“Forget also thine own people and thy father’s house;
So shall the King desire thy beauty.
Instead of thy father shall be thy children,
Whom thou shalt make princes in all the earth.”
“Tell the king that I die for Uganda. I have bought this road with my life.”
These were the last words of the heroic, the sainted, James Hannington, the first Bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa. After many years’ devotion to the Master’s cause in Africa, the darkest of all dark lands, he conceived the idea of pushing right into the heart of Uganda, for the purpose of communicating with, and assisting, Alexander M. Mackay, the noble Christian Scotsman, who, in spite of terrible persecution, persisted in delivering his God-given message.
After much weary marching Hannington reached Luba’, where he fell a victim to the treachery and brutality of Mwanga’s savage host. He was seized on Wednesday, the 21st October, 1885. The entry in his diary for that date graphically describes the incident. Though treated with almost revolting barbarity, the sublime faith of the hero sustained him. He felt certain that his captors were dragging him to his death, but he sang, “Safe in the arms of Jesus,” and also, “My God, I am Thine.”
But James Hannington was not granted as quick a passport to his eternal reward as he expected. After being kept eight days in prison he was led out towards the banks of the Victoria Nile, and there martyred. Such a reference to Bishop Hannington is valuable for two things — his death took place upon the threshold of the territory which is dedicated to the heroic service of Mackay; also because the same characteristics belong to both — heroic, devoted to duty, loving God and His cause on earth more than life, and saint-like to a degree seldom seen on earth.
As the opening sentence of this narrative typifies the life and work of Bishop Hannington, so may we throw into bold relief the noble simplicity of Mackay’s character by two passages from his writings, referring to the land for which he so willingly, so cheerfully, died.
Writing to the Church Missionary Society on December 12, 1875, he said, “My heart burns for the deliverance of Africa, and if you can send me to any one of those regions which Livingstone and Stanley have found to be groaning under the curse of the slave-hunter, I shall be very glad.”
At the time he wrote this he was well on the road to the highest possible material prosperity. An equal partnership in a successful business in Moscow had been offered him, but his heart had been touched with a live coal from the altar of God, and the condition of the thousands in darkest Africa seemed to weigh upon him like a heavy personal burden. To go out and teach them was the great passion of his life, and this led him to offer himself to the Church Missionary Society for service in Uganda. He left England on the 27th April, 1876. Then, after many years of devoted and loyal service, too often checked and interrupted by bitter and unreasoning persecution, he wrote to Mr. Eugene Stock, the editorial secretary of the Church Missionary Society, a letter which shows his love for the country in which he labored: “What is this you write — ‘Come home?’ Surely now, in our terrible dearth of workers, it is not the time for any one to desert his post. Send us only our first twenty men, and I may be tempted to come to help you to find the second twenty.”
In this manner he refused to accept the tempting offer to return home, where so many dear ones were anxiously waiting to welcome him. Then, at last, on the 14th April, 1890 (fourteen years after he left England), the sad news of his early death reached the Church Missionary Society. It had been telegraphed from Zanzibar. Ten days later Mackay’s last letter reached the Society’s headquarters. It shows how much he loved the heathen land for which he died, and for the enlightenment of which he forsook home, and all its dear ones, and turned his back upon business prospects which, in a few years, would no doubt have made him a wealthy and successful man.
Referring to recent events in Uganda, and more particularly to the Church, which had stood the sternest of tests, he asked, “Shall it be left to die of neglect, or mayhap to be suckled by some ravening wolf, which is already eager to nourish the infant nation with her milk, which centuries have shown to be deeply saturated with the ravening wolfish nature? Is this to be so? or is it the resolve of Christian England that the blood of pure Christianity shall be instilled into the veins of this African infant, and that it shall be brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? Mwanga (who had very recently been carried in triumph to the throne from which he had been deposed) writes: ‘I want a host of English teachers to come and preach the Gospel to my people.’ Our church members urge me to write, imploring you to strengthen our mission, not by two or three, but by twenty. Is this golden opportunity to be neglected, or is it to be lost forever? You sons of England, here is a field for your energies! Bring with you your highest education and your greatest talents; you will find scope for the exercise of them all. You men of God, who have resolved to devote your lives to the cure of the souls of men, here is the proper field for you. It is not to win numbers to a church, but to win men to the Saviour, and who otherwise will be lost, that I entreat you to leave your work at home to the many who are ready to undertake it, and to come forth yourselves to reap this field, now white to the harvest. Rome is rushing in with her salvation by sacraments and a religion of carnal ordinances. We want men who will preach Jesus and the Resurrection. ‘God is a spirit,’ and let him who believes that throw up every consideration and come forth to teach these people to worship Him in spirit and in truth.”
This last message of the hero and martyr should be an eloquent appeal to Christendom to stretch forth its hand and gather, in the heart of even dark Africa, a rich and bountiful harvest. Though dead, Alexander Mackay still speaks. His life has become a sainted memory, and the record of his heroism will undoubtedly inspire in the breasts of many young men a Godlike zeal to continue the work which he began.
The quotations here given from his letters throw his noble character into bold relief. They tell us the life he lived, the deeds he performed, the prayers and supplications which he daily and hourly laid before his Maker.
They are the best possible prelude to a consideration of those outward and visible deeds which made him an ideal missionary — a zealous and devout Christian burning with a passion to extend Christ’s Kingdom on earth, a brave explorer, a practical and skilled mechanic, and an organizer and leader of the highest order. Mr. Stanley frequently met Mackay, and had ample opportunities for testing the value of the work he so patiently and so devotedly performed in Uganda.
The testimony of the great explorer is emphatic. “He was the greatest missionary since Livingstone,” said Mr. Stanley, on hearing the news of his unexpected death. The ordinary terms of eulogium seem stale and commonplace when used as a description of such a magnificent and yet such a simple life, but it is perfectly safe to place on record the statement that public opinion of the next twenty or thirty years will place Livingstone and Mackay upon the same level. He has not been dead long enough for us to see fully the beauties of his life. We shall draw nearer and nearer a true conception of his character as the years roll by, and as the work which he pioneered draws nearer its inevitable golden harvest.