Mary Slessor

“ Those faithful people deserve a worker. They are holding services even though they know very little of Christianity. I must go there. I know God wants it."
It was the year 1910 and Mary was sure that now she could begin her work in the new territory that looked so promising. Suddenly Mary became very, very ill. The government sent its official automobile to take her to the Mary Slessor Hospital at Itu. Did God want Mary to work at Ikpe? Or would someone else preach the Gospel there? ”

“ She knew that white people who called themselves Christians had gone there to carry them away for slaves; and to get their palm-oil and rubber and give them rum in exchange—rum that was making them worse than the wild beasts of the jungle. How Mary Slessor longed to be one to carry the good news of a God of Love to those people who lived and died in darkness! "Somebody must help those who can't help themselves!" ”

“ She had heard much about Mary Slessor, and when, one Sunday, a lady friend remarked that she was going to visit the missionary, Miss Hogg declared she would give much to meet her. "Then come with me," said the lady, "I will leave you at the foot of the stair, and if you are to come up I will call you." She was invited up, and was not five minutes in Mary's presence before the latter said, "And what are you doing at home? What is hindering you from going to the mission field?" "There is nothing to hinder me," was the reply. "Then come: there is a good work waiting for you to do." ”

“ They may be poor or frail, and in their own estimation of no account, yet it is often they who are used for the accomplishment—of important ends. Such a one was Mary Slessor.
Towards the end of her days she was urged to write her autobiography, but was surprised at the proposal, and asked what she had done to merit the distinction of being put in a book. She was so humble-minded that she could not discern any special virtue in her life of self-sacrifice and heroism; and she disliked publicity and was shamed by praise. ”

“ There was scarcely a mail that did not bring her a cheque or bank-draft or Post-Office order. "It often happens," she said once, "that when the purse is empty, immediately comes a new instalment. God is superbly kind in the matter of money. I do not know how to thank Him. It is just wonderful how we ever fail in our trust for a moment." On one occasion, when she was a little anxious, she cried, "Shame on you, Mary Slessor, after all you know of Him!" ”

“ IX. POWER THROUGH PRAYER The power which enabled Mary Slessor to live so intensely, to triumph over physical weakness, and to face the dangers of the African bush, and gave her the magnetic personality that captivated the hearts of white and black alike, was derived from her intimate and constant contact with the Unseen, and the means of that contact were prayer and the Bible. ”

“ It was Mary Slessor's day school.
For a people possessing no written language, no literature, no knowledge beyond that handed down from father to son, the first step towards right living, apart from the preaching of the Gospel, is education. Schools go hand in hand with churches in missionary effort. Mary began hers before she had the buildings in which to teach, one at Ekenge and the other at Ifako. The latter was held in the afternoon in order that she might be back in her yard by sunset. The schoolroom was the verandah of a house by the wayside ”

“ Mary is at Ikot Ekpene. We saw her as we passed in the motor. The whole town came to-day and put splendid beams in the verandah both in front and behind, swept all behind, and put on a corrugated iron roof, did the porch and various other things, and the safe.
Good-bye. Are you well? We are well, through God's goodness. Are you coming soon for holidays? My heart is hungry to see you and to touch your hands. Greetings to Ma Fuller. Greet Ma Wilkie and Mr. Wilkie for me. Greet each other. All we greet you. With much love to Maggie, Dan, Asuquö,—I am, in all my prayers, your mother, M. Slessor. ”

“ Mary Slessor loved her strange black brood tenderly. "Baby things are always gentle and lovable," she used to say. "These children who have had right training from the beginning will grow up to be leaders and teachers of their people."
For twelve years Miss Slessor worked in connection with the established mission at Calabar, journeying about to outlying villages as the call came. It had for long been her dream, however, to go still farther inland to the wild Okoyong tribe whose very name was a terror258 throughout the land. ”

“ But although we differ amongst ourselves, and some things differentiate our work, we are all in full friendship and sympathy with one another."
It was not possible for self-abnegation to go farther than it did in her case. She was unable to see that she had done anything out of the common. "I have lived my life very quietly and in a very natural and humble way," she would say, and all the credit of her work was given to God. "It isn't Mary Slessor doing anything, but Something outside of her altogether uses her as her small ability allows." ”

“ The hospital and dispensary and their equipment were provided by Mr. A. Kemp, a member of Braid United Free Church, Edinburgh, an admirer of Miss Slessor's work, and at his suggestion it was called the Mary Slessor Mission Hospital. When the news came to her she wrote: "It seems like a fairy tale. I don't know what to say. I can just look up into the blue sky and say, 'Even so, Father; in good and ill, let me live and be worthy of it all.' It is a grand gift, and I am so glad for my people."
Thus relieved of Itu she established herself at Ikotobong. ”

“ Mary Doig and Mary Martin were both connected with Bristo Street congregation, and worked in the mission at Cowan's Close, Crosscauseway, and they naturally took Mary Slessor with them. Another intimate friendship was formed with Miss Paxton, a worker in connection with South Gray's Close Mission in the High Street. Miss Paxton was standing at the entrance to the close one Sunday, after a meeting, when Miss Slessor passed up with a Mr. Bishop, who afterwards became the printer at Calabar. Mr. Bishop introduced her. "You want some one to help you?" ”

“ Not an attractive people to work amongst. Neither must the dwellers of the earth have appeared to Christ when He looked down from heaven ere He took His place in their midst. And Mary Slessor shrank from nothing which she thought her Master would have done: she rather welcomed the hardest tasks, and considered it an honour and privilege to be given them to do. ”

“ There was going to be a missionary in the family after all. But there were some people who did not agree with Mother Slessor. They shook their heads in doubt. Others thought Mary was very foolish to risk her life in that way.
"You're doing real well at the factory," said one of them. "And you're doing missionary work right down there at the mission. Why rush away to those people way off in Africa? Seems to me missionary work ought to begin at home."
"Yes," said Mary, "it should begin there, but not end there. There are some who cannot go to Africa. They can do the work at home. ”

“ OF DARKEST AFRICA AMONG all the weavers in the great factory at Dundee there was no girl more deft and skilful than Mary Slessor. She was only eleven when she had to help shoulder the cares of the household and share with the frail mother the task of earning bread for the hungry children. For the little family was worse than fatherless. The man who had once been a thrifty, self-respecting shoemaker had become a slave to drink ”

“ All her friends gathered about her, loudly lamenting. She was surely going to her death, they said. Her fellow workers regarded her260 with wonder and pity. "Nothing can make any impression on the Okoyong save a consul and a British gunboat," they declared. But Mary Slessor was undaunted. She stowed her boxes and her little family of five small waifs away in the canoe as happily as if she were starting out on a pleasure trip. To a friend in Scotland, she wrote:
I am going to a new tribe up-country, a fierce, cruel people, and every one tells me that they will kill me. ”

“ She fitted herself into the family. If the baby needed tending, she tended to it. If someone was sick, she helped to nurse the sick person. Always she told the family about Christ and His power to save. The people of the slums came to love this home missionary and many of them were won to Christ through her work.
The years went by. Did Mary still remember she wanted to be a missionary in Calabar? Yes, she remembered, but now she had all she could do to support her family. Since Robert, the would-be missionary, had died, Mother Slessor hoped that her youngest son John would be a missionary. ”

“ Is the victory always to the strong?
"'She has influence and weight,' he said 'she can go where no white man dare go. She can sway the people when we cannot sway them. Because of her they are not so hard on the twins and their mothers as they used to be. No, she has not failed.'"
And so with a reference to Thermopylae, and the Coliseum and Smithfield, the lady litterateur places her in the ranks of the immortal martyrs of the world.
XVII. THE SETTLEMENT BEGUN This was one of the waiting periods in Mary Slessor's life, which tried her patience and affected her spirits. ”

“ The severe weather had told on the delicate constitution of her youngest sister Janie, a quiet, timid girl, but bright and intelligent, and somewhat akin to herself in mind and manner; and it was made clear that only a change to a milder climate would save her life. Mary was torn with apprehension. She had a heart that was bigger than her body, and she loved her own people with passionate intensity, and was ready for any further sacrifice for their sake. Never bold on her own behalf, she would dare anything for others. ”

“ SPADE-WORK, AND DAY-DREAMS Does it seem as if we were watching the career of a woman of hard, self-reliant, and masculine character, capable of living by herself and preferring it, and unconscious of the natural weakness of her sex? In reality Mary was a winsome soul, womanly in all her ways, tremulous with feeling and sympathy, loving love and companionship, and not unacquainted with nervousness and fear. ”

“ She longed to go to Africa.
"Why don't I become a missionary?" Mary asked herself as she worked the looms in the factory. "Can I leave my home? Does Mother still need my help? Susan and Janie are working now. They could get along without me. But will I be brave enough? There are tropical jungles, and black men who eat people. There are wild animals, sicknesses, and death. God can make me brave to face all of these things."
Mary prayed, "O God, if it is Your will, let me go as a missionary to Calabar. Let me be a teacher to teach these black people the story of salvation. ”

“ Time was nothing to these men, and, accustomed to one square meal a day, they did not mind a long sitting; but Mary knew what backache and chill and hunger were and she was often tempted to tell them to keep to the point, but it would have been of no avail.
Night fell, torches were lit, the voices waxed louder, the excitement spread, until Mary felt that matters were getting out of hand, and brought the issue to a head. An old chief summed up, and did so with rare tact and patience and good humour. ”

“ She was always ready for anything and equal to any emergency. "One morning," he recalls, "she came to me. 'Twins,' she said, 'and we have to go.' When we arrived at the spot we found that the bairns had been murdered by the grandmother, and the mother was lying on the bare ground in a hut some distance away. Miss Slessor sent her a bed and pillow, and told her husband to be kind to her. The man took her back into the house— such a thing had never been known before."
It was at this time that the plump and pretty infant referred to by Miss Kingsley in her Travels in West Africa was saved. ”

“ These men and women in the far outposts became heroic figures to the Church, and whenever they returned on furlough the people thronged to their meetings to see for themselves the actors in such amazing happenings, and to hear from their own lips the story of their difficulties and triumphs.
Mrs. Slessor never missed hearing those who came to Dundee, and once she was so much moved by an address from the Rev. William Anderson as to the needs of Old Calabar that she longed to dedicate her son John to the work. He was a gentle lad, much loved by Mary. ”

“ There are but few who have the same power of resisting the malarial climate, and of acquiring the language and an insight into the negro mind, so perhaps after all it is no great wonder that Miss Slessor stands alone, as she certainly does. ”

“ She arrives at a district which the lady agents have long worked. The women are cleanly, pleasant, and industrious, but polished hypocrites, always ready to protest with smooth tongue and honeyed words that they are eager to be "god-women," but never taking the first step forwards. Mary, who is learning to be sarcastic, on occasion, gives them a bit of her mind and goes away heart-sick. But she is cheered at the next yard, where she has a large and attentive audience.
In the poorest part she comes upon a group of men selling rum. ”

“ A woman of weaker fibre and feebler faith would have been in despair: Mary acted with her usual decision. The glow of the fire was cheerful and the singing of the kettle tempting, but the morrow was Sunday, there was no food, the children were naked, and she herself wet to the skin. She gave one of the lads who had arrived with Mr. Bishop a lantern, and despatched him to the beach with a peremptory message that the mea must come at once and bring what they could. ”