BY REV. JOHN R. MACKAY, M.A., INVERNESS.
THE following Report, in the form of a letter, was received by the Rev. Neil Cameron, Convener of the Foreign Mission, on Monday the 15th November, and read by him, as noted elsewhere, to the Synod on the 16th:—
BEMBESI, MATABELELAND,
18th October, 1909.
MY DEAR MR. CAMERON,—Now that I have been one Sabbath in the Mission here, and as I calculate that you should have this letter before our Synod meets, I write to you as Convener of the Foreign Mission, to give an account of my trip to this land, so far. Let me say at the outset that, from what I have seen of the work done here, I conclude that our Church has well spent all that she has spent on this Mission. We are here, I suppose, less than
twenty degrees south of the Equator, but as at the same time we are as high, I would say, above the sea-level as the top of Ben Nevis, the climate, although a bit warm, is very healthy. The Mission is planted in a particularly healthy spot, being on the ridge of elevated ground which separates two small tributaries of the great Zambesi River, and thus in almost every direction the view is open for many miles around. Mr. Radasi has managed to erect seven buildings on his site, but all, and even more, are needed. First, there is the church, built and plastered with good clay, and covered with a kind of strong grass very plentiful hereabout. The church has four small windows, and about one hundred persons might find some room, although the seats found there can scarcely accommodate the forty children or thereby who are being taught as at school here. Second, there is a neat little corrugated-iron building, with a verandah, or stoep, in front, containing one room which is the library, and another room which forms a comfortable bedroom. This corrugated-iron building is my residence whilst I am here. These two buildings have been paid for by the Church at home, and also what I may reckon here as the third building, and which Mr. Radasi calls his kitchen. Besides these there are four other neatly-built thatched huts, each of which, on average, cost £3; and I certainly think the Church at home should refund Mr. Radasi those £12. For they are absolutely needed. They are, of course, only one-roomed buildings, and when one thinks that, besides his own family, there are five or six constantly putting up at the Mission for the school’s sake—some boys and some girls—one can see that if the Mission should have any accommodation for a passing stranger, all the accommodation which is now to be had here is entirely necessary. Indeed, quite recently Mr. Radasi had to refuse entrance to the children of a chief who lives a long way off—(I cannot give the exact number of miles)—and who wished his children to be taught here, and that altogether for the want of accommodation. Mr. Radasi, however, has written him, to say that if he will erect huts for them himself, and send one to look after them, and supply them with food, he will be glad to educate them. He has had, as yet, no answer to that offer. Besides these seven buildings on the stance here there are other two stations where Mr. Radasi preaches, at each of which there is a small church, but as I have not yet visited these, I cannot report on them.
Mr. Radasi, over and above preaching twice and holding a Bible Class on the Sabbath and a Prayer Meeting on Thursday morning, on four days of the week gives ordinary elementary education to the younger folk. There are over forty young people his scholars. To-day the school is opened after a brief vacation, and I find thirty-nine present—twenty-one boys (some older than boys) and eighteen girls. Mr. Radasi’s people here are partly Fingo Zulus and partly Matabele Zulus. The Fingoes and Matabeles are both branches of the great Zulu people, but the
Fingoes, for some reasons of their own, removed southwards from Zululand to Cape Colony, whileas the Matebeles, for other reasons of their own, returned northward from Zululand to what is now Southern Rhodesia or Matabeleland. It is only thirteen years since the Matebeles fought in deadly combat with the Imperial forces, and the Fingoes who are now in Matabeleland were only brought here since the war, Mr. Cecil Rhodes, who was a worldly-wise man, having transplanted a considerable number of Fingoes from Cape Colony to Matabeleland, as he knew that the Fingoes were friendly to Great Britain, and he reckoned that their presence among their old kinsmen in this place would tend to make the governing of the Matebeles more easy. The Fingo section of Mr. Radasi’s people are thus, generally speaking, more civilized, and can generally speak a little English. The Matebeles were pure heathen soil, and except so far as they learned it from Mr. Radasi himself, cannot speak English at all. The Matebeles are easily distinguished from the Fingoes by their having (both men and women) the soft part of the ear slit transversely.
Mr. Radasi is in good health, and except that he is perhaps a little thinner, has changed very little in appearance since we saw him in Scotland. He continues the same unassuming, sensible, unwavering character which we always found him to be.
I have personally to record much goodness at the hands of the Lord since I left home. I have felt that in Providence the Lord was very kind to me, and I have been wishing that His kindness in Providence might be an outward token of some spiritual good coming to these Zulus through my visit. I left home, as you know, on the 13th of September, and sailed from London on the following day. The voyage to Cape Town was most favourable. We had neither fog in the English Channel, storm in the Bay of Biscay, nor very trying heat on the Equator. The only call we made on the outward voyage was at Las Palmas, the town of the Grand Canary Island. The Grand Canary is a place “Where every prospect pleases, and only man is vile.” Its fine produce, and its lovely atmosphere make it, one would expect, a place desirable to live in. But for filthy streets, for begging children, for thievish men you never saw anything to equal it—Las Palmas is a Spanish town. The “Wakool” arrived at Cape Town on the morning of the 7th of October. I could not, however, get a suitable train for Bembesi until the following Tuesday (12th October). I was thus in Cape Town over Sabbath, where I had one opportunity given me of uttering my thoughts in public concerning the way of life. The mail train by which I travelled left Cape Town about mid-day on 12th October, and arrived at Bulawayo about nine o’clock on the morning of the following Friday. I was met and welcomed on the platform at Bulawayo by Mr. Radasi. After a stay of fully three hours, our train proceeded to Bembesi, a distance of thirty miles north of Bulawayo. At Bembesi station, or siding rather, we were met by Mr. Radasi’s
four-wheeler, a kind of covered old dogcart, and were thus driven by three donkeys over a road which has yet to be made, but not too rough, to the Mission, which we reached after a two hours’ ride. That Friday evening I rested. On Saturday we were busy going over what I proposed to say at the two services on the following Sabbath, for it would help Mr. Radasi in interpreting when he had some idea of what I purposed saying. On Sabbath morning early a Prayer Meeting is regularly held at the Mission. The first service begins at eleven o’clock. Nearly an hour before service the bell is rung—a long piece of iron dangling from a tree, which one of Mr. Radasi’s lads smites lustily with an iron tool.
At the Morning Service we had a full house, two chiefs being present, one of whom came a distance, I should say, of over a hundred miles. His name is Sogini, a Fingo. The other chief is Hlazo, a Fingo also, and Mr. Radasi’s father-in-law. These petty chiefs are now little more than honorary magistrates. Chief Ngege, whose son is still connected with the Mission, died a little more than a fortnight since. He was fully intending to have come to yesterday’s service. He was a higher chief than the two others referred to, and was largely the means of getting this excellent site for the Mission. His place is not yet filled.
As the whole situation was so novel, perhaps you will not be wearied if I relate how the services were conducted. (1) I read a Zulu Psalm (Kaffir). (2) I prayed briefly, Mr. Radasi repeating the words after me in his own language. (3) I read out of the Zulu Bible Acts xvii. 24-31, and then gave a very short lecture, which Mr. Radasi interpreted. (4) Mr. Radasi prayed. (5) Another Zulu Psalm was sung. (6) I preached from Romans viii. 1., Mr. Radasi interpreting. (7) The usual praying and singing, and benediction followed. It was my impression that I was helped in speaking to these poor people, and Mr. Radasi is, I believe, an excellent interpreter. The fact of his being so long acquainted in Scotland with my way of putting things made it easier for him to interpret me here. The service in the evening about five o’clock was not so largely attended, but that was entirely owing to so many of them having long distances to go. Mr. Radasi’s own way is to have only about an hour’s interval between the two services, and if we had followed that way yesterday, I daresay all would have remained; but I was afraid, on account of the heat, to go on at once at the hottest time of the day with a second service. The congregation yesterday was largely made up of Matabeles, several of whom might be reckoned as quite uncivilized, as might be seen from the clotheless way in which they put in an appearance. I would venture to make this suggestion to the Synod: That means be taken to send out to the Mission here second-hand clothing. There were some of them here yesterday in a more clotheless state than one would like to see a fellow sinner in, even away from Church, and one could not but feel it more in the house of God. I believe there is not a
congregation in our Church but there are some who would be disposed to give for this purpose clothes which they themselves can no longer use, at least on public occasions, and such second-hand clothes—for men and women, for young and old—would be much appreciated here. Mr. Radasi finds that more would come out to hear if they had only something to cover them.
It is my purpose to preach next Sabbath nearer Bembesi Siding; on the following Sabbath we purpose having the Communion. On the fourth Sabbath I shall possibly be at this third station which I have referred to, and I have not decided as to whether I shall preach in the Mission here on the fifth Sabbath or in Bulawayo, but most likely I shall remain at the Mission all the time. I should be thankful to say that I have been, and am, in very good health. I expect to sail from Beira for the Mediterranean on the 19th November.
I have quite enjoyed my visit to this interesting Mission. The Mission, I feel, is an elevating centre for the surrounding heathen neighbourhood. It is so not only on account of the Gospel being preached in it, the issues whereof are to eternity, but it is so also in a worldly sense, since Mr. Radasi acts in the capacity of an arduous teacher here, and even in the buildings which he has erected, although mostly of clay, he has set a model for those who make his acquaintance, to follow. I have felt very much since I came here that we do not sufficiently sympathise with, nor bear on our spirits, those whose work it is to preach the Gospel to, and to teach, the heathen. Nor can those heathen who wish to hear the Gospel always do so without suffering persecution. That persecution has not been unknown here also: Mr. Radasi has been telling me of one woman in particular, who, although she had not become a member, was very much attached to the Mission, and was regular in her attendance at the service. Her husband, however, is heathen, and was much opposed to his wife coming here. When the Sabbath came round, and she wished to come to the service, he would order her to work, and if she did not at once obey, would beat her. At length, one day in a rage, he knocked two of her front teeth out, which, when her parents heard of, they came for her, took her away to their own home, and as that home is far from the Mission, she cannot, on account of the distance, come.
It reminded one of a pious Scotch home, when here on Saturday night. Care was taken that water for Sabbath was in time, and that all boots were brushed, so that no unnecessary labour should be done on the Lord’s Day.
These are points which impressed me since coming here, and I have thought they might interest the Synod and Church at home too. I met with much kindness from my fellow creatures on the way out here, but I would like to mention by name the Hon. Mr. Cartwright of Cape Town, who was the means of securing me a concession ticket from Vryburg to Bulawayo; Mr. Neil
Mackay, who hales from Dumbarton, and who did all in his power to make my stay at Cape Town comfortable; and Mr. Donald M’Lean, a nephew of Mr. John M’Lean, elder, Greenock, whose kindness to me at Bulawayo was truly brotherly.
I may hope to give a second report later on. Mr. Radasi and myself would wish to offer our respectful and kind greetings to every member of the Synod. With affectionate regards to you and to your household, I remain, your sincere friend,
JOHN R. MACKAY.
The late Mr. Angus Murray, Elder, Balloan, Dornoch.
THE most of the people of the Highlands have heard of that eminent servant of the Lord, Rev. John Kennedy of Redcastle, and of the crowds that frequented the gatherings where he preached the Word of life, and how the Spirit of God was wont to seal the word preached with power on the hearts of many of the hearers, in convincing the careless and in binding up the broken hearted. The parish of Dornoch was often favoured in having him and Dr. Macdonald, the apostle of the North, at Communion seasons, and fruit followed their labours. It was during one of those seasons that our late friend, then in his teens—bareheaded and barefooted, herding calves—wended his way on the Sabbath evening to the place where the tribes of God went up to Israel’s testimony to pay thanks to God, and had the arrow, pointed in love, directed to his soul by the Lord from the mouth of Mr. Kennedy, as he spoke from the words in the forty-fifth Psalm, second verse: “Thou art fairer than the children of men.” And, as our friend used to tell us, he spoke of the beauty of His Person, and of His offices as Prophet, Priest, and King, and His work, of His beauty as a husband to the soul, of His beauty as a Brother, and of His beauty as a Friend. And as Angus used to describe it: “His words came into my heart like balls of fire, inflaming it with love to the Person of whom he spoke.” And as he left the congregation that night, he was so ravished with the love of Christ that, as he often told some, he felt he could die for Him. He went home, but not to sleep. All night he felt, as he would say, that Christ was like a mountain of fire burning with love before his mind, and that although seven lakes of fire lay between him and the One who is fairer than the children of men, he would wade through them all to be in His bosom. This feeling continued with him for some time, but all too soon it passed away, and then he began to doubt that what had passed through his mind was the real work of the Spirit of God, seeing that it is more often the case that conviction of sin goes before a sense of the love of Christ. And as he began to mingle with the
people of God, and to attend the “Question” meetings, he heard “the men” speaking of conviction of sin before an experience of the love of Christ. This cast him into deep waters, fearing that, after all, his joy was not the fruit of a saving union with Christ. He was favoured above many in having a mother who truly feared the Lord, who, as he often related, was allured by the love of Christ at first while at one of the great gatherings at the Burn of Ferintosh, hearing Dr. Macdonald preach from the words, “I will betroth thee to me forever in righteousness.” She was so overcome with the love of Christ that she could hardly stand on her feet when the service was over. His mother being a new creature, he could not doubt the reality of her conversion, and yet she was “called” in a similar way to himself, which proved helpful to him.
The late eminently faithful servant of the Lord, Sheriff Hugh Maculloch, was related to him on his mother’s side, and a conversation that took place between Angus’s grandfather and the Sheriff used then to work on his mind. The Sheriff, in addressing Angus’s grandfather, who then did not know the Lord, said:—”Our great-grandfather had grace, our grandfather had grace, our father had grace, and I have the hope that I have grace too, and if in you the link between our family and God will be broken, you will be one of the most miserable in eternity.” That the link might be broken in him, was a cause of fear to Angus many a day. And to the last, when his Sun would be clouded he would say to himself, “Poor Angie, what is the Lord to do with thee now?” While thus cast down after the first tide of the love of Christ, he heard of a godly man who then lived in the parish of Farr, called John Macintosh, who was a man of very keen discernment, and dearly loved such as he considered the seed of the Kingdom, and although a long and dreary journey lay between him in Farr and Angus Murray in Dornoch, yet as the report which the Queen of Sheba got of the wisdom of Solomon, moved her to go all the way from the East to see and hear him, so Angus felt alike drawn to see and hear Iain Toisich, as he always called him. All who know the locality understand that he would have many a weary step before he reached Farr, but where there is a will there is a way, and Angus had the will and found the way. Arriving at the place where John lived, he called on one of his neighbours, as he was unknown to John and, being young, was afraid to go straight to his house. This neighbour accompanied him to John’s house, and on entering, John, who was confined to bed, asked the neighbour who this young man that accompanied him was. His neighbour answered, “He is a young man from the parish of Dornoch, and seeing you are a Catechist yourself, you can question him yourself. “Oh, well,” said John, “the parish of Farr was at one time worth coming to, for there were many of the salt of the earth in it, but there are very few of them now. But this is a good day for hypocrites—they may get on as they like; but it is a bad day for God’s poor people.” This stunned Angus, having come
all the way from Dornoch seeking encouragement, only now to find that he was dealt with as Joseph did with his brethren. He was now, in John Macintosh’s sight, as he thought, a hypocrite. In this state, with a downcast soul and an equally downcast head, as he would say himself, “my head was between my knees,” he rose to go away, and ventured near the bed to bid farewell with him whom he had come so far to see, but who, on coming, he thought, took all his hope from him. As John got a hold of his hand, he drew him to him and embraced him, saying, “Boy, eternity will not part us, for no sooner did I see your face coming in at the door than the Lord spoke to me concerning you in these words, ‘Fear not, worm Jacob, I will help thee.’ And now I am united to thee in the Word of God, and eternity will not separate us.” In these precious words the Lord anew revealed Himself to this weary traveller and the shadows fled away, and instead of leaving with a sting, he sat for hours on the side of the old saint’s bed, tasting of the streams which flow from the river which makes glad the city of God, and spent the night with him. When it was time for the family to retire, the family altar was surrounded, and Angus had to conclude in prayer. As he knelt, that portion of God’s Word came forcibly to his mind: “The God that answereth by fire, let him be God in Israel.” At first he felt afraid to begin, but the Lord so revealed Himself to him, answering in fire against the Son of His love, when He said, “Awake, O sword, against my Shepherd, and him that is my fellow,” that he felt as if Christ was before him on the Cross as the sacrifice—that he was filled with the love of Christ to overflowing. This was to him singing as in the days of his youth, as in the day when he came out of the land of Egypt. On rising from his knees, John said, “O, Angus, it would be good for me now to enjoy so much of the love of Christ in five years as you did for those five minutes on your knees. I was once as you were to-night, but my godliness is off the earth now, and it is before me in heaven.” This was Bethel truly to Angus Murray, and to the end of his course his eye would kindle when he spoke of Iain Toisich. And when he returned home, he would, on retiring at night, look out at the stars in the direction of his friend’s home, and would begin the same journey anew. “Love is strong as death.” As long as his friend lived, he was a bi-yearly visitor. On his homeward journeys he used to visit Strathy, where he had many warm friends, also Strathnaver. He had a way peculiar to himself, for on leaving home to visit those that he loved in the Lord, he took in his pocket a number of coins from a sixpenny bit to a two-shilling piece, and when he met one that he loved a little he gave a sixpence, and one that he loved more, a shilling, and one that he loved still more, two shillings. The love and sufferings of Christ were his favourite themes, and in all his exercises any one could see that he was one deeply taught and one who largely drank of the love of Christ.
There was an eminent woman at that time on Strath-halladale,
called Elizabeth Sutherland, to whom Angus was very much attached; as he would say, “She was the most godly woman I ever met.” On one occasion he was at tea with her, and in returning thanks for the mercies they had received, he got such a manifestation of the Lord, that, as he expressed it himself, “I was sick of love; I got a peep of His love.” Before he left he was complaining of himself, but Elizabeth answered, “I don’t pity you in one way wherever you may go; but in another way I do pity you, for you will be very much alone in the generation in which you will be. They will not understand you, and you will not understand them.” About this time he attended a Communion at Helmsdale, where he heard and saw John Sutherland, Badbea, for the first time. On the Friday John, when called upon to give marks of the Lord’s people, began to speak of their doubts and fears, and how low they might come after getting a drop of the love of Christ, which so comforted Angus that, as he would say, “Although I was never called before, I felt a desire to speak of the love of Christ, but some would only kill me when they would begin on the law work which went on in them.” He felt once so cast down after hearing some whom he could not follow in the work of the law, that he entered his own barn, which was his place for pouring out his heart before the Lord, and on this occasion he fell on his knees, seeking that the Lord might so convince him of sin, that he could follow others. “Boy,” he would say in after days, “there came like a lightning so much of the wrath of God through my mind that I shook from head to foot, and although He would send me to hell, I determined that I would never ask it again, for my reason could not stand it.” To this resolution he kept to the end, as all who knew him can testify that in prayer and as a Friday speaker, he dwelt invariably on the person and love of Christ.
For a considerable time after tasting of the love of God in Christ Jesus he was afraid to come forward to witness publicly on the side of Christ because he did not know “law work,” and although at times he felt encouraged on a Communion Saturday, and determined to go forward to be examined, another sermon would take his courage from him. He often related that Mr. Alexander Macleod, Rogart, insisted on his going forward, and on the Saturday preached a most encouraging sermon in Gaelic. “I felt before he was done,” he said, “that it was my duty to go forward, but, boy, Mr. Macleod, Ullapool, rose and preached a law sermon, and I had to run away; I could not go forward.” Thus he was tossed to and fro, but not forsaken. He was very much attached to Mr. Macleod, Rogart. As a preacher of the Gospel, he regarded him as equal to Dr. Kennedy, although not so gifted. In his own way he would describe what he would do if they preached near each other by saying, “I could not choose between them; I would go to hear the one that was the nearer of the two. If Mr. Macleod had not liberty he was very poor. I
once heard him, and I believe he took out his watch ten times in a quarter of an hour. But, boy, all at once as if you turned the tap of a full barrel, he could not pour out all that came from the Lord into his soul. Before, he longed to stop, but now when the Lord came, he did not know how to stop.” Such seasons were refreshing to Angus Murray’s soul, for in those days he sat “under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet unto his taste.” And when the time came that the Lord enabled him to confess Him before men, and to speak in public of the work of His Spirit, the most indifferent could see that he was a man that got a melting in His love, who so loved as to give His own life a ransom for many.
Of all Friday speakers—without in the least wishing to make invidious comparisons—or of all ministers, in fact, he was alone in his day on the love and sufferings of Christ. Some might think, while listening to his deep and heart-melting utterances on such a theme, that he could not but have read largely on the subject, but such as knew him from infancy could testify that most of the books he read—if not the only—were the Bible and Boston’s Fourfold State. It was not what he read, but it was the knowledge that his soul drank from the Spirit in the days of his youth, which his heart bubbled up as he began to speak concerning the King, and now that he is gone to sing in a sweeter, holier frame, we shall no longer hear his like. We set no limits to the Holy One of Israel—He can work when, where, and how He pleases—yet when we look back on the history of the Church, we can see that in every age there were men who, through grace, differed from others, and certainly he differed in his own day. And if even some of the gracious words which we heard flowing from his lips on Communion Fridays and at Prayer Meetings were in print, they would give a better description of the man that we seek to portray than it is possible for us now to do. Sometimes he would be like others, as he would say, “If I don’t get to the side of His love, I cannot do anything.” Once at a Communion at Rogart, he was heard thus commending the love of the Father in the gift of His Son, and of the Son in giving Himself: “The Father had no greater gift to give than His only beloved Son, who was, and is, the love of the Father’s heart. Love was seeking love. Love in the Father was seeking love in the Son, and love in the Son was seeking love in the Father, and as the Father, as the Judge, was pouring His wrath on the Son as the sacrifice for the sins of His people that He came to save, this was like pouring it on His own heart. And love in the Son was seeking love in the Father, and in love He drank the wrath until He cried, ‘It is finished.’ And thus love met love, and God rested in love. ‘In me there is no fury.’ O! the glorious One that kept His heart to the sword of justice until it drank its satisfaction. And as the Spirit takes possession of the souls of His people, the love of the Spirit in them will be seeking to the love of Christ; and thus
love flows into love. The love of the Father in the love of the sufferings, and the love of the sufferings in the love of the Spirit, coming into the faculties of the soul, and the love of the soul in the Spirit, through the love of the sufferings, going back to the love of the Father; and thus love flowing into love. God is love, and those who know not His love, know not who God is.”
Another time in prayer, with tears flowing from his eyes, he began: “We are here to-day that will never meet again—no, not even at the day of judgment. The wicked shall never meet with the righteous, for they will be on the left hand at the great day, and who can understand the distance between the right hand and the left at the great day? The righteous will be placed by Christ before the Father, saying, ‘Look at me, Father, and the children whom Thou hast given me; are they not unlike what they were, as I got them dead, and I quickened them; filthy, and I cleansed them in my blood; blind, and I gave them their sight?’ O! what a company will follow Him eternally, as they sing unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood.”
(To be Continued.)
E. MACQ.