“Safe in the fiery furnace,
Joyful in tribulation,
My soul adores,
With all its powers,
The God of my salvation.”
In June, 1879, three envoys from Uganda, in company with returning missionaries, started by the Nile route for England, where they arrived in April, 1880. A powerful help reached Mackay in March, 1881, in the person of the P. O’Flaherty, who in succeeding years proved a devoted helpmate. And in May, 1883, further reinforcements arrived, including the R. P. Ashe, to whom reference has already been made in this brief tribute to the God-given greatness of one of the ablest men who, in the faith of God’s promises, lived and died for Africa.
The three men worked with praiseworthy unanimity and devotion. In spite of the gathering storm, which cast many dark shadows before it, much useful and lasting work was done, and many of the people, including several high in authority and great in power, were publicly baptized. The public and private readings were continued on an extended scale, and there was seldom any lack of pupils, despite the ever-growing animosity of the king to the teachers of the new faith.
Mackay had several narrow escapes from death. Afterward he turned considerable attention to building a new house for himself and comrades and a boat for the use of the missionaries, who began to disperse to various corners of the magnificent lake. The courageous Scotsman often traveled from one station to another, doing all he possibly could to help and cheer those who were fighting the Lord’s battle against terrible odds.
Bad as Mtesa had often been, worse followed him. He died in October, 1884, and Mwanga, a weak and vicious youth, came to the throne. Then began a series of fiery trials to the missionaries and all who had accepted their teaching. One graphic paragraph from Stanley’s book on this subject may be given as a testimony of the fierceness of the persecution and the vitality of the faith which outlived it: “I take this powerful body of native Christians in the heart of Africa, who prefer exile for the sake of their faith to serving a monarch indifferent or hostile to their faith, as more substantial evidence of the work of Mackay than any number of imposing structures clustered together and called a Mission Station would be. These native Africans have endured the most deadly persecutions — the stake and the fire, the cord and the club, the sharp knife and the rifle bullet, have all been tried to cause them to reject the teaching they have absorbed. Staunch in their beliefs, firm in their convictions, they have held together stoutly and resolutely, and Mackay and Ashe may point to these with a righteous pride as the results of their labors to the good, kindly people at home who trusted in them.”
“Our first martyrs have won the martyrs’ crown. On January 3oth three Christian lads were burned alive, after being terribly mutilated, for their acceptance of and adherence to the faith of Jesus Christ. They were snatched from our very presence, accused of no crime but that they were learning from us, and first tortured, then roasted alive. Both Ashe and I suffered a deal of violence, but that was soon over, and was nothing to the anxiety of mind which we suffered on account of the cruel death of the dear lads and the threats of determined persecution against the whole of the native Christians, the threats of robbery and expulsion of ourselves, and, later on, a rebellion of the chiefs, whose aim was to make a complete end of us.”
Then followed an intensely anxious time, when they gained the information that Bishop Hannington was pushing towards Uganda, and more than once Mackay and Ashe went to the Court to beg the king’s protection for him. These efforts, however, were fruitless, as all the world painfully knows ere this time, and the good Christian was brutally murdered — as referred to at the opening of our story. For weeks, even months, the missionaries literally carried their lives in their hands. The king refused to allow them to leave the country, and yet he refused to allow them to quietly complete the work they had gone out to perform.
Even if they had desired, escape was impossible. Whilst things were at the worst they received a visit from Dr. Junker, the Russian explorer, who, however, could offer them no service beyond promising to make their extremity known throughout Europe — if ever he himself got there again in safety, which was an exceedingly problematical question. The burning of the king’s palace (necessitating his flight from the capital) only made confusion more confounded, and the war in the Sudan did not help to settle things in the least. In this connection it may be interesting to note (although it is not in proper chronological order) that General Gordon tried more than once to secure Mackay to assist him in the accomplishment of his great work in the Sudan, and also the Imperial East African Company offered him a responsible post. But nothing would induce him to turn his hand from the work the Lord had led him to do, and the only worldly honor he accepted was a decoration from the Khedive in return for eminent services rendered to Emin Pasha whilst he was surrounded by difficulties in Africa.
After a great amount of controversy, Mr. O’Flaherty and Dr. Junker were allowed to leave the country, and Mackay and Ashe also made a similar application, so that they could recommence work in another sphere where their influence would not be destroyed or hampered by the persecutions of a bloodthirsty tyrant. The king eventually consented to Mr. Ashe going, but Mackay was useful to him, and he consequently refused to give him a passport. Then for eleven months Mackay was left to fight the grim battle alone. Ultimately he was allowed to leave on the conditions that he would speedily return, and also that his place would be taken in the meantime by another missionary. E. C. Gordon took Mackay’s place, and later on he was joined by R. H. Walker. In one of his first letters the last-named says: “Really Ashe, Mackay, and the others have done, by the grace of God, a glorious work here; it is a great privilege, but a great responsibility, to follow up such good work. It would seem a terrible disaster if anything happened to compel this Mission to be given up.” In a letter dated 2nd June, 1889, Mackay sums up the question why the king refused to allow him to leave, and pleads, in conclusion: “Please do your best to aid in getting up a crusade against the mad policy of flooding Africa with gunpowder and guns. These things are the curse of East Africa, as gin is of the West Coast.”
On the 21st of July, 1887, Mackay paid his farewell visits to the king, also to the French missionaries and others, and then bade good-bye to the place where for so many years he had labored so hard and suffered so acutely. He stepped on board the Eleanor with a heavy heart. He did not feel that his work had been a failure. His own consciousness told him that he was leaving behind him many true Christians who, had it not been for his ministrations, would still have been wallowing in their heathenism and superstition. But there was a sense of inevitable pain at being driven away from the work he passionately loved. It was arranged that his absence should only be a temporary one. The king expressly stipulated that if Mackay went to Msalala he was to return in three months, but if he went as far as the coast he was not to be absent more than twelve months. A vast change came over affairs at Uganda before the expiration of the year.
Mackay crossed the mighty lake, and on 1st August he reached Ukumbi, where he met Mr. Gordon, who, on the 10th August, went forward to Uganda in the boat brought down by Mackay.
Mr. Ashe came to England for the purpose of showing the people how matters stood in Uganda, and, if possible, to elaborate a definite scheme for throwing a strongly protective influence over those who had placed their lives in terrible jeopardy by accepting the Christian faith. Mackay, though primarily entitled, by reason of his long service abroad, to the rest and change in England, refused to leave Africa, though driven from the place where he had dedicated his life by so many years’ patient service. He established himself at Usambiro, where he and several other Christian missionaries labored usefully and peacefully under the protection of a friendly potentate.
It was at Usambiro that Mackay met Stanley, who remained several days at the mission house, an enthusiastic description of which he gives in his latest book. Disease, however, soon reduced the devoted band, by carrying off Bishop Parker (Bishop Hannington’s successor) and Mr. Blackburn. Consequently Mackay was alone again, until he was joined by his successors in Uganda, Messrs. Gordon and Walker, who were compelled, by a lurid outburst of persecuting fanaticism, to leave the post of duty which they had chivalrously defended in the hour of Mackay’s discomfiture. Mr. Deekes (to whom afterward fell the melancholy duty of writing the record of Mackay’s death) joined him at Usambiro for a visit, and occasionally a few of the persecuted converts succeeded in escaping from Uganda. They never failed to turn their faces to Usambiro in order to secure the protection of the hero and Christian whose fervid teaching had first inspired them with a love of God and a detestation of their old idols.
Mackay, in his new sphere of labor, was quite as busy as he had been during his long sojourn in Uganda. One of his pet schemes was to build a steam launch for the purpose of facilitating communication on the Lake, “on the shores of which we hope to establish several stations.” He also did all he possibly could to establish a Christian mission at Muscat, the capital of Oman, the place from which all the Arabs who throng Africa, and carry everywhere a malignant influence, start on their nomadic wanderings and bloody incursions. Mackay knew better than most men how Islam scourged Africa with a deadly scourge, and he projected this mission as an excellent means of purifying the stream at the very head of its defilement.
In a letter to the Church Missionary Society, dated from Usambiro, on the 8th of August, 1888, he earnestly pleaded for the mission, and at the annual meeting of the Society, in Exeter Hall, a resolution, passed by the committee, to appeal for picked men for special effort amongst the Muslims, was heartily endorsed. But this was one of the great tasks left uncompleted when he was called to his reward. Mackay also wrote what may be regarded as the most important essay on “African Evangelization” ever given to the world. He sent it home with these words appended, “To be continued.” But the remaining portion of his heart’s thoughts were never written — at least they never reached England.