Part 7. The Crocodile.
CROCODILES are the laziest of animals, except when they are trying to get food. Then they wake up and are dangerous. They can swim very fast, guiding themselves with those long tales, and if people are silly enough to bathe in a river where there are crocodiles, they are pretty sure to lose their lives. Once upon a time, a hunter built himself a nice little hut to live in. It was made of wood, and the floor of it was hard, dry mud. Well, one night he went to bed as usual, but in the middle of the night something woke him up. It was a queer, cracking noise, and it seemed to come from the middle of the hut. He lit a match, and then saw that there was a hole in the mud floor, and that something with a huge mouth and glittering eyes was coming slowly out of it. Actually, it was a crocodile! They bury themselves in dry weather but I suppose this one got tired of being buried, and thought he would like to little change. I don’t expect he did like it, though, for the hunter sent a bullet straight into his eye and killed him.
There are crocodiles of different sorts in India, China, America and all over Africa. But we will visit Africa again, because it is so very big and dark. You remember that I told you we are going to see the center of Africa. There is a large country there called Uganda, where people live who have skins as black as coal, and woolly black hair. Such splendid missionaries have been there. There was one whose name was James Hannington. He lived in a dear little village in England, and was very happy, but when he heard that a great big country had been found, full of black people who had never heard of God’s love, he said, “I can’t stay here; I must go and tell these poor people about the Lord Jesus, who can change their black sinful hearts into clean white ones.” So he started, but soon he became ill, and had to come home and rest. Then he started again for middle Africa.
The journey to Uganda is a very long and dangerous one. First, you cross the sea and get to Africa. Then, near the sea you will find large towns where missionaries have lived for a long, long time; but you must leave these places far behind, and travel, partly by rail, partly walking for 700 miles. This walk is the dangerous part of the journey, and James Hannington had all sorts of adventures. Sometimes he met lions in the long grass; sometimes he had to cross rivers full of crocodiles.
Brave James Hannington never got to Uganda. He was nearly there when cruel King Mwanga, King of Uganda, seized him and put him in prison for eight days, then had him killed. It was dreadful, was it not? But it was not dreadful for him, he was with Jesus. O! so happy, and the Lord Jesus said to him, “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” But a sad time began in Uganda for the people who had learned to love the Saviour. Many were killed, and many more were cruelly hurt because they would not give Him up. Even some dear little boys died for Jesus’ sake. Their black bodies were burnt in the fire, but their souls were made white in the blood of the Lamb, and they have gone to live with the Lord forever.
Now tell me what happens when you put little dead-looking seeds into the dark ground? Lovely flowers come up, don’t they, and change your ugly garden into a pretty one? Well, it was a little like this in Uganda. There was a dark time first, when so many died, but now the love of Jesus is growing everywhere like a great beautiful flower, and the people are being changed. The whole Bible has just been printed in their strange language, and they love to read it and go to hear about Jesus. When the Uganda people go to meeting, there is no fidgeting—and they never think it is too long. You see when we really love a person, we are always glad to get a letter from him, or to talk to someone else who knows him. So if we love Jesus, as these black boys in Uganda do, we are always ready to hear about Him, and to read the Bible, which is His letter to us. Would you like to see what the Bible looks like in the Uganda language? You all know that beautiful verse (John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)): “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life?” This is what the Uganda people read for that— “Kubanga Katonda bweyayagala ensi bwati, nokuwayo nawayo Omwanawe Eyazalibwa omu yeka,” etc. Would not that be a terrible language to learn? But is it not a mercy that the poor Africans can now read the Bible as easily as we can?
So you see Satan has not stopped God’s work in this dark country, but he is still there, working away. There is one thing that can keep him from doing terrible harm, and that is prayer. So if we pray for the Uganda people, we shall really be helping them. Will you not pray, dear children, that God’s light may grow brighter and brighter in this dark country, until many more souls have been brought to know the Lord Jesus as their Saviour?
ML 06/18/1916