of Uganda. Recent events have unfortunately proved too clearly that Mr. Stanley’s estimate of the king was much more hopeful than accurate. He represented Uganda as ripe for the harvest. Mtesa was anxious to receive English missionaries as guests at his court, and he challenged the missionary societies at home to stretch forth their hands to grasp the finest opportunities ever providentially placed within their reach.
The Church Missionary Society were the first to develop their plans. Almost immediately they accepted the challenge and placed themselves in communication with Mr. Mackay and others. The other offer was made by an old friend, Alexander Duff, who was practically acting on the authority of the Free Church of Scotland’s Committee, who had determined to send out a small missionary steamer to Lake Nyassa and were in need of a head engineer.
After much prayerful thought he decided to accept the offer of the Church Missionary Society, and began to prepare himself for his great life’s work. He did not leave Germany until the following March. An industrial and mechanical element was intermixed with the purely evangelical plans of the Society, and of this branch Mackay, then just turned twenty-seven years of age, had almost complete control. Few men of that age have opened their eyes to the infinite possibilities which even a degenerate world offers for being good and doing good.
His first task was to request a London engineer to manufacture a boiler and engine from plans and drawings prepared by himself. These were upon an entirely new principle, and the engine was made in such a way that it could be conveniently carried by porters right through the heart of Africa to the Victoria Nyanza, where the missionaries were to erect a boat specially suited to their requirements. This, though a work of considerable difficulty, was but the prelude to many more of a much more difficult nature.
Mackay had placed his hand to the plow. He was not the man to turn back until the greatest possible measure of success had crowned his efforts. He prayed much and devoutly, but his efforts did not end here. He did all that was humanly possible to make himself a capable missionary. And in that brief interval between his return from Germany and his embarcation for Africa he studied a variety of practical arts and sciences, which afterward proved of immense service in the dark continent. He laid in a full set of tools and purchased a printing press, with all accessories.
Then he went up to Edinburgh to take a farewell, which proved to be the last. His love for all who made home the dearest place in the world was intense, but his love of duty was more intense still. In those last few days he evinced an almost pathetic longing to lay in a stock of information which would in some way ameliorate the condition of the people to whose service he had nobly dedicated his life.
Those last days at home were amongst the most active of his busy life. His friends and relatives complained (and with excellent reason) that they saw too little of him during what unfortunately proved to be his very last visit to the modern Athens. Three hours every alternate day he spent at Leith Fort studying astronomy and the use of the sextant; another three hours a day in the extensive printing office of Messrs. Blackwood & Sons. Then he paid long visits to the Medical Dispensary, where he was taught the valuable arts of vaccination and the use of the stethoscope. Photography, coal-mining, iron puddling, etc., were also added to his already extensive collection of practical subjects.
Then at last the heroic pioneers were ready for departure — eight of them in all, and only one younger than Mackay, who was not quite twenty-seven years of age. Mackay died at the age of forty-one, and yet he survived by several years every other member of that first momentous expedition upon which so much has depended.