She was impressed with the Mission. The organisation of church and
school, the regular routine of life, the large attendance at the
services, the demeanour of the Christians, the quiet and persistent
aggressive work going on, satisfied her sense of the fitness of things
and made her glad and hopeful. To hear the chime of Sabbath bells; to
listen to the natives singing, in their own tongue, the hymns
associated with her home life, the Sabbath school and the social
meeting; and to watch one of them give an address with eloquence and
power, was a revelation. She went to a congregational meeting at Creek
Town and heard King Eyo Honesty VII. speaking, and so many were
present, and the feeling was so hearty and united that it might have
served as a model for the home churches. She was attracted by the King;
a sincere kindly Christian man, she found him to be. When she told him
that her mother was much interested in him, he was so pleased that he
wrote Mrs. Slessor, and the two corresponded--he a negro King in Africa
and she an obscure woman in Scotland, drawn to each other across 4000
miles of sea by the influence of the Gospel.
It was true that the results of thirty years' work in Calabar did not
seem large. The number of members in all the congregations was 174,
though the attendances at the services each Sunday was over a thousand.
The staff, however, had never been very large; of Europeans at this
time there were four ordained missionaries, four men teachers, and four
women teachers, and of natives one ordained missionary and eighteen
agents; and efforts were confined to Duke Town, Old Town, Creek Town,
Ikunetu, and Ikorofiong--all on the banks of the rivers or creeks--with
several out-stations.
Her work at first was simple: it was to teach in the day-school on
Mission Hill and visit in the yards, both on week-days and Sundays. Not
until the strangeness of things had worn off a little did she begin to
see below the surface and discover the difficulties of the situation.
What assisted the process was a tour of the stations, which it was
thought well she should make in order to become acquainted with the
conditions. In the out-districts she came into contact with the raw
heathen, and felt herself down at the very foundations of humanity.
Most of the journeying was through the bush: there were long and
fatiguing marches, and much climbing and jumping and wading to do, in
which she had the help of three Kroo boys, but being active in body and
buoyant in spirit, she enjoyed it thoroughly. A white "Ma" was so
curious a sight in some of the districts that the children would run
away, screaming with fright, and the women would crowd round her
talking, gesticulating, and fingering, so that the chiefs had to drive
them off with a whip. She was a little startled by these
demonstrations, but was told the people were merely wishing to make
friends with her, and she soon overcame her nervousness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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