“Mr. Comber made a practice of standing at the door and saying goodbye to us as we went out. I tried to avoid him if I could, and being one of the bigger lads he let me pass many times. One night, however, he took my hand somewhat diffidently, and as he said good-night, added, ‘Do you love the Lord Jesus?’ I was quite dumb with emotion. I can feel the appealing look with which I lifted my eyes to his face and met his kindly loving eyes, even now. Then I broke away and hurried home to my bedside, where, on my knees, the tears streaming down my cheeks, and in utter silence, my heart poured itself out to God in longing desire to be a better boy. It was my first conversion, the first yielding of heart and will to God I ever made.
“Mr. Comber never knew. He said no word to me at later meetings. What he thought of my rudeness and coldness I do not know. I fear I hurt him a little, but he never resented it. His later work, especially as a missionary, was always shaming me to myself, while he has always been to me the ideal Christian young man, and hero. But when I look at his photograph it is always to the children’s services that my thoughts are carried back.”
The writer of this letter, who, to my personal knowledge, has been for five-and-twenty years a cultured, devoted, and successful Christian worker among children and young people, would probably be in agreement with one of Comber’s four helpers, already named, who recently told me that he was unquestionably one of the strongest personal, spiritual forces she had ever encountered in a lifetime of Christian service.
That this man exercised a formative and dominant influence upon the life of Miss Thomas, during the years of their association, is a statement that needs no other proof than that afforded by the facts, that she began her missionary career in his tracks upon the Cameroons; spent three-and-twenty years of her life in the great Congo field, which he and Grenfell opened up for the Baptist Mission; and, as long as she lived, continued to speak of him with reverent affection.
In certain regards Comber and Miss Thomas were greatly unlike in temperament, yet had they much in common of gravest moment. The love of Christ was the grand passion of both their lives. They were both endowed with indomitable will and the consequent capacity for sustained industry. They both loved and understood children, possessed the saving grace of humour, and, devoutness notwithstanding, took innocent and wholesome delight in fun.
I met Comber several times during his last furlough, but my visual remembrances of him are restricted to two living pictures, typical and contrasting, which I will endeavour to call up before the mind of the reader. A children’s party is in course at the house of Mr. Jonas Smith. The company is gathered in the drawing-room, and consists of twenty or thirty children of varying ages, with a sprinkling of benevolent elders. Comber is at the piano, singing, to his own accompaniment, a humorous song. The accompaniment is mimetic as well as musical. Every feature of his mobile face, roguishly turned to his audience, and every muscle of his lissom body, seem to move in concert with the fun. When it is over and he is about to leave the instrument, he is stormed by overwhelming numbers, held to his place, and coaxed and coerced into singing again.
Three months later I find myself sitting in the area of Exeter Hall. This time it is not a children’s party which is in course, but the Annual Meeting of the Baptist Missionary Society. The Hall is crowded in every part, and in the middle of the platform stands a young man, with a keen, clean-shaven, boyish-looking face. The great hushed throng is mastered by the speaker, who is none other than the singer of the laughing song. He does the storming this time, and he has his way with the hearts of his audience. There have been heavy losses on the Congo. Counsels of retreat have been urged. What has Thomas Comber to say about it? He has the right to speak. He is a lonely man. His young bride has lain for years in a Congo grave, and the Congo grave of his brother, Dr. Sidney Comber, is newly made. Yes, surely he has the right to speak! What has he to say? Even now after four-and-twenty years I can see the flame of passion kindling in his face as he pleads that he and his brethren may be spared the shame, and the cause of Christ the wrong, which would be involved in retreat. Would they bid Grenfell back, whose exploits he praises and whose gallant words he quotes? It is unthinkable. That speech made history. Counsels of retreat died into silence. “Forward,” not “Backward,” became the order of the day.
Such are my two distinct remembrances of the man, whom the children at Camden Road loved as a teacher, admired as a hero, and romped with as a playmate; whom the Congo natives, when they came to know him, regarded as a miracle of love and power; and whom his comrades followed as a captain whose belt has been buckled by the fingers of Almighty God.
During the years of Comber’s memorable service at Camden Road, Miss Thomas lived at home with her parents. Her mother was a woman of gentle, retiring disposition, who permitted herself to be absorbed by domestic interests, and was remarkable for an inexhaustible patience, which her daughter Gwen inherited, to the great advantage of her own soul, her comrades, and her work. Mr. Thomas was a man of keen intellect and independent outlook, who was wont to talk freely with his children about books and men and movements of the day, and whose conversation was an educative influence of major importance.
On Christmas Eve, 1876, Miss Thomas sustained one of the great bereavements of her life, in the passing away of her mother, long an invalid, to whom her filial attention had been unremitting. Three months earlier, in September of the same year, she, with many others, had said “goodbye” to Thomas Comber, who sailed for the Cameroons. The Children’s Service Valedictory Meeting at Camden Road was at once sorrowful and enthusiastic. The young folk were grieved to lose their leader, but loyal enough to be glad that he was going to the great work marked out for him by God. A testimonial address, headed “Mizpah,” was presented to him by John Hartland, in the name of the children who had signed it, together with a magic lantern, for which they had subscribed; and promising faithful, affectionate, and prayerful remembrance, Comber passed on his way.