Of course, he continued to correspond with his young friends, and by way of augmenting their interest in his work, suggested that they should support a mission boy. The suggestion was adopted, and a scholars’ working meeting was instituted by Miss Gwen Thomas and Miss Emily Smith, to raise the necessary funds. It was a modest enterprise at the beginning. The first sale was held in a corner of the schoolroom, with goods displayed upon a single table. Later a second corner was annexed, and a second table furnished. Later still Mrs. Jonas Smith took practical interest in the undertaking, a “Ladies’ Missionary Working Party” was formed, and so on, until the whole Church became involved in the business of “The Camden Road Congo Sale,” which at one period ranked as a Denominational Institution.
The Annual Sale is still maintained, though in modified form, and in the course of its history has contributed to the funds of the B.M.S. some £3,000, more or less. Mrs. Lewis loved “The Congo Sale,” was often occupied with its business when on furlough, had the honour of opening it more than once, when the opening had become a function, and talked of it when she lay a-dying.
Miss Alice Hartland remembers that at the early working meeting Miss Thomas used to read to the children as they sat sewing, “The Life of Robert Moffat.” Naturally Robert Moffat was one of her heroes, and many years later she wrote, in a passage which I propose to quote, that Mrs. Moffat was her ideal of what a missionary’s wife should be. Happily, by the grace of God, she lived to realise her ideal, in marked degree, and to create a new one for others who may follow in her steps.
One pathetic family incident relates itself to this children’s working meeting shortly after its inception. In 1868 Miss Thomas’s elder sister, Eliza Jane, was married to Dr. Richard Percival, and some three years later accompanied him to St. Lucia, West Indies, where he had secured a medical appointment. His health failed, and after a short stay he was compelled to return. There were three children of the marriage, Ethel, Eva, and Beatrice, whose names will often appear in this book. But their father’s health was never strong, and in 1877 he was lying ill at St. Leonards. Two of the children were staying with their Aunt Gwen, and on Saturday afternoon were taken by her to the Working Meeting. While engaged in the meeting she received a telegram bidding her bring the little ones to the bedside of their dying father. They were taken immediately, and shortly afterwards he passed away.
CHAPTER II
BETROTHAL, BEREAVEMENT, AND DESIGNATION TO THE CAMEROONS
Comber began his missionary life at Victoria, the colony founded by Alfred Saker as the new home of the little Protestant community, driven from Fernando Po by the intolerance of the Roman Catholic authorities. Victoria was situated on the shore of Ambas Bay, and at the foot of the Cameroons Mountain, which Comber climbed one day, finding at the top the bottle left there by Captain Burton, an exploit which led to a pleasant interchange of compliments at a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society in London.
Not long after his arrival Comber was left in sole charge of the station, and threw himself into the work with characteristic zeal. Grenfell, meanwhile, was working at Bethel station on the Cameroons river. Subsequently the two were thrown much together and formed a friendship which was of happiest omen for the cause of Christianity in Central Africa. Both of them turned with longing eyes to the interior, yearning for work among heathen tribes whose original depravity had not been complicated and deepened by imported European evils. But their dreams of local extension were broken by the call to the Congo.
Stanley’s historic journey “Through the Dark Continent,” in the course of which he proved that the Lualaba River and the Congo were one and the same stream, and the opportune munificence of Mr. Robert Arthington of Leeds, whose inspired guess had anticipated the explorer’s discovery, made a new departure in the work of the Baptist Mission at once possible and obligatory. I have told the story of this new departure at some length in “The Life of George Grenfell,”[1] and must here compass the matter in a few rapid sentences.
The Committee of the B.M.S. realised that in Comber and Grenfell they had men who were providentially raised up, endowed, equipped, and placed, for the new enterprise. On January 5, 1878, the young missionaries received the expected invitation to undertake a pioneering expedition in the Congo region. Their assent was instant and enthusiastic, and while awaiting final instructions they made a flying visit to the lower reach of the Congo, and laid some stepping-stones for future use.