“Please pet Sandy for me. I have a dear puss here, but don’t forget old Sandy. I am afraid it will be a long time before I shall be able to have him again, if ever. I don’t know how we shall be situated in this new station. I am sorry that we shall not work together again, and especially that I shall not have the joy of seeing some of those Zombo women and girls come to Christ. But I shall think of and pray for them, and I hope you may have the great joy of reaping a rich harvest from the seed sown through so many years of barrenness and discouragement.
“I hope you will write as often and as fully as you can, for I shall be very anxious to know how things go on. This work to which we are going is so important that we shall need all the help we can get, and trust we may have the prayers of all our brethren and sisters on the field, so that everything may be started on the right basis. I hear that Mr. Weeks has arrived safely, for which we are thankful. The spring flowers are out now: oh! they are so lovely. Though as yet there are not many English ones to be had: plenty of snowdrops in the country and crocuses in the gardens.”
“May 7th. (To Mrs. Kirkland, of Mabaya.)—That opposition of the old chief is natural, but I should think, from what Mr. Graham writes me with regard to the action of the San Salvador Resident, that it will turn out rather for the furtherance of the gospel. Opposition is far better than indifference. In the old days at San Salvador it was just at the time when the King so fiercely opposed his people coming to our services that the work began to develop and the nucleus of a Church was formed.”
“June 5th. (To Mrs. Hooper, of Kibokolo).—I am sorry I did not write last mail, I was visiting friends and could not. This must be only a few lines as we are very busy. We leave London on Monday, 10th, and give up these lodgings until September or October. I have not seen your folks yet. I wrote the other day to say that we shall be going to Wales in September and hope to call on them if convenient.
“And now I want to tell you how greatly we rejoice with you in the baptism of Mayungululu. I am sure it will be a very great joy and encouragement to you both to feel that you have been the means of bringing the first Zombo convert to the Saviour’s feet. May that joy be greatly multiplied to you all! You may be sure that in all your successes we shall rejoice with you, and shall ever pray that you may be guided and helped in all difficulties.”
June brought holidays, and holiday spirits, and I would that space permitted me to quote at length Mrs. Lewis’s letters and postcards. She is over fifty years old; she has done more than thirty years of strenuous work at home and abroad; yet she writes with the enthusiasm and abandon of a girl of eighteen, just loosed from a convent school. The beauty of the Rhine scenery intoxicates her. With her husband’s assistance she calculates how many Camden Road Chapels could be housed comfortably in the nave of Cologne Cathedral. She boasts of sleeping in a gorgeous chamber, one time occupied by the Queen of Holland, and chuckles over the deprivations of a young Anglican priest, who was evidently pining for splendid ritual, but having to officiate in a crude little church, must needs be content with “plain morning prayers and a sermon,” which none the less she enjoyed exceedingly. From Stockholm she sends a message to “Prince,” Mrs. Percival’s dog, saying that she has seen some distant relatives of his, lovely little Esquimaux, and is sorry that she cannot send him photographs of them also.
This missive was dated June 25th. In July the postmarks are British once more, and on the 3rd she is in Peebles, N.B., enjoying gracious hospitality and the delights of long, luxurious drives among the hills. Ten days later her address is Maelgwyn, Pwllheli, where, amid familiar scenes, she is awaiting expectantly the mild discipline of an imminent “Chatauqua,” meanwhile taking delight in many simple things, including the happy freedom of her neighbours—“the dear donkeys who roam at will across the common, and salute me from time to time with their melodious voices.”
Late in August she is in Deal, staying with her friends the Parkinsons, and is one of a merry party, mostly young folk. Among other diversions they all get weighed and measured, and Mrs. Lewis pokes fun at her husband’s proportions and makes boast of her own. She weighed 8 st. 9 lbs. 10 oz. and measured 5 ft. 2¼ in. She might well boast, for I recall a Congo entry in her diary, in which her recorded weight is less by a good 20 lbs.
Early in September she is staying with her cousin, Mrs. Welch, at the Vicarage, Millington, in Yorkshire; casually mentions that she cannot be impeded by more than the lightest baggage, and is on the point of departure for Swansea.
In the autumn she and her husband are occupied again by the labours and journeyings of deputation work. Yet all the while she maintains a voluminous correspondence with her sister colleagues upon the Congo, eagerly scanning their news and earnestly giving the counsel and information and sympathy which are often solicited or required.