Faithful Through The Ages – Mary Slessor

Mary Slessor: White Mother of West Africa

Among those inspired by the life and death of David Livingstone was Mary Slessor (1848 – 1915), who ventured alone into Calabar, a remote area of present-day Nigeria. She was one of the thousands of women who flooded into foreign missions in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Scottish Presbyterians sponsored her even as they had sponsored her hero David Livingstone. Indeed, by the time she ventured into Africa in the mid – 1870s, denominational mission boards were beginning to open the doors to women.

Like Livingstone, Mary Slessor had grown up in poverty and had worked long hours in textile mills as a child. Unlike the Presbyterian missionary wives serving in Calabar, she lacked sophistication, and in her leisure time she preferred climbing trees to attending afternoon tea parties. Her initial assignment was to teach in a school at Duketown, but dissatisfied with the social niceties and ample lifestyle of the other missionaries, she convinced the mission director to assign her to a post in the interior, where she adopted the African way of life. She ate native food and lived in a mud hut with her adopted African children — often children who were deemed demonic and rejected by their families.

In the following years she served as a teacher and medical specialist among the local people. On Sundays she traveled on a circuit deep into the jungle, preaching to any who would listen. But always restless, she was convinced that her calling was to preach in an even more remote area. In 1888, with the help of a local chief, she moved “up country” to the Okoyong district. “In the forenoon I was left alone with the mud and the rain and the general wretchedness,” she wrote. “I looked helplessly on day after day at the rain pouring down on the boxes, bedding, and everything.” There was no privacy. Packed tight in the tiny hut with a mud floor were two girls and three boys as well as the locals who “crowded in on every side” — not just men, women, and children, but also “goats, dogs, fowls, rats and cats all going and coming indiscriminately.”

For more than a quarter century she would continue her multifaceted ministry in a region where no missionary had ever gone before. In 1892 she became the first British vice-consul to Okoyong, serving as a highly respected judge among the people. Twelve years later she moved on to an even more remote tribe, always considering her work as paving the way for other missionaries rather than church planting. She turned down a marriage proposal and was unable to work effectively with single women who joined her. Africa was her home, and Africans were her people. Today she continues to be remembered in Nigeria as the great Mother Slessor. Of her legacy, journalist Mary Kingsley wrote:

This very wonderful lady has been eighteen years in Calabar; for the last six or seven living entirely alone, as far as white folks go, in a clearing in the forest near one of the principal villages of the Okoyong district, and ruling as a veritable white chief over the entire district. Her great abilities, both physical and intellectual, have given her among the savage tribe a unique position, and won her, from white and black who know her, a profound esteem. Her knowledge of the native, his language, his ways of thought, his diseases, his difficulties, and all that is his, is extraordinary, and the amount of good she has done, no man can fully estimate. Okoyong, when she went there alone . . . was given, as most of the surrounding districts still are, to killing at funerals, ordeal by poison, and perpetual internecine wars. Many of these evil customs she has stamped out. . . . Miss Slessor stands alone.

If you enjoyed the above article, please take a minute to read about the book that it was adapted from:

Parade of Faith: A Biographical History of the Christian Church

by Ruth A. Tucker
The story of Christianity centers on people whose lives have been transformed by the resurrected Lord. Tucker puts this front and center in a lively overview peppered with sidebars; historical “what if?” questions; sections on everyday life; drawings and illustrations; bibliographies for further reading.

Faithful Through The Ages – Justin Martyr

Quote: “No one who is rightly minded turns from true belief to false.” (Justin Martyr)

Unlike many other noted Christians of the early centuries, Justin (100 – 165) was an adult convert to the faith. Reared in a prosperous pagan family in Samaria, he was well educated and he retained his property and his philosopher’s gown after his conversion. Indeed, he was convinced that he had found the true philosophy — philosophy discovered only after studying the sterile gospel of the Stoics and Plato, who gave “wings for his soul” but ultimately left him unsatisfied.

Then, around the year 130, a chance meeting with an old man by the sea transforms Justin’s life. The man points him not only to the prophets whose words had been fulfilled in Christ but also to Christians who had suffered and died for their faith. “A fire was suddenly kindled in my soul. I fell in love with the prophets and these men who had loved Christ,” he writes. “I reflected on all their words and found that this philosophy alone was true and profitable. That is how and why I became a philosopher. And I wish that everyone felt the same way that I do.”

So convinced is he that he becomes an evangelist to the educated intellectuals of the ancient world. His debating skills are widely recognized, as are his teachings and writings. He is a Christian apologist who retains his pagan philosophy insisting that the truth of pagan philosophy, particularly Platonism, serves as “a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ.” Indeed, more than any other prominent Christian apologist of the early centuries, he unabashedly embraces philosophy, much to the chagrin of his critics. Greek philosophy, he believes, is drawn from the Old Testament; and Socrates and Heraclitus are men of true faith, as are Old Testament saints. For Justin, Christ, the Word (Logos), is absolute truth and all truth is thus the truth of Christ.

Justin defends the way of Christ on two fronts: Judaism and paganism. While residing in Ephesus, he debates a Jewish scholar whose arguments are found in Justin’s treatise The Dialogue with Trypho. Here he asserts that the old covenant is replaced by the new, even as Gentiles are the new Israel. He later founds a school in Rome, where his focus is on pagan philosophy. In his First Apology, offered “on behalf of men of every nation who are unjustly hated and reviled,” he argues that the Christian faith is not a dangerous religion to be feared. Addressing his treatise to the emperor, he insists Christians are the “best helpers and allies in securing good order, convinced as we are that no wicked man . . . can be hidden from God, and that everyone goes to eternal punishment or salvation in accordance with the character of his actions.” Written in 155, the Apology is an attempt to justify the faith and show that paganism is an inferior imitation. More importantly, it elucidates the conduct and religious practices of Christians. Their worship is straightforward religious devotion. The emperor has nothing to fear.

But holding high Greek philosophy and making the faith to appear reasonable and rational was not enough to satisfy the Roman authorities. In 165 Justin was arrested. Had he been tempted to buckle under the threat of death, he might have recalled the old man who, on the shore many years earlier, had pointed him to Christ, emphasizing the courage of those who were faithful unto death. Like them, he now refuses to forsake Christ and sacrifice to the gods. “No one who is rightly minded,” he tells the prefect, “turns from true belief to false.” According to tradition, Justin was martyred in Rome under Emperor Marcus Aurelius.

If you enjoyed the above article, please take a minute to read about the book that it was adapted from:

Parade of Faith: A Biographical History of the Christian Church

by Ruth A. Tucker
Buy the book!
The story of Christianity centers on people whose lives have been transformed by the resurrected Lord. Tucker puts this front and center in a lively overview peppered with sidebars; historical “what if?” questions; sections on everyday life; drawings and illustrations; bibliographies for further reading.

Faithful Through The Ages – David Livingstone

David Livingstone: Africa Explorer

The most celebrated missionary of the nineteenth century — perhaps of all times — was David Livingstone (1813 – 1873), who was barely a missionary at all. He was the great explorer to Africa who became the darling of Victorian England when he returned from his excursions and filled lecture halls with his gripping tales of adventure. He had dreamed of being a missionary when he was a youth working fourteen-hour days in the textile mills of Blantyre, Scotland. Having heard reports of Karl F. A. Gutzlaff smuggling gospel tracts and scripture portions into port cities of China, he vowed to carry on with the work. However, the outbreak of the Opium War frustrated his plans.

Enter Robert Moffat. A great missionary patriarch from Kuruman in Southern Africa, Moffat is the featured speaker at an evening church service. His appeal is gripping: “There is a vast plain to the north where I have sometimes seen, in the morning sun, the smoke of a thousand villages where no missionary has ever been.” Within months Livingstone is on his way to Africa, only to discover Moffat’s vast exaggerations. The region is sparsely populated, prompting Livingstone to begin a series of exploratory expeditions looking for natives and new terrain, though always returning to the Moffat mission compound at Kuruman for rest and recovery, once after being mauled nearly to death by a lion. During one of his visits he courts Mary Moffat, daughter of Robert and Mary. Referring to this occasion, he later recalls that he had “screwed up” enough “courage to put the question beneath one of the fruit trees,” proposing marriage to this “sturdy” and “matter-of-fact lady.”

The bride quickly learns that this marriage doesn’t mean stable mission work like that of her parents. Livingstone is a traveling man, an explorer who cannot settle down in one place. In the following years, she is often left alone to care for their little ones. He bemoans her frequent pregnancies as comparable to the output of an “Irish manufactory,” obviously ignoring his own culpability. After seven years of frequent separations and difficult living conditions, he accompanies Mary and the children to the coast and ships them back to England. In the months and years that follow, she is described as friendless, homeless, penniless, and drowning her sorrows in alcohol.

Meanwhile, Livingstone pushes deeper into the interior, seeking a trade route along the Zambezi River. He dreams of transforming southern Africa, guided by his mission philosophy, “Commerce and Christianity.” He is incensed by Portuguese and Arab traffic in human cargo and is convinced that his efforts will counteract such degradation. In the end, however, his exploration and mapmaking only serve to aid the slave trade. Nevertheless, when he returns to England in 1856, he is greeted by cheering crowds. His heroic tales of trekking the wilds of dark Africa capture the collective imagination of his countrymen.

With the publication of his Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa, he establishes his reputation as a heroic explorer — a reputation that lasts more than a century. But his return to Africa in 1858, now commissioned by the government (having resigned from the London Missionary Society), does not lead to a glorious finale. His health and personal relationships and grand strategies are strained to the breaking point. During his final fifteen years, he returns to England only once. Africa is now his home, and his closest companions are Africans who accept the cranky, toothless, bearded old man for who he is. His dream of finding the source of the Nile remains unfulfilled. He dies kneeling in prayer — a fitting ending for this legendary man. His closest African companions, Susi and Chuma, bury his heart in Africa and deliver his sun-dried, mummified body to the coast, where it is transported to England.

Dignitaries come in droves to pay their respects at the state funeral at Westminster Abbey. So also do his family, including children who hardly know him. For the seventy-eight-year-old Robert Moffat, it is a somber event. He walks slowly in front of the cortege bearing the casket of the man who decades earlier caught the vision of “a thousand villages, where no missionary had ever been.”

If you enjoyed the above article, please take a minute to read about the book that it was adapted from:

Parade of Faith: A Biographical History of the Christian Church

by Ruth A. Tucker
Buy the book!
The story of Christianity centers on people whose lives have been transformed by the resurrected Lord. Tucker puts this front and center in a lively overview peppered with sidebars; historical “what if?” questions; sections on everyday life; drawings and illustrations; bibliographies for further reading.

Faithful through the ages – Perpetua and Felicitas

Verse: Joel 2:28-29

Quote: “And we therefore, what we have heard and handled, declare also to you, brethren and little children, that as well you…may be reminded of them again to the glory of the Lord, as that you who know them by report may have communion with the blessed martyrs, and through them with the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and honour, for ever and ever. Amen.”

(The Passion of the Holy Martyrs: Perpetua and Felicitas)

The year is 202. Emperor Septimus Severus issues a decree against conversion to Judaism or Christianity. All new converts in North Africa will be executed unless they publicly perform a sacrifice to him. Perpetua, her servant girl Felicitas, and three men who had not yet completed catechism could make a sacrifice to honor the head of state. But they refuse. They know there is a price to pay for professing Christ, rather than the emperor, as Lord. Dying a martyr’s death is considered a glorious entry into heaven, but dealing with family members is pure anguish. Perpetua’s husband, who is not mentioned in the account, had perhaps died or abandoned her due to her newfound faith. The painful testimony below begins after she and Felicitas and the men are confined to prison:

A few days after, the report went abroad that we were to be tried. Also my father returned from the city spent with weariness; and he came up to me to cast down my faith saying: “Have pity, daughter, on my grey hairs; have pity on your father, if I am worthy to be called father by you; if with these hands I have brought you unto this flower of youth and I have preferred you before all your brothers; give me not over to the reproach of men. Look upon your brothers; look upon your mother and mother’s sister; look upon your son, who will not endure to live after you. Give up your resolution; do not destroy us all together.”

Soon after, when a report goes out that this indeed is the execution day, Perpetua’s father returns, this time bringing her infant son. “Perform the Sacrifice; have mercy on the child,” he pleads. Then he steps forward to forcibly prevent her from laying down her life. At this point an officer begins beating the old man. The execution having been delayed, Perpetua begs to breastfeed her baby one more time.

In the meantime, Felicitas, now eight months pregnant, fears that the execution of Christians in the arena (by wild animals) might be carried out without her, for Roman law prohibits a pregnant woman from being put to death. Here she has a perfect opportunity to escape punishment — at least for a time — but she pleads with God to bring on labor pains. “After their prayer her pains came upon her,” writes an observer. “So she was delivered of a daughter, whom a sister reared up to be her own daughter.”

On the day of execution, before they are led to the arena, the five prisoners are baptized. That Perpetua might have been spared due to her social class and gender is false hope for her aging father. Together, she and Felicitas enter the arena.

But for the women the devil had made ready a most savage cow, prepared for this purpose against all custom; for even in this beast he would mock their sex. They were stripped. . . . The people shuddered, seeing one a tender girl, the other her breasts yet dropping from her late childbearing.

The men were brought into the arena first to be killed by wild animals — a bear, a leopard, and a boar. This spectacle is typically a real crowd-pleaser. But the gory torture of young women turns the frenzied spectators from cheering to jeering. They begin shouting, “Enough!” Perpetua is then taken to the gladiator to be beheaded. Whether due to hesitancy or to lack of skill, the first slash of his sword is not sufficiently severe. She cries out in pain, takes the gladiator’s trembling hand, directs the sword to her neck, and it is over.

After this wave of persecution, there follows a half-century of relative peace. But such faith as seen in the arena that day was a testimony that sparks faith in others. Today Perpetua and Felicitas are commemorated as saints by Catholics, Anglicans, and Lutherans.

If you enjoyed the above article, please take a minute to read about the book that it was adapted from:

Parade of Faith: A Biographical History of the Christian Church

by Ruth A. Tucker

The story of Christianity centers on people whose lives have been transformed by the resurrected Lord. Tucker puts this front and center in a lively overview peppered with sidebars; historical “what if?” questions; sections on everyday life; drawings and illustrations; bibliographies for further reading.

Faithful through the Ages- Polycarp

Quote: “For eighty-six years I have served Him. He has never done me wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?”

When the apostle John put into words his revelation on the Island of Patmos, he could not have known how precise his prophetic words to the church in Smyrna would be: “Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death.” Nor could he have imagined those words were prophetically pointed at his own dear disciple, Polycarp.

Polycarp (69 – 155), an early church leader known as a kindly pastor and a defender of orthodox doctrine, later served as Bishop of Smyrna. That the threat of persecution was very real is evident in his letter to the church at Philippi. Here he reminds believers that “Christ endured for our sins even to face death,” and exhorts them to “Pray for emperors, magistrates, rulers, and for those who persecute and hate you.” He also vehemently rejects the claims of Marcion, who, while following the teachings of Paul, dismisses the remainder of Scripture, insisting that the God of the Old Testament is surely no God of Christians. So upset is Polycarp with Marcion’s beliefs that he assails him to his face as “the firstborn of Satan.”

Unlike Ignatius, Polycarp has no hankering for a martyr’s death. But he is considered a prime target. During an athletic festival in Smyrna in AD 155, Christians refusing to worship the emperor are threatened with execution. Officials particularly want the revered Polycarp, hoping he will deny the faith and disgrace the Christian community. Polycarp’s friends provide a hiding place in a hayloft outside the city, but a boy reports his whereabouts to authorities. Soon the hunt is on, and the old man is discovered, shackled, and brought before authorities. The imperial official begs him to cooperate: “What harm is there to say ‘Lord Caesar,’ and to offer incense?”

Polycarp was a beloved bishop. His congregations would have no doubt forgiven the old man any weakness displayed in such desperate circumstances. He might have simply offered incense to the emperor. Did not Jesus say, “Render onto Caesar what is Caesar’s”? But burning incense meant far more in the pagan mind than merely showing respect. Moreover, Proconsul now goes a step further. To spare his life Polycarp must curse Christ and take an oath to Caesar. He is now standing before a sea of people. He understands the consequences. He does not flinch. The crowd hushes to the sound of his voice. “For eighty-six years I have served Him,” he reminds them. “He has never done me wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?”

Preventing this from turning into a religious rally, the official clarifies the punishment in graphic terms. There will be no trial at all. So it was with Jesus. Polycarp knows the passion story. His own death will not be on a cross, but the pyre is bad enough.

The crowd is growing and becoming restless. It is obvious that this is overkill — the powerful Roman Empire waving its flares in the face of a frail old man. So the official explains again the torture he will endure, pleading with him to just get it over with: Deny Christ, go home, and get on with whatever you do as a Bishop. But Polycarp is not taking the bait. He has one last chance to address the crowd — though his words are aimed at the official: “The fire you threaten burns for a time and is soon extinguished; there is a fire you know nothing about — the fire of the judgment to come and of eternal punishment, the fire reserved for the ungodly. But why do you hesitate? Do what you want.”

Realizing Polycarp will not back down, the official motions for rowdies to get involved — perhaps to shift responsibility away from himself. They grab slats of wood, pile up the pyre, and light the flames — though only after Polycarp has an opportunity to say a final prayer. He dies an unspeakable death, believing that there will literally be hell to pay for anyone who turns away from God should he himself not remain faithful.

 

 

Taken from :

 

Parade of Faith: A Biographical History of the Christian Church

by Ruth A. Tucker
The story of Christianity centers on people whose lives have been transformed by the resurrected Lord. Tucker puts this front and center in a lively overview peppered with sidebars; historical “what if?” questions; sections on everyday life; drawings and illustrations; bibliographies for further reading.