Given by the late Rev. John Tallach, Missionary to the Synod of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, at Glasgow, in May 1947
It is 14 years since I stood before you last, and I feel that my first duty is in a public way to acknowledge God’s great goodness and mercy to myself and to the work that you entrusted to me out there in Africa and I feel also that I am due to make a public acknowledgment of the kindness and interest wherewith you have followed our work all these years. I think I can say that, notwithstanding a number of misunderstandings, the committee and the various conveners have stood very firmly behind our work, giving us encouragement from time to time. As I look over the Mission
tonight after hearing all these reports, there are just a few things I would like to put before you. Any work that develops and increases definitely divides itself into periods very easily. That is true about our work out in Africa. The strange thing is, as I look at each period, there seems very distinctly to be the hand of God at the opening of each one. You have at the very outset, as most of you know, the story of Mr Radasi being found alone, or lonely, in one of the Edinburgh streets on a week-night and you remember how one of our people — at least a man who belonged to our church at that time — found him and through that he was brought into contact with Mr Cameron and through his contact with Mr Cameron became our first missionary out there. I think it is very obvious that God’s hand was in all that from the very beginning. Regarding Mr Radasi’s going out there, I desire to put it on record the deep debt the church is in to him. Whatever men may add afterwards, it is the man who lays the foundation who does the principal work and whatever the tree may grow to be in size or fruitfulness, it is the man who planted the seed who did the first fundamental and important thing. That can never be taken from Mr Radasi. That was the place assigned to him in our church by the Head of the Church and although he was not able, perhaps, to extend and increase the work as we have done it since, yet I have found myself very often going about Ingwenya marvelling at this man. He was an African. He had to meet with all the handicaps that every African has to meet with. It matters not whether he be educated or uneducated, the native has to deal with Government officials, Offices, Native Commissioners and all these people of that kind and he had all the time the handicap of being a member of a subject race. Yet in spite of that, with marvellous tact and determination and efficiency he was able to overcome these obstacles and not only laid the foundation, but I want tonight to insist that you keep in mind that the foundation was from the start a sound one in doctrine and practice, not perfect, for no man’s work is perfect, but, there was that, that it was sound. Now I want to say this too, that I as a missionary out there can never be grateful enough for that first work. When you go among a new people like that, one of the most important things you have to do is to build up traditions behind you. You must make a number of traditions so that those following have precedent to go on. Here you have traditions going back to the Reformation. It is very easy for you to speak about the Sabbath and to speak about various doctrines; you have behind you huge libraries and can just take a volume and see what so-and-so says on this point. Here is a people who have had no traditions whatever and you have to build without them. Now Mr Radasi, so far as I see it, by the grace of God, carried the traditions of
the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland right out to Africa. And alone there, and an African at that, he planted them there. That was what we found and that is what we continued to grow on. I come back to you after a long period of service and I humbly hope in your presence that it is just like that still. Were you to arrive by aeroplane in any Mission Station that we have opened and were you to be there on the Lord’s Day, you would find that it had the distinct impress of a Free Presbyterian Sabbath and a Free Presbyterian service.
Now the next thing I notice is this. When the Lord wanted to take this man away, as the Bible says: “There is a time to be born and a time to die,” God set out a time for his servant to be taken. Never mind how it appeared to us, his being taken away, as if it was contrary to all kindness and that sort of thing. Nevertheless, God’s time came that His servant should be brought home and given rest. But mark this, the new period opens with a European coming just at the time that God takes His servant away. God’s hand is in this. Each period opens distinctly, clearly, with God’s hand in it and that ought to encourage us through and through. When he was taken away, there were many difficulties for me but that is not the point at all. The point was this, God’s time had come to take His servant, but it was not before He had another already conveyed seven thousand miles to take his place.
Now, when I came there in God’s good providence, that opened another period. A European was brought now into contact with the Mission and I was able, being a European, to overcome many of the handicaps that Mr Radasi had to encounter as being, according to European views, “a mere black man.” Well, the first thing that we were able to do was to raise the status of the school at Ingwenya, open new Out-stations and after a few years increase the number of office-bearers and preachers. This was the period that we work on up to 1932. The school was increased from one teacher at Ingwenya to five teachers and Out-stations from four to twelve. The grant earned when I arrived in 1924 was £50 from the Government for all teachers. In 1932 I cannot recall exactly what they were, but I know that in 1945 it was not £50 but £1,500. Let me go back again to 1932. As we brought up the school and increased the work, there came a time when there seemed a demand upon our spirits that we might have a larger number of children actually living at the mission and a longer period under the mission influence. That meant opening up a boarding school, but how could a small church with a small financial backing embark on a project of that kind. I wrote to Mr Cameron and he said that he favoured a boarding school, but I said to myself, “The good man doesn’t understand what it means — a number of new buildings, schoolrooms, teachers, and above all, it meant
a European teacher.” That was in 1932. When I came home I did not look for a teacher, but a European teacher was provided. You all know that that was Miss Nicolson. Here was the next period; here was God’s hand again. Just when it was necessary that we should go on in this development, God provided there and then the means to fulfil this added development. So Miss Nicolson came and so to speak we looked at each other and we said: “You know the Church?” “Yes, I know the Church.” “You know what their finances are?” “Yes.” “Well, can we look at such a thing as a boarding school?” We decided by the grace of the Lord and in trust upon Him that we would do it. Now, I want you to understand, my friends, that this is the opening of another period.
Now we were about to earn the maximum grants from the Government. We were able to take on about 150 girls actually living in the school. We put up some cheap dormitories and started away. You must understand that in raising the school to the status of a boarding school all it cost the home church was £75 in cheap buildings. But that meant, my friends, that somebody had to suffer and the person who suffered, naturally, was the head teacher; with no space, no decent schoolrooms, no glass in the windows, but just big holes in walls and the dust coming in, no place to get warm in in the winter time, every place cramped, desks home-made, etc. I went down one time to the store and asked how many boxes I could get. We get 4-gallon tins of paraffin in a wooden box and they sell the wooden boxes cheap, at 1/- each. I remember I went down to the Storeman one day and bought two dozen of these. I took them home, put them together and made desks of them and put legs on them. I had them there and was afraid to show them to anybody. I knew some people would laugh at them and, above all, I was afraid to show them to Miss Nicolson. I could not introduce to a teacher from a well-equipped school in Scotland these boxes that her pupils would have to use as best they could. However, I introduced Miss Nicolson to the desks and she said, “They will do fine,” and that was the spirit all through. Miss Nicolson recognised, like myself, that we had not a great amount of money to draw on, but we were determined in spite of that, to raise the status of the school until we would have the maximum grants and that was brought about without any loss in way of education, but rather gain, but all the time working under great disability and disadvantage. I would publicly say today that as I look back on Miss Nicolson’s work there, it is owing to her that we have a boarding school. It is owing to Mr Radasi we have a mission, for he began it.
As I look on this period from 1932 right on to 1938, I don’t know what I should be most grateful for in connection with the building-up of the mission, whether it should be this particularly,
the ability and readiness on Miss Nicolson’s part to take on these extra burdens, for they were real burdens, and work at such disadvantages, or the stamp, the wonderful stamp which I trust will never go from Ingwenya School, the stamp that made the African people speak of Ingwenya as the Evangelistic School and Mission. The Shorter Catechism is being taught where it may be understood in Standard 6 and the Mother’s Catechism translated into Sindebele taught in the lower Standards and so on. There you have just the things that you yourselves acquaint your own children with, as you regard them as safe guides for your own child, transplanted out there and made use of by the servants of the Church just the same as at home. That is something you ought to be grateful for and I trust and hope that we all are.
Now came the period 1939 when Miss Nicolson came home on leave. Who was going out to her place? Mr Macintyre, I understand, interviewed a young gentleman with a view to going out for eighteen months only to relieve. Now, neither Mr Macintyre nor that young gentleman understood for a moment what was transpiring at that time of their meeting. For history in connection with the mission was being made in that interview with this young man. As far back as 1925, we went to Shangani. We opened two stations and as far as 1938 we still had these two stations. We were unable to go further. The Out-stations were too far away and the Government would not countenance our opening stations at such a distance from our control. So here they were like two orphans away up in the wilds of Shangani. We came round to 1938 or 1939 and Miss Nicolson had to go home and Mr Macintyre interviewed a young man who came out for eighteen months, as he thought, as Mr Macintyre thought, for eighteen months. He came out to Africa and the war came on. He could not get back home. God perforce made him remain in Africa five years. In the time that he remained (five years), he got to see this work and it entered into his heart. We took him up to Shangani. There was a big meeting of natives and we were told: “We want a boarding school up here in this reserve.” We asked what particular denomination did they favour. They said: “The Free Presbyterian Church.” Mr Fraser was particularly thoughtful. God’s hand again. We came down to Ingwenya and I said to myself, “Now, I am not going to speak to him, I am not going to ask him to be a missionary. He came out here to relieve Miss Nicolson, but I am not going to do anything, but I can pray and trust that the Lord has put a seed into his heart that will bring him back to Shangani.” And that went on for five years. For five years this went on, and the time came when Mr Fraser was there at Ingwenya living in one of the Guest Houses and he sent for me and I went up. There he was, sitting on the bed writing a long letter. “What
is this, James?” “I am writing a letter to Mr Macintyre and I want to read it to you before I send it.” He read the letter and this was offering himself as a servant to the church. I came down to the house and I know I was smiling, and my wife said to me, “What is making you so happy?” I said, “Mr Fraser and Shangani are joined in their hearts now.” And so it was. Home he came and is preparing for Shangani. Now, my friends, this is God’s hand. Each period marks definitely this wonderful hand of God in providence. That ought to make us take courage. Here is this huge tract of country and Mr Fraser is going up to it.
I want now just to say a little about numbers. Some people think a lot of numbers. There are some people’s minds, and numbers is the only thing that speaks to them. As I said, there were in 1924, four elders and four deacons. In 1945 there were twenty-five office-bearers and we left another eight ready to be ordained in Shangani, when Mr Fraser goes out. That makes thirty-three. That is the Lord’s work, period by period. And the same thing is true with the children. In 1924 there were three hundred: today, I should say two thousand, and so on.
Now, there are two or three things I must put right before I sit down. The first thing is, many people think that the church supports completely the native teachers out there in Africa; that all their pay comes from the home church. You are contributing very little to the upkeep of any teacher. As I said, the grants earned by these teachers amounted to £1,500 in 1945. I don’t know what they are today. As against that £1,500, the grants given by the Church to African teachers amount to only £150. There are over forty teachers, so that the grant per teacher from the Church is not more than £3 15s. So I want to lay this on the ground for good because I have had letters even out in Africa, most discouraging letters, about this one and that one saying that we were paying for the education of the natives.
Another thing is this. There is a widespread idea that the natives contribute nothing to the mission. We have regular collections every quarter the same as yourselves for the Sustentation Fund. We have quarterly collections. At every Communion we have a door collection. I admit that our congregations do not contribute as much as they should, but they are at a great disadvantage. Every other mission makes contributions compulsory; not only so, but they make it a basis of membership. You cannot sit at the Lord’s Table unless you paid your last month’s contribution. Now, we, being Presbyterians, believe in free-will offerings and not in that kind of thing at all. We have to labour against the idea spread among the natives from other missions that contributions should be on a compulsory basis. What we do need is not that we should preach it for we do preach it, not that we should teach it,
for we do teach it; but we do need it to have the whole matter better organised and I have been thinking that the best way would be to get the ordinary Sustentation Fund Collection Books from here sent out there. And I hope Mr Grant, to fall back upon you to supply me with four dozen Sustentation Fund Books at least. That would be one of the first things that would help to bring up our collections. These collections amount to perhaps £30 to £45 in the year. This money is voted upon at what we call the quarterly meeting. Say there is a poor man there and he wants to begin a mission station. He has got to buy timber for doors and windows; he has got to pay a man to make the bricks. The people are heathen and he is the only man who has any idea about the worship of God. Well, the Kirk Session says: “This man should get some of the local funds,” and they vote perhaps £5 for it and that helps him to build the church. Other times it is spent on other things, such as painting of the church at Ingwenya, the paying of panes of glass. All that is voted for out of these funds that are collected. I would like you to understand that our Christians do contribute. They do not contribute as much as we would like owing to the fact that we have not organised the thing as we would like. I want you to understand that fully.
The last thing I would say is this. While we are speaking so much and bringing Shangani so much before your minds, I would like that you would remember that Ingwenya has still to serve a great purpose in the mission. It is the older place. It is the place where the mature Christians are coming from, the well, so to speak, and it must be upheld in prayer.