The missionaries were prompt to see the importance of the new field open for their labors. In 1878 three important events in mission history took place. In February of that year Henry Craven of the Livingstone Inland Mission reached Banana; in the same month, the Catholic church decreed the establishment of the Catholic mission of Central Africa, with what is practically the Congo State as its field of operations. In the same year Bentley, Comber, Crudington, and Hartland, representatives of the Baptist Missionary Society, made a settlement at San Salvador, a little south of the Congo River, which became the center from which extended the most widely developed and influential mission work of all the country.
Since that time the representatives of many other missions have undertaken work within the Congo State—which, of course, in 1878 had not yet been established. Some of these flourished for but a brief time; others have continued. At present there are within the Congo limits missionaries of at least eight different Protestant societies—representing England, America, and Sweden—and Catholic missionaries representing five different organizations.
By far the greatest number of the Protestant missionaries are English, even though they may in some cases be representatives of American boards. They naturally carry with them into their stations the English mode of life, traditions, atmosphere. Though the currency of the Congo Free State is reckoned in francs and centimes, they talk all business and quote all prices in shillings and pence; in making out an account everything is calculated in English money, and it is with a certain air of gentle remonstrance that they will convert the total, at the request of the debtor, into Belgian or Congo currency. Their importations all are English; they take their afternoon tea; they look with mild but sure superiority upon all differing methods around them. Few of them really talk French, the official language of the country; still fewer write it with any ease or correctness.
It would seem as if one of the first requirements of a society sending missionaries into a country where the official language is French and where the vast majority of the officials, with whom the missionary must deal and come into relation, know no English, would be that every candidate for mission work should be a competent French scholar. Otherwise there is danger of constant misunderstanding and difficulty between the mission and the government. No such requirement seems to be made.
Unfortunately, there is a strained relation amounting at times to bitterness between the state officials and the English-speaking missionaries. This feeling is general, and there are curiously many specific exceptions. Thus, there are certain missionaries who, by their immediate neighbors among officials, are highly spoken of; for example, the manner, the ingenuity in devising and planning work, the promptness and energy, of Mr. Joseph Clark at Ikoko, are constant themes of admiring conversation on the part of officers at the Irebu camp, and Mrs. Clark’s dress, linguistic ability, and cookery are quoted as models to be attained if possible.
At first I thought these officials were poking fun, but soon became convinced that they were speaking in serious earnest, and that it was not done for effect upon myself was evident from the minute details into which the praisers entered. I found an almost precisely similar condition of things at Lisala camp, near the mission of Upoto, where Mr. Forfeitt’s wisdom and knowledge of the natives and Mrs. Forfeitt’s grace and charm were frequently referred to. At Stanleyville, also, one heard constant praises of Mr. Millman’s scholarship and Mr. Smith’s skill in photography.
In all three of these stations, the officials would talk dreadfully of British missionaries in general, but for the local missionary they seemed to feel an actual regard. To a less degree, and tinged, of course, with English condescension, there was frequently expressed a feeling of reciprocal regard from the missionary’s side. While the representative of the state on the whole was a frightful creature, merely to be condemned, there were usually some local officers, known personally to the missionary, who presented streaks of excellence.
While it is true that a well-built house, and as good meals as can be prepared within the Congo, operate to keep the missionary in better health of mind and body and morals, yet even he feels the disintegration due to the environment. He lives a fairly normal life. The presence of a wife and woman of culture and refinement in the household is a great blessing. Children, of course, are sent home for education and to escape disease. The result is there are no little ones in the mission homes, but, apart from this serious lack, the influence is helpful and healthful.
The missionaries, probably all of them, are abstainers. There is no question that their refraining from wines and liquors is a physical and mental advantage. In the nature of the case, they are constantly subjected to moral restraints, which are lacking to the state official and the company agent. For all these reasons the missionary stands the country much better than any other group of white men.
A white missionary is rarely if ever the sole representative at a station. With a definite continued work, in its nature inspiring, with congenial companions, and the encouragement of others working in the same cause, his lot is often a happy one. But even the missionary has fever, dies of hæmaturia, or must hasten back to England with incipient sleeping-sickness; he, too, becomes anæmic and nerveless; he becomes irritable and impatient; the slightest provocation upsets him, and he magnifies every little grievance, as do his white neighbors in other lines of work.