The Report for 1852, says, that the mission has labored under serious embarrassments, and that its operations have been retarded throughout a great part of the year, by the illness of many of its members; and that it has been impossible to commence the new stations authorized the last year. The Board, during this year, appointed a large number of new missionaries, so as to increase the Mendi mission to 17, including males and females. This reinforcement was accompanied by the Rev. George Thompson and his family, who now returned to the field of his former labors.
The Report for 1853, informs us that the new missionaries had reached Africa, early in February; and that all of them had suffered more or less from sickness during the acclimating season. The older missionaries, too, continued to suffer from the debilitating influence of the climate. In June the eldest son of Mr. Thompson died, and soon afterwards Mrs. Thompson’s health so far failed that she had to be removed by her husband to the United States. Mr. Arnold and his wife have also been compelled to ask for a dismission from the service, on account of the state of his health.
During the whole of the year reported, the country has been suffering under one of the most wide-spread and desolating wars that has been known there since the establishment of the mission. It has so far hindered the progress of the work, as to allow of the opening of but one of the stations contemplated, that of Tissana, up the Big Boom river. The latest advices from the mission, says the Report, encourage the hope that the war will soon be brought to a close; and the opinion is expressed that the infamous slave-trade was at the bottom of it.[[47]]
The school at Kaw-Mendi has received several additions to its numbers during the year, and the new one at Tissana has been commenced with encouraging prospects. The chiefs, with but a single exception, have consented to the establishment of missions and schools among their people. The Report closes by remarking, “that the published observations of other laborers on that continent serve to show, that white men can live and labor there; and that there are in the interior, towards which they are pressing, more civilized, intelligent, and powerful nations and regions of country, not only less inimical than those they now occupy, to the health of the white man, but even more healthy than many parts of the United States. The Spirit and providence of God thus beckon us onward, and woe will be upon us if we falter in our course.”
The Report is dated September, 1853, and Mr. Thompson, in company with Mr. Condit, sailed again for Africa, in November. Letters have been received from him at Sierra Leone, where he landed in January, on his way to Kaw-Mendi. Thus has this devoted missionary, for the third time, braved the dangers of the African climate.
Intelligence from Kaw-Mendi, as late as October, 1853, has been received. The mission at Tissana has been abandoned, on account of the distracted state of the country between it and Kaw-Mendi, produced by the continuation of the wars; and, in lieu thereof, a station has been commenced at Sherbro Island, where peace and safety prevail. The school at Kaw-Mendi, is prospering, writes Dr. Cole; but “of the one hundred children there gathered, the mass,” he says, “are yet heathen, with the habits that ignorance, superstition and nakedness beget. Bad as these are, they form the most hopeful material for missionary culture, and it is for their elevation and purification our missionaries toil. Oh! how much they need the sympathies and prayers of God’s people.”[[48]] Mr. Gray, who went out three years since, has returned with his wife to recruit his health.
To gain a clear view of the hindrances to the missions among the natives, we must add the testimony of Bishop Scott, to that already presented.
The first difficulty which meets the missionary, he says, on going to this people, is an unknown and uncultivated tongue; a tongue, too, which varies so much, as he passes from one tribe to another, within the space of only a few miles, that it often amounts to a different language. The nature of this obstacle will be so easily comprehended, that the details given by the Bishop, need not be quoted. He thus proceeds:
“But now another difficulty assails him—one which his knowledge of men in other parts of the world had given him no reason to anticipate. Though he may in some way get over the difficulty presented in a rude foreign tongue, yet he now finds, to his utter surprise, that he can not gain access to this people unless he dash them, (that is, make them presents,) and only as he dashes them. When, where, or how this wretched custom arose I can not tell, but it is found to prevail over most parts of Africa, and, so far as I know, nowhere else. But what shall our missionary now do? Will he dash them? Will he dash them ‘much plenty?’ Then they will hear him—they will flock around him—nay, he may do with them almost as he wists, and a nation may be born in a day. But let him not be deceived, for all is not gold, here especially, that glitters. So soon as he withholds his dashes, ten to one they are all as they were. But is he poor and can not dash them?—or able, but on principle will not? Then, as a general fact, he may go home. They will not hear him at all, nor treat him with the least respect. Indeed, they will probably say, ‘He no good man,’—and it will be well for him if they do not get up a palaver against him and expel him from their coasts. This dashing is a most mischievous custom—dreadfully in the way of missionary labor, and I know not how it is to be controlled. I am sick of the very sound of the word. The Lord help poor Africa!
“But the difficulties multiply. Now a hydra-headed monster gapes upon our missionary, of most frightful aspect, and as tenacious of life as that fabled monster of the ancient poets. It is polygamy. He finds to his grief and surprise, that every man has as many wives as he can find money to buy. He must give them all up but one, if he would be a Christian. But will he give them up? Not easily. He will give up almost any thing before he will give up his wives. They are his slaves, in fact; they constitute his wealth. And then it is difficult, not to say impossible, to persuade him that it is not somehow morally wrong to put them away. ‘Me send woman away?—where she go to?—what she do?’ This I consider the hugest difficulty with which Christianity has to contend in the conversion of this people, and makes me think that she must look mainly to the rising generation.