What happened when the Great War broke out. Ma’s last voyage
down the Creek; how her life-long dream came true. Now she lies
at rest, and dreams no more, but her work goes on.
The house at Odoro Ikpe was nearly
finished. It was August 1914, and strange stories
were being whispered among the natives of a great war
in the world of white men beyond the seas. Ma
knew how swiftly news travels in Africa, and became
anxious but did not show it, and went calmly about
her duties. The people grew more and more restless
and excited, food became dearer, and no lamp oil could
be had. She had to read at night by the light
of a wood fire.
One day she was sitting in the new
house when the mail boy came running up with letters.
She took the packet and read of the invasion of Belgium
by the Germans, with all the horrors of that terrible
time, the coming of Britain into the struggle on the
side of right and justice and freedom. “Thank
God,” she cried, “we are not to blame.”
But the dreadful news shocked and
hurt her so much that she became ill and could not
rise. The girls carried her over to the rest-house
and put her into her camp-bed, and for many days she
was in a raging fever. At last, worn out, she
lay in a stupor. Round her stood the house girls
and some of the lads of the Mission weeping bitterly.
What should they do? They felt they must not
let their beloved Ma die alone so far away from her
own people. They must take her to Use.
So they lifted her in the camp-bed
and set out for Ikpe, carrying her gently over the
streams and up and down the hills. Next morning
they put the bed into the canoe and covered up the
shrunken form and the thin withered face. The
yellow cat was also put beside her, but the bag slipped
open, and it was so frightened that it rushed into
the bush and disappeared. It could not be found,
and there was not time to wait, for a long journey
lay ahead, and so it was lost and never seen again.
All day the lads paddled down the
beautiful Creek among the water-lilies, and at night
they took her ashore at the landing-beach, and she
lay in the white moonlight until medicine was got and
given to her, and then they carried her over the three
miles to Use. Thus she came to the only home
she had, never to leave it again.
She became a little better, and was
able to get up and move about, but all the old fighting
spirit had gone, and she was very tender and gentle
and sweet. The War troubled her, and she was always
thinking of our brave soldiers in the trenches and
praying for them. But she felt she could do nothing,
and was content to leave everything with God.
To a little boy and girl at home she said, “God
will work out big things from the War, for there is
no waste with Him.” And to Christine she
wrote, “Every blessing be yours in the year
that comes. Though it opens in gloom there is
Light on ahead.”
Yes, for her, too, there was Light
ahead. One night she lay dying in her mud-room
with its cement floor and iron roof. Miss Peacock
was with her and the girls, Janie, Annie, Maggie,
Alice, and Whitie. Alice never left her, and
slept on a mat beside her bed. Through the long
hours they kept watch. Ma was restless and very,
very tired, and sometimes begged God to give her rest.
Just before dawn death came. God had heard Ma’s
prayer and given her rest. She had worked hard
and faithfully for Africa, and now was to rest until
Jesus comes again and on the glorious resurrection
morning calls her forth to receive her eternal reward.
But her place in Africa would be hard to fill, and
the people wept, saying, “Adiaha Makara is dead.
What shall we do? How shall we live? Our
Mother is dead!”
Once more she voyaged down the Cross
River to Duke Town, and there she was buried on the
Mission hill, all Calabar, young and old, turning out
to line the streets and show their deep sorrow.
At the head of the grave sat old Mammy Fuller, a coloured
woman from Jamaica, a faithful servant of the Mission,
who had welcomed Ma when she first arrived, a bright-eyed
happy girl, thirty-nine years before, and had loved
her ever since. Ma had been fond of her too,
and said it was she who ought to have had the Royal
Cross.
“Do not cry,” said Mammy
to the women who began to wail. “Praise
God from whom all blessings flow.”
There was sadness in many a little
heart when the news went across the ocean that Ma
was no more. Ratcliffe missed the letters that
used to flash like rays of sunshine into his quiet
life. What of that wonderful secret which he
had kept so closely locked up in his heart? He
was told that it was all right now, and that there
would be no harm in telling what it was. It turned
out to be very simple, like many bigger mysteries
and secrets. Ma and he had agreed to pray every
day that he might get better and be able to walk,
and he was to be good and always do his best.
Ratcliffe has never forgotten that
compact he made with Ma. He remembers well how
she loved him and prayed for him, and he believes that
her prayers will be answered. He is now in Liverpool
attending a school, and can go about on crutches with
greater ease sometimes for two and three
hours at a time. He can also use his tricycle
better, and enjoys a three or four-mile ride.
Christine, too, mourned for the loving
friend she had never seen, and as she remembered the
black children left motherless and alone she felt
their sorrow and cried their cry, and put it all into
the music of a haunting lament, a beautiful poem,
which begins:
She who loved us, she who
sought us
Through the wild untrodden
bushlands,
Brought us healing, brought
us comfort,
Brought the sunlight to our
darkness,
She has gone the
dear white Mother
Gone into the great Hereafter.
Ma’s death made her famous.
She, who was always hiding herself in life, was written
and talked about and praised everywhere. The story
of her heroism, devotion, and faith made her known
and admired in many homes throughout the world, and
so, although she lies in a far-off tropical land with
her hands folded in rest and her lips quiet for ever,
she is still helping and inspiring boys and girls
and older people as she did of old.
She was a puzzling person in many
ways. Perhaps her dear friend, Mr. Macgregor,
describes her best when he says, “She was a whirlwind
and an earthquake and a fire and a still small voice,
all in one.” But what girls and boys should
remember is that she was, from her childhood, a dreamer
of dreams. Not day-dreams which fade away into
nothing. Not dreams of the night which are soon
forgotten. But the kind of dreams which grown-up
people sometimes call ideals, dreams that have in them
the purpose of doing away with all that is evil and
ugly, and making the world happier.
Many boys and girls dream dreams,
but they do nothing more. Their dreams are like
the clouds that drift across the summer sky and disappear.
Miss Slessor would never have done anything if she
had only imagined all her dreams. If a
boy only longs to be a good cricketer or swimmer, he
will never become one. If a girl only thinks about
a prize at school, she will not gain it. If a
sculptor or artist only dreams about a beautiful statue
or painting, the world will never have the joy of
seeing them. We have to set to work and make what
we dream about a real and solid thing.
That is what the White Queen always
did. Her dreams came true because she prayed
hard and toiled hard and waited hard and loved hard,
yes, and laughed hard, for faith and toil and patience
and sympathy and humour are all needed to win success.
There was only one of her ideas which
did not come to pass her home for women
and girls; and that would have come true also if she
had lived a little longer, for it was taking hold
of the Church, and money was coming in for it.
It was like a bit of weaving which she had not time
to complete. Now, young and old, who loved and
admired her inside her own Church and elsewhere, have
taken up the threads and are finishing it and making
it a lasting memorial of her. A number of native
buildings and a Mission House are being built, and
there, under the clever guidance of her old comrade
Miss Young (now Mrs. Arnot), young lives will be trained
in all the things that make girlhood and womanhood
useful and pure and happy. And there, too, will
be a beautiful gateway where tired men and woman and
children travelling along the hot roadway may take
shelter from the sun, and rest, and find water to
quench their thirst, and think, perhaps, of the Great
White Mother who spent her life for their good.
The church at Ikpe built by Ma was
destroyed by a falling palm tree; the house on the
hill-top at Odoro Ikpe was blown down by a tornado,
and part of the roof carried away into the valley;
but her work goes on. Many of the young men she
taught are now members of the Church; the services
in all the towns are crowded; the schools are full
of scholars, and others are being built. “All
around,” says the Rev. John Rankin, of Arochuku,
who looks after them, “there is a desire for
schools, but the want of workers hinders more being
done. We need a white missionary in the district.”
Who is going to follow in Ma’s
footsteps, here and elsewhere?
She herself believed that it would
be the young people of to-day. “I am glad
to know,” she said, “that the girls and
boys are thinking of us and praying for us, and denying
themselves and planning perhaps to come to our help.”
Yes, the future of Africa, and, indeed,
of the whole world of heathenism, lies with the young
hearts who are now dreaming dreams of what they are
going to do in the days to come. They will, by
and by, be the pioneers and workers in the dark lands
across the seas. It is to them that Jesus is
looking to bring about the time when the whole earth
will be filled with His light and love and peace.
Every one, of course, cannot work
in the Mission field, and you do not require to go
there to be a missionary. Wherever you may be,
whatever you may do, you can always be a missionary
and fight as valiantly as Miss Slessor did against
sin and wrong-doing. You may not find your task
easy. Our heroine did not find hers easy.
You may meet as many difficulties as Christian did
on his pilgrim way, and your dreams may be laughed
at and scorned, but if you trust Jesus and persevere,
you will come out all right in the end.
Dream your dreams then, boys and girls,
brave ones, lovely ones, but as you grow up be sure
and do your best to turn them into realities, for it
is only those that come true that are making life better
and sweeter and shaping the world into beauty.