I have been re-reading the biography of Mary Slessor who was a missionary in Africa, and I thought it might be good to give a potted history of her life for those who have not heard of her; and to highlight a few things that struck me about her life.
Mary Slessor was born in Aberdeen in 1848, one of seven children – only four of whom survived childhood. Mary’s mother was a committed Christian and, although not financially well-off, she gave what she could to support the missions to Africa. Each month she would read to her children from the ‘Missionary Record’ and Mary would hear what was happening in the new Calabar Mission in West Africa (in what is now Nigeria), as well as exploits of her hero David Livingstone. Mr and Mrs Anderson who ran the Mission in Calabar would send updates on their progress and this planted a dream in Mary’s head of being a missionary in Africa. She longed to be a missionary but she was small and delicate, and it was said that you had to be very strong to stand up to the climate in Africa.
When she was ten years old the family moved to Dundee where they found work in the one of the mills; her father as a labourer and her mother as a weaver. At the age of eleven Mary became a ‘half-timer’, attending school half the day and working in the mill for the other half. Soon she was a full-time skilled weaver, up at five every morning to help with the housework then working from 6.00am to 6.00pm at the mill. For fourteen years she worked in the mill. Her father died and her mother was too frail to work and Mary became the main provider for the home. Any spare time she had was spent teaching in Sunday School and running evening classes for the children of the Dundee slums.
The letters from the Andersons in the Calabar Mission told of the need for more missionaries with the emphasis on the need for strong and fit people. “I’m wee and thin and not very strong,” she thought, “Mr Anderson wouldn’t think much of me as a missionary”: but she kept dreaming. In 1874 news came of the death of David Livingstone and Mary remembered his words to students at Cambridge University, “I direct your attention to Africa; that country is now open – do not let it shut again. I go back to Africa to try to make an open path for commerce and Christianity. Do you carry out the work I have begun. I leave it with you.” In 1875 Mary wrote to the Foreign Mission Board of her church offering her services as a missionary in Calabar. Good references were received from her church and employers in Dundee, and, after a spell at Training College in Edinburgh, at the age of twenty-eight she set sail for Calabar.
The Duke Town mission at Calabar was extremely busy and was run to a strict timetable by Mrs Anderson. There were many babies and children and often their mothers to be looked after because the local Efik people were terrified of twins, believing them to be children of the devil. Mothers giving birth to twins would be banished from their village or killed but in Duke Town the missionaries provided a home for them. Mary quickly learned the Efik language which pleased the local people and improved her relationship with them. She would go from one native compound to another in the hot sun and suffer bouts of fever that left her very weak. Mary became very impatient at the local women’s lack of hygiene – over half of the babies died before the age of one but when she urged them to keep their homes tidy and give up their superstitions they would say, “It is our custom”. At these times one scripture would come to her mind, Matthew 11:29: “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me”. She remembered that Christ was never in a hurry, and dealt with whatever she had to each day and left the rest with God.
Mary Slessor had a burning ambition to work, not in the well-furnished Mission house, but in the unknown bush inland from the riverside towns and was happy when she was told that she could take charge of Old Town about two miles above Duke Town: and she would live on her own. This was the start of her pioneering work in West Africa. She would establish herself in an area with a particular tribe, living in a mud hut like the natives, helping them in any way she could and quietly eroding their superstitions by expressing her own beliefs. Every Sunday she would travel many miles to the villages of that tribe and hold services, leading the singing in the Efik language and explaining Bible passages. Mary gradually gained the trust of the tribe’s people and when they had a problem they would ask her advice, and if someone was ill or injured she would take her small medical supplies to help them. She worked long hours and would often be woken at night if a crisis arose. She was slightly-built and regularly weak with fever – not the stuff of pioneers – but she had an indomitable spirit. When she had achieved all that she could with one tribe, she would go further inland to a new tribe and start the process all over again.
By 1891 the British Government was in control in Calabar and, on a rare stay at the Mission, Mary Slessor was visited by Sir Claude Macdonald, Commissioner and Consul-General of the Niger Coast Protectorate. He praised the work that the missionaries had done in that area and informed her of the changes that he and his officers had made in Calabar in daily cleaning of the streets, setting up a post office and a Customs House. He said that he wanted do similar things in the Okoyong villages, where Mary had lived and helped the people but they needed to impose law and order and the Okoyongs were suspicious of the white man. The Commissioner then asked Mary if she would take on the role of Vice-Consul in Okoyong and be the Queen’s representative there, with responsibility for all the tribe’s affairs including being magistrate in the court. He said that she was the only white person that they would trust because she spoke their language and knew their ways. Her status did not change her – she still lived simply in a mud hut and walked from village to village through the forest with no hat or shoes. Nevertheless, she was a woman of great dignity; no-one called her by her Christian name – to her British friends and colleagues she was ‘Miss Slessor’ and to the Africans she was ‘Ma Miss Slessor’ or simply ‘Ma’, a native title of the greatest respect.
Mary Slessor grew physically more frail as she got older but never gave up, taking to her bed only when she had to. In 1907 she returned to Scotland for a much needed break but was amazed when she found that she was famous all over Scotland. She was inundated with requests from all parts of Scotland for her to speak about her work. She had faced down warrior chiefs in Africa but she was basically very shy and the thought of addressing a gathering of her own people filled her with dread. She hated to hear her work praised as if it were for her glory not the Lord’s. On one occasion she gave an address to a meeting of ministers after which a minister gave a vote of thanks. She quickly rounded on him and said that instead of thanking her she would have hoped that someone would suggest that they all pray for the work in Calabar. That was the last time she would visit Scotland and she died in 1915 in her simple mud house with the cement floor and a few sticks of furniture.
Let me share a few things that struck me when I read Mary Slessor’s biography.
- Mary’s mother told her children about the Lord Jesus and let them know about the work they were supporting in Africa. Mary’s faith in the Lord Jesus Christ kept alive her dream to be a missionary and kept her going in the toughest of times. Proverbs 22:6 says: “Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.” How important it is for children to learn about Jesus from an early age.
- How vital it is to know your Bible when things get tough. Mary was impatient when the natives were reluctant to practice things like better hygiene but she knew the answer was in the Bible. Matthew 11:29: “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls”. She was able to say, “Christ was never in a hurry. There was no rushing forward or anticipating, no fretting over what might be. Every day’s duties were done as every day brought them, and the rest was left with God”.
- Mary was physically frail and often brought down by fever; not at all the constitution for a pioneering missionary but her faith and her spirit kept her going. Zechariah 4:6b: “Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,” says the Lord Almighty.” How often the Lord gives the toughest jobs to the most unlikely people!
- Mary Slessor wanted all the glory to go to God and found it difficult to handle fame and personal praise: a good example of a disciple of Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 4:10-11: “10 Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. 11 If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.”
- In conclusion, Mary Slessor’s biographer, Donald McFarlan, says this: “Perhaps the best description of her in a few words is a verse from the Psalms (Psalm 18:35), which says: “You make your saving help my shield, and your right hand sustains me; your help has made me great”.
I pray that God’s blessing will be on all who read this devotion and that this will contain an encouragement whatever situation you are in at this time.
Paul Beesley
mary margaret BYNG says
Paul I read a book about Mary Slessor before I went to work in Nigeria and I was so challenged by it.
Elizabeth Grainger says
This was such a lovely devotional. As a child, in a non Christian family, I read this biography and was inspired that one day I would become a missionary. The challenge for me in this message today was patience; particularly (in my situation) patience with regard to family members not yet walking with Christ. It reminded me of His patience in His loving dealings with individuals and that I must leave everything to His perfect timing. The other challenge was that Mary did not want praise or thanks and how often I have enjoyed that; oh for more of her attitude and a Christ like humility!
Elizabeth Crowe says
The church Mary Slessor attended as a child is in the centre of Aberdeen and I have seen the plaque that commerates her life on the outside wall of that church building – sadly no longer used as a church.
Elizabeth Crowe says
Mary Slessor attended a church in the centre of Aberdeen and there is a plaque on the outside wall of that church building commerating her life – sadly no longer used as a church.