Little more than a month later the Mission was plunged into depths of sorrow by news which afflicted every Christian worker on the Congo, and sent a thrill of intense pain through thousands of Christian hearts at home. The diary records:—
“Saturday, July 16, 1887.—Had a very slight fever last night. While at school letters came telling of the death of Tom Comber. What can it all mean?
“Sunday, July 17th.—Had a very sorrowful and solemn Sunday. Mr. Phillips spoke in the morning, Tom in the afternoon.”
Mr. Comber had many friends, but none of them regarded him with more affectionate reverence than Gwen Lewis, and her remembrance of him was vivid, and tender, and sacred, until the day on which she died at sea, as he had died.
Many minor illnesses are recorded, and in a letter dated January 25, 1888, Mrs. Lewis remarks that her schoolgirls get holidays when she is sick, but none other. Even these are ill-esteemed, and the scholars are painfully eager for the resumption of their work.
In the same letter reference is made to a case of more than local interest. A man of some education obtained an interview with Mr. Lewis, and expressed a wish that his wife, who was a scholar in the school, might be taught to obey her husband. Mr. Lewis stated that such obedience was taught as a general principle, but that a particular application of the principle could not be insisted upon until the nature of the case was known; for if a husband commanded his wife to do a bad thing she ought not to obey him. The applicant did not specify the trouble, but said he came, fearing that he might grow angry and beat her, and that she might carry tales about him. Later it was ascertained that he desired her to leave Mrs. Lewis and go to the priests’ school. This desire was not fulfilled.
“Monday, April 23, 1888 (Diary).—A big palaver between the King and our Mission. He wants our people to build their houses in another part of the town. They are to answer to-morrow. Such a number of women at my meeting to-day.
“Tuesday, April 24th.—School as usual. Palaver with King finished and all serene. He sent Tom and Mr. P. a grand stick each. Sat up very late to finish mails for up-country.”
At the end of May four of the King’s wives were baptized, and Kivitidi was set apart for the work of an evangelist by the infant Church which undertook to support him.
Some three months later Mr. and Mrs. Lewis accompanied by Matoko, Kivitidi, Elembe, and three girls made an important journey to Madimba, a large district to the south and south-east of San Salvador, with a view to discover some place which would be suitable for the establishment of a new station. The little expedition started early on August 18, 1888. Mrs. Lewis wrote notes of the journey, and we come up with the travellers as they are on the point of leaving Nsoni at noon August 20th.