/z./3.''^^, 
 
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 Purchased by the Hamill Missionary Fund. 
 
 BV 3625 .S5 J6 1897 
 Pierson, Arthur T. 1837- 
 
 1911. 
 Seven years in Sierra Leone 
 
SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
By Rev, A» T. Pierson, D.D. 
 
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SevenYearsin Sierra Leone 
 
 THE STORY OF THE WORK OF 
 
 William A. B.Johnson 
 
 MISSIONARY OF THE CHURCH MISSION- 
 ARY SOCIETY FROM i8i6 TO 1823 IN RE- 
 GENT'S TOWN, SIERRA LEONE, AFRICA 
 
 BY THE REV. 
 
 Arthur T. Pierson, D.D. 
 
 Author of " The Crisis of Missions," " The New Acts of the Apostles,' 
 " Many Infallible Proofs," etc., etc. 
 
 New York Chicago Torokto 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
 Publishers of Evangelical Literature 
 
Copyright, 1897, by 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
 THB NEW YORK TYPE-SETTINQ COMPANT 
 THE CAXTON PIIESS 
 
TO 
 
 MY DEARLY BELOVED FRIEND 
 
 THE REV. DONALD ERASER 
 
 OF LIVINGSTONIA, SOUTH AFRICA 
 
 WHO, WHILE THESE CHAPTERS WERE IN PREPARATION, WAS 
 
 ON HIS WAY TO THE DARK CONTINENT; AND TO THE 
 
 VAST BAND OP STUDENT VOLUNTEERS, WHOM HE 
 
 REPRESENTS, AND WHO ARE LEADING ON THE 
 
 MODERN CRUSADE OF MISSIONS FOR "THE 
 
 EVANGELIZATION OF THE WORLD IN 
 
 OUR GENERATION," THIS RECORD 
 
 OF A PIONEER VOLUNTEER AND 
 
 HIS GREAT WORK FOR GOD 
 
 IS MOST LOVINGLY 
 
 INSCRIBED 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 chap. pagb 
 
 Preface 7 
 
 I. Made Meet for the Master's Use 13 
 
 n. The Land of the Shadow op Death 34 
 
 III. Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth 54 
 
 IV. Sound of Abundance of Eain 75 
 
 V. First-fruits unto God .'. 94 
 
 VI. Floods upon the Dry Ground 114 
 
 VII. The Eegions Beyond 139 
 
 VIII. In the Furnace of Affliction 163 
 
 IX. The Cloud of Witnesses 182 
 
 X. At the Desired Haven 198 
 
 Appendices ,,,........ 215 
 
PREFACE 
 
 There is an old story of a reed-lute which, 
 In its original rude, crude, native simplicity, 
 gave forth notes of unusual sweetness. Some 
 one, thinking to improve it, varnished and 
 gilded it. It henceforth lost its peculiar 
 power. It shone with the glitter of gold, but 
 it no longer breathed the sweet purity of 
 melody as before. 
 
 To preserve the simplicity of a little child, 
 amid the maturity of manhood and the dig- 
 nity of increasing responsibility and enlarg- 
 ing usefulness, is of foremost consequence, 
 but it represents a gem as rare as it is radiant. 
 It has been said that, while human develop- 
 ment is from the cradle onward, the highest 
 Christ-life is from the cross backward to the 
 cradle : it is the man becoming a babe and, in 
 a good sense, remaining a babe, never losing 
 
 7 
 
8 PREFACE 
 
 the childlike spirit; for it is the little ones 
 that get the caresses, held closest to the bosom 
 of the Father, cherished and nurtured in fon- 
 dhng arms. 
 
 Some twenty or more years ago I came 
 across an anonymous memoir of William A. 
 B. Johnson, now out of print. It was a stray 
 copy, and in more than one sense it was a 
 rare book. It impressed me then as, on the 
 whole, the most remarkable story of seven 
 years of missionary labor that I had ever 
 read; and now, after a score of years of re- 
 search into missionary history and biography, 
 that judgment is unhesitatingly reaffirmed. 
 
 Such a narrative should not remain out of 
 reach of those who delight in the study of 
 missions. It is one of God's witnesses, and 
 its voice ought not to be silent. Hence this 
 humble effort to give Mr. Johnson's work and 
 witness a wider hearing by reproducing the 
 essential features of the narrative. 
 
 The original memoir ai)pears to have been 
 hastily prepared, and consists almost wholly 
 of extracts from the missionary's diary. "While 
 there is, therefore, in it the continuity of time 
 
PREFACE 9 
 
 and chronological order, there is no logical 
 arrangement of matter, no grouping of events 
 in classes, and hence no effective contrasts 
 such as show at a glance the wonderful re- 
 sults wrought by the gospel. The aim in this 
 recasting of the narrative has been so to re- 
 arrange the matter contained in the memoir 
 as to enable the reader to see as in a panorama 
 the progress of the gospel triumphs in the 
 most disheartening and desperate field which, 
 eighty years ago, defied missionary conquest. 
 Much that the original journal of Johnson 
 and the former memoir contained is here 
 omitted, as either lacking relevancy or in- 
 volving repetition. The story must speak for 
 itself, but it would be incredible were not the 
 facts too abundantly attested to allow of 
 doubt. Nothing is more noticeable than the 
 simple, humble, self-distrustful spirit which 
 Mr. Johnson preserved to the end of his life. 
 Perhaps this was the grand secret of his suc- 
 cess. The lute never took on the fatal varnish 
 and gilding of self-sufficiency and self -glory. 
 He never ceased to be a little child ; he waited 
 to be led, to be taught, to be upheld, uplifted, 
 
10 PREFACE 
 
 upborne ; even success never elated or inflated 
 him ; and the consequence was that Grod could 
 be glorified in him as in few others, for he 
 never himself got in the way of the cross. 
 Always behind it, never before it, the cruci- 
 fied Christ was exalted, and proved His words 
 that if He be lifted up He will draw all men 
 unto Him. 
 
 As J. Hudson Taylor well says, while some 
 are anxious to be " successors of the apostles," 
 it may be well to seek to be successors of the 
 Samaritan woman, who, while they went for 
 food, but brought back no inquiring soul, for- 
 got herself, her wants, and her water-pot, in 
 her zeal to lead other sinners to her Saviour's 
 feet. 
 
 The story of these seven years in Sierra 
 Leone illustrates the great truth that to be 
 grandly useful we need only to surrender our- 
 selves wholly to God's hands. Like Mrs. 
 Stowe in the writing of " Uncle Tom's Cabin," 
 Johnson had no thought of doing any great 
 thing. Ho did not wish to be famous. A 
 door opened before him, and he entered it. 
 A work was before him, and he undertook it 
 
PREFACE 11 
 
 for Grod, or rather he consented to have God 
 do all the work, feeling himself to be only a 
 tool, a vessel, in the Master's hand. And, as 
 God always does when He finds a perfectly 
 willing instrument, He wrought mightily 
 through him, and compelled all who saw it 
 to confess, " Surely this is the finger of God." 
 
 It has been well said of another book writ- 
 ten on Africa that it supplies " a text for a 
 scoffer." This narrative, on the contrary, fur- 
 nishes a whole volume of apologetics and evi- 
 dences for a true believer. 
 
 The author of this present volume has no 
 higher desire than that the perusal of this 
 pathetic and romantic story of a heroic life 
 may prompt many to follow in the same path 
 of consecrated service, and that it may prove 
 a special encouragement and inspiration to 
 the great body of Student Volunteers in the 
 new missionary crusade. 
 
 Aethue T. Pieeson. 
 
 1127 Dean Street, Brooklyn, N. Y., 1897. 
 
SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 MADE MEET FOR THE MASTER'S USE 
 
 The preparation of the instrument is the 
 first step in service. Aristotle says in effect 
 that without some mixture of madness there 
 is no great genius, and that notliing grand or 
 superior is ever spoken, except by an agitated 
 souL 
 
 There is a truth akin to this in spiritual life. 
 Stagnation is death. Without action and 
 warmth there is no power. The genius of 
 goodness, the energy of service, are always ac- 
 companied with the heart-heat of holy ardor, 
 fervor, zeal, often with a fanaticism that cold 
 critics stigmatize as madness; a passion for 
 
 13 
 
14 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 souls that keeps the whole being in a sublime 
 agitation makes inaction more wearisome 
 than the most exhausting labors. " We must 
 not be afraid," said the lamented Keith Fal- 
 coner, " of being ridiculed as eccentric. Ec- 
 centric is out of center, and he who is revolv- 
 ing about Christ and concentric — in center — 
 as to Him, will be eccentric — out of center — as 
 to the world." 
 
 Of these principles the subject of this sketch 
 was a unique example and illustration. He 
 was strangely moved by a mighty j^assion for 
 Christ and for men — divinely agitated, for 
 God's angel stirred the pool of his being ; but 
 the agitation was the sign of healing virtue 
 in the waters, and the man so moved to his 
 depths became a Bethesda to those who were 
 sick and deformed and crippled by sin. Yet 
 so manifest was it that in him God had chosen 
 the poor, weak, despised nothing, in human 
 eyes, to bring to naught the forms and forces 
 of evil, that no one was either able or disposed 
 to dispute that the excellency of the power 
 was of God and not of men. This is a suffi- 
 cient reason for giving prominence to this 
 
MADE MEET FOR THE MASTER'S USE 15 
 
 brief story of seven years: it furnishes so 
 singularly luminous an example of the readi- 
 ness of an omnipotent God to display His own 
 strength and grace through an instrument 
 manifestly too impotent to work such results 
 in his own might. 
 
 It is now about eighty years ago when a 
 young man from Hanover, Germany, applied 
 to the Church Missionary Society for service 
 in the mission field. He desired, with his 
 wife, to engage in teaching. The application 
 led to inquiry about them and an interview 
 with them. Both applicants impressed the 
 committee favorably; their personal charac- 
 ter, views of truth, and singleness of aim com- 
 mended them to the judgment of the society, 
 and they were willing to give themselves en- 
 tirely to the work of God. William Augustine 
 Bernard Johnson was the name of the man, 
 whose brief career is now to be outlined ; and 
 so satisfactory were the results of the commit- 
 tee's investigations that he and his wife were 
 at once engaged to go as schoolmaster and 
 schoolmistress to Africa, so soon as proper 
 instruction had been given them. 
 
16 SE^EN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 Johnson was then working in a sugar-re- 
 finery in London, and the prompt acceptance 
 of him on the part of the wise brethren of the 
 committee proves that something in the man 
 must have won for him golden opinions. It 
 was certainly neither his looks nor his learn- 
 ing, for he was plain in person and com- 
 paratively uncultured. But there was a 
 transparent guilelessness and earnestness of 
 spirit which revealed itself from the first and 
 which marked the applicant as no common 
 man. 
 
 Some three years previous to this time he 
 had been brought to the acceptance of Jesus as 
 a Saviour by a somewhat remarkable dealing 
 of God. He had been left to peculiar destitu- 
 tion, was ill clad and half starved. His wife 
 was in bed, weak and weeping for hunger, and 
 this doubled his distress. He cast himself on 
 the bed and tossed in agony from side to side, 
 feeling utterly friendless and forsaken, and 
 not knowing how to get relief. 
 
 He had been taught, when a child of eight 
 years, by his schoolmaster, to repeat on Mon- 
 day mornings something of the sermon he had 
 
MADE MEET FOR THE MASTER'S USE 17 
 
 heard the day before ; and a text which had 
 thus long been fixed in memory now recurred 
 to his mind : 
 
 " Call upon Me in the day of trouble ; 
 I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me." 
 
 That promise had obtained its peculiar fas- 
 tening in his mind in a somewhat curious way. 
 When he repeated it to his schoolmaster he 
 was rebuked because all he could recall was a 
 verse of Scripture, and so that circumstance 
 rooted it in his recollection. And now, after 
 seventeen years, it came forcibly to his mind : 
 " Call upon Me ! " " Surely," he said, " this is 
 a * day of trouble.' Will He deliver me — me, 
 who have sinned so against Him % And now 
 may I, indeed, call upon God to deliver me ! " 
 As though the great white throne were set up 
 and the " books were opened," he seemed to 
 read the dark record of all his sins. He was 
 in despair. No prospect here but want and 
 woe, and no prospect beyond but a meeting 
 with an angry God. 
 
 The next morning he went to work at the 
 distillery, where he received the meager pit- 
 tance of eighteen shillings sterling a week; 
 
18 SEVEN YE.4RS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 and, as he afterward confessed, lie went with 
 the feelings of a madman. When breakfast- 
 hour came, and the other workmen left for 
 home, he did the same, not expecting a meal, 
 but only because to stay there would cause 
 suspicion. 
 
 His wife met him at the door, smiling, and 
 led him to an ample morning meal. Judge 
 his astonishment to learn that a lady from 
 India, who had taken a house near by, had ap- 
 plied to his wife for some one to stay with her, 
 and had given her four shillings, bidding her 
 put the house in order, and promising her fur- 
 ther payments for her service. 
 
 The hungry man was amazed at the good- 
 ness of God, who had granted so merciful a 
 deliverance, even in advance of being called 
 upon ; but his load of sin seemed only heavier, 
 and he tried to pray, but seemed only to be 
 adding sin to sin. In a vague hope of finding 
 help in his despairing state, he went on the 
 Friday following to a prayer-meeting held 
 in the Savoy German chui'ch. There a Mr. 
 Lehman, a ]\Ioravian missionary, gave an ex- 
 hortation, telling of Jesus and His love for 
 
MADE MEET FOR THE MASTER'S USE 19 
 
 sinners, and how He came into the world to 
 save them. Like young Spurgeon in the Prim- 
 itive Methodist meeting-house in Colchester, 
 — when the minister, preaching on the text, 
 " Look unto Me, and be ye saved," seemed to 
 be preaching right at him, — Johnson felt that 
 the message was for him, and he cried to 
 Jesus for mercy. He found he could pray, 
 and believed that his sins were forgiven, and 
 joy unspeakable and full of glory seemed to 
 be pouring a new flood into his soul. 
 
 It was a marked conversion, and brought 
 an assurance and confidence of his own 
 saved state, that he was a child of God, which 
 is essential for all true work for Christ. No 
 man is fitted to guide a sinner to Christ who 
 does not himself know the way, both doc- 
 trinally and experimentally. In all preaching 
 the one commanding qualification — the very 
 anointing of divine authority — is found in 
 experience. We are witnesses, and witness is 
 limited by personal knowledge. The deeper 
 the hold on Christ, the mightier the grip on 
 souls. Johnson had this basis of all qualifi- 
 cations : a clear, unmistakable conversion, an 
 
20 SE^EN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 experience of gi*ace ; and was thus furnished 
 with what Dr. Judson considered the great, 
 first, indispensable requisite for a missionary, 
 namely, a firm conviction and consciousness 
 of his own conversion. He at once felt, like Dr. 
 Duff, a great desire to be the means of conver- 
 sion to his fellow-sinners, which he believed 
 must be the case with every other true-hearted 
 disciple. To him the experience of saving 
 grace impelled and compelled a testimony. 
 He began with his wife, whom he undertook 
 to tell of his own renewal and to persuade to 
 accept Christ ; but he found that only God can 
 bring a soul out of darkness into light. He 
 then turned to his fellow- workmen, trying the 
 same experiment, with the same result, being 
 met by some of them with scornful laughter 
 as though he were a fool, or by others with 
 hateful sneers as though he were a h>T)ocrite. 
 His first efforts at faithful witnessing for 
 Christ met only apathy, if not antipathy, yet 
 even persecution did not drive him to silence. 
 The demand being made upon him for Sun- 
 day work, which he could not conscientiously 
 meet, he left his situation for another, as ware- 
 
M^DE MEET FOR THE MASTER'S USE 21 
 
 houseman in a sugar-honse in Prince's Place, 
 Cable Street. He then joined the Savoy 
 church, and was wont to go with his wife on 
 Sunday evenings to Zion Chapel. By invita- 
 tion of a young man, he went one Wednesday 
 evening to Pell Street Chapel, where on the 
 Sunday evening following he heard a Mr. 
 Stodhardt preach, whom he was able to un- 
 derstand better than any other Christian min- 
 ister whom he had hitherto heard. His text 
 on that night was, " There is no peace, saith 
 my God, to the wicked." He had never be- 
 fore heard so much of the Saviour of sinners, 
 and was so attracted by this simple gospel 
 message that henceforth he and his wife reg- 
 ularly attended at this place of worship. His 
 half-informed mind staggered much at the 
 doctrine of free and saving grace, but after- 
 ward, under the teachings of the Holy Spirit, 
 these same truths became the staple of his 
 whole ministry. 
 
 About the month of November, 1813, in a 
 meeting at the chapel in Fetter Lane, where 
 missionaries were addressed, Johnson was 
 present ; and there more than ever before he 
 
22 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 realized the high privilege and calling of a 
 Christian disciple and the misery and wretch- 
 edness of the benighted heathen, and the 
 yearning to tell them of Christ burst into a 
 new flame. At first he felt that he himself 
 could never go, having no real ability or 
 education, and encumbered with an uncon- 
 verted wife ; but the constraint of love was 
 upon him, and he offered himself to the Lord 
 just as he was, saying, " Here am I ; send me." 
 That night he watered his couch with tears, 
 turning his face to the wall and communing 
 with the Lord out of the fullness of his heart. 
 
 No disciple ever takes his stand for God 
 without finding Satan at his right hand to 
 resist him, and it seemed as though the devH 
 were heaping up damp rubbish and wet earth 
 to quench the flame of holy desires. All sorts 
 of discouragements and difficulties were piled 
 up before him : he feared the society would 
 not accept a married man, an ignorant man, 
 a newly converted man. Such suggestions 
 di-agged him down into great darkness, and 
 he even became careless and prayerless. 
 
 Again Mr. Stodhardt was used of God to 
 
M/iDE MEET FOR THE MASTER'S USE 23 
 
 bring him relief. In a sermon lie asked, " Are 
 any of you in darkness ? If so, search your- 
 selves, for something is the reason why God 
 hides His face." This remark compelled close 
 examination, and Johnson saw that ever since 
 he discouraged the desire for missionary work 
 he had been sinking into deeper gloom. He 
 was constrained to cry out, " Yes, that is it, 
 that is it ! With Thee nothing is impossible. 
 Lord, send me ! send me ! " Thus the flame 
 of missionary zeal was rekindled, and he was 
 brought into closer relations with God, and 
 every Christian grace seemed once more to 
 flourish. 
 
 A new yearning for the conversion of his 
 wife possessed him, that together they might 
 join the church In Pell Street, which was 
 close by his lodgings and had become such 
 a Pool of Siloam in his spiritual blindness. 
 Again Mr. Stodhardt's message proved a word 
 from God. One of his remarks was that if we 
 continue to pray for any particular blessing, 
 in faith, it will surely be granted.* This 
 stimulated more importunate and believing 
 
 * 1 John V. 15, 16. 
 
24 SEI/EN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 intercession in his wife's behalf, and strength- 
 ened his confidence that a prayer-hearing God 
 would single her out for a special blessing. 
 Unbelief, always so persistent and subtle, for 
 a time regained control, and again a horror of 
 deep darkness seemed upon him. But the 
 grace of God was so exceeding abundant that, 
 while yet in this unbelieving state, his prayer 
 for his wife was answered; for, while as a 
 mere spectator she was looking on as the little 
 band of disciples surrounded the table of the 
 Lord at Pell Street Chapel, she was suddenly 
 convinced of sin, of righteousness, and of 
 judgment. 
 
 Her husband felt that he had now come into 
 unclouded day. But so strangely successful 
 are Satan's de\4ces that, shortly after, an- 
 other pall of gloom overspread him : his heart 
 seemed as ice for coldness, and as stone or 
 steel for hardness ; he felt himself insensible 
 ■ to all divine impressions, and could not even 
 pray. 
 
 Few human experiences are more remark- 
 able as proofs of God's direct care over us 
 than what may be called gracious providences. 
 
MADE MEET FOR THE MASTER'S USE 25 
 
 At critical times such relief conies, from 
 most unexpected sources, as demonstrates 
 that He who alone knows our heart-sickness 
 and faintness has sent us the exact medicine 
 for our ills. For example, how often Mr. 
 Stodhardt proved himself the messenger from 
 above, the angel of the church, the channel 
 of a divine communication to this benighted 
 soul; in repeated instances, though himself 
 unconscious of the fact, applying the balm of 
 Gilead to the sore heart of Johnson ! How 
 was it — if we leave out God as the controlling 
 and guiding power — that at this very time he 
 was led to expound the first seven verses of 
 Paul's first letter to Timothy, which are the 
 only words specially addressed to such as 
 "desire the ofiice of a bishop"? And how 
 was it that he was led to say that, when once 
 a yearning is awakened in the heart for ser- 
 vice in the ministry or any other particular 
 calling, if that yearning he enkindled hy the 
 Spirit of God, it will prove a fire not easily 
 quenched, and after every attempt to dampen 
 or put it out will again burst into flame ; in 
 other words, a divinely created yearning can- 
 
2G SEyEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 not be silenced, but will not rest until it is ac- 
 complished. What wonder that a word so in 
 season was an arrow in the heart of Johnson ! 
 He felt that so far as he had resisted this de- 
 sire to be a missionary he had quenched the 
 Spirit ; and this conviction at first made the 
 darkness deeper, until one day a promise of 
 God brought again the day-dawn : " My gi'ace 
 is sufficient for thee : for My strength is made 
 perfect in weakness." 
 
 He now sought Mr. Stodhardt and poured 
 out his soul to him, and was advised by him 
 
 to go to a Mr. A , who often met with the 
 
 committee of the London Missionary Society. 
 He resolved to follow this counsel, and that 
 night, also, fully to acquaint his wife with his 
 strong desire after the mission field. Like 
 Carey, he was met with a rebuff; she replied 
 that she could not think of such a course for 
 herself, preferring to stay where she was, but 
 that if he wanted to go she would not keep 
 him. Thus a new discouragement disheart- 
 ened him ; but he gave himself unto prayer, 
 and so quickly did the answer come that but 
 a few days later he found his wife moved by 
 
MADE MEET FOR THE MASTER'S USE 27 
 
 as great a desire as himself to go into the 
 world field. 
 
 While waiting to hear the result of Mr. 
 A 's promised interposition with the com- 
 mittee of the London Missionary Society, he 
 was told by Mr. Diiiing, who was in the em- 
 ploy of the Church Missionary Society, that 
 they would send out with himself another la- 
 borer, and again hope was kindled that he 
 might be chosen as Mr. Diiring's companion. 
 A conversation followed with Mr. Pratt, who 
 brought the matter before the committee; 
 and about a fortnight later both Mr. John- 
 son and his wife met the committee and were 
 accepted, as has been recorded in the pre- 
 vious pages. 
 
 And now Johnson fell into a new snare. 
 His wife became ill, and the temptation to 
 despair because of his conscious inability and 
 incompetency once more oppressed him ; and 
 yet again his pastor was the unconscious in- 
 strument of Grod in lifting him out of the hor- 
 rible pit of despondency, by a sermon on these 
 words: "Because the foolishness of God is 
 wiser than men ; and the weakness of God is 
 
28 SE^EN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 stronger than men."* As though to em- 
 phasize the fitness of his message, Mr. Stod- 
 hardt, in connection with this discourse, 
 chanced to mention a fellow-student, who 
 after three years at college could not so much 
 as learn English grammar, and who neverthe- 
 less was greatly used as a preacher of the 
 good news. 
 
 Strange as it may seem, even with such 
 support, Johnson sank down again into the 
 miry clay of doubt, and so deeply that he 
 began to question whether he was himself a 
 saved man. Given over for a time to that 
 fatal folly of morbid introspection, he kept 
 searching into himself, as though anything 
 but despondency could come from within, 
 unless it were a confidence even more delusive. 
 The great Adversary again tempted him to 
 give up at once and forever all thoughts of 
 mission work, and so to announce to the com- 
 mittee of the Church Missionary Society. 
 But in a dream Grod spoke to him, and that 
 precious promise which once before had 
 proved a rock beneath his feet — "My grace 
 
 * 1 Cor. i. 25. 
 
MADE MEET FOR THE MASTER'S USE 29 
 
 is sufficient for thee" — became to this lowly- 
 disciple what it had been to the great apostle 
 to the Gentiles, a firm standing-place and 
 resting-place. God so powerfully impressed 
 on his mind His own all-sufficiency as to re- 
 move absolutely all his fear. Let not the 
 reader fail to note how conspicuous was the 
 intervention of God's inspired Word at every 
 crisis of Johnson's experience. Whenever de- 
 liverance came, it came through the infallible 
 Book, and so it was to the close of life. He 
 never fell into any snare without finding re- 
 lief and release in the Holy Scriptures both 
 for himself and for others. How true it is : 
 " The entrance of Thy words giveth light " ! 
 
 A new doubt now arose, with regard to the 
 place of his destination. There was in the 
 entire world field no darker spot than Sierra 
 Leone. Mary Lyon used to say to the girls 
 at Holyoke, " If you would be true servants 
 of God, be ready to go where no one else 
 will;" and it was just such a test which was 
 now applied to this humble believer. He was 
 warned that the district of the Dark Continent 
 for which he was designated represented the 
 
30 SE^EN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 intensity of its darkness, the worst of its 
 habitations of iniquity and cruelty. The final 
 question, the supreme test, now to be applied 
 to him was : Are you willing to go where no 
 one else will ? 
 
 Thus far in this volunteer's experience 
 there had been little else than a series of dis- 
 appointments, discouragements, and delays. 
 Is there no lesson to be learned from Grod's 
 strange way of dealing with this His chosen 
 servant ? Has it not been a common experi- 
 ence of those whom God calls to and fits for 
 some special service, that at the very outset 
 they are severely tested as to the sincerity 
 of their self-surrender and the persistency of 
 their purpose ? 
 
 When Christ said to Simon Peter, "Whither 
 I go, thou canst not follow Me now," he im- 
 petuously and impatiently replied, "Lord, 
 why cannot I follow thee nowf I am ready 
 to go with Thee both to prison and to death. 
 I will lay down my life for Thy sake." Jesus 
 calmly answered : " Wilt thou lay down thy 
 life for My sake ? Verily, verily, I say unto 
 thee, The cock shall not crow this night, 
 
MADE MEET FOR THE MASTER'S USE 31 
 
 till thou hast thrice denied that thou know- 
 est Me." 
 
 Here was a disciple that loved Jesus, and 
 felt both desirous to go anywhere with Him 
 and ready to follow Him at risk of imprison- 
 ment and death . He was sincere, but he did not 
 know himself ; and even after this awful warn- 
 ing he was still so self-complacent and self- 
 confident that he only the more vehemently 
 declared his devotion to his Master at any 
 cost. But the omniscient eye saw Satan at 
 that moment preparing for his unwary feet a 
 snare into which he would fall — saw that he 
 would commit a sin of denial next in guilt to 
 Judas's betrayal, and that his faith would 
 utterly fail but for his Master's prayers. 
 
 The warning is plain. A sincere and ear- 
 nest disciple, who feels ready to go at once, 
 anywhere, at any risk, for his Lord's sake, may 
 be impetuous in spirit and impatient of divine 
 delays. Perhaps the Lord sees that he does not 
 know himself, that he needs the test of patient 
 waiting. It may be, only a lapse into sin can 
 show him how weak and wiKul and wayward 
 he is; that he must, in a sense, be "con- 
 
32 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 verted " before lie can be used to strengthen 
 his brethren ; that perhaps he is not yet filled 
 with the Spirit and must tarry until he is 
 endued with power from on high. 
 
 There is singular pathos in those words, 
 "Whither I go," — to Gethsemane's passion 
 and Golgotha's cross, — " thou canst not follow 
 Me now ; but thou shalt follow Me afterward." 
 Not now. God's time may not yet be fully 
 come, but our time is always ready. Yet is 
 it not true that we are least ready when we 
 think we are most ready f Resolute, indeed, 
 but often in the crises of temptation resolu- 
 tion snaps like the green withes or new ropes 
 which bound Samson ; vehement, indeed, but 
 much vehemence is the mere movement of 
 fleshly energy, not the momentum of spirit- 
 ual force and power. Carlyle quaintly says : 
 " Vehemence is not strength. A man is not 
 strong who takes convulsion-fits, though six 
 men cannot hold him then." 
 
 The subsequent career of this missionary 
 shows that he needed just this discipline of 
 delay. He who would follow Christ must 
 wait His beck and bidding, His time and 
 
MADE MEET FOR THE MASTER'S USE 33 
 
 way, and wait also for his own full testing 
 and training. When we confidently feel ready 
 for heroic martyi'dom, He may see us on 
 the verge of cowardly denial or betrayal. At 
 every stage of service we must leave ourselves 
 wholly in His hands. Even the chosen vessel 
 needs cleansing and filling — it may be, needs 
 breaking and remaking — before it will be " a 
 vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the 
 Master's use, and prepared unto every good 
 work." 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE LAND OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH 
 
 That must have been a weirdly awful scene 
 when, in May, 1890, Henry Varley, the evan- 
 gelist, preached to a throng of five thousand 
 people in the vast crater of Mount Eden, New 
 Zealand. 
 
 Johnson's appointed field of labor was a 
 crater; not a burnt-out crater, but the very 
 mouth of a burning, seething, restless hell of 
 iniquity. As this small section of western 
 Africa must so prominently figure in this 
 biographical sketch, it is well to rehearse the 
 peculiar circumstances under which Sierra 
 Leone was settled. 
 
 Its name is due to the fancied resemblance 
 of the contour of its hills to a lion's form. In 
 1787 a settlement was projected by Grranville 
 Sharp and other philanthropists, in order to 
 
 34 
 
THE LAND OF THE SH/IDOIV OF DEATH 35 
 
 provide a suitable home for destitute negroes 
 from different parts of the world, as well as 
 to establish a center whence a Christian civ- 
 ilization might reach out into other parts of 
 the Dark Continent. At this time there were 
 in London a large number -of blacks whom it 
 was desired to remove from the city for the 
 relief of the city itself, and it was thought 
 that Sierra Leone would afford a good colonial 
 settlement for the several purposes in view. 
 Four hundred and seventy destitute negroes 
 were removed thereto in 1787 by the London 
 committee. Eleven hundred and ninety-six 
 others were sent there from Nova Scotia in 
 1790, the northern climate proving too severe 
 for them. The population was further in- 
 creased by other transportations of people of 
 color, and, after the abolition of the slave-trade, 
 in 1807, slaves captured by the British cruisers 
 were put ashore there and settled. In 1789 
 the settlement had been plundered and de- 
 stroyed by a band of pirates. Sharp, Wilber- 
 force, and others had then formed the Sierra 
 Leone Company, and Freetown became the 
 center of the colony. The inhabitants suffered 
 
36 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 greatly from fever, and the French in 1794 
 made Sierra Leone the scene of further in- 
 roads and phmders. After the reestablish- 
 nient of the colony it was finally transferred, 
 in 1808, to the British government, since 
 which time it has steadily advanced. 
 
 This was the field of labor to which William 
 Johnson was to go, and it is not strange if, as 
 he thought of the scene of his labors, it pre- 
 sented little attraction. He could not forget 
 that there was the dumping-ground for the 
 world's refuse population, ignorant and de- 
 graded people, rescued from the holds of 
 slave-ships, or exported from overcrowded 
 cities like London, where they had become an 
 intolerable stench in the nostrils of the com- 
 munity. As Johnson thought of such a hope- 
 less field of work, a darkness that might be felt 
 seemed to envelop him. But once again there 
 came to him light through a promise of God. 
 
 "I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not ; 
 
 I will lead them in paths they have not known : 
 
 I will make darkness light before them, 
 
 And crooked things straight. 
 These things will I do nnto them, and not forsake them." * 
 
 * Isaiah xlii. 16. 
 
THE LAND OF THE SHADOiV OF DEATH 37 
 
 On the eleventh day of March, 1816, John- 
 son and his wife embarked on board the Eclio^ 
 sailing for Sierra Leone, and the missionary 
 career of this devoted servant of God was 
 thus actually begun. On the 27th of April 
 following, with Messrs. Horton, Diiring, Jost, 
 and their wives, they reached Freetown in 
 safety. The voyage had not been without 
 incidents of interest. Twice divine deliver- 
 ances had been wrought in answer to prayer 
 — once when Johnson was taken dangerously 
 iU, and again when by some carelessness or 
 mismanagement the ship had been driven so 
 close to the rocks that it was almost impossi- 
 ble to avoid its being dashed in pieces. 
 
 When the missionaries, meeting at Sierra 
 Leone, divided up the field among the labor- 
 ers, Hogbrook, afterward known as Regent's 
 Town, was appointed as Johnson's particular 
 station. He was candidly made acquainted 
 with the fact that many negroes were there, 
 and in a fearful slough of mingled wickedness, 
 woe, and want. But — keeping that promise 
 before him, " I will bring the blind by a way 
 that they knew not," and feehng that he had 
 
38 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 not chosen the field for himself, but had been 
 chosen by God for the field — instead of being 
 driven into darkness by the unpromising 
 aspects of his work, he found light in looking 
 up to God and was enabled even to rejoice and 
 exult in Him. A deep conviction possessed 
 him, at the outset, that God's Spirit both could 
 and would uphold him and his fellow-laborers 
 in their humble efforts, and make them the 
 means of salvation to multitudes of these de- 
 based negi'oes. In this strong faith we may 
 find a prophecy of the actual results. " We 
 are saved by hope." Despair never yet 
 achieved anything but disaster. There was 
 something about Johnson that led others 
 to expect results. Mr. Bickersteth, who had 
 arrived about six months earlier, soon dis- 
 cerned the worth of a man of such conse- 
 crated spirit, so dead to the world and self, 
 and so devoted to the Lord ; and he early pre- 
 dicted that, wherever the providence of God 
 might place Johnson, a blessing would surely 
 follow. 
 
 AmoDg Johnson's earliest utterances in 
 his new field was a memorable tribute to the 
 
THE LAND OF THE SHADOU^ OF DEATH 39 
 
 power of God's Spirit, which is here put 
 prominently in the forefront of the narrative, 
 since it is of main consequence, not so much 
 that we trace even so remarkable a career, as 
 that we penetrate to those secrets of success 
 which are, like God Himself, essentially the 
 same yesterday and to-day and forever. 
 
 Among the earliest entries in his journal, 
 he records how, when confronted with the 
 terrible degradation and depravity of the 
 Hogbrook negroes, he felt "fully convinced 
 that if God the Holy Spirit stopped them, as 
 it were, in their mad career, although some 
 of the wildest cannibals in Africa, they could 
 not any longer resist." This is another fac- 
 tor in this marvelous career which explains 
 its manifold and multiplied successes. Two 
 we have already noticed — the constant resort 
 for guidance to the infallible Book of God, 
 and the bold approach in prayer to the throne 
 of grace. Here is the third : William John- 
 son honored and trusted the Holy Spirit of 
 God. Keeping these three great facts full in 
 view, we shall need no other philosophy to 
 account for these seven years in Sierra Leone. 
 
40 SE^BN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 Soon after Johnson's arrival at the colony he 
 went to the Yongroo district to introduce Bell's 
 system of education. Its author, Andrew 
 Bell, D.D. — who was born at St. Andrews in 
 1753, and died in 1832 — while at Madras act- 
 ing as chaplain, was intrusted by the direc- 
 tors of the East India Company with the 
 management of the school for the education 
 of the orphans of the European militia. He 
 obtained the services of well-qualified teachers, 
 and adopted the expedient of conducting the 
 school by the aid of the pupils themselves. 
 Hence originated the famous "monitorial 
 system," so called, whereby the school or 
 family might teach itself under the superin- 
 tendence of a master or parent. This meth- 
 od is here briefly outlined because Johnson 
 availed himself of it in the educational work 
 of the colony. 
 
 He found the children more active and 
 quick to apprehend than he had expected. 
 While in the Yongroo district he also met two 
 natives, each of whom came to him saying, 
 " Me wish to learn Book ; me know nothing ;" 
 and whom he began at once to teach to read 
 
THE LAND OF THE SHADOIV OF DEATH 41 
 
 the Word of God, this experience being a fore- 
 cast and foretaste of what he was afterward to 
 see more largely developed — the intense de- 
 sire for a knowledge of the divine Book. 
 
 In June, less than two months after land- 
 ing, Johnson removed to Hogbrook, where 
 he found fifteen hundred released slaves wait- 
 ing to be taught. As he looked upon this 
 mixed company — the very refuse of human- 
 ity — he felt that no mere human teaching 
 could reach and raise them to any higher 
 dignity; but he planted his faith firmly on 
 this conviction : that with God nothing is im- 
 possible, and that it was the lost that Jesus 
 came to seek and to save. He remembered 
 that God's Word is a hammer that breaks in 
 pieces the flinty rock, and that God's Spirit 
 is a fire that melts and subdues all things; 
 and he undertook his work, simply waiting 
 on God, confidently trusting in almighty 
 power and love, dependently looking to the 
 Holy Spirit to give all increase, and will- 
 ing and desirous that all praise, honor, and 
 glory should accrue to God alone. Every 
 word above written should be weighed and 
 
42 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 pondered. "We are starting out on a path of 
 narration in which are to be traced some of the 
 most marvelous signs of God's working since 
 apostolic days; and it is first of all needful, 
 for the full profit of this study, that we fix in 
 our minds the human conditions which made 
 it possible for divine power to be so singu- 
 larly exhibited. 
 
 Let repetition first make emphatic the ab- 
 solute hopelessness of this field of labor to 
 human eyes. Johnson's first impressions no 
 subsequent changes could ever efface. He 
 could never forget the scene engraved on his 
 mind and heart as he first looked on the de- 
 graded herds of human swine at Hogbrook. 
 As Li\dngstone confessed a half-century later 
 in the wilds of equatorial Africa, he felt as 
 though he were in hell itself and breathing 
 the sulphurous atmosphere of the bottomless 
 abyss. Such utter wretchedness and un- 
 speakable vileness he had never before seen ; 
 and, withal, sin brought forth death literally, 
 for six or seven died in a day. 
 
 Again he said within himself, "Is there any 
 hope ? " But he dared not give way to despair. 
 
THE LAND OF THE SHADOIV OF DEATH 43 
 
 Could not God make visible even to these 
 and among these, who were the offscouring 
 of the world, His saving power ? The words 
 of Jesus came with strange force to his mind : 
 " So the last shall be first, and the first last." 
 And so he freshly resolved, "I will simply 
 go and tell these poor creatures of the love 
 of Christ, and rest on God's promise, 'My 
 word shall not return unto Me void.' " 
 
 He began at once to carry out his purpose. 
 He found very few of them who could speak 
 even a broken Enghsh. The greater propor- 
 tion of them, being taken from slave-ships 
 and originally captured from different Afri- 
 can tribes, were, of course, ignorant of one 
 another's language and had no common 
 vehicle of conversation or communication, 
 except a sort of dialect, generally found in 
 such cases, in which English words were 
 thrown together without grammatical forms 
 or connections, but sufficiently intelligible to 
 convey meaning. Of course the capacity 
 to understand English was correspondingly 
 limited, and their teacher found himself com- 
 pelled to use only such words and sentences 
 
44 SE^EN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 as are of the simplest sort, adapted to a child's 
 mind and measure of intelligence. 
 
 It was a happy circumstance that it was 
 not necessary to describe what he found in 
 this new field. The misery of Hogbrook, or 
 Regent's Town, could not be conceived by an 
 outsider even if adequately portrayed, but it 
 could not be put in words. He found some 
 in an actual state of starvation, and to them 
 it was his business to deal out rations of food 
 first of all. He was himself living in a leaky 
 hut, with no bed but the ground, with no 
 covering but a blanket, his wife remaining 
 elsewhere until a decent dwelling could be 
 built at Hogbrook. He describes himself as 
 " in a wilderness," but adds : " ' In the wilder- 
 ness shall waters break out, and streams in 
 the desert. And the parched ground shall be- 
 come a pool, and the thirsty land springs of 
 water.' " Thus did the Lord prove to His ser- 
 vant the truth of His own promise that, when 
 God's words are found and we do eat them, 
 they are the joy and rejoicing of our hearts. 
 There is some message of God supplied for 
 every time of need. 
 
THE LAND OF THE SHADOIV OF DEATH 45 
 
 Another discouragement threatened the 
 work just begun: the strongest member of 
 this little missionary band was the first to 
 succumb to the treacherous African climate, 
 namely, Mr. Jost ; but Grod sustained John- 
 son. He strengthened himself in the Lord 
 and with new vigor took up daily duty as 
 one who has been forcibly reminded that the 
 time is short. 
 
 The influence of superstition is enslaving 
 in proportion to the otherwise low level of the 
 poor victims who are in bondage to it. Igno- 
 rance is the mother of superstition, and, be- 
 cause the ignorance of these natives was ex- 
 treme, their fears were correspondingly easy 
 to excite and hard to allay. The worship of 
 fetishes is inseparable from such a low level, 
 and in his whole experience among these peo- 
 ple Johnson found the power of gree-grees 
 immense. These are charms, whose fasci- 
 nation consists, more than anything else, in 
 the mystery which invests them. A piece of 
 buffalo hide or alligator's skin, within which 
 is sewed up an unknown something, — a bit 
 of an elephant's tooth, a serpent's fang or 
 
46 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 rattle, a strip of parchment with a few char- 
 acters from the Koran, a piece of glass, or 
 almost anything else, with or without value, 
 — suffices to command a veneration scarcely 
 second in degree to the homage paid to the 
 most august and gigantic idol. On one of 
 his mission tours in the colony Johnson 
 found a very superstitious man, who had 
 formerly lived at Regent's Town, but had left 
 it for some district less enlightened by the 
 gospel, where he could live more securely 
 after the fashion of his pagan countrymen. 
 In a word, he was one who, doing evil, hates 
 the light and withdraws into the darkness to 
 escape its reproving ray. He was in bondage 
 to gree-grees ; and in hope to show him the 
 worthlessness of his charms — the powerless- 
 ness of his little god — Johnson had cut open 
 the leather in which one was sewed and found 
 it to contain nothing but a piece of paper — 
 the old wrapper belonging to a cake of soap, 
 and upon which was the stamp of the manufac- 
 turer, "Grenuine Windsor Soap." The vain 
 charm was exposed to the man and his compan- 
 ions, evoking hearty laughter. This gree-gree 
 
THE LAND OF THE SHADOJV OF DEATH 47 
 
 had a history that is instructive and sugges- 
 tive. Its owner had bought it, for one shil- 
 ling and threepence sterling, of a Mandingo 
 man, a Mohammedan — an example of the 
 way in which these deluded people are prac- 
 tised upon by Moslems. And yet these gree- 
 grees and " devils' houses " were then to be 
 seen everywhere through the colony. 
 
 One of the deepest shadows which the 
 missionary found, even in this land of the 
 death-shade, was the complete degradation of 
 the people, and the utter inadequacy of such 
 terms as they understood to convey any 
 proper conceptions of divine things. This 
 double discouragement confronted him every- 
 where, and would have confounded him, had 
 he not remembered that the things which are 
 impossible with men are possible with God. 
 Here were minds and hearts so brutalized 
 with sin and so fossilized into insensibility 
 that to make any wholesome impression on 
 them seemed hopeless ; and the only medium 
 of conveying such impression was language 
 that had sunk to their own low level. He 
 who is to lift men needs a lifting force, and 
 
48 SEi^EN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 in this case the force, or at least the fulcrum, 
 was what was lacking. 
 
 For example, William Davis went toward 
 Cockle Bay to speak to his country-people of 
 Jesus, and, on returning, told Johnson that he 
 met some natives, whom he besought to go 
 to Wilberforce to hear Mr. Gates preach, but 
 who replied that, as they did not understand 
 English, they could not even pray to God. 
 There was in this a deeper meaning than they 
 knew, for their vernacular was so hopelessly 
 interwoven with their abominations and su- 
 perstitions that it seemed incapable of con- 
 veying Christian ideas. Mr. Davis had indeed 
 assured them that He who knows our desires 
 and thoughts can read the heart's longing 
 even through the most imperfect dialect, but 
 we must not lose sight of the fact that such 
 native speech presented a mountain obstacle 
 in the way of gospel triumph. 
 
 Again, the shadow of imported vices rested 
 on this land. It was found necessary to ex- 
 plain to these slaves the word " Christmas " 
 and the meaning of the festivities associated 
 with our Lord's nativity. There had been 
 
THE LAND OF THE SHADOIV OF DEATH 49 
 
 introduced, by Europeans, a custom of almost 
 universal intoxication ; every one made as 
 much noise as possible, and gunning, dan- 
 cing, drumming, and most other forms of 
 boisterous and riotous celebration disgraced 
 the sacred day, carried to a great pitch of rev- 
 elry. But now Johnson had the joy of not- 
 ing that not a single person was intoxicated, 
 nor was there any unusual noise or distur- 
 bance on Christmas day. A reverent audi- 
 ence met at the service of worship in the morn- 
 ing, and in the evening he went to Leices- 
 ter Mountain to hold a missionary prayer- 
 meeting, accompanied by a crowd of about 
 four hundred men, women, and children. 
 
 The slave-trade added to all other curses 
 which rested upon Africa a darkness which 
 might be felt. It filled him with an un- 
 speakable horror, which reminds one of Liv- 
 ingstone's chronic impression about what he 
 called the "open sore of the world." As 
 cargo after cargo was landed from rescue 
 ships, and human beings were left to. be cared 
 for, and in the most deplorable condition, 
 from two hundred to as many as from eight 
 
50 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 hundred to twelve hundred at one time, 
 Johnson felt as though a door had been 
 opened into hell itself, giving him some faint 
 conception of the miseries of lost souls. 
 These rescued slaves were in every way liv- 
 ing pictures and parables of woe and want, 
 wretchedness and wickedness. The women 
 especially were sufferers ; most of all, the girls 
 from ten to twelve years of age. Most of the 
 children were taken ill, and many of them 
 died, too weak to resist disease. And, but 
 for the unselfish love that bore him up as in 
 everlasting arms, he acknowledged that he 
 would rather have been shut up in a dungeon 
 than have been compelled to behold the suf- 
 ferings, hear the sighs and groans, and witness 
 the dying agonies of these victims of man's 
 inhumanity to man. To save their lives 
 seemed a vain hope, and in some respects 
 scarcely desirable, for it meant a prolongation 
 of misery. To save their souls seemed even 
 more impossible in the brief time and amid 
 the limited opportunities which were avail- 
 able. 
 To add to the afflictions of this humble ser- 
 
THE LAND OF THE SHADOIV OF DEATH 51 
 
 vant of God, ophthalmia, which had broken 
 out at Regent's Town, had seized upon his 
 eyes, so that he could scarcely see. 
 
 And yet, amid all these surroundings, this 
 man of God undertook to hold forth that 
 Word which is at once light and life. The 
 church and school-house stood together on 
 one hill, in a large inclosure. The remainder 
 of the hill contained about twelve acres, and, 
 with the help of the children, was early 
 brought into a state of cultivation, which 
 promised in another year to furnish nearly 
 if not quite enough provision for the school 
 tables. At the close of the year 1817, and 
 after a residence of only eighteen months, 
 William Johnson could rejoicingly contem- 
 plate an improvement so rapid, regular, and 
 far-reaching that it may be questioned whe- 
 ther the like of it has been seen elsewhere 
 in missionary history. We have searched the 
 annals of the century without finding any 
 parallel, unless perhaps it be found in such as- 
 tonishing victories of the gospel as have been 
 exhibited in the Hawaiian Islands, in the 
 Telugu Mission in India, in Banza Manteke 
 
52 SEl/EN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 in equatorial Africa, and in northern Formosa 
 under George L. MacKay. Yet in some re- 
 spects what Johnson saw in Sierra Leone 
 surpasses, as it also precedes, them all. 
 
 This godly missionary found himself at the 
 close of this year, without any assistance, 
 amid labors, both temporal and spiritual, 
 which were overwhelming. The people to 
 whom he ministered were like feeble bulbs 
 set in the soil, with scarce life enough to sur- 
 vive, and needing constant watching and 
 nursing in order to their growth or even con- 
 tinued existence. And he was so pressed and 
 oppressed by the care of temporalities that 
 he could not attend as he would to the higher 
 interests of their souls. He had to oversee 
 blacksmiths, masons, carpenters, attend to 
 storekeeping and land-tilling, be a surveyor 
 and a purveyor, teach and preach, feed bodies 
 and feed souls, all at once. And yet he saw 
 Hogbrook already, after eighteen months, be- 
 coming a garden of the Lord, where the 
 spiritual features corresponded to the im- 
 proving material aspect and attraction. The 
 low brook which, running through the town, 
 
THE LAND OF THE SHADOIV OF DEATH 53 
 
 gave it its somliewat offensive name, was a 
 symbol of the river of the water of life, which 
 makes everything to live whither it cometh. 
 In this nnfruitful soil he sowed the double 
 seed of the kingdom : first the Word of God, 
 and secondly himself, content to fall into the 
 ground and die that he might bring forth 
 much fruit. And so it came to pass that, in 
 this region and shadow of death, again it be- 
 came true that " hght is sprung up." 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 RIGHTLY DIVIPING THE WORD OF TRUTH 
 
 When Mrs. Ingalls in Burma found herself 
 face to face with hundreds of thousands of 
 unsaved souls, she could not withhold from 
 them the message of salvation, and in her 
 simple way, like the woman of Samaria, be- 
 came the herald of the Saviour she had found. 
 When by conservative ecclesiastics she was 
 called to account for her itinerating tours, 
 and asked, "Were you ever ordained to 
 preach?" she replied, "No; but I was/oreor- 
 
 William Johnson had originally been sent 
 to Sierra Leone to teach school, but he had 
 been thrust by the very exigencies of the field 
 into the work of an evangehst, and had made 
 full proof of his ministry. Though not com- 
 missioned nor ordained by man to preach, 
 
 54 
 
RIGHTLY DIVIDING THE IVORD OF TRUTH 55 
 
 yet, in the presence of such want and woe, 
 such spiritual destitution and spiritual in- 
 quiry, he could only say to himself, " I have 
 no ability nor authority, but what can I 
 do? My heart is full, and if I should hold 
 my peace, the very stones would immediately 
 cry out." It had always been his desire to 
 preach the unsearchable riches of Christ, but 
 he had felt his unworthiness so deeply that 
 he doubted his call to this work. Grod Him- 
 self had now solved his perplexity in a very 
 practical way by constraining him to become 
 His witness in the presence of such abound- 
 ing need and in the absence of any who were 
 better qualified. The divine seal was on the 
 work and on the workman, and it was plain 
 that the Holy Spirit meant him for a service 
 much more extended and important than was 
 included in the first plan. He had uncon- 
 sciously grown into a first-class missionary, 
 and the committee in London felt that he 
 should be formally invested with all proper 
 authority for his wider work. Accordingly, 
 letters were written calling a meeting of the 
 missionaries, Butscher, Wylander, and Wen- 
 
56 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 zel, for his ordination' as a Lutheran min- 
 ister. 
 
 Meanwhile nine more adults were baptized 
 and other candidates were waiting. The 
 Saturday evening prayer service was notably 
 a time of special blessing, and that particular 
 hour was marvelously owned of God. For 
 example, on the first Saturday evening of 
 January, 1817, while prayer was being offered 
 to God, two young men cried out, "Jesus, 
 Massa, have mercy," and with such demon- 
 strations of deep feeling that the incident 
 naturally prevented the orderly conduct of a 
 prayer-meeting, as it distracted the attention 
 of the people. The meeting was about clos- 
 ing when Johnson, going outside, found in 
 a house near at hand a throng of negroes, 
 some on their knees crying aloud, others sit- 
 ting, but trembling and in tears, while yet 
 others in their broken dialect were singing 
 praises unto Jesus. Unable to pass by such 
 a gathering, he went in and spoke to them of 
 the new birth from above, in terms adapted 
 to their simplicity. They heard him with 
 much docility, but, when he proposed the 
 
RIGHTLY DiyiDING THE IVORD OF TRUTH 57 
 
 singing of a hymn, their sobs choked their 
 utterance, and when he attempted to pray, 
 his voice was almost drowned by their loud 
 outcries for mercy. 
 
 He recorded the fact that never before had 
 he anywhere witnessed such a scene, and 
 that waves of feeling swept over him like 
 ocean tides as he beheld the workings of God 
 on these hearts and consciences. Mingled 
 astonishment and gratitude swayed him. He 
 had come out to Sierra Leone asking of God 
 one soul as his reward, and already beheld 
 the abundant fruits of his labors apparent. 
 At the six o'clock prayer-meeting of the Sun- 
 day morning these singular manifestations of 
 God's mighty power were renewed, as also at 
 the regular morning service, when he spoke 
 from John xxi. 19 : " Follow thou Me." 
 
 Experiences like these were, even at this 
 early stage of his work, already so common 
 that the entries in his journals are little more 
 than a monotonous repetition or reiteration 
 of the description of such scenes and inci- 
 dents, so that examples need not be multi- 
 l^lied. It will suffice to add that such evi- 
 
58 SE^EN YE/IRS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 dences that the Holy Spirit was directly- 
 dealing with the conscience and will were 
 abundant throughout the whole period of 
 Johnson's labors. 
 
 On the second Sunday of February, after 
 the baptism of ten adults, the Lord's Supper 
 was celebrated with forty-one communicants ; 
 and, as usual, Johnson dwelt upon the great 
 themes of human guilt and divine grace. 
 "Without remembering his constant recur- 
 rence to these two foundation truths we shall 
 miss the most important lesson of his minis- 
 try and the vital secret of his serviceableness. 
 It may be well, therefore, to tarry just here 
 and consider the bearing of the truth preached 
 upon the whole power of our ministry to 
 souls. 
 
 There is no accident in the moral universe. 
 A law of cause and effect works in the realm 
 of mind as in the realm of matter. God is 
 not mocked by atheistic chance, with its 
 hopeless uncertainties: every seed has its 
 own body, and every sowing its own reaping, 
 and the harvest is according to the tilling. 
 Our own persuasion grows, as our observa- 
 
RIGHTLY DIFIDING THE IVORD OF TRUTH 59 
 
 tion and experience broaden our induction, 
 that, as the Archbishop of Canterbury phrases 
 it, it is the great primary truths of the gospel 
 that most surely mold character. John the 
 Baptist, last of the old seers, first of the new 
 evangelists, was a voice proclaiming three 
 great primitive truths: first, sin and judg- 
 ment ; second, the coming of One greater than 
 he, to atone for sin and remove judgment; 
 third, the present opportunity of faith in 
 Him, whereby sin is effectually taken away 
 before judgment lifts its awful ax of de- 
 struction. " Behold, the Lamb of God, who 
 beareth away the sin of the world ! " Here is 
 one sentence, with its few, simple, primary 
 teachings; and upon those foundations all 
 practical theology may be constructed — the 
 whole divine system of saving truth. Germs 
 of doctrine, they are capable of endless ex- 
 pansion, but they nevertheless contain in 
 themselves, germinally, all that we need to 
 know in order to salvation. 
 
 It is a singular proof of the wisdom and 
 grace of God that He has made the primary 
 truths of salvation so few and so simple. He 
 
60 SE^EN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 loved the world and yearned over the race. 
 Salvation could be applicable to the whole 
 family of man only as it was adapted to the 
 lowest and least. There are vast multitudes, 
 so sunk in sin and so small in intellectual 
 capacity, that they can take in only the sim- 
 plest primitive truths ; and all of us, even the 
 highest and greatest and wisest, have at last 
 to return to and lean upon these same primi- 
 tive truths. 
 
 The famous Bishop Butler, who has been 
 called the Melchizedek of the Anglican 
 Church, because he had neither predecessor 
 nor successor, had days of darkness as he ap- 
 proached his dying hour. " What shall I lay 
 hold of I" said he to his chaplain. He re- 
 minded the dying bishop of the atonement 
 for sin. "But how shall I know that it is 
 for me .^ " " ' Him that cometh unto Me I will 
 in no wise cast out,' " was the scriptui'al an- 
 swer. " Oh, this is comfortable indeed ! " said 
 the bishop, as he rested, like any other poor 
 sinner, upon the all-sufficiency of grace and 
 the all-inclusiveness of the promise of God. 
 
 The late Bishoj) of Durham, one of the 
 
RIGHTLY DIVIDING THE IVORD OF TRUTH 61 
 
 greatest scholars and thinkers of his age, 
 had, as he neared life's boundary, many weeks 
 of quiet debility, favorable to meditative 
 habits. His friends thought that his mighty 
 mind might be brooding over some great 
 problems of philosophy or theology. But he 
 assured them it was not so. He said, " I take 
 three or four great primitive truths and think 
 upon them constantly." From all his excur- 
 sions into the limitless realms of speculative 
 thought he at last returned with the spirit of 
 a little child to quench his thirst at the foun- 
 tain of living waters, and, like Israel in the 
 desert, drink of that Rock which is Christ. 
 
 Michael Faraday had the brains of twenty 
 common men ; yet when he was asked, as the 
 last hours drew near, " What are your specu- 
 lations ? " calmly said, " Speculations ? I have 
 none. I am not resting my dying head on 
 speculations. ' I know whom I have believed, 
 and am persuaded that He is able to keep 
 that which I have committed unto Him 
 against that day.'"* And so, when Sir 
 George Williams visited the dying Earl of 
 
 * 2 Tim. i. 12. 
 
62 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 Shaftesbury, and fonnd him, with face turned 
 to the wall, in deep depression, he bent over 
 and whispered in his ear, " ' Complete in Him ' 
 — complete, that is, lacking nothing ! " The 
 departing earl turned over in bed and said, 
 "Yes; that is just the message that I need 
 now." 
 
 It is a well-known and very beautiful fact 
 that both John "Wesley and Charles H. Spur- 
 geon, who in the next century in so many 
 things closely resembled him, had similar 
 experiences in approaching death. Wesley 
 had several days of struggle with Satan, and 
 deep darkness, and on coming out of the con- 
 flict he said : 
 
 " I the chief of sinners am, 
 But Jesus died for me ! " 
 
 And Spurgeon, as he approached death, said 
 to his friend Taylor of Norwood, " There are 
 four words upon which I have lived and shall 
 die." "What are they? "said Taylor. "They 
 are these four," said Spurgeon : " Jesus died 
 for me ! " 
 
 We would affirm, what from time to time 
 we shall emphasize by repetition in the course 
 
RIGHTLY DIVIDING THE IVORD OF TRUTH 63 
 
 of this narrative, that we believe that the 
 almost unprecedented triumph of William 
 Johnson at Sierra Leone was owing mainly 
 to three things : he heartily honored the Holy 
 Spirit of God ; he constantly communed with 
 God in prayer; and he preached uniformly 
 the great primary truths of the gospel. What 
 we just now desire to make emphatic is that 
 he did not neglect those severer aspects of 
 truth which are necessary if we are to arouse 
 sinners to a sense of danger and make them 
 appreciate their need of Christ. For instance, 
 one Sunday morning he took as his theme 
 the day of judgment, with the state of the 
 saints in heaven and of the wicked in hell. 
 One hearer, William Tamba, went home much 
 alarmed, tried to pray, but could not, tried to 
 sleep, but could not, and when at length he 
 wearily fell into slumber, he had a dreadful 
 dream. He saw a man coming into his cot- 
 tage and making in the middle of it a large 
 fire ; then bringing in two persons, he bound 
 them with chains and put them into the fire. 
 Tamba in his dream beheld the nails dropping 
 from their fingers and toes, and he saw that 
 
64 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 they were not dead, but howling with anguish. 
 At length the man came to Tamba himself 
 and prepared to thrust him also into the fire, 
 when another voice from behind solemnly- 
 said, " Let him alone ; he belongs to Me ! " 
 Whereupon he was set at liberty at once. 
 So vivid was this dream that when he fully 
 awoke he found himself upon his knees be- 
 fore his bed. He continued in tears and 
 prayers all night, and early the next day came 
 to Johnson, asking, like the Philippian jailer, 
 "What must I do to be saved?" and when 
 an explanation of his inquiries was sought, 
 he related his dream of the night preceding. 
 
 How far Johnson was from any mere pride 
 of numbers may be seen from the fact that 
 in his letter to the secretaries in October, 
 1821, he said : " I cannot say how many com- 
 municants we have. The number is great ; I 
 am afraid to number them." 
 
 In 1822 he again wrote to the secretaries, 
 specifying where missionaries or schoolmas- 
 ters were needful, and he added, "Mission- 
 aries who will simply preach Christ crucified 
 will alone succeed," He said i " None of the 
 
RIGHTLY DIVIDING THE IVORD OF TRUTH 65 
 
 Gentiles have been more injured than Africa, 
 and no people is more degraded. It is time 
 to assume the character of the widow who 
 pleaded, ' Avenge me of mine adversary.' I 
 plead not mine own case, but the widowhood 
 of Africa; for her will I cry with importu- 
 nity, ' Send missionaries ! send missionaries ! 
 Avenge Africa of her adversary ! ' " 
 
 The school work formed a conspicuous fea- 
 ture in the labors of Johnson at Hogbrook. 
 When the bell first rang for school, ninety 
 boys, besides all the girl-pupils, made their 
 appearance, and he formed them into four 
 classes. At six o'clock in the evening another 
 school was opened for adults, with twelve 
 women and thirty-one men. In this as in 
 all other forms of service the sole dependence 
 was on the Word of God, and the unceasing 
 prayer was for the Holy Spirit to reveal the 
 truth and power of God to the soul. Few of 
 Christ's servants ever presented a parallel to 
 the simple, humble, single-minded faith and 
 devotion of this missionary, and few triumphs 
 of the gospel present a parallel to the story 
 of these seven years at Sierra Leone. Do 
 
66 SEl/EN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 not these two facts bear the relation of cause 
 and effect ? Is success such as we now begin 
 to chronicle an accident or a mere incident, 
 or is it simply a natural harvest of the un- 
 mixed seed of the kingdom, steeped in tears 
 and sown in faith ? 
 
 The school grew so fast that there was no 
 room ; fifty boys were crowded on the piazza 
 and others under the shade of trees. Mean- 
 while the church building was in erection, 
 where, as soon as ready, it was proposed to 
 hold both school and services of worship. 
 So pressing were the spiritual needs of this 
 people that it was deeply regretted that any 
 time must be given to secular cares and 
 affairs; but in all matters he sought to act 
 as a partner with God. He yearned also to 
 go into neighboring villages and teach the 
 Word of Grod, where the English tongue was 
 better or more widely understood; but for 
 the time he was compelled to give all heed to 
 the destitution immediately about him, wish- 
 ing he could multiply himself a hundredfold. 
 
 Every work finds unbelieving hinderers. 
 When the schools and congregations were 
 
RIGHTLY DIVIDING THE IVORD OF TRUTH G7 
 
 outgrowing all accommodations — and such 
 hunger was manifested to hear the Word of 
 God that the people pressed upon him as 
 upon his Master, so that there was no room 
 even about the door — there were those who 
 stood off and shook their heads ominously; 
 and who discouraged him, saying that Afri- 
 cans are all like a tornado, which comes all 
 at once and with a rush, but soon blows over. 
 But his trust was too strongly fixed in God 
 to be easily turned aside. He was confident 
 that such a desire to hear and read the Word 
 of God could come only from the Spirit of 
 God, and had therefore upon it the seal of 
 continuance. Meanwhile, despite all the pre- 
 dictions of doubters and unbelievers, the day- 
 school increased to a hundred and forty boys 
 and women, and gi-ew in interest as well as 
 numbers. A stone church capable of holding 
 some five hundred was roofed in, in August, 
 and a fourth Sunday had not passed after its 
 opening before the building was already too 
 small for the people. 
 
 Thus, in a few months after landing, we 
 have found Johnson settled in the spot where 
 
68 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 the rest of his short life was to be spent, and 
 where, by God's blessing, a desert of sin and 
 Satan was rapidly to change into a garden 
 of the Lord. His labors were so great that 
 from one Sunday to another he could scarce 
 find a single hour for himself. Captured ne- 
 groes continued to arrive from time to time, 
 and sometimes as many as a thousand at once. 
 He was obliged to send for rice every week to 
 Freetown, five miles off, and distribute these 
 rations twice a week without assistance. At 
 times it seemed as though one man could not 
 bear up under such burdens, and he was on 
 the point of giving up in despau*. But the 
 thought that he might be the means which 
 God would use to bring even this benighted 
 people to the feet of Jesus, nerved and forti- 
 fied him for undertakings so laborious and 
 various that they remind us of the toils and 
 trials of Paul. 
 
 The gospel proved itself again the true civ- 
 ilizer. Idleness and ignorance are the hand- 
 maids of vice and impiety, as industry and 
 intelligence are the handmaids of virtue and 
 godliness. Surprising as it may seem, this 
 
RIGHTLY DIVIDING THE IVORD OF TRUTH 69 
 
 debased people already began to show im- 
 provement in the matter of cleanliness and 
 thrift. These filthy slaves studied personal 
 tidiness, and strove to get properly attired to 
 appear before the Lord on Sunday. The Rev. 
 Joel Lindley, of the Zulu Mission, used to say 
 that the first sign of new life in the natives 
 was a desire to be clad. A man would come 
 to the mission premises to barter something 
 for a cheap calico shirt, then a few days after 
 for a pair of duck pants, and then for a little 
 three-legged stool; and, said Dr. Lindley, 
 " when that Zulu got on his shirt and pants 
 and sat down on his little stool he was about 
 a mile above the level of the naked savages 
 about him." And so, often the earliest indi- 
 cation that the poor negroes of Hogbrook 
 were aspiring to a new life was a desire to 
 appear washed and cleanly clad. 
 
 As Johnson continued speaking twice a day 
 and thrice on Sundays, the people thronged 
 him as though to ask further knowledge con- 
 cerning the ways of God. At times he found 
 them seeking clothing or other supplies for 
 temporal needs, and he began to suspect that 
 
70 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 they were moved by no higher niotive than 
 selfish desire of gain. But this was only a 
 symptom of general improvement, as abun- 
 dant facts attested. 
 
 In October of that first year a shingle- 
 maker, by name Joe Thompson, following 
 him from church, asked to speak with him. 
 With a holy gratitude he found that this man 
 was a religious inquirer, seeking relief, not 
 for his body, but for his soul, under a load 
 of conscious sin and guilt ; and he proved the 
 first convert unto Christ at Sierra Leone. 
 
 It was natural that the missionary should 
 take special interest in this, the first-fruits of 
 his work; and, seeking to trace the means 
 used of God for his awakening, he found 
 that one evening, when he had asked his 
 hearers if any of them had ever given five 
 minutes to prayer to Jesus, this young me- 
 chanic had been so struck with the ques- 
 tion, which he could answer only to his own 
 condemnation, that it proved an arrow of 
 God, wounding him and working deep con- 
 viction of sin. He had afterward heard some 
 explanation of what misery sin entails, and 
 
RIGHTLY DIVIDING THE WORD OF TRUTH 71 
 
 what is the present and future state of the 
 unforgiven sinner. Something within wit- 
 nessed that the Word of God was true. All 
 the evil deeds and thoughts of his life moved 
 as in awful procession before his mind and 
 memory. He had tried to pray, but could not, 
 and it was at this stage that he sought his 
 pastor to learn from him what he must do to 
 be saved. 
 
 Imagine the sensations which thrilled that 
 humble missionary, when God gave him, out 
 of that offscouring of the world, the first pre- 
 cious jewel for his crown ! Let him give his 
 own testimony : " What at that moment I felt 
 is unspeakable. I pointed this inquirer to 
 the crucified Jesus, and the tears ran down 
 his cheeks. I was obliged to leave him, for 
 I could not contain myself. I went home and 
 fell on my knees." 
 
 First drops betoken a shower. The next 
 week more inquirers came in like manner, 
 and the doubts and fears of Johnson as to his 
 mission were at once banished. There was 
 no more room to question that God had sent 
 him thither, for He was daily with him. 
 
72 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 Soon after, at his request, Mr. Butsclier, sta- 
 tioned at Leicester Mountain, came over and 
 baptized twenty-two of these captured slaves, 
 among whom was one boy. As they were 
 individually and carefully examined as to 
 their knowledge of Christ, before this ordi- 
 nance was administered, both Mr. Johnson 
 and Mr. Butscher were astonished to see in 
 what manifest and manifold ways God had 
 revealed Himself to these ignorant sons of 
 Ham. Within nine months after Johnson's 
 arrival over forty had received baptism. 
 
 How simple were the sermons which were 
 so used of God may appear from a few speci- 
 mens which will be found in this short sketch. 
 For example, a discourse on 1 Corinthians ii. 
 2: "1. "Who is Jesus Christ? 2. What has 
 Jesus Christ done? 3. What is Jesus Christ 
 doing to-day ? 4. What is Jesus Christ going 
 to do ? " This would hardly be accepted as a 
 model in homiletics or hermeneutics, but it 
 was made the means of salvation, which is 
 the highest proof of efficiency in a sermon ; 
 for, if none were found to praise the archer 
 
RIGHTLY DIVIDING THE IVORD OF TRUTH 73 
 
 and his bow, there were groans from the 
 wounded which proved that the rude arrow 
 had somehow hit the mark. 
 
 Prayer and testimony meetings became a 
 natural necessity, for those whom God had 
 awakened yearned over others, and desired 
 to tell one another what God had done for 
 their souls. Affecting confessions were made 
 from time to time in these prayer-meetings. 
 For example, Johnson preached on Sunday, 
 May 13, 1821, on Isaiah xliv. 21. The ser- 
 mon made an impression so profound that 
 the next evening a man came to him and 
 made a remarkable disclosure of his own 
 state, and showed that the Word of God had 
 been to him a mirror in which he was sur- 
 prised to see himseK and his people so won- 
 derfully reflected that he could only exclaim, 
 " God knows all things ; He put them things 
 in the Bible." He saw that no human being 
 could have so portrayed the condition of a 
 people he had never seen.* Thus by mani- 
 fold signs wrought through this simple 
 
 * Appendix I. 
 
74 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 preacher and teacher, who declared the whole 
 counsel of God, who preached the law and 
 the gospel, rightly dividing the Word of truth, 
 God set His seal on this His servant, and 
 enabled him to make full proof of his min- 
 istry. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 SOUND OF ABUNDANCE OF RAIN 
 
 There is in mechanics, as in nature, a law 
 of adjustment, upon which all harmonious 
 and successful action and interaction depend. 
 Until one part meets its fellow-part in exact 
 articulated adaptation the organism cannot 
 have healthy activity. Until every wheel, 
 lever, cog, and even screw, is in its place no 
 machine, if there be motion at all, can move 
 without friction. 
 
 Some such thought as this is suggested in 
 that divinely inspired prayer which sums up 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews: "The God of 
 peace . . . make you perfect in every good 
 work to do His will, working in you that which 
 is well pleasing in His sight."* The lead- 
 ing word (KarapTiaai) means, adjust you thor- 
 
 * Heb. xiii. 20, 21. 
 75 
 
76 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 ouglily, knit or frame you together, articulate 
 you as a joiut in the body to the framework 
 of the body. Only so can God work in you 
 to will and to do. And it is equally plain 
 that so soon as we are thus adjusted to the 
 work and will of Grod blessing will follow, for 
 God is free to work. 
 
 Doubtless no further explanation is needed 
 to account for the immediate success of John- 
 son's labors than the fact of his prompt 
 adjustment to the plan and mind of God. 
 Education is sometimes disqualification 
 where it ought to be preparation for holy 
 service. Trained scholars sometimes lose 
 childlikeness of spirit and dependence on 
 God, and get proud, self-confident, and lean 
 on their own understanding. The strong are 
 prone to glory in their own strength, the rich 
 in their wealth, the wise in their sagacity, the 
 learned in their knowledge ; and so they forget 
 that the only true wisdom, wealth, or glory is 
 in understanding and knowing God. Here was 
 a man so weak, ignorant, poor, obscure, and 
 utterly inadequate for any great achievement, 
 that he had no resource or resort but to trust 
 
SOUND OF ABUNDANCE OF RAIN 77 
 
 in Jehovah. He knew he was an earthen 
 vessel, frail and broken, and his only power 
 must be found in a capacity for conveyance 
 of a blessing not his own. Whatever be the 
 reason, the fact is that, as we have seen, he 
 had scarcely begun his work in this worst of 
 all fields when blessing also began to be given. 
 He had landed at Freetown in April ; he had 
 come to Hogbrook in June ; on the 14:th of July 
 distinct showers of mercy fell on the newly 
 sown seed. Family prayers were held between 
 five and six o'clock in the morning, but, even 
 so early, a throng of natives filled the house. 
 He read and explained the latter part of the 
 forty-sixth chapter of the prophecy of Jere- 
 miah, a passage of Scripture so appropriate to 
 his surroundings and so important as supply- 
 ing another key to his life-work that we here 
 make prominent the very words upon which 
 his mind was fixed. 
 
 Verse 11 : "In vain shalt thou use many medicines ; 
 
 For thou shalt not be cured." 
 Verse 15 : "Why are thy valiant men swept away? 
 
 They stood not, 
 
 Because the Lord did drive them." 
 
 Then, the contrast, in verse 27 : 
 
78 SEl^EN YE^RS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 " But fear not thou, O My servant Jacob, 
 
 And be not dismayed, O Israel : 
 
 For, behold, I will save thee from afar off, 
 ' And thy seed from the land of their captivity ; 
 
 And Jacob shall return, 
 
 And be in rest and at ease, 
 
 And none shall make him afraid. 
 
 Fear thou not, O Jacob, . . . for I am with thee." 
 
 Such was the divine nutriment on which the 
 fainting heart of this simple believer and 
 laborer with God both nourished itself into 
 strength and fed others. 
 
 Two hours later that same morning three 
 women were found standing at the door, ask- 
 ing to "learn Book"; and at ten o'clock a 
 service was held, at which Johnson explained 
 the eighteenth chapter of John, dwelling upon 
 the sufferings of Christ as the divine antidote 
 for human sin and sorrow. At this meeting 
 the whole house, and even the piazza and 
 windows, were crowded, and some were 
 obliged to stand in the yard. Then at three 
 o'clock in the afternoon another crowd was 
 addressed on Acts ii. 36, 37 : 
 
 " Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that 
 God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, 
 both Lord and Christ. Now when they hoard this, they were 
 
SOUND OF ABUNDANCE OF RAIN 79 
 
 pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of 
 the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do ? " 
 
 At this time the throng was too great to 
 be accommodated within range of his voice. 
 And why should it awaken any surprise that 
 God owned a method of deahng with souls 
 that so magnified the Word of His grace, and 
 showed so diligent a search to find the exact 
 medicine whereby the disease of sin should 
 be cured! 
 
 Again, at seven o'clock in the evening, a 
 fourth service was held, the house and 
 grounds being filled, and the same old gospel 
 being magnified. And so the work went on 
 from day to day, and from daybreak until far 
 on into the night. He who thus faithfully 
 and tirelessly preached the Word to the mul- 
 titudes was equally faithful in dealing with 
 individual souls, thus imitating his Master, 
 who spoke to those whom He met by the 
 way, as to the woman at the well. 
 
 We have seen how Saturday evenings were 
 set apart for these assemblies for prayer and 
 testimony. Only a few had yet learned how 
 to pray in public, but as the missionary pastor 
 
80 SEyEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 heard them wrestling with God for a blessing, 
 and listened to their simple pleadings and to 
 their touching tales of God's dealings, he ex- 
 perienced such joy as turned that wilderness 
 of Sierra Leone into an Eden, and, like Paul in 
 his rapture to the third heaven, whether he 
 were in the body or out of the body he could 
 not tell. The climate was so unhealthy — the 
 worst in the world — that he felt his time must 
 be short; but, though at times physically 
 prostrate, he could not think of returning to 
 England, and continually blessed God that, 
 at whatever cost of sacrifice, he had been sent 
 by Him on such an errand. 
 
 The church building had now become so 
 crowded that the governor of the colony, who 
 frequently attended the services, ordered a 
 gallery built as soon as possible, thus nearly 
 doubling the capacity of the house. And 
 before October one hundred and sixty-four 
 boys were enrolled in the school, upward of 
 twenty pupils were in the family school, and 
 more than fifty adults in the evening classes. 
 We have thus been careful to follow every 
 step and stage of this great work of grace 
 
SOUND OF ABUNDANCE OF RAIN 81 
 
 from its beginning, for these were the base- 
 blocks on which that spiritual edifice was 
 reared which still remains almost without a 
 parallel in mission history. 
 
 Very marked were the dealings of Grod with 
 the conscience where an observer might have 
 thought conscience was dead. Early in No- 
 vember Mr. Johnson had written to the 
 Church Missionary Society of several persons 
 who complained of their "bad hearts," and 
 who gave such clear proofs of grace that no 
 one could forbid their baptism, and reference 
 has been already made to their reception as 
 converts. Evidence now accumulated that 
 God's Spirit was at work generally upon the 
 consciences of the Hogbrook slaves, and com- 
 pelling repentance at cost of much renuncia- 
 tion of sin. Thus, one young man who sought 
 baptism, but was found to be living in sinful 
 relations with a woman, after the loose fash- 
 ion prevalent in the colony, being rejected, 
 went away with a sad face as though prefer- 
 ring to live in sin ; but before the next Sunday 
 he returned, and, sitting down with his face 
 to the wall, gave a striking account of the 
 
82 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 Lord's dealing with liim. When he was told 
 that he might be baptized and come to the 
 Lord's table only on condition of his marriage 
 with the woman whom he had led into sin, 
 he joyfully consented and at once complied, 
 being married, baptized, and admitted to the 
 Lord's Supper within three hours; and no 
 sooner were these parties married than the 
 wife gave proof that the Spirit was at work 
 also in her heart. 
 
 About the same time another encouraging 
 sign appeared. Dr. Macaulay Wilson, who 
 was an attending physician of the negroes 
 and himself also a colored man, after often 
 being an attendant at public worship, came 
 to Johnson, confessing his sin and seeking 
 salvation. He acknowledged that, from the 
 time when he had heard him speak upon the 
 words, " The blood of Jesus Christ His Son 
 cleanseth us from all sin," he had been unable 
 to find rest; that he had often started out 
 purposing to acquaint him with his soul's an- 
 xieties, but had by pride been kept back from 
 such confession. Now, however, he made 
 a full acknowledgment of the fact that he 
 
SOUND OF ABUNDANCE OF RAIN 83 
 
 had been grievously and notoriously wicked, 
 and asked spiritual counsel. This conversion 
 was an incident of great importance in the 
 history of this mission, for Dr. Wilson was 
 the son of King George of Yongroo, and his 
 accepted heir, and had great influence with 
 the Bullom people. Thus the gospel found 
 its way once more into " Caesar's household." 
 This colored doctor, this son of the Bullom 
 king, became a very great help and encour- 
 agement to Johnson, growing in grace and 
 knowledge of Christ and capacity for service. 
 He acted as clerk on Sunday, and in the 
 absence of the missionary kept the fires burn- 
 ing on the altar of family worship, and himself 
 made most affecting and effective exhorta- 
 tions. 
 
 The new gallery was now added to the 
 church, holding two hundred more, and the 
 schools both of children and adults made such 
 progress that as early as February 14, 1817, 
 they were able to report a total of three hun- 
 dred and thirty scholars. 
 
 There were now masons, bricklayers, car- 
 penters, shingle-makers, smiths, sawyers. 
 
84 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 tailors, and brickmakers connected with tlie 
 colony, which became after a while a model 
 of thrift and industry. 
 
 Smallpox visited the settlement, but the 
 boys and girls were promptly inoculated, as 
 were most of the population, and the only 
 fatal cases in the school were those of two 
 boys and one girl, though several of the people 
 who refused to be inoculated fell victims. 
 The little girl who died gave every reason for 
 confidence that she was a Christian disciple. 
 She lamented very much over her wicked 
 heart, and prayed to Jesus as her only refuge, 
 and was baptized. At her funeral Johnson 
 spoke on Amos iv. 12 : " Prepare to meet thy 
 God." She was much beloved by those who 
 knew her, and about three hundred followed 
 the body to the grave, and the occasion made 
 a deep impression. Many of the children at 
 Kissy, however, fell victims to the scourge — 
 above one hundred of them. 
 
 Crowds continued to attend family worship, 
 upward of two hundred being habitually j)res- 
 ent, and sometimes in the evening the church 
 building, though enlarged, was almost full. 
 
SOUND OF ABUNDANCE OF RAIN 85 
 
 It was March 31, 1817, when Johnson was 
 set apart according to the rites of the Luther- 
 an Church, the humble man being not a Uttle 
 distressed by doubts and fears as to his capa- 
 city to exercise the functions of an ordained 
 minister; but the Holy Spirit continued so 
 manifestly and abundantly to bless his work 
 that all his questionings were finally silenced. 
 1 Corinthians i. 25, 26, removed all remaining 
 doubt; or, had any doubt remained, on the 
 following Easter Sunday Grod set His seal 
 upon this newly ordained minister while 
 speaking to a crowded congregation on John 
 xi. 25, 26. At this time his hearers were so 
 visibly moved that many wept and prayed 
 aloud for mercy. These experiences were 
 repeated precisely in the afternoon, when he 
 spoke on 1 Corinthians xv. 55; and in the 
 evening, while engaged in prayer, crying and 
 praying became so general that he was com- 
 pelled to leave off and give out a hymn. Even 
 this was of no purpose ; he besought them to 
 be still, and gave out another hymn, but was 
 unable to restore quiet ; the greater part of 
 the congregation were on their knees crying 
 
86 SE^EN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 aloud for pardon. What wonder if Johnson 
 found it impossible to express with tongue 
 or pen the feelings that overcame him, and, 
 like Titus Coan in the work at Hilo and Puna 
 not many years after, he was obliged to leave 
 his congregation in this state, bowed down in 
 tears and cries before God! As he passed 
 toward the door he saw a man on his knees, 
 knocking with his hands on the boards and 
 crying, " Lord Jesus, me no let you go ; first 
 pardon my sins." As he went home, quite 
 convinced that God was so dealing with them 
 that he could only leave Him to work, he 
 heard nothing but cries in every direction 
 for the space of about fifteen minutes. He 
 was obliged to use means to prevent further 
 disturbances, for the simple mention of the 
 name of Jesus immediately evoked these out- 
 cries; and he gave directions to the door- 
 keepers that when more than one person was 
 thus affected he must remove such from the 
 building, that the meeting might proceed 
 without disturbance. Strange experiences, 
 indeed, when a minister can keep a service of 
 divine worship sufficiently quiet for himself 
 
SOUND OF ABUNDANCE OF RAIN 87 
 
 to be heard only by removing stricken souls 
 from tbe congregation ! Yet so marked were 
 the movings of the Spirit of God that there 
 was seldom a Sunday in which the door- 
 keepers were not compelled to use such means, 
 that the outcries of a few might not make 
 profit impossible to the many. 
 
 The number of communicants had reached 
 seventy before the 1st of March, and the 
 scholars in the school nearly four hundred. 
 The people were so eager to hear the Word 
 of Grod that on Sundays they came an hour 
 before service to secure a seat, and it became 
 necessary to enlarge the church into a cruci- 
 form shape, which nearly doubled the room. 
 
 So full of striking incidents is the short 
 career of Johnson at Sierra Leone that the 
 most that can be done is to select some of the 
 more marked examples of the operation of 
 God's grace. 
 
 For example, in the daily evening school 
 six men and three women were reading the 
 Testament, and one of the men was asked 
 how he liked his new book. His reply was, 
 " I cannot thank the Lord Jesus enough for 
 
88 SEyEN YE^RS IN SIERR/1 LEONE 
 
 this good book, for I have seen myself in ity 
 Unconsciously to himself, he was gi\^ng a 
 practical comment upon the words of James, 
 who wrote of him who looketh into the i^er- 
 fect law of liberty, and continueth looking 
 until he seeth what manner of man he is. 
 This humble black man found in the Word 
 of God the magic mirror which reflects every 
 man's character and history and destiny. 
 
 And so, every entry in Johnson's journal 
 and every letter he wrote make record of 
 the wonderful workings of God; though he 
 was not without trials of faith and patience, 
 even as Christ forewarned us. His dear wife 
 was so ill that for days she seemed to be 
 djing, though mercifully spared. There were 
 constant accessions to the church of such as 
 were manifestly being saved, and the experi- 
 ences and inquiries of these simple-minded 
 converts might fill a volume with most fasci- 
 nating details, all the more interesting be- 
 cause the people had been sunk to such 
 dej^ths of degradation. Johnson noticed one 
 woman who attended morning and evening 
 prayer and was almost always in tears; he 
 
SOUND OF ABUNDANCE OF RAIN 89 
 
 thought this strange, as she understood so 
 little English that there seemed to be little 
 chance for the gospel to impress her. On 
 asking her why she wept, she pointed to her 
 heart and said, " Here ! here ! " She felt like 
 the publican who smote upon his breast as he 
 cried for mercy, as though all possible sin 
 were crowded together there in her own heart. 
 Johnson, as he beheld such scenes, could only 
 recall the promise, "I will work, and who 
 shall let it % " And so plain was God's hand 
 that he could only say, " Lord, carry on the 
 work even as Thou hast begun it." 
 
 The community thus being provided with 
 the gospel, this godly man sought to organize 
 it into a more prosperous and harmonious 
 state ; and one of his first steps was to start 
 a Benefit Society, the effect of which was 
 greatly to increase the health and happiness, 
 mutual sympathy and harmony, of its mem- 
 bers. After a discourse on the goodness of 
 God in sending missionaries to Africa, he sug- 
 gested that they should form a little society 
 for the relief of their sick members, and that 
 each one of them should subscribe a halfpenny 
 
90 SE^EN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 a week. The response was immediate, and 
 one of them said, " Dat be very good t'iug, 
 broders ; s'pose one be sick, all be sick ; s'pose 
 one be well, all be well "—a very simple but 
 practical comment upon Paul's words in 1 
 Corinthians xii. 12-27 : " Whether one mem- 
 ber suffer, all the members suffer with it," etc. 
 
 One who had recently been brought out of 
 the depths of sin being asked, " How is your 
 heart now!" replied, "Massa, my heart no 
 live here now, my heart live there," pointing 
 upward. Another, being asked why he wept, 
 said, " God came into my heart, and my heart 
 bad too much, that it made me cry." 
 
 Conversion compelled, as everj^where, giv- 
 ing up of idols. Gree-grees, and the like charms 
 or fetishes to which the people cling in their 
 superstitious state, were brought f oi'ward and 
 put into the fire, like the occult books of the 
 Ephesian magians. 
 
 Already, also, the workman began to lind 
 his compensation. When Johnson, partly 
 through illness and overwork, fell at times 
 into depression, God used these simple con- 
 verts to teach him and comfort his soul. For 
 
SOUND OF ABUNDANCE OF RAIN 91 
 
 instance, Jolin Sandy said, "Once me see 
 light, but now me have no light, no peace ; 
 my bad heart bring me into all these troubles, 
 and I do not know what I must do; I can- 
 not tell whether I am on the way to hell or 
 heaven." His teacher saw how these simple 
 believers were tried, like himself, with con- 
 stantly recurring depressions and doubts, 
 and so, whether well or ill, doubting or con- 
 fident, this indefatigable worker went on 
 with his labors. 
 
 His simple methods with these people may 
 be seen by a further illustration. On Novem- 
 ber 17, 1817, at noon, he spoke to the girls 
 and asked if any of them could tell what they 
 had heard the day before. Hannah Cammel, 
 an usher, said, "I heard you say that if any 
 man, woman, boy, or girl died without Jesus 
 Christ they must go to hell." " What do you 
 think, Hannah ! Are you with Jesus Christ, 
 or are you without Him!" "I am without 
 Him, sir." "Did you ever pray to Him^' 
 " Yes sir." " Why or what for did you pray 
 to Him?" "To save me from my sins, sir." 
 "Do you know what Jesus Christ did for 
 
92 SE^EN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 sinners ? " " Ho came into the world to save 
 them, sir." " Well, then, if He came into the 
 world to save sinners, and you say you are a 
 sinner. He came to save you." She appeared 
 so affected by this truth that she could speak 
 no more. 
 
 We have before referred to those seductive 
 snares of fetish-worshipers known as gree- 
 grees. On September 10, 1818, a man from 
 Cockle Bay came into town offering these 
 things for sale, and was brought to Johnson as 
 a sort of malefactor. The missionary reminded 
 his captors and accusers that such were some 
 of them, not long before in the same darkness 
 of superstition, and taught them to pity 
 rather than to despise and hastily judge and 
 condemn the evil-doer ; then, quietly turning 
 to the vender of these devil's wares, he coun- 
 seled him not to come to Regent's Town 
 with his worthless trash, but, if he would 
 persist in such business, to seek some better 
 market. 
 
 About an hour later a whole box of gi*ee- 
 grees was brought in, some of which were 
 both rare and valuable, such as even John- 
 
SOUND OF ABUNDANCE OF RAIN 93 
 
 son had never before seen; but these boys 
 and girls, like the converts of Ephesus again, 
 with great joy and acclamations committed 
 them to the flames. 
 
 Thus, to this praying man was committed 
 the power to open the windows of heaven ; 
 and the cloud which at first was no bigger 
 than a man's hand had already overspread 
 the whole sky, and there was a sound of 
 abundance of rain in the moral desert of 
 Sierra Leone. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 FmST-FRUITS UNTO GOD 
 
 That devout man who is the founder of the 
 China Inland Mission has well reminded us 
 that, though Satan, the hinderer, may " build 
 a hedge about us " to restrain our holy activ- 
 ity, he cannot " roof us in and keep us from 
 looking up." Nothing need prevent a child 
 of God from praying, and praying always 
 brings every other best blessing. 
 
 Elijah "prayed, and the heavens gave rain, 
 and the earth brought forth her fruit." That 
 is a typical history of all true re\'ivals or 
 refreshings from on high. Some one has 
 prayed, and showers of blessing always de- 
 scend when prayers ascend. Johnson knew 
 how to pray, and his spirit of intercession 
 and supplication proved contagious in Sierra 
 Leone, so that even these slaves at Hogbrook 
 
 94 
 
FIRST-FRUITS UNTO GOD 95 
 
 learned to prevail with God. Among the first- 
 fruits of faithful gospel teaching was this 
 boldness in coming to the throne of grace. 
 Early in the morning, while it was yet dark, 
 January 15, 1818, Johnson was awakened by 
 hearing from some distance the sound of 
 prayer. He rose and went out on the ve- 
 randa, but could distinguish only a few 
 words until, the prayer being ended, a num- 
 ber of voices blending in sacred song, he 
 heard the familiar doxology : 
 
 " To Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." 
 
 Then followed another prayer, loud and clear 
 enough to be distinguished as the voice of a 
 lad, who for ten or twelve minutes poured 
 out his very soul before God, somewhat thus : 
 
 "Lord Jesus, my heart too bad, bad too 
 much. Me want to love you, me want to 
 serve you; bad heart not let me. Lord 
 Jesus, me can't make me good. Take away 
 bad heart ; give me new heart. Me sin every 
 day; pardon my sin. Lord Jesus, make 
 me sin no more." 
 
 There were other prayers, whose utterances 
 
96 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 were not so distinct, but in them all tlie name 
 of Jesus was as ointment poured forth. These 
 young seekers after God were holding a 
 meeting by moonlight, for as yet it had not 
 dawned, and, like the psalmist, they with 
 their prayers and praises "prevented the 
 dawning of the morning." 
 
 With emotions that found vent only in 
 sobs and tears, their pastor went back to 
 bed, but not to sleep. Overawed and over- 
 whelmed, a holy excitement forbade slumber. 
 In those sounds of prayer he had heard the 
 footfalls of Grod, — the sound of a rushing, 
 mighty wind from heaven, precursor of a 
 new Pentecost, — and he was prepared for 
 new and more vivid signs that God was nigh, 
 at the very doors. He was in that strange, 
 unearthly mood of expectancy when one 
 waits in silent, speechless awe for greater 
 and more general manifestations of the Holy 
 Spii'it's presence, and knowing not what form 
 they may assume, can only hush his own 
 breathing. 
 
 Of course such an expectant spirit is never 
 disappointed. Diligent inquiry failed to dis- 
 
FIRST-FRUITS UNTO GOD 97 
 
 close who they were that he had overheard 
 engaged in this moonlight meeting, but three 
 days later, at the morning service, during 
 prayer, a number of persons present were 
 overtaken with a suspicious drowsiness. Ob- 
 serving this, the missionary gently cautioned 
 his hearers to beware of sluggish habits of 
 praying, reminding them that it is not the 
 formal, listless petition that Grod hears, but 
 such asking as engages the whole heart and 
 is spiritually earnest. As he pressed the mat- 
 ter upon the consciences of such as had been 
 sleeping while others were praying, several 
 cried aloud, and such confusion was created 
 by those who were thus overcome of emotion 
 that a hymn was sung while the doorkeepers 
 removed them. Trembling and unable to 
 walk or even stand, they had to be carried 
 out literally, in the arms of others, before 
 sufficient quiet was restored. 
 
 These violent ebullitions of feeling became 
 common occurrences, and sometimes occa- 
 sioned harsh criticism on the part of refined 
 people who witnessed or heard of them. But 
 those who have studied the history of reviv- 
 
98 SE^EN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 als well know that such manifestations have 
 often been connected with undoubted and 
 marked movements of the Spirit. Such occa- 
 sional violent outbreaks of emotion we can- 
 not afford to despise as hypocritical or de- 
 nounce as artificial and hysterical. Periods 
 of spiritual awakening have too often been 
 attended by such physical phenomena for us 
 to pass harsh and hasty judgments upon 
 them. Very notably, in the Hawaiian Isl- 
 ands a quarter of a century later, and in Ire- 
 land half a century later, similar signs fol- 
 lowed. At Hilo and Puna, Titus Coan, as we 
 have before hinted, had frequently to stop 
 preaching, praying, and even singing, while 
 he beheld a vast congregation of five thou- 
 sand so broken down with contrition for sin 
 that scores and hundreds of them fainted and 
 fell to the ground in a swoon. 
 
 Like Mr. Coan after him, Johnson did noth- 
 ing either to excite or to encourage such ex- 
 cessive emotion, but, in fact, rather sought 
 to suppress such outbursts, speaking against 
 them as unseemly interruptions ; but he found 
 that the most he could do was to moderate or 
 
FIRST-FRUITS UNTO COD 99 
 
 modify what neither he nor his hearers were 
 able to control or suppress. Asa Mahan, 
 Charles G. Finney, Henry Grattan Guinness, 
 and others who have witnessed these cyclonic 
 storms of feeling, like Mr. Coan and Mr. John- 
 son, became satisfied at last that in some mys- 
 terious way they were due to, or at least con- 
 nected with, the Spirit's work. No man long 
 engages in successful evangelistic labors with- 
 out learning that the Holy Spirit of God, like 
 the wind, bloweth where and as He listeth, 
 and we hear the sound thereof — sometimes a 
 gentle murmur or soft zephyr, sometimes a 
 hurricane roar or a tornado blast, but, whether 
 in whispers or in thunders, alike mysterious, 
 divine, independent of man, uncontrollable by 
 man, inexplicable to man. 
 
 There is another law of revivals which 
 Johnson found at work in Regent's Town. 
 Whenever and wherever the Spirit of God is 
 supernaturally and marvelously working, the 
 spirits of evil are doubly active, so that a 
 decided outburst of genuine religious life is 
 commonly the signal for an outbreak of 
 scandalous sin. Mr. Kelly, the schoolmaster, 
 
100 SEVEN YE^IRS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 had to be dismissed and sent back in disgrace 
 to Freetown, the governor so fully approving 
 Mr. Johnson's course in the matter that ho 
 determined no longer to employ Mr. Kelly in 
 any capacity. Besides this serious drawback, 
 the African fever, which has been the great 
 foe of missions to the Dark Continent and so 
 fatal to hundreds of workers, again laid Mr. 
 Johnson prostrate; in fact, his symptoms 
 were alarming ; but his life was spared. 
 
 As he was beginning to rally from this at- 
 tack of illness, a woman ai)plied for baptism 
 who had already done so a score of times. 
 She could only say, in the broken dialect 
 that became so precious as the vehicle of the 
 Spirit, " My bad heart follow me all the time ; 
 me can't do no good — heart too bad — will not 
 let me. Me want to serve Jesus, but me no 
 sabby how [know how], me too much 'fraid. 
 Suppose me die? Me go to fire — me been 
 bad too much." When asked what she meant 
 by her bad heart following her always, her 
 reply was, "Me no want to do bad, but me 
 heart always do want to do bad, and so fol- 
 low me always." 
 
FIRST-FRUITS UNTO GOD 101 
 
 In a few cases the simple utterances of 
 these ignorant negroes are here recorded, 
 partly because they give completeness to the 
 narrative, partly because they lend vividness 
 to the portraiture, and partly because in this 
 very absence of the more refined and cultured 
 forms of expression we have an additional 
 proof of genuineness. Obviously we detect 
 here no traces of the stereotyped phrases of 
 the church catechism or the theological sys- 
 tem. This is simply the dialect of the uni- 
 versal man. In the seventh chapter of the 
 Epistle to the Romans we have the same 
 confession in substance, only framed in more 
 elegant language: "For that which I do I 
 allow not : for what I would, that do I not ; 
 but what I hate, that do I. . . . The evil 
 which I would not, that I do. ... I see an- 
 other law in my members, warring against 
 the law of my mind, and bringing me into 
 captivity to the law of sin." 
 
 Here is one of the evidences of Christian- 
 ity: from pole to pole, from sunrise to sun- 
 set, whatever be the clime, color, class, or 
 caste, wherever the gospel reaches and 
 
102 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 touches human souls the results are essen- 
 tially the same. In the mirror of the divine 
 Word and Spirit heart answers to heart, as 
 in water face answereth to face. Both in sin 
 and in salvation there is one common experi- 
 ence, however variously expressed. 
 
 Even at the early stage of Mr. Johnson's 
 ministry at Regent's Town other tokens of 
 divine co-working were not wanting. Con- 
 viction of sin was wi'ought, not in open 
 transgressors only, but in converted men and 
 women, who saw and lamented their coldness 
 and indifference, became acutely and pain- 
 fully sensible of their inconsistencies and 
 deficiencies, and yearned for more holiness 
 and usefulness. The public services were so 
 thronged that it became necessary to remove 
 a partition wall and so again double the seat- 
 ing capacity, but the audience-room was no 
 sooner enlarged than it was again filled. 
 
 Deep conviction of sin and contrition for sin 
 were so common as to be quite general, and 
 one instance must suffice as representative of 
 many, for every day was full of like inci- 
 dents, and history was making fast. 
 
FIRST-FRUITS UNTO GOD 103 
 
 Hannah Cammel, the usher in the girls' 
 school, who now gave such evidence of re- 
 generation that Johnson could not hesitate 
 about receiving her into membership, had 
 previously such deep distress on account of 
 her sins that she declared that she had no 
 rest day nor night. Like the psalmist, she 
 felt her iniquities too many for her, and she 
 could not look up. She actually believed her- 
 self the "chief of sinners." Her patient teacher 
 could only turn her eyes to Him who came to 
 seek and to save that which was lost, and pray 
 that the same divine Spirit who had shown 
 her her great sins would also show her the 
 great Sin-bearer. Only He who pricks the 
 heart until we cry, " What shall I do ? " can 
 withdraw His sharp arrow, and in withdraw- 
 ing it leave behind in the wounded conscience 
 His soothing salve, the Balm of Gilead. 
 
 As Johnson watched God's wonder-working 
 among these debased and degraded tribes, he 
 marveled anew at the grace that touches all 
 sinners alike, imparts essentially the same 
 experience of salvation to all, and makes the 
 same fruits of faith and love to grow in all. 
 
104 SEVEN YE/tRS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 This devoted servant of Grod found that even 
 saints have to wrestle against principalities 
 and powers. Trials and temptations seemed 
 to multii3ly and intensify in proportion as 
 "flesh and blood" seemed subdued or the 
 Spirit's work became deeper rooted and wider 
 spread. 
 
 For instance, one of his communicants was 
 determined to marry an unconverted girl, and 
 he felt constrained to oppose it, and quoted to 
 him the divine injunction, "Be not unequally 
 yoked together with unbelievers," and bade 
 him pray much before taking such a step. 
 But, being in no mood to accept such advice, 
 his passion's fires quite swept away both his 
 sound judgment and his self-control, and he 
 angrily demanded that Mr. Johnson should 
 perform the ceremony. Too conscientious to 
 be a party to what he regarded as an unscrip- 
 tural union, the patient pastor remonstrated, 
 but in vain. The man bade him erase his name 
 from the church roll, as he would no longer 
 have anything to do with either church or 
 pastor. 
 
 The tender-hearted missionary was gi'eatly 
 
FIRST-FRUITS UNTO COD 105 
 
 grieved, lest the whole affair should become 
 known and prove a public scandal and dis- 
 grace. When persuaded still to attend family 
 prayer by "William Tamba, one of Johnson's 
 helpers, the man's face exhibited such hard- 
 ness and wore such a diabolical expression 
 that many observed and spoke of it. At the 
 same time some idle women, who, though 
 communicants, were busybodies in other 
 men's matters, were going from house to 
 house, peddling gossip and speaking things 
 they ought not. There was also a quarrel 
 between a man and his wife, leading to blows, 
 and caused by a slanderous report which had 
 reached his ears that she was going about 
 from house to house while he was at work. 
 
 Poor Johnson ! his head was as waters and 
 his eyes a fountain of tears, for he wept day 
 and night, as he beheld one of Christ's dis- 
 ciples, who had been much beloved, aflame 
 with an unholy passion and apostatizing for 
 its sake; another beating his own wife in 
 unjust anger, and idle slanderers, whose 
 tongues were set on fire of hell, kindhng 
 heartbui'nings in peaceful homes. 
 
106 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 He wlio awhile before could not sleep for 
 joy, now could not for grief and anxiety. All 
 this vicarious sorrow and caretaking induced 
 morbid spiritual states, so that at times he 
 began to doubt the genuineness of his con- 
 verts, and even his own saved state. The 
 moment the devil finds a disciple dropping 
 his shield of faith, he is more than ready 
 with his fiery darts. This servant of God got 
 disheartened, and so distrustful. " Are these 
 people all hypocrites ? " he asked, " and am I 
 one myself? All my past feelings and ex- 
 periences seem at times but my own imagin- 
 ings or a delusive dream." 
 
 There is a comfort, after all, in human 
 frailty. "Elijah was a man of like passions 
 as we are;" that prince of God, who pre- 
 vailed to open and shut heaven's flood-gates, 
 was but a man like ourselves. Even Jesus 
 Himself had His hours of deep darkness, as 
 in Gethsemane and the crisis of atonement 
 on Calvary. The Book of Psalms is given to 
 disciples as a mirror of universal experience : 
 every child of God sees himself reflected 
 there, and every possible mood and frame of 
 
FIRST-FRUITS UNTO GOD 107 
 
 joy or sorrow, hope or despair, ecstasy or 
 apathy, finds there both a response and, if 
 need be, a remedy. It is a harp of a thousand 
 strings, and any chords of f eehng that vibrate 
 in our experience may be heard by him who 
 hstens to the dirges, plaints, wails, or anthems 
 and choral shouts of the inspired psalmist. 
 
 If Johnson, like other men, turned at times 
 toward the darkness, he always returned to 
 the true Light. A faithful biographical sketch, 
 like a true portrait, leaves out nothing ; even 
 the infirmities and sins of God's people have 
 their lesson. This man of Ood, blessed in 
 his work for souls as few others have ever 
 been, was subject to like temptations as 
 others. His prayers brought down copious 
 rains after long drought, and yet he was made 
 after the frail human pattern. Saints are 
 perfect only as they are perfect in Christ Jesus. 
 
 His sermons were a sort of journal index- 
 ing his mental states and reflecting his spirit- 
 ual habits. About this time he preached 
 on Matthew xiv. 12: "And went and told 
 Jesus." It was because the dove of his own 
 heart, circling over restless waters and find- 
 
108 SEl^EN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 ing no pei'cli, in its fartliest flight never quite 
 lost sight of the ark, and was still under its 
 attraction and sway, that it invariabl}^ flut- 
 tered back to God's bosom. He went and 
 told Jesus, and so he taught his people to 
 go, like John's sorrowing disciples, and pour 
 their complaints and anxieties into the Mas- 
 ter's ear. 
 
 If some of his converts gave him anxiety, 
 others bore unmistakable fruits of the Spirit. 
 When William Tamba lost by death a bullock 
 and a goat, which constituted the bulk of his 
 worldly estate, he only said, like Job, "He 
 that gave them took them away," and under 
 his heavy losses seemed so cheerful that his 
 joy in God was more marked in his adversity 
 than in his prosperity, and made a singular 
 impression on all who knew him. 
 
 The simple and broken utterances of these 
 untaught children of the Dark Continent 
 were so touching and so striking that their 
 pastor wrote many of them down in his 
 journal. Some of them are worthy of preser- 
 vation as part of this wonderful story of mis- 
 sions. 
 
FIRST-FRUITS UNTO GOD 109 
 
 "Me heart too much trouble — sometimes 
 so hard, will not let me pray. Hope the 
 Lord Jesus teach me more and more to love 
 Him and serve Him. I poor guilty sinner; 
 thank God, He send Jesus to save me, poor 
 sinner." 
 
 "Me heart remember all them bad things 
 me do before ; me bad too much." 
 
 " Wicked things trouble me too much ; me 
 want to do good, but wicked heart no let me. 
 Me heart run awa [about] all this week. Sup- 
 pose me pray, me heart run to my country 
 — all about. Sometimes them things me no 
 want to remember more come into my heart, 
 and then me can't say any more but, ' Jesus, 
 have mercy on me, poor thing.' Me no sabby 
 [know] what me must do — hope Jesus save 
 me. Suppose He no save me, me lost forever." 
 
 " Sometimes you preach, massa, me t'ink 
 you talk only to me. Me say in heart, * That 
 me ! ' Me been do that thing. Sometimes 
 me t'ink me have two hearts* — one want 
 do good, other always want do bad. Jesus, 
 have mercy on poor sinner." 
 
 * Compare Rom. vii. 
 
110 SEFEN YEAR.S IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 " My husband lie no pray, no serve God. 
 Suppose me talk to him about God palaver 
 [preaching], he take whip, he flog me. Me 
 have trouble much, but Jesus help me take 
 all the trouble." 
 
 Missionaries, and other visitors at Regent's 
 Town, attending public services of worship, 
 saw the church filled with from one thousand 
 to twelve hundred black jDeople, their faces 
 lit up with eager desire after the Word, and 
 among the converts some from the Ebo nation 
 and other tribes, the most savage and brutal 
 that were found in the slave- vessels ; and 
 they were compelled to declare that noth- 
 ing less than a miracle had been wrought in 
 the mission. Moreover, these very converts, 
 themselves just plucked as brands from the 
 burning, and having the smell of fire and the 
 smutch of the burning brand yet on them, 
 crowded the church on the first Monday of 
 the month, at the missionary concert, planning 
 for the rescue of others yet in the fire of sin, 
 and bringing forward their contributions, a 
 willing offering. 
 
FIRST-FRUITS UNTO GOD 111 
 
 With a refuse population like this to deal 
 with, it was like bringing the order and 
 beauty of cosmos out of chaos to develop 
 holy living, and the pei'versity and depravity 
 of evil were repeatedly exhibited. 
 
 In the school there were outbreaks of un- 
 governable temper. One day the largest but 
 one of the girls, and the most tiresomely head- 
 strong, not only refused to obey the head 
 usher, but caught hold of her and beat her. 
 The assault was renewed after an interval, 
 and so Johnson had to interfere. The case 
 called for sharp discipline, and he took the 
 whip and laid a few strokes on the back of 
 the rebellious scholar. The lash caught on 
 some obstacle, and rebounding struck his own 
 left eye, which was instantly covered with 
 blood. The pain was so great as to induce 
 faintness and sickness, and for three days 
 both eyes were nearly blind. The affliction 
 only served to bring out the deep love of 
 these poor negroes for Johnson, whom 
 they constantly visited and for whom they 
 showed the solicitude of devotion. Some, 
 
112 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 whose piety and sincerity he had doubted, 
 thus proved both the reahty of their faith in 
 Christ and of their love toward His servant, 
 and so again all things worked together for 
 good. 
 
 Mr. Johnson's narrative abounds in refer- 
 ences to the surprisingly untiring attendance 
 of these converts upon the so-called " means 
 of grace." There were people, and not a few, 
 who attended every Sunday six separate 
 services of worship, beginning with a prayer- 
 meeting at six o'clock in the morning, then a 
 preaching service at half-past ten, another 
 prayer-meeting at two o'clock, another 
 preaching service at three, and concluding 
 the day with two more prayer-meetings at 
 six and a quarter past eight. And distance 
 was no obstacle, nor was an inconvenient, 
 uncomfortable state of weather. The Word 
 of God laid hold on them ; they learned that 
 God is a prayer-hearer, and they came as 
 those who expected to get blessing, and were 
 never disappointed. Here was an apostolic 
 church like unto the primitive assemblies, 
 springing up on African soil and producing all 
 
FIRST-FRUITS UNTO GOD 113 
 
 the early fruits of faith and godliness. Truly 
 Grod is no respecter of persons. Who shall 
 ever measure the possibilities of grace when 
 such astonishing results appear on such a 
 field as first-f rmts unto God ! 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 FLOODS UPON THE DEY GEOUND 
 
 The history of missions is the standing 
 witness and irresistible proof of the fact that 
 God is, and is a rewarder of those who dili- 
 gently seek Him. The story of these seven 
 years in Sierra Leone is itself another burn- 
 ing bush, which, although it grew in a desert, 
 exhibits every leaf and twig aflame with the 
 divine presence ; and to this day no one who 
 looks intently upon it can help exclaiming, 
 " How wonderful is it ! " 
 
 Yet in all this experience of God's working 
 there was perpetual need of man's watching. 
 The missionary found, both in himself and in 
 his surroundings, abundant occasion for un- 
 ceasing prayerfulness and watchfulness. He 
 himself was but human, and full of tlie follies 
 and frailties of a fallen man; a moment of 
 
 114 
 
FLOODS UPON THE DRY GROUND 115 
 
 seK-confidence or self-dependence might be- 
 tray him not only into grievous mistakes, 
 but into serious sins and departures from the 
 living God. There were European residents 
 in the colony who vigorously believed noth- 
 ing and consistently practised what they 
 believed, exhibiting their creed in their con- 
 duct; and there were also formalists and 
 ritualists, who had neither any true concep- 
 tion of spiritual worship nor any real insight 
 into the inner meaning and purport of divine 
 ordinances. Nor could there be any doubt of 
 a personal devil, nor of his mighty working ; 
 for he seemed to have come down, having 
 great wrath, as though he knew that his time 
 was short, and was determined to work all the 
 havoc and ruin possible in this rapidly trans- 
 forming community. 
 
 It was the habit of Johnson not to spare 
 himself. Perhaps he often went to an ex- 
 treme in his exertions and was unduly care- 
 less of health. Those who, like him, find 
 themselves confronting a whole multitude of 
 most debased and depraved humanity, in 
 perishing need of help for both body and 
 
116 SEl^EN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 soul, and yet compelled to minister to such 
 complex misery and poverty single-handed, 
 have often sacrificed themselves in the vain 
 attempt to overtake the destitution and 
 degradation about them. Ordinary prudence 
 is forgotten in passion for souls ; the barriers 
 of conscious self-preservation are often swept 
 away by the resistless impulse of love for 
 dying men. The maxims of health, the im- 
 perative laws of rest and recreation, the 
 demand for pure air, good food, abundant 
 sleep, are not so much forgotten as disre- 
 garded in the multipljdng activities of a man 
 who sees no way of escape from crowded 
 meetings, ceaseless labors, unwholesome diet, 
 and broken rest, except in the utter aban- 
 donment of his work. 
 
 This may be indefensible and even suicidal, 
 but it is an experience which is so common 
 with the most devoted servants of God that 
 it cannot easily be remedied. Our blessed 
 Lord Himself found no leisure so much as to 
 eat, and had to take the night and the lonely 
 mountain-top to find a time and place for 
 prayerful communion with God. The ques- 
 
FLOODS UPON THE DRY GROUND 117 
 
 tion asked Him by controversial Jews, " Thou 
 art not yet fifty years old, and hast Thou seen 
 Abraham?" hints that the young man of 
 thirty may have presented the appearance of 
 premature age, as though twenty years older, 
 because of the too rapid expenditure of vi- 
 tality in the unavoidable pressure of His 
 ministry to souls and bodies. 
 
 Whatever be the ethics of Mr. Johnson's 
 case, the fact is that more than once he rose 
 from a sick-bed, weak and exhausted, to go 
 to his pulpit or prayer-meeting, lest his 
 hungry flock should go untended or unfed. 
 Sometimes, like Lyman Beecher, he found a 
 good " pulpit sweat " acting as a tonic and 
 stimulant, but there were too many cases in 
 which such exertions were far from remedial. 
 
 From these aspects of his work, and ex- 
 perience of weakness and conflict, we turn, 
 however, to the singular and almost unprece- 
 dented success which so abundantly repaid 
 all expenditure of time and strength that all 
 self -loss was more than forgotten in the vast 
 gains of others. If he had ever for a mo- 
 ment doubted the divine vitality of which 
 
118 SEyEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 the gospel was the hiding, he could not ques- 
 tion that in this seed of the Word there lay 
 the secret of all wisdom and power. He saw 
 that seed, sown by himself in a soil as hope- 
 less as any in the wide world field, actually 
 taking root, and not only taking root, but 
 bearing fruit — the same fruit as elsewhere 
 and in the most promising soil. Plants of 
 godhness, trees of righteousness, were grow- 
 ing rapidly and already stood there in Re- 
 gent's Town, proving God's own husbandry, 
 and men were constrained to call them the 
 planting of the Lord, that He might be 
 glorified.* 
 
 Every day was fraught with events that go 
 to make history. For example, on Novem- 
 ber 27, 1817, he visited King George of Yon- 
 gi'oo, in the Bullom settlement, and as he 
 observed the devils' houses and the influence 
 of the gree-grees, he could only thank God for 
 the contrast to all this presented at Hogbrook. 
 On his return he was welcomed with such 
 enthusiasm that he could get no farther 
 than his door, both house and piazza being 
 
 * Isaiah Ixi. 3. 
 
FLOODS UPON THE DRY GROUND 119 
 
 thronged, and from that point he addressed 
 the crowd. At an evening meeting he read 
 an anecdote of a poor woman who had, at 
 cost of much sacrifice, contributed to mis- 
 sions ; and when he had done speaking four 
 communicants spoke in behalf of the cause 
 of missions, and asked to form a missionary- 
 society, and urged that one evening each week 
 might be set apart for its meetings. Decem- 
 ber 3d being designated, at seven o'clock the 
 church building was full. A service of prayer 
 had preceded, as nothing was done without 
 first counseling with Grod; and a brief talk 
 followed, in which Mr. Johnson, referring to 
 their former state without Christ, depicted the 
 misery of the heathen, and urged them both to 
 send out and support their own missionary, 
 and encouraged them to bring their own little 
 gifts, by commenting on Mark xii. 42-44, the 
 story of the widow and her two mites. No less 
 than seventeen converts followed him, speak- 
 ing much to the purpose, although in broken 
 English, and their pastor wished in his heart 
 that friends in England might have heard those 
 simple exhortations. William Tamba prayed 
 
120 SEFEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 God to send out more laborers to the regions 
 beyond, and emphasized both his prayer and 
 his speech by giving a half-crown. Thinking 
 that he might not understand that a monthly 
 offering was contemplated, it was so explained 
 to him ; but his answer was, " I know, and I 
 will give a similar sum each month." Several 
 others followed his example. It was then 
 decided that those who became members 
 should undertake to give not less than two- 
 pence a month, and one hundred and seven 
 at once became subscribers, after which 
 several of the school-boys and -girls gave 
 their pence and halfpence. One boy, being 
 asked where he had got his money, answered, 
 " Me have three coppers [i.e., halfpence] long 
 time ; me beg massa take two, me keep one." 
 Mr. Johnson advised him to keep them all, 
 but he insisted that at least two should be 
 put in the mission fund, which deeply stirred 
 the heart of his pastor. 
 
 The next day after the formation of this 
 missionary society it was announced that a 
 visit was to be made to Leicester Mountain 
 in the evening, where all the missionaries were 
 
FLOODS UPON THE DRY GROUND 121 
 
 to meet to pray for the spread of the gos- 
 pel, and that any who wished to accompany 
 Mr. Johnson must be ready at four o'clock, 
 dressed and clean. Three hundred and 
 twenty-one went with him. It seemed in- 
 credible, even to the missionary himself, that 
 all these his companions had so short a time 
 before seemed almost beyond the reach of 
 grace. 
 
 The large place of meeting was filled, and 
 some were standing in the yard. It was an 
 occasion never to be forgotten, and as they 
 marched back they sang with joy such hymns 
 as: 
 
 ''How beauteous are their feet, 
 Wlio stand on Zion's hill ; 
 Who bring salvation on their tongues, 
 And words of peace reveal ! " 
 
 The following Lord's day afternoon the 
 sacramental Supper was administered to some 
 eighty persons, Mr. Gates making the address ; 
 but when about half through his remarks he 
 was suddenly overtaken by fever, and had to 
 leave Mr. Johnson to complete the discoui-se ; 
 who also, though he had finished the sermon, 
 
122 SEl^EN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 was prostrated by fever, so that the people had 
 to take charge of the evening service them- 
 selves The next day Mr. Johnson's symptoms 
 were alarmingly violent, for he became de- 
 lirious; bnt a messenger, hastily despatched 
 to the governor, returned with a physician 
 mounted on horseback, and his recovery was 
 rapid. One such glimpse at both the work 
 and its hindrances may sufBce, for it is a fan- 
 example of experiences extended through 
 
 seven years. 
 
 Physical transformations were also wi-ouglit 
 by the gospel. In place of desolation and 
 devastation, Johnson, in 1818, surveying Re- 
 gent's Town from a high rock, could see the 
 prophecy in Isaiah xxxv. 1, 2 literally fal- 
 filled. What in 1816 was a desert overgrown 
 with bush, and the dwelhng-place of wild men 
 and wild beasts, was two years later a fruitful 
 field, garden spots, fields covered with rice, 
 cocoa, cassavas, yams, plantains, and ba- 
 nanas. With a joy that to be known must 
 be felt, he saw the vilest vices and most ab- 
 horrent practices give place to habits of indus- 
 try and virtue, and practical morality and 
 
FLOODS UPON THE DRY GROUND 123 
 
 piety manifested in the daily life of hundreds 
 of people. Promiscuous concubinage would 
 be too refined a phrase for the nameless enor- 
 mities which had prevailed and which were 
 now supplanted and displaced by honorable 
 marriage and domestic purity. When, on 
 July 5, 1818, he united in holy wedlock James 
 Bell, a stone-mason, and Hannah Cammel, 
 an usher in the girls' school, both of them 
 commimicants in his church and weanng 
 European dress, he regarded it as markmg 
 a new epoch in the mission. This was the 
 finest black couple he had ever united m 
 matrimony; they represented the fruits of 
 such civilization as the gospel produces, and 
 he felt a holy pride in contemplating such a 
 basis for a Christian home and household 
 amid the pagan darkness of Africa. 
 
 Family life is another sphere which severely 
 tests the genuineness and depth of the work 
 of grace, and here again gospel triumphs were 
 made conspicuous. Under sin's reign we 
 sometimes see a whole people perishing by 
 excess of deaths over births, while even the 
 births themselvesare largely the fruit of crime. 
 
124 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 At Sierra Leone in one day in 1816 more 
 persons died than were born during a whole 
 year, for there were seven deaths daily and 
 but six births in the three hundred and sixty- 
 five. Two years later it was recorded that 
 within six months only seven deaths had 
 occurred, while forty-two were born, and the 
 excess was therefore already fivefold. 
 
 In 1817 a mutual Benefit Society was organ- 
 ized, consisting of communicants only, each 
 member paying a halfpenny per week, thus 
 forming a fund from which to supply help in 
 sickness or other times of need. This proved 
 a conspicuous means of promoting and foster- 
 ing unselfish love and mutual harmony. It 
 was another of the fruits of godliness, for 
 every one learned to look, not on his own 
 things solely, but on the things of others. 
 These new converts thus early thought of 
 and cared for one another. And though they 
 were so poor, the half-yearly contributions 
 from January to June, 1818, reached in half- 
 pence nearly seven pounds sterling. 
 
 These converted blacks were faithful 
 church-goers, not easily kept away by the 
 
FLOODS UPON THE DRY GROUND 125 
 
 weather. Through torrents of rain they 
 trudged over roads ankle-deep in mud, and 
 forded streams sometimes up to the waist, 
 and even to the neck, that they might worship 
 God. Nearly two years after Johnson began 
 labors among them he put on record in his 
 journal that " not one service had been neg- 
 lected" since he came there. During the 
 rainy season, when the overflow of the streams 
 submerged even the bridges, the people waded 
 through the water up to the armpits rather 
 than be deprived of such privileges, and thus, 
 whether rainy or fair, the house of prayer 
 was always full. 
 
 "When, for any cause, these simple-minded 
 converts were keptfrom the missionary prayer 
 service, they came afterward to bring their 
 small offerings, thus showing more self-sacri- 
 fice and zeal than many a more enlightened 
 disciple, who acts as though to escape a 
 " collection " were simply so much saved ! 
 
 The fruits of faith are not easily counter- 
 feited even by that master of frauds, the 
 devil. Systematic and cheerful giving may 
 be counted among the remarkable signs of 
 
126 SEyEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 grace. Paul, in that great essay on Christian 
 giving which occupies the eighth and ninth 
 chapters of Second Corinthians, presents an 
 example so rare that even yet it has few par- 
 allels. Those Macedonian disciples were so 
 glad to give that, when their deep poverty 
 made him feel reluctant to accept their offer- 
 ings, they, with much entreaty, begged him to 
 receive their gift and admit them to the sacred 
 privilege and fellowship of this ministry to 
 poor saints of the Lord. 
 
 It was given to these Eegent's Town con- 
 verts to imitate these Macedonians in their 
 eagerness to give. One morning some brought 
 money due for the following montli's contri- 
 bution to missions, and when the inquiry was 
 naturally made as to the reason for this ad- 
 vance payment, the explanation of one was : 
 " I may be sick next month and unable to 
 pay, so I pay now to make sure ! " 
 
 We now come to a time in the history of 
 this work when the floods of water were 
 poured upon the dry ground, and the blessing 
 was so abundant and enriching that even the 
 minute features of the narrative acquire fas- 
 
FLOODS UPON THE DRY GROUND 127 
 
 cinatiug interest. Nothing seems insignifi- 
 cant when God mightily moves among men. 
 We may well give close attention to details, 
 lest we lose some part of the significance of 
 this Pentecostal outpouring. 
 
 On September 6, 1818, the church was so 
 densely thronged that even the vestry, gal- 
 lery stairs, tower, and windows were full, and 
 some of the extra seats broke down with 
 their burden. When pastor Johnson came in 
 and looked on the eager throng, his heart 
 was so full both of joy and of awe that he 
 could scarcely restrain his emotion or open his 
 mouth in controlled speech. The groanings 
 and loud cries were more rare, but in their 
 place there was a holy silence as in the pres- 
 ence of God. 
 
 After the service he observed boys and 
 girls going into a field, and he went up to 
 the housetop to watch them. Shortly they 
 parted, the boys going one way and the girls 
 another, and at length he could see them all 
 kneehng behind different clumps of bushes 
 for prayer. When the evening service was 
 over, the boys sought him and told him how 
 
128 SEyEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 they had been out in the field to pray, but 
 found that they did not know how. They 
 said they had heard that Jesus prayed for 
 them, and would like to know if that were 
 really true. He then in simple words ex- 
 plained to them the office of the great High 
 Priest and Intercessor at God's right hand, 
 and they went again to the field, joyfully to 
 resume praying. It was a bright, still, moon- 
 light night, and the scene was awfully im- 
 pressive. Groups of girls could be seen here 
 in one part of the field, and there, at some 
 little distance off upon a high rock, the boys 
 were gathered. Through the quiet night air 
 their voices were clearly heard repeating and 
 then singing hymns, and engaging in prayer, 
 and their words could almost be distin- 
 guished. Many of the older people, hearing, 
 arose and went to join these " infant congre- 
 gations," where, as out of the mouth of babes 
 and sucklings, God was once more perfecting 
 His praise. 
 
 Next morning Johnson awoke early, hear- 
 ing the girls behind the school-house sing- 
 ing and praying ; and his wife advised their 
 
FLOODS UPON THE DRY GROUND 129 
 
 going back to bed, lest others should be dis- 
 turbed. Shortly after, about four o'clock, 
 the boys were heard singing in their houses, 
 and word was sent to them likewise to keep 
 silence and not to wake those who needed 
 sleep. But who could doubt that a power 
 from above was at work among the school- 
 children of Eegent's Town ? 
 
 The morning signal rang for family wor- 
 ship, but it was raining so hard, and the wind 
 blowing so like a tornado, that few were ex- 
 pected to morning prayers. Imagine the sur- 
 prise when, looking from his window, the 
 missionary saw the streets thronged, and go- 
 ing into the large church found it as full as 
 on Sunday ! Mr. Davis and Tamba had been 
 with the boys until two o'clock in the morn- 
 ing, and testified that they could not have 
 believed mere lads capable of such gifts in 
 prayer. All the people seemed to be breathing 
 a heavenly air and bathed in the light of God. 
 Their whole conversation was in heaven, and 
 seemed an illustration of what is recorded of 
 Elijah, that he stood in the presence of Je- 
 hovah, 
 
130 SE^EN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 Outsiders who ventured within could not 
 fail to recognize an unusual but indefinable 
 solemnity that pervaded these assemblies. 
 A carpenter from Leopold's To^vn begged 
 that permission might be obtained from the 
 governor for him to stay at Regent's Town, 
 so reluctant was he to get out of the circle 
 where such blessing abode. 
 
 Just before Mr. Johnson retired for rest 
 September 7, 1818, the girls asked if they 
 might not go into the church to sing and 
 pray. Permission was given, with the con- 
 dition that but two hjTnns should be sung, 
 in order to allow others to sleep. But the 
 singing had only begun when all the people 
 wJio heard it got up and joined them. John- 
 son's own servant, Mary Wynah, was the 
 first to pray, and not a man or boy was then 
 present, but when her prayer was concluded 
 the boys, who had come in, took up the sup- 
 plication, and the prayers continued until six 
 o'clock in the morning, when the throng re- 
 luctantly dispersed and went quietly to bed. 
 
 The next day, after school, boys and girls 
 together again resorted to the church for 
 
FLOODS UPON THE DRY GROUND 131 
 
 prayer, while the missionary and his wife, 
 standing behind the window or sitting under 
 the staircase, drank in delight as they heard 
 these little ones pour out their hearts to God. 
 At last the prayer of a boy but ten years old 
 was so niarvelously rich in spiritual experi- 
 ence that the heart of the missionary burst 
 with emotion. He could stay no longer with- 
 out crying aloud, and, with full soul and 
 streaming eyes, he sought some place where 
 he could give free. vent to his pent-up feel- 
 ings. Even then he could scarcely pray in 
 words, for tears choked his utterance, and he 
 could only cry, amid sobs of joy, " my God 
 and Saviour, what hast Thou done ! What 
 shall I render to Thee?" 
 
 Such rejoicing was not, however, un- 
 mingled with trembling. He was overawed 
 at such clear signs of the divine presence, 
 but he had observed that whenever the Spirit 
 of holiness was peculiarly active the spirits 
 of evil redoubled their activity also, and such 
 continued to be his experience to the very 
 end of his life. Johnson remarked, "I am 
 afraid the devil will roar very loud hereafter," 
 
132 SEyEN YEARS IN SIERRA^ LEONE 
 
 reminding one of the Cornish miner and 
 evangelist, Billy Bray, who always counted 
 on Satan's making a special row whenever 
 the spirit of revival broke out among the peo- 
 ple, and braced himself for the encounter. 
 
 The attachment of these young converts to 
 their missionary pastor was wonderful in both 
 strength and tenderness. For instance, when 
 Mr. Grarnon died, the governor wished Mr. 
 Johnson to hold service at Freetown, August 
 2, 1818. When it was known that he was 
 going to comply, his whole parish was in an 
 uproar of excitement lest he should stay at 
 Freetown to take Mr. Garnon's place, and he 
 could with difficulty pacify his people even 
 by the most emphatic assurances of his return. 
 They declared that if he changed his field of 
 residence and labor they all would follow in 
 a body; and when at last he prevailed on 
 them to consent to his going for the Sunday, 
 they declared that if he did not come back 
 promptly on Monday they would go and fetch 
 him! 
 
 His experience at Freetown was not such 
 as would be likely to wean him from his de- 
 
FLOODS UPON THE DRY GROUND 133 
 
 voted flock. He found a motley congrega- 
 tion, in which were the governor and some 
 officers, together with soldiers and the in- 
 habitants of the town. He spoke from Acts 
 xix. 2, but the Word fell on very unfruitful 
 soil. Indeed, a spirit not only of lethargy, 
 but of levity, pervaded the assembly. He 
 was annoyed by the laughter of the officers, 
 who seemed on the point of leaving in the 
 midst of the meeting, and one did go out. 
 The audience generally were as uninterested 
 and inattentive as though blind and deaf, and 
 the black soldiers were apparently the only 
 ones who inclined to give the preacher a 
 decent hearing. When at noon he reached 
 home, he felt himself not only in another 
 atmosphere, but in a new world. Some of the 
 people, in their impatience for his return, met 
 him on the hill as he approached, and he 
 found Dr. Macaulay Wilson's house crowded, 
 with preparations for keeping the Lord's 
 Supper. In the evening he addressed a throng 
 that seemed to drink in every word he spoke, 
 and again he thanked Grod for such proofs of 
 His presence, and for a people whose hearts 
 
134 SEyEhl YE/IRS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 were not closed and hardened against the 
 truth. 
 
 Not only were they good hearers and not 
 forgetful, but they were doers of the work. 
 They heard for a practical purpose. For in- 
 stance, finding a dispute existing among his 
 church-members, he at once preached from 
 Luke vi. 37 : " Forgive, and ye shall be for- 
 given." The Word had immediate effect. 
 Before they left the house all the disputants 
 had confessed to one another with sorrow 
 their misdoings and their desire for peace. 
 Harmony was at once restored. The house 
 of God became the gate of heaven once more, 
 opening into love's fragrant gardens. 
 
 In August, 1818, nine of the sixteen appli- 
 cants for baptism were school-girls, and in 
 the cases of some of them their youth was a 
 ground of hesitancy. But they gave proofs 
 so simple, yet so ample and striking, of the 
 working of God's grace in their minds and 
 hearts, that their pastor dared not refuse 
 them. Among them was one, a girl of eleven, 
 whom his wife two years before had taken 
 
FLOODS UPON THE DRY GROUND 135 
 
 into their home and named Hagar Johnson. 
 He was strongly opposed to her joining the 
 chnrch, yet he conld find nothing to blame 
 in her conduct, and at her examination as 
 to the evidence of her regenerate state this 
 mere child of eleven years gave an account 
 of her experience of grace so satisfactory that 
 it is not irreverent to apply to her such words 
 as were written of her Master when he was 
 twelve years of age : all that heard her were 
 astonished at her understanding and answers. 
 Mr. Johnson's objections were swept away, 
 and she was received. Nor had he any occa- 
 sion to regret it, for he often found this young 
 disciple on her knees, praying and weeping 
 as she yearned after God, or, like some ma- 
 ture saint, visiting the fatherless and widows 
 in their affliction, ministering to the sick and 
 the needy, while she never failed to show 
 piety at home. 
 
 The Spirit used the Word as the sword, the 
 hammer, and the fire, all at once. The most 
 hardened and hostile were pricked in their 
 hearts, broken into contrition, melted into 
 
13G SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 obedience. Those who had been most hope- 
 lessly bound by habits of sin found their 
 fetters broken, their prison doors opened, and 
 themselves free. It was the acceptable year 
 of the Lord. On one occasion, the gi'eatest 
 enemy of the missionary and his message, 
 who had in every way fought against the 
 truth, working all uncleanness with greedi- 
 ness, came to Mr. Johnson in the greatest 
 distress of mind for guidance. 
 
 The numbers of those who manifested de- 
 sire after godliness were at times so great 
 that the testimony of his own eyes could 
 scarcely be believed. It was more like an 
 iUusive dream than a sober reality. Yet it 
 could be no dream, for as he closely observed 
 he saw how the whole conduct and charac- 
 ter, thought and utterance, had undergone a 
 transformation. 
 
 How gi'eat was the joy of these Sierra 
 Leone converts in their newly found Saviour 
 may be seen by the praise they publicly gave 
 to God that they had ever leen sold into 
 slavery^ since their bondage to man had been 
 the means used in His providence for intro- 
 
FLOODS UPON THE DRY GROUND 137 
 
 ducing them into the liberty of the Lord's 
 freemen. 
 
 Early in his experiences at Hogbrook, Mr. 
 Johnson records his manner of studying God's 
 Word, which should be embodied in this nar- 
 rative as both important and instructive, and 
 of permanent value as revealing secrets of 
 his success. His humility and self-distrust 
 drove him to find all sufficiency in God, and 
 his testimony is unequivocal : 
 
 " I have learned by experience that when I 
 have studied a passage, divided and subdi- 
 vided it, and am thus well prepared by my 
 own imaginations, I feel no power to explain 
 it ; but that when I entirely lean upon God 
 the Holy Spirit's influence, and thus begin, 
 divisions and subdivisions come flowing 
 apace." 
 
 His constant prayer was that whenever, in 
 the name of Jesus, he stood up, he might en- 
 tirely depend on the wisdom that comes from 
 above. And it must be confessed that the 
 simple sermons which he preached evinced 
 much of the Spirit's teaching, even if they 
 were not framed on the best homiletic models. 
 
138 SEVEN YE/IRS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 For example, let us take, almost at ran- 
 dom, an outline on Isaiah Ixii. 12 : " 1. The 
 election: God's people a 'holy people.' 2. 
 Their redemption: 'Redeemed of the Lord.' 
 3. Their calling : ' Sought out.' 4. Their final 
 perseverance : * A city not forsaken.' " 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE REGIONS BEYOND 
 
 Theee are two passions that rank highest 
 among all those impulsive, propulsive forces 
 which can control a human soul. One is the 
 passion for God, and the other is the passion 
 for men. These are companion gifts and 
 graces, representing the noblest, divinest 
 affections of which in our best estate we are 
 capable, and are correspondingly difficult for 
 even Satan, the master counterfeiter, to imi- 
 tate. 
 
 By passion for God is meant that unutter- 
 able yearning after the divine nature and 
 holiness which our Lord expresses by hunger 
 and thirst after righteousness, and which led 
 to Tholuck's famous declaration: "I have 
 but one passion, and it is He, it is He ! " By 
 passion for men is meant that kindred love 
 
 139 
 
140 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 for souls which leads to earnest, self-denying 
 labors for the salvation of men as such, irre- 
 spective of rank, place, caste, class, color, or 
 condition. 
 
 Samuel J. Mills so yearned over earth's 
 perishing multitudes that even the vast valley 
 of the Mississippi was to him " like a pinhole," 
 and he felt a sense of restraint and limitation 
 even within the entire territory of the United 
 States, vast as it was. And so Johnson felt 
 "like a bird in a cage" in Sierra Leone, 
 beating the wings of his holy aspiration 
 against the bars that kept him from a larger 
 flight. He would gladly have been as free as 
 the apocalj^tic angel flying through the midst 
 of heaven with the everlasting gospel. His 
 mind was constantly wandering into the re- 
 gions beyond, and many a night was spent 
 in sleepless, restless yearnings and praying 
 for the Dark Continent as a whole. He, like 
 Coleridge, saw life in two aspects : 
 
 " The petty done, 
 The undone vast." 
 
 His passion for souls only revealed to 
 him his comparative apathy and lethargy — a 
 
THE REGIONS BEYOND 141 
 
 common phenomenon that still perplexes and 
 torments many of the best of God's saints. 
 Grrowth in the likeness of Christ serves only 
 to make us seem to ourselves further from 
 the complete image of His perfection. One 
 very marked peculiarity of Johnson was 
 his mercurial temperament, and this must 
 always be borne in mind in following the 
 course of his life-story. The territory through 
 which a stream runs determines the residuum 
 which it leaves on its bed, whether it be gold 
 or red oxide of iron and green sulphur. It is 
 an encouragement to others who find them- 
 selves weak according to the flesh to see how 
 a man subject to like passions as themselves 
 was so strengthened and used by the Holy 
 Spirit. Grod chooses weak, frail, and earthen 
 vessels, yea, broken pitchers, to convey His 
 grace. There were times when for a whole 
 week this man was in a very low state, saw 
 only his own backwardness in God's service, 
 and felt only his own indifference to the souls 
 over whom he was set as a watchman. He 
 reproached himself that his thoughts were 
 unduly absorbed with the work in the colony, 
 
142 SEyEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 while all Africa, with its countless millions 
 of pagans, lay untrodden before him, inviting 
 labor. Yet who cannot see that all this dark 
 cloud of self -accusation and reproach was but 
 the smoke beneath which burned the Spirit's 
 divine fires? No one can study the brief 
 record of this seven years' ministry without 
 seeing in this unlettered man one who had in 
 the school of Christ learned the lesson of self- 
 loss for others' gain. He counted himself 
 but a seed of the kingdom, whose destiny it 
 was to die, and dying bring forth much fruit, 
 and that fruit was all the recompense or re- 
 ward he desired. 
 
 What a sign and fruit of God's husbandry 
 was it that in the unpromising soil of Sierra 
 Leone passion for souls was found growing 
 even in new converts ! It was common for 
 those who had recently found Christ to be 
 moved by irrepressible desires to win others 
 to Him. For instance, a woman comes, desir- 
 ing to speak with Mr. Johnson. As Mondays 
 were set apart for spiritual conference and 
 counsel, he bids her come then. But it is 
 midweek, and she cannot wait ; her anxieties 
 
THE REGIONS BEYOND 143 
 
 for others are too intense to brook delay. 
 Yet she herself had been baptized only eight 
 months before, and amid constant persecu- 
 tion from her country-people had persevered 
 both in her piety of conduct and her boldness 
 of testimony. Even her own husband beat her 
 when she talked of Jesus, but she calmly de- 
 fied his club until his hard heart yielded 
 before her gentle patience, and he began to 
 attend church and sought a habitation nearer 
 by, that he might oftener hear the Word. 
 And now she has brought four of her coun- 
 trywomen, and they are waiting for the mis- 
 sionary's teaching. Through this humble 
 woman's witness the grace of God has begun 
 in them also its mighty work. Think of a 
 degraded African woman, who eight months 
 before was a fetish-worshiper too low ap- 
 parently to be reached even by the gospel, and 
 yet whose mighty passion for souls cannot be 
 put off five days for an interview! Where 
 did these debased people get such advanced 
 ideas of divine things, as when another 
 woman of the Ebo tribe came asking for bap- 
 tism, and said, "Me pray to God the Holy 
 
144 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 Ghost to take me to Jesus, Him to take me 
 to the Father " I The pastor could only mar- 
 vel how to so simple a mind had been re- 
 vealed the ministry of the Spirit in leading 
 to Jesus as Saviour, and the mediatorial work 
 of the Lord Jesus in reconciling and leading 
 the sinner to Grod. But the same Spirit who 
 could thus make truth plain to the benighted 
 heart could inspire in that heart a holy zeal 
 for God. 
 
 If "the powers that be are ordained of 
 God," they do not always honor their divine 
 ordination. In 1818 the governor, visiting 
 Regent's Town, expressed the wish that Mr. 
 Johnson would baptize more of the people, 
 and, in fact, all of them that would submit. 
 Looking on baptism as he did, as an act of 
 civilization, he thought it the duty of the 
 missionary to apply it to all and so help to 
 make them all Christians. He urged that the 
 reason why so many were baptized on the 
 day of Pentecost was that the apostles de- 
 spised and refused none; and the warmth 
 and positiveness with which he advocated 
 such promiscuous use of the ordinance were 
 
THE REGIONS BEYOND 145 
 
 well calculated to abash and embarrass his 
 humble subordinate. 
 
 Like too many others, the chief magistrate 
 mistook a sign and seal of grace received 
 for a means or method of receiving or con- 
 veying grace. Few evils have ever crept 
 into the church of God more alarming and 
 subtle than notions of sacramental efficacy. 
 Worship expresses itself in forms, but forms 
 can never inspire worship. Love and loyalty 
 to God find their natural channel in holy 
 obedience, but in vain do you scoop out 
 a channel where there is no stream. It is 
 both an inversion and a perversion when a 
 sacrament or ordinance is elevated to such 
 prominence as that it is made pi'actically to 
 take the position of a cause where it should 
 be an effect, or to precede where it should 
 succeed. 
 
 Johnson was not a man to be thus silenced. 
 He could withstand governors and kings if 
 loyalty to Christ and His truth demanded, as 
 John the Baptist rebuked Herod, as Elijah 
 confronted Ahab, or as Sir Matthew Hale 
 joined issue with the Protector. He quietly 
 
146 SEl^EN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 replied that ho could baptize none whose 
 hearts God had not touched. 
 
 The simple-minded missionary had clear 
 views of New Testament teaching, and dared 
 to hold firmly fast to apostolic usage, and 
 would baptize no adults save those who, like 
 Pentecostal converts, were " pricked in their 
 heart" and "believed." The governor had 
 no answer ready to meet the biblical argu- 
 ment, but had the usual reply, always too 
 easy to resort to, and often quite too convinc- 
 ing to timid souls — the appeal to human au- 
 thority. He declared he would write to the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury about it, insisting 
 that it was Johnson's duty to mahe Christians 
 of this people. To which again he replied 
 that there was One only who could make 
 Christians, and that he could and would bap- 
 tize none but those whom he believed Grod 
 had thus wrought upon. So stubborn was 
 the governor in his purpose to follow out his 
 notions of baptismal regeneration that he 
 threatened to employ some less scrupulous 
 Wesleyan minister to perform the rite, or get 
 more advanced ritualists from the Society for 
 
THE REGIONS BEYOND 147 
 
 Promoting Cliristian Knowledge. Johnson 
 again affirmed his readiness to baptize all 
 who were manifestly penitent for sin and 
 willing to accept Christ as Savionr, but he 
 could not go beyond the Word of the Lord, 
 even at the command of a governor. The 
 chief magistrate gave up the contest as hope- 
 less, and contented himself with calling the 
 immovable Johnson and the society that sent 
 him to Africa " a set of fanatics." 
 
 The missionary, who had learned too much 
 of loyalt}'^ to God to obey human dictates, 
 found that this was not the only matter in 
 which conscience compelled resistance to the 
 chief magistrate of the colony. He refused 
 to enjoin the people to sing " God save the 
 king," because it was so habitually sung over 
 the beer-pot that he could not safely intro- 
 duce it into a divine service. And although 
 the governor was determined to impose it on 
 the people, Johnson would not submit, believ- 
 ing this patriotic hymn so tainted with god- 
 less associations that it was like a garment 
 spotted with the flesh, unfit to be worn by 
 worshipers in a prayer service. 
 
MM Si:yilN YU/IRS IN SII.RR/I l.liONl: 
 
 Wliotluii" Of Mol. lli(5 iiiissioiiJii-y's ('()iirw(i 
 always comrnciMls ilsclf lo oiii* Jii<l;j:;Mi('n1 Jis 
 wiH(i nnd scrisihld, wo ('.'umot (|ii(\sii()u oiilicr 
 its siiicci'ily oi- iiitT'('-i)i(lity ; and, in view of 
 tho toinpL'il Ion Ixjl'oro wliicJi so iruuiy fail and 
 fall, of bowing to Imrnari aniliority oven at 
 (!Xf)onso of conscionoo, it is iinpossiblo not to 
 ji(lniii-(! tho fixodnoss of pui-poso that mado 
 liiinsl;uid like, (rihr.-iJI.-if Jiinid lli(5 wjivos, linn, 
 nntnovod, jtnd si^icin^ 
 
 Whilo ill l<'i'(M'1()Vvn ( !lii-istnias was a d;iy 
 of roviilry, if not of riot, tli(< pcoplo condiKrt- 
 ing tln^nisolvoH in niosi, uiiso(^inly fji.sliion, 
 Julius liiiii^ iiJI nielli, dniiii<('iin(^ss stji,Ii<iii;^ 
 tli(! slr(!(?ts, lions<!S sot on fii'c^, Jind nuiroons 
 .'ind s(5ttl('J's rc'idy Jiiiy nioiiicnt for .-in ojx'ii 
 biawl, Johnson saw in liis own li<^ld pojico 
 jind (pji(it provaibng, ji, ch^anly dn^ssod jind 
 d(M;Oi"ons cotripjiny coining to clinrcli, witlioni, 
 a sonnd of gnn-liring or a sign ol' iiil<»xi('ji- 
 lioii. And llio n(!xt d;i,y (Tight iiiiiidic*! h;ippy 
 po-opl(5 sat <h)\vii t(»g<'Mi(!r to a, sort of lov(^- 
 foast Ix'foi-o tiio house of lh<; niissionai-y. 
 Thoy had th(!nis(!iv(!S pn^pan^d th(^ dinner, 
 thoir ('}Mp(!nt()rs iruiking tlio tal)l(^s .-iiid 
 
THE REGIONS BEYOND 149 
 
 benches, and their mechanics bringing the 
 provisions they had saved against the feast- 
 day, while others cooked them. David Noah, 
 one of their number, asked the blessing, 
 which all reverently repeated after him. And 
 when all had eaten and were full, they 
 gathered up the fragments, that nothing 
 might bo lost. What a contrast to the can- 
 nibal feasts of pagan tribes ! 
 
 The mighty passion for souls that swayed 
 Johnson had a strong counter-current to 
 contend with in his hearty affection for his 
 wife. In 1819 there first arose a demand, 
 on her account, for a pause in his apostolic 
 work. Mi's. Johnson's health, which during 
 all their stay in Sierra Leone proved very 
 frail, had at this time become seriously and, 
 as it proved, permanently impaired. In 
 1818 an almost fatal illness had brought her 
 to the verge of the grave, and the same symp- 
 toms now reappeared with even greater vio- 
 lence, and made her return to England a 
 matter of necessity. Her devoted husband 
 was in a strait betwixt two, nuich perplexed 
 as to questions of both love and duty. Loy- 
 
150 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 alty to his wife and responsibility for his large 
 flock each pressed its peculiar claims, and it 
 was for a time doubtful which motive would 
 ultimately prevail. In each direction his 
 path seemed to meet a "mountain insur- 
 mountable to reason." At last he determined 
 to accompany her to England. 
 
 Here perhaps we come to a natural halting- 
 place whence to look in general survey over 
 the work accomplished in these two short 
 years. As from " Inspiration Point," which in 
 the Yosemite Valley commands a view of the 
 whole of that vale of imposing beauty, we 
 may here at least glance at the stupendous 
 changes wrought by the gospel at Hogbrook. 
 
 This repulsive name, which had given place 
 to the more refined title Regent's Town, had 
 come originally from the host of wild hogs 
 which infested the small stream flowing there- 
 abouts; and it was scarce too mean to de- 
 scribe the low order of human swine which 
 were there found wallowing in their own 
 mire and filth. What more could be ex- 
 pected of a refuse population, the offscouring 
 of the earth, swept from the aUeys of London, 
 
THE REGIONS BEYOND 151 
 
 and emptied out of those devil's galleys, the 
 slave-ships, and finding a dumping-ground in 
 Africa ! Here in Sierra Leone this indiscrim- 
 inate mass of humanity, huddled together 
 without moral restraints or physical control, 
 gave way to the basest of animal passions 
 because no higher motives were appealed to ; 
 and the life thus lived was so unutterably 
 low in its level, physically, intellectually, and 
 morally, that, as has been intimated, lan- 
 guage supplies no proper colors in which 
 to paint such a picture. Hell may furnish an 
 adequate dialect of description, but earth has 
 not yet supplied one, thank Grod ! 
 
 Can it be credited, even upon authentic 
 testimony, that already there had taken place 
 a transformation which was rather a trans- 
 figuration? Worship simple and sincere, 
 decorous and spiritual, on the Lord's day, 
 family prayer preceding and following daily 
 toils, and such public and household devo- 
 tions displacing a superstition and idolatry 
 too low to be dignified by the name of wor- 
 ship ! Grree-gree charms and witchcraft, red 
 water and devils' houses, vile practices and 
 
152 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 abhorrent usages, had ah^eady given way to 
 decent attire and civilized habits, to Christian 
 wedlock and well-regulated household life, 
 to Bibles and prayer-books, missionary so- 
 cieties and consecrated offerings. 
 
 Johnson's passion for souls led to occasional 
 excursions into the surrounding country, a 
 few references to which may be sufficient 
 without repetitious details. For example, 
 early in 1819 he went, in company with Mr. 
 Gates, William Tamba, and others, to Wilber- 
 force, on the northwestern side of the colony, 
 and Cape Shilling, forty miles beyond, to 
 Margenna and Robiss, and made a complete 
 circuit. He undertook tours afoot, going 
 sometimes as far as one hundred and twenty 
 miles in seven days, in hopes to reach those 
 tribes yet un evangelized, and find new fields 
 of service and sacrifice, and win new trophies 
 for Christ. In all these excursions he found 
 it needful almost to tear himself away from 
 the simple-minded converts, who were in 
 mortal fear lest some fatality might take 
 from them the teacher to whom they were 
 devoted. So great, however, was Johnson's 
 
THE REGIONS BEYOND 153 
 
 yearning to sow the wider wastes about 
 him with the gospel seed that but for 
 providential hindrances arresting his ac- 
 tivities he would doubtless have overleaped 
 the bounds of the colony in larger and more 
 permanent operations. He might, indeed, 
 have anticipated Livingstone as Africa's mis- 
 sionary explorer and general. 
 
 Everywhere in these tours into regions 
 beyond were found proofs of a similar deg- 
 radation to that originally confronted in 
 Hogbrook. Among the Cosso people marks 
 of the reign of superstition abounded. Scarce 
 a house had not its wooden post and broken 
 bowl for its defense. At Margenna they 
 were warned against approaching one partic- 
 ular house, as it was haunted, and approach 
 would be fatal; and to confirm this a dead 
 horned owl was pointed out hanging near 
 it, which, as it was stoutly maintained, had 
 dropped down dead for presuming to fly 
 over it. 
 
 One important result of this tour (1819) 
 was that both Mr. Johnson and Mr. Gates felt 
 so well satisfied as to the manner in which 
 
154 SEyEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 William Tamba had addressed the natives 
 that both he and William Davis were taken 
 into the society's service to act as messen- 
 gers of salvation in native districts. The 
 examination of these two men previous to 
 their being thus set apart revealed the same 
 motives and spirit as in the most mature 
 saints — another evidence of the Spirit's teach- 
 ing. In their simple language we find a holy 
 humility and self-distrust, coupled with a 
 deep desire to be of use, a simple faith in 
 Grod's call and help, and a courageous fear- 
 lessness in accepting whatever risk was 
 involved. And the society's committee, in 
 approving this new stej) of sending native 
 teachers among their countrymen, ad^ased a 
 well-digested system whereby competent con- 
 verts should be selected, trained, and habitu- 
 ated to such evangelistic service. 
 
 The secretaries of the Chui'ch Missionary 
 Society wrote to Johnson (April 8, 1819), 
 expressing their judgment that he had been 
 " rather too slow to baptize," they taking the 
 position that "baptism is a means of grace, 
 and may be a tm-niug-point in decision of 
 
THE REGIONS BEYOND 155 
 
 heart for Christ." They also advised that in 
 cases of " baptized persons dying " he might 
 safely " use the burial service, whatever their 
 previous character," arguing that to refuse 
 implied a "needless scrupulosity" and an 
 assuming of " a judgment of condemnation." 
 
 The same letter informed him that a sec- 
 ond chaplain, the Rev. Thomas Garnsey, was 
 about to come to the colony. 
 
 While the critical illness of Mrs. Johnson 
 made her immediate return to England 
 necessary, and demanded his accompanying 
 her (for she needed such care as only a hus- 
 band can give), yet it seemed impossible to 
 leave the people. Over fifty negroes were 
 added in February to the church, and many 
 more were candidates, so that nearly every 
 night was spent in examination, and some 
 cases of conversion were as startling as the 
 change of a lion into a lamb. 
 
 As the time drew near for Mr. Johnson to 
 sail for England the need seemed to be only 
 the more imperative for him to remain where 
 he was. The number of communicants now 
 reached two hundred and sixty-three, and 
 
156 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 their course of life was such as became the 
 gospel of Christ, and put to silence all cavil- 
 ing. All the people seemed hungry for 
 righteousness, and a deep seriousness per- 
 vaded the schools. Moreover, in March, 1819, 
 the boys' school-house was burned, and the 
 girls' house and Johnson's own dwelling were 
 in danger; but prayer was earnestlj^ offered 
 for deliverance, and the wind, which at the 
 beginning was so boisterous as to threaten 
 a conflagration, ceased, and a complete calm 
 followed, and all the i^eople saw the flames 
 ascend perpendicularly , and acknowledged the 
 hand of God. Such destruction made neces- 
 sary a rebuilding, while such interposition of 
 God emphasized the power of prayer and 
 opened the hearts of the people to the truth. 
 On April 11, 1819, Mr. Johnson baptized one 
 hundred and ten adults ; it was a pentecostal 
 day. 
 
 The missionary who saw this work of God 
 moving at such pace in Regent's Town not 
 only went on evangelistic tours into the re- 
 gions beyond, but sought to organize mis- 
 sionary societies and multiply all kindred 
 
THE REGIONS BEYOND I57 
 
 means of gracious growth and service in the 
 settlements he visited. Though at times very 
 low-spirited, he found refuge from morbid 
 mental states in abundant work for others 
 and when so ill that he seemed pressed down 
 under an insupportable burden of discourage- 
 ment, he remembered that we are " immortal 
 till our work is done," and gloried in that 
 strength which is made perfect only in weak- 
 ness. 
 
 These venturings into the regions beyond 
 were sometimes occasions of peculiar interest. 
 During the nine days' journey in October, 
 1820, in connection with the Plantains,— a 
 group of islands where he found about two 
 hundred inhabitants, — Mr. Johnson went in 
 search of the lime-trees planted by the Eev. 
 John Newton when he had been wandering 
 over the island like a lost sheep ; and he found 
 that they had been cut down, but from the 
 trunk of one new branches had shot forth ; 
 and a hymn-book also was discovered, several 
 hymns in which were of Newton's own com- 
 position. Thus, on the very spot where this 
 converted slave-trader had wandered in is^no- 
 
158 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 rance sixty-five years before, and planted 
 lime-trees for his amusement, his hymns were 
 still being sung in the Sherbro tongue. 
 
 In April, 1821, Johnson learned that the 
 missionaries had succeeded in getting laud 
 sufficient to begin a colony in tlie Bassa 
 country. When the news reached his ears 
 his emotion could not be expressed. Mr. Cates 
 had been encoui*aged to go into that country 
 with reference to establishing a mission, and 
 he had died of fatigue, which had caused 
 Johnson to bear a heavy burden. Now, for 
 the first time, that burden had been relieved, 
 for had Mr. Cates not gone there, the mis- 
 sionaries would not have received land. The 
 king had made an agreement with him which 
 opened the way immediately, and now the 
 prince, the king's son, came with ^Mr. Davis 
 as a token of good faith. AVhen the two 
 entered the evening school, the natives of the 
 Bassa country surrounded the prince, affec- 
 tionately embraced him, and inquired for 
 their relatives, laughing for joy when they 
 heard that their parents were alive and that 
 the gospel would soon be sounding in their 
 
THE REGIONS BEYOND 159 
 
 ears. The scene was simply indescribable, 
 and would have drawn tears from eyes un- 
 used to weep. 
 
 There was a sense in which the regions 
 beyond were frequently brought near to the 
 missionary's doors. On May 15, 1821, a note 
 received from J. Reffell, Esq., chief super- 
 intendent of captured negroes, informed 
 Johnson that a vessel had been brought in 
 with two hundred and thirty-eight miserable 
 slaves, and that he and the acting governor 
 had agreed to send them up to Regent's Town, 
 begging him to go to Freetown to receive 
 them. He went, accompanied by some of the 
 people, those who remained at home prepar- 
 ing food for these new-comers. The vessel 
 was a small schooner, and many of the poor 
 victims were actually reduced to skeletons. 
 Two hundred and seventeen slaves were 
 delivered to Johnson's care, the rest being 
 placed in the Leicester Hospital. He had to 
 surround them by his people as they marched 
 out of Freetown to prevent the soldiers of 
 the fort seizing some of the women for wives. 
 
 The scenes which took place upon the ar- 
 
160 SE^EN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 rival of these slaves at Eegent's Town defy 
 description. As soon as they came in sight 
 all the people left their houses to meet them 
 with loud acclamations. When they saw that 
 the new-comers were weak and faint, they 
 carried the feeblest of them toward Mr. 
 Johnson's house and laid them on the ground, 
 themselves also being quite exhausted. Soon 
 many of the people began to recognize their 
 friends and relatives, and there was a gen- 
 eral cry: "0 massa, my sister, my brother, 
 my mother, my father, my countrywoman ! " 
 The poor creatures, who had recently been 
 taken out of the hold of a slave-vessel, faint 
 and but half conscious of what had befallen 
 them, did not know whether to laugh or 
 cry when they beheld the countenances of 
 those whom they had supposed long dead, 
 but whom they now beheld, clothed and 
 clean, in some cases perhaps bearing healthy 
 children in their arms. The people ran off 
 to their houses, brought all the provisions 
 they had made ready, and shortly over- 
 powered these unfortunates with messes of 
 every description, pineapples, oranges, and 
 
THE REGIONS BEYOND 161 
 
 groundnuts being also brought out in great 
 abundance. 
 
 During the same day another remarkable 
 event occurred — nothing less than a genuine 
 earthquake, which shook all the buildings ; 
 but even this made less impression than the 
 wonderful scenes of the morning, and it was 
 a long time before these lost their vividness. 
 
 These new-comers had to be distributed 
 among the people, several of whom had the 
 joy to take home a long-lost brother or sister. 
 There were many most affecting incidents. 
 One of the little girls who had been rescued 
 was clothed in the raiment of a school-girl, 
 that she might be taken to church ; and when 
 she saw the number of people gathered, she 
 ran back crying, thinking it was a slave- 
 market and she was again to be sold. She 
 stammered out among sobs that she "had 
 been sold too much, and did not want to be 
 sold any more." By October fifty out of two 
 hundred and thirty-eight of the newly ar- 
 rived slaves had died as the effect of their 
 confinement and half-starvation on ship- 
 board. 
 
162 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 Another addition had now to be planned 
 for the church, which was enlarged so as to 
 be eighty feet long by sixty-four wide, with 
 galleries all around, doubling its accommo- 
 dations. 
 
 Notwithstanding his trials, labors, and dis- 
 appointments, Johnson felt himself to be the 
 happiest man in the world, and declared 
 that he would not exchange his situation for 
 all the crowns on earth; while, at the same 
 time, he was so affected by the sins and way- 
 wardness of the people that he was a Jere- 
 miah, and exclaimed, " Oh that my head were 
 waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that 
 I might weep day and night for the slain of 
 the daughter of my people ! " In October, 
 1822, one hundred and eighty more were 
 received from a slave-vessel, thus increasing 
 the population to nineteen hundred. The 
 regions beyond were sending their popula- 
 tion to his very doors. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 IN THE FUENACE OF AFFLICTION 
 
 The spirit is often willing when tlie flesh is 
 weak. It is one of the sore trials of faith 
 that in more senses than one it has to wrestle 
 against flesh and blood. Weakness hinders 
 even those who are no longer slaves of wicked- 
 ness, and infirmities of the body oppress many 
 a saint who is strong in faith and heroic in 
 purpose. To learn to halt for a time, especially 
 for an indefinite time, and, while yearning and 
 burning with intense desire for active service, 
 to be compelled to rest, perhaps to resign 
 ourselves to passive suffering — this is one of 
 the last and hardest tasks given us in the 
 school of God. 
 
 In Johnson's case such an abandonment 
 of his work first became a necessity in 1819. 
 He had long fought against it, but at last suc- 
 
 163 
 
164 SE^EN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 cuinbed to an inevitable, unavoidable absence, 
 and knew not when he would retui-n. A mys- 
 terious divine hand pointed to the shores of 
 Britain a man whose whole heart, like Living- 
 stone's after him, was in Africa. 
 
 The day of departure came, and on April 
 22d — a farewell message to his beloved peo- 
 ple, from 2 Corinthians xiii. 11 having been 
 delivered four days previously — Johnson 
 embarked on board the Echo. Hundi'eds of 
 negroes, old and young, men and women, 
 walked with him over the hard five-mile road 
 to Freetown, and took leave of him with 
 many tears, as the Ephesian elders parted 
 from Paul at Miletus. They gave striking 
 expression to their devotion in such simple 
 words as these: "Massa, suppose no water 
 live here," pointing to the wide sea, " we go 
 with you all the way till feet no morey 
 
 Such a man as Johnson could not be hid. 
 On the voyage he preached, and dealt so 
 faithfully and pointedly with the passengers 
 that some complained to the captain that the 
 preacher was personal. It was the message, 
 not the man, that was "personal"; and so 
 
IN THE FURNACE OF AFFLICTION 165 
 
 plain was it that he was impelled only by- 
 unselfish love of truth and love of souls that 
 before the vessel reached the dock the mouths 
 of opposers were stopped, and foes were 
 turned to friends, kind and attentive. 
 
 As the main purpose of this narrative is 
 to portray with all possible simplicity and 
 brevity the work of God at Sierra Leone, it 
 will suffice to give only a passing glance at 
 this interval of absence from the field. 
 
 He revisited Hanover in Germany, where 
 his mother lived, and when he told her 
 that he was her son, her own " Augustine," 
 she could not believe it until he showed her 
 two marks upon his body which served to 
 identify him. Then her agitation of mind 
 can scarcely be conceived. Tears of mingled 
 joy and uncontrollable excitement ran down 
 her cheeks. One of his sisters, about twenty 
 years old, could not be persuaded to leave him, 
 and scarcely slept after his arrival, sitting be- 
 side him even when he lay in bed. Notwith- 
 standing his own disapproval of the plan as 
 inexpedient, she prepared to accompany him 
 wherever he might go, and, following him on 
 
166 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 his return to England, she was, after due 
 examination, received by the committee of 
 the Church Missionary Society as a school- 
 mistress for West Africa. Thus Johnson's 
 visit to his own kindred was attended with 
 peculiar blessing, for which his gracious ex- 
 periences and letters had prepared the way, 
 and lasting impressions were made upon a 
 large circle of relatives and friends. 
 
 While in England, God used his simple 
 narrative of his missionary labors in Sierra 
 Leone, as he had used the rehearsal of the mis- 
 sion tour of Paul and Barnabas at Antioch, 
 for the refreshment and arousing of the 
 churches. The respite from work at Regent's 
 Town was not a loss to the wider work of 
 missions. For example, when, before the Berk- 
 shire Church Missionary Association, he read 
 letters lately received from native converts 
 and communicants in his church in Sierra 
 Leone, — Tamba, Davis, Peter Hughes, David 
 Noah, — a gentleman who was present was so 
 struck with these letters as confirming Mr. 
 Johnson's statements that he asked to be in- 
 formed whether these documents were origi- 
 
IN THE FURNACE OF AFFLICTION 1G7 
 
 nals or copies. He was permitted to examine 
 them closely for himself, and he then frankly 
 stated his conviction that, considering the 
 very short time during which these slaves had 
 been under instruction, they evinced a degree 
 and a rapidity of progress in religious know- 
 ledge quite unequaled.* He was so persuaded 
 of the usefulness of Mr. Johnson's labors that, 
 although a member and supporter both of 
 the Society for Promoting Christian Know- 
 ledge and of the Society for the Propagation 
 of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, he could not 
 withhold active support from the Church 
 Missionary Society also, and it was at his 
 suggestion that a resolution was passed favor- 
 ing the publication of these letters. Mr. 
 Johnson attended meetings and addressed 
 audiences at Saffron-Walden, Suffolk, Exeter, 
 Teignmouth, and other places, and every- 
 where great blessing attended his words of 
 witness. But Sierra Leone drew him with 
 a strange and irresistible force, and, as Mrs. 
 Johnson's health was already greatly im- 
 proved, in less than five months after his 
 
 * Appendix 11. 
 
ICS SnyilN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 arrival in England preparations were made 
 for his return. On the 19th of November, at 
 Freemasons' Hall in London, he gave a de- 
 tailed account of the remarkable scenes of 
 transformation he had already witnessed at 
 Regent's Town, and it is difficult to say which 
 produced the profounder impression — the 
 marvelous changes of which he had been the 
 instrumental means, or the simplicity and 
 humility which were manifested in the whole 
 narration. The minds of all present were 
 deeply moved, and this brief visit to England 
 served to rivet attention upon the field to 
 which he returned. 
 
 On December 27tli, with their band of new 
 helpers, he and his wife reembarked for Africa 
 in the ship Maida, and on January 31, 1820, 
 reached Freetown. 
 
 On landing he was met, as might be anti- 
 cipated, by a welcome home which was char- 
 acteristically hearty. A man who saw him 
 coming ashore ran quickly five miles to Re- 
 gent's Town with the news ; and Mr. Wilhelm 
 had just concluded the daily evening service 
 when he rushed in among the congregation 
 
IN THE FURNACE OF AFFLICTION 1G9 
 
 crjang, "All hear! all hear! Mr. Johnson 
 come ! " The confusion and excitement over- 
 leaped all bounds. The whole assembly 
 leaped to its feet as one man, and such as 
 could not wait to get out at the doors actually 
 jumped out at the windows. Mr. Johnson 
 testified that he had never in his life shaken 
 hands as on that day, though he took care not 
 to lose any of Ms finger-nails in consequence 
 of this incessant and painful handshaking, as 
 had been the case when he left six months be- 
 fore. But the joy of those simple-minded peo- 
 ple made him quite insensible to any physical 
 discomfort due to their wild enthusiasm. 
 
 One of the first matters claiming his atten- 
 tion was a letter which had come, in his ab- 
 sence, from the secretaries in London, having 
 reference to the loud outcries and violent fits 
 of weeping, already noted as often hindering 
 the decorous conduct of public worship. The 
 letter called attention to the necessity of 
 carefully guarding against Satan's devices, 
 and referred to the peculiar character of the 
 African tribes, their imperfect knowledge of 
 religion and their limited experience in the 
 
170 SEyEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 divine life, their imperfectly formed judg- 
 ments and their constitutional susceptibihty 
 to excitement. The wisdom of a sound mind, 
 evinced in this whole communication, showed 
 that the Church Missionary Society then, as 
 now, was administered by men conspicuous 
 not only for sterling piety, but for sanctified 
 common sense. Johnson felt, however, what 
 many a missionary has felt since, that it is 
 one thing to give wise counsel from a secre- 
 tary's desk in the center of an enlightened na- 
 tion, and quite another to confront an actual 
 difficulty on the field, in the midst of an ig- 
 norant, uncultivated, superstitious throng of 
 negroes recently rescued from the yoke of 
 abject slavery. Many a theory of treatment, 
 which is as symmetrical and beautiful as the 
 geometrical web which a spider weaves, is as 
 frail and weak when applied to the practical 
 evil which needs correction or restraint. It 
 reminds one of the boastful French surgeon 
 who, having treated a large number of criti- 
 cal cases, confessed that he had in no case 
 saved the patient's life, but insisted that the 
 operation ivas very hrilliant. 
 
 A supreme sorrow and trial, however, 
 
IN THE FURNACE OF AFFLICTION 111 
 
 awaited Mr. Johnson's return. When he 
 entered Regent's Town it was about ten 
 o'clock in the evening and bright moonlight ; 
 but that silver radiance only served to dis- 
 close the fact that ruins confronted him 
 everywhere. The church tower and the 
 school-house, which was being roofed in 
 when he left, were now leveled to the ground ; 
 the other school-house, intended for the boys, 
 was pulled down as far as the windows, and 
 the fences were down about his yard and gar- 
 den and the cultivated field. The hospital 
 was as he had left it, no progress having been 
 made, and all else, including the church build- 
 ing, was in a most deplorable state. In fact, 
 the town was scarcely recognizable. 
 
 Closer examination showed more serious 
 declension in spiritual things. Several of his 
 church-members had sadly backslidden, but 
 not without cause. In his subsequent letter 
 to the directors he says : " I thought that I 
 had left a friend and a brother here when 
 I left this place,* ,but how have I been de- 
 ceived!" Rachel Grarnon, Hagar Johnson, 
 
 * By his own request a Mr. and Mrs. Morgan had been put 
 in charge of the work during his absence. 
 
172 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 and Martha Johnson had actually been 
 flogged out of church, on Sunday, by his sub- 
 stitute. These girls had for three years been 
 Mr. Johnson's household servants, and one 
 of them had just risen from a sick-bed. Ra- 
 chel bore for considerable time the marks of 
 the whip on her back ; nor could the victims 
 of this outrage tell why this flogging had 
 been inflicted, or why they were thus driven 
 from the house of worship, Mrs. Wilhelm 
 gave them all an excellent character, attesting 
 their uniformly consistent Christian behavior. 
 It gradually transjiired that, so soon as 
 Johnson had gone, his plans had been upset 
 and new ones formed, and the whole town 
 brought into confusion. The pay of some of 
 the work-people had been reduced, and such 
 as were not willing to accept less wages had 
 been told to go elsewhere, so that the popu- 
 lation of the place had, from this and other 
 causes, been thinned. The missionary society 
 had been virtually dissolved ; no one had for 
 four or five months spoken of it or done any- 
 thing to feed its flame, no sermon being 
 preached, no offerings being collected ; and a 
 
IN THE FURNACE OF AFFLICTION 173 
 
 fire that has no fuel will of course die down 
 and go out. The benefit society would like- 
 wise have gone to ruin had not the members 
 of it themselves kept up the interest in it. 
 
 Mr. Wilhelm had done all he could to re- 
 store former prosperity, but with only partial 
 success. Through an administration so un- 
 wise as to be almost, if not quite, unchristian, 
 the little church had been well-nigh wrecked. 
 Yet all that Mr. Johnson wrote to the direc- 
 tors was without a trace of resentment: "I 
 
 pity Mr. , and heartily forgive him, and 
 
 pray that, if he goes out again elsewhere, he 
 may be possessed of a more humble spirit." 
 
 With the return of the beloved pastor the 
 church rapidly regained its former state. He 
 invited and exhorted the people to come to- 
 gether, revive their missionary society and 
 renew their offerings, and they cordially 
 responded. The church had gone through 
 the furnace of trial and was not consumed; 
 over two hundred and fifty communicants 
 remained, and on this basis the rebuilding of 
 the work must be carried on. 
 
 As in every other crisis, God's servant re- 
 
174 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 sorted to prayer. As he confronted the dis- 
 asters that in his absence had come upon the 
 little flock, under a grief that would have 
 crushed most other men, he simply took 
 refuge in the old promise through which the 
 light first came into his soul : 
 
 " Call upon Me in the day of trouble ; 
 I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me." 
 
 A prayer-hearing God once more appeared 
 for his deliverance. At the throne of grace 
 in the secret pavilion with God he got peace 
 and so communicated it, removing the jeal- 
 ousy and envy which had been the cause of 
 all the differences between brethren, and him- 
 self setting the example of unselfish love. 
 He himself never caused unpleasantness or 
 estrangement. Bearing patiently with a meek 
 and quiet spirit all that was unkind and un- 
 just, he became not only a peacekeeper, but 
 a peacemaker, though never at the expense of 
 truth or the risk of principles. " The wisdom 
 that is from above is first pure, then peace- 
 able." 
 His holy zeal was, throughout, a large factor 
 
IN THE FURNACE OF AFFLICTION 175 
 
 in his success. In the midst of all these 
 arduous toils, made heavier by these trials, 
 he writes: "Ah, who would not be a mis- 
 sionary to Africa ! Had I ten thousand lives, 
 I would willingly offer them all for the sake 
 of one poor negro." Such devotion is the 
 impregnable armor of love, and enables one 
 to bear all things and be more than a con- 
 queror. 
 
 His humility also made him self-distrustful 
 and therefore the less prone to judge others 
 harshly. He did not wince under reproof, 
 but rather sought rebuke when needful. He 
 begged the secretaries to counsel and ad- 
 monish him as to whatever they regarded as 
 out of the way; he thought of himself as a 
 most unworthy and inefficient missionary, 
 and welcomed even a smiting as a kindness 
 if it might help him to greater service. 
 
 No small part of the distressing vexations 
 of this field arose from resident Europeans, 
 as, for example, those in Freetown, whose 
 ungodly passions found vent not only in 
 breaking the Sabbath for themselves, but in 
 getting intoxicated and going about on horse- 
 
176 SEVEN YE/fRS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 back through the villages, annoying church- 
 goers who were on their way to or from the 
 house of worship. 
 
 One of the native converts expressed his 
 quaint philosophy of the trials through which 
 they had passed in these words : " Suppose 
 somebody beat rice; he fan it, and all the 
 chaff fly away and the rice get clean. Now, 
 massa, we be in that fashion since you gone : 
 God fan us that time for true." 
 
 In January, 1821, in a letter to the secre- 
 taries in London, Johnson made mention of 
 another trial which it was for him very hard 
 patiently to bear, as it involved risk to the 
 converts, over whom he watched with pa- 
 rental care and to whom he was daily impart- 
 ing his own life and soul, because they were 
 so dear to him. Let us record his own words : 
 
 " The devil," he writes, " is going about in 
 two different shapes — like a roaring lion, and 
 like an angel of mercy. Some of our people 
 have become very wicked, and communicants 
 suffer persecution; but this only shows the 
 difference between the seed of the woman 
 and the seed of the serpent. Thirty men and 
 
IN THE FURNACE OF AFFLICTION 111 
 
 women are under instruction with reference 
 to baptism." 
 
 Two months later a severe cold settled 
 upon his lungs, inducing violent coughing 
 and nearly proving fatal. This added greatly 
 to his burdens. About the same time a 
 spirit of opposition and persecution seemed 
 to be let loose among the people. Mere pro- 
 fessors of religion, who had no real hold upon 
 the truth or upon the Lord Jesus, carried to 
 and fro by every wind of doctrine and made 
 the victims of the sleight and cunning crafti- 
 ness of deceivers, joined the openly profane 
 and spoke against him and his co-workers in 
 scorn and ridicule. He felt like David when 
 pursued by enemies who lay in wait for him 
 on every side; but, like David, he found a 
 strong tower of refuge in Grod, and the work 
 of Christ proceeded. 
 
 There was another fire of trial through 
 which Johnson was called to pass; in fact, 
 it might be said that he was never out of this 
 furnace of affliction, though its heat was not 
 always equally intense. We refer to his over- 
 whelming conviction of his own sinfulness 
 
178 SEFEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 and unworthiness. He was a marvelous 
 missionary in the measure of his simple faith, 
 implicit obedience, and successful work. Yet 
 the more God's mercy and goodness were 
 displayed to him, the more unworthy and 
 ungrateful he seemed to himself to be. The 
 goodness of God in a very emphatic sense led 
 him to repentance. It appeared to him as 
 though no human creature could be more 
 depraved, and he records his conviction that 
 in the whole world of sinners there could be 
 no one worse than himself. How far these 
 were morbid moods, owing in part to con- 
 stitutional habits of self-reproach and in part 
 to diseased conditions of body, it is now im- 
 possible to determine. But of one thing no 
 doubt is left : he had learned the great lesson 
 that the only ground of hope which is at all 
 solid and unchanging is that which is ex- 
 ternal, not internal — a salvation which is of 
 free and saving grace and quite independent 
 of all human merit ; and, like Matthew Henry, 
 if he had not at all times the faith of assur- 
 ance, he had the faith of adherence, and never 
 was left to despair. 
 
Ihl THE FURNACE OF AFFLICTION 179 
 
 Few sorrows cut so deeply as those which 
 are vicarious, and most of all when evil 
 threatens our best beloved. " A sword shall 
 pierce thine own soul also," was the brief but 
 awful forecast of the anguish which the virgin 
 mother of our Lord would suffer when the 
 spear should pierce His human heart. Mrs. 
 Johnson's illness in 1822 was so severe that 
 the doctors directed her immediate departure 
 for Europe ; an ulcer was forming in her head ; 
 and on the 4th of May she took leave of her 
 husband. The people mourned her depar- 
 ture, declaring that she was to them "like their 
 own mother," which was true. They were 
 prostrated by grief, and every one appeared 
 to mourn and weep. Johnson felt that he 
 must not again leave his people, for he could 
 not forget how, when the shepherd had be- 
 fore parted with his flock for a season, the 
 wolf had been among them and had caught 
 some and scattered the whole flock. Yet he 
 endured a great fight of contending feelings. 
 
 When, five months after Mrs. Johnson 
 had thus sailed for England alone, a rumor 
 was spread by an arriving vessel that she 
 
180 SEI^EN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 had died at sea, her husband's mind was 
 kept for months in most painful suspense, 
 more especially as another vessel, that left 
 England a month after the arrival of the 
 Fletcher, brought no letter from Mr. Diiring 
 and no tidings from Mrs. Johnson. And yet, 
 in the midst of all these labors and anxieties, 
 he redoubled his activities, if that were pos- 
 sible, and enjoyed unusual power and free- 
 dom in preaching. From every new distrac- 
 tion of care he found escape in absorbing 
 work for God and souls, and the promise was 
 again fulfilled: "As thy days so shall thy 
 strength be." Sometimes for five hours he 
 spoke, yet without undue fatigue; and al- 
 though again the church building had been 
 enlarged, the audiences were too gi'eat to be 
 accommodated. 
 
 The report of Mrs. Johnson's death was not 
 confirmed, as on November 21st a letter from 
 the captain of the Fletcher to a gentleman in 
 Freetown stated that all his passengers had 
 been safely landed. It subsequently tran- 
 spired, however, that Mr. Johnson's mother 
 was dead, and the surviving members of the 
 
IN THE FURNACE OF AFFLICTION 181 
 
 household at home were in consequence 
 plunged into the depths of sorrow. 
 
 Africa was indeed a "vale of tears," and 
 Mr. Johnson's own testimony was, "If any 
 one wishes to experience trials, let him come 
 to Africa. It is certainly the worst climate 
 in the world." And yet so much was this 
 man inspired by passion for souls, and so 
 deeply was he interested in his work and his 
 people, that he adds, " There is nevertheless 
 not a spot in the world that I like better. I 
 could not live elsewhere." How like David 
 Livingstone that sounds ! He was in the fur- 
 nace of affliction in Africa for thirty years. 
 Yet nothing could wean him from his love 
 for the Dark Continent. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE CLOUD OF WITNESSES 
 
 Of all the forms of the self-life, none is 
 more subtle than self-glory. Many a servant 
 of God has been so lifted up with pride by 
 his own successes as to be utterly disqualified 
 for further use. And so the severest test of 
 a true workman is this : whether, amid all 
 the highest honor given him of God in ser- 
 vice, he not only retains humihty, but grows 
 in this consummate grace, which Andrew 
 Murray regards as the very " beauty of holi- 
 ness." 
 
 "Let another praise thee, and not thine 
 own mouth," is a maxim that seldom needs to 
 be repeated to a true servant of God, for he 
 well knows that all glory belongs to his 
 Master, since all power is from Him. The 
 mouth that is active in one's own praise is 
 
 182 
 
THE CLOUD OF IVITN ESSES 183 
 
 the sad index of a heart that has not learned 
 that primal secret of all service, that, even 
 when labors are most abundant and harvests 
 most plentiful, both the strength for the toil 
 and the increase from the seed-sowing are 
 the bestowments of God. 
 
 Johnson never glorified himself; and, in 
 fact, he saw nothing in himself to awaken 
 complacency or afford ground for boasting, 
 so that his humility rather grew as his success 
 increased. Consequently the major part of 
 this great work of Grod would never have 
 been thus widely known had not a cloud of 
 witnesses, not only from within but from 
 without the mission, been constrained to bear 
 testimony. 
 
 At this distance of time it is difficult to 
 appreciate the rapidity with which the trans- 
 formation of the community at Regent's 
 Town went forward. Mr. Renner, the senior 
 missionary in western Africa, after a visit 
 thus wrote, as early as January 2, 1817, to 
 Mr. Pratt, of the Church Missionary Society : 
 " I spoke morning and evening in the church 
 to a people that seemed to be devout in- 
 
184 SEl/EN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 deed. Regent's Town is fast advancing in 
 getting civilized and Christianized. Almost 
 every night, as I am told, one or another is 
 affected, and on certain nights the whole 
 congregation seem impressed. Judging by 
 appearance, these are they that take the 
 kingdom of heaven by violence. The tem- 
 poral and spiritual work of our brother is no 
 doubt great and laborious among this people, 
 but to Johnson all is easy and full of pleasure. 
 It is surprising to what a degree of harmo- 
 nious singing both sexes have attained, as if 
 it were a congregation of ten years' standing." 
 Sunday, November 23, 1817, Captain Welsh 
 of the brig Pyrenees spent at Regent's Town, 
 having been an old acquaintance of John- 
 son's in London. When the bell rang the first 
 time, Johnson and Welsh themselves found it 
 difficult, and in fact impossible, to get in by 
 the doors, and had to find their way through 
 the church tower. Not only was the building 
 thus filled, but some were sitting outside on 
 boards. The sermon was from John v. 6: 
 " Wilt thou be made whole ? " Captain Welsh 
 was dehghted, and said, " I have to-day seen 
 
THE CLOUD OF WITNESSES 185 
 
 what I never saw before. Wliat would not 
 our London friends give for such a sight ! 
 God has blessed your labors beyond descrip- 
 tion. I had heard of your success, but could 
 not believe what I heard." The modest mis- 
 sionary could only reply, as usual : " To God 
 be all the glory," for he habitually turned 
 attention from himself to Him who is the 
 fountain of all blessing. 
 
 Mr. Morgan — who had undertaken the ad- 
 ministration of the mission during Mr. John- 
 son's absence, and who had exhibited, as we 
 have seen, such surprising lack of good 
 temper, administrative skill, and Christian 
 discretion, if nothing worse, and who was 
 entirely recalled from the field in conse- 
 quence — would not be very likely to give any 
 too partial an account of Johnson's work. 
 Yet on his return to London he made to the 
 committee a report which has the highest 
 value, because it cannot have been colored by 
 any personal attachment to his predecessor, 
 from whom he had in some measure been 
 alienated. Such testimony borne to another's 
 success is a proof of its reality which cannot 
 
186 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 be set aside, and should be embodied in this 
 narrative.* 
 
 When -^schines heard unstinted praise 
 of Demosthenes' oration " On the Crown," 
 he was constrained to say, notwithstanding 
 that oration was directed against himself, 
 "Ah, you should have heard it yourself; it 
 was a masterpiece ! " And what shall we say 
 when even the verdict of foes also was in 
 Johnson's favor? When Satan bestirs him- 
 self against God's servants, it is probably 
 because his craft is in danger. It was when 
 Paul and his fellow- witnesses were turning 
 the Ephesian world upside down that Deme- 
 trius raised his uproar. In 1821 a West In- 
 dian rumseUer — whose infernal business was 
 fast coming to ruin through the faithful 
 preaching of Johnson against drunkenness 
 and all that led to it — lay in wait with a 
 loaded gun to shoot him ; and so obvious was 
 his murderous intent that, after repeated 
 proofs had been afforded of his hateful malice, 
 the missionary unwillingly lodged a complaint 
 against him. But that man's loaded gun was 
 
 * Appendix lU. 
 
THE CLOUD OF IVITNESSES 187 
 
 an indirect witness to the work of reforma- 
 tion. Satan may well war against a trans- 
 formation so radical that it was rather a 
 transfiguration. 
 
 In the report of the local authorities at 
 Sierra Leone sent to the home government 
 in January, 1819, such changes as have been 
 described were formally noted, and the of- 
 ficial document thus concludes (let us embody 
 the very words, as a most emphatic testimony 
 on the part of secular magistrates) : 
 
 " Let it be considered that not more than 
 three or four years have passed since the 
 greater number of Mr. Johnson's popula- 
 tion were taken out of the holds of slave- 
 ships; and who can compare their present 
 condition with that from which they were 
 rescued without seeing manifest cause to 
 exclaim, 'The hand of Heaven is in this'! 
 Who can contrast the simple and sincere 
 Christian worship which precedes and follows 
 their daily labors with the groveling and 
 malignant superstitions of their original state 
 — their gree-grees, their red water, their witch- 
 craft, and their devils' houses— without feel- 
 
188 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 ing and acknowledging a miracle of good 
 which the immediate interposition of the 
 Almighty alone could have wrought? And 
 what greater blessing could man or nation 
 desire or enjoy than to have been made the 
 instruments of conferring such sublime bene- 
 fits on the most abject of the human race? 
 
 "If any other circumstance could be re- 
 quired to prove the immediate interposition 
 of the Almighty, we have only to look at the 
 plain men and simple means employed in 
 bringing about the miraculous conversion 
 that we have recorded. Does it not recall to 
 mind the first diffusion of the gospel by the 
 apostles themselves? These thoughts will 
 occur to strangers at remote distance when 
 they hear these things, and must they not 
 recur much more forcibly to us who have 
 these things constantly before our eyes ? " 
 
 Another notable testimony was given in 
 April, 1819, by Mr. and Mrs. Jesty, who, hav- 
 ing just come to reinforce the missionary 
 band, paid a visit to the field, and bore their 
 witness. Mrs. Jesty wrote to her sister : 
 
 "I wish that I could find language suffi- 
 
THE CLOUD OF IVITNESSES 189 
 
 ciently descriptive of the interesting scenes 
 which we have witnessed here. Indeed, they 
 must be seen before the facts will be credited. 
 Had I heard the circumstances from the best 
 authority, I could not have conceived it pos- 
 sible that so glorious a progress could have 
 been made in the work of our Grod as we have 
 beheld since we have been staying at Regent's 
 Town." * 
 
 In April, 1821, Mr. Singleton, a member of 
 the Society of Friends, sent out to glean facts 
 about the Dark Continent, arrived at Eegent's 
 Town, and was so deeply moved by what he 
 saw that he was scarcely able to speak. He 
 was astonished to see these wretched slaves 
 now so clean and tidy, their general condition 
 so much better than that of the poorer classes 
 in Great Britain ; and to find Bibles and Tes- 
 taments everywhere on the tables in their 
 houses as familiar books. 
 
 A humorous incident occurred in connec- 
 tion with Mr. Singleton's visit. Quaker-like, 
 he entered the church without taking off his 
 hat. This was an act quite inexplicable to 
 
 * Appendix IV. 
 
190 SEVEN YE/IRS IN SIER.R/1 LEONE 
 
 the native Christians, and seemed to them 
 shockingly irreverent; so that two of them 
 boldly went up to him and politely requested 
 him to remove his hat, which he did with a 
 smile, apparently much pleased with their zeal 
 for God, although in a sense it was not accord- 
 ing to knowledge. At the evening meeting 
 he heard from one of the native women a very 
 pathetic and effective testimony : 
 
 "When me think about the great things 
 God has done for me, me do not know what 
 to do. When me was in my own country they 
 catch us all, and then they take up my brothers 
 and sisters and kill them. Me only left," — 
 here her sobs almost choked her utterance, — 
 " and they put them in the pot and boil them 
 and eat them. Me only left. What great things 
 the Lord do for me ! Poor, guilty sinner, me 
 so bad ! Only the good Lord Jesus save me." 
 
 On Mr. Singleton's return he published a 
 journal of his tour and a report, in which he 
 refers to Regent's Town and the great work 
 of God there.* 
 
 It was during this same year, 1821, that the 
 
 * Appendix V. 
 
THE CLOUD OF IVITNESSES 191 
 
 Europeans of Freetown, after an inspection, 
 confessed their surprise at the order, industry, 
 and piety of the people, and were especially 
 amazed at their liberality, they having that year 
 contributed over seventy-two pounds sterling 
 (three hundred and fifty dollars). The mouths 
 of opposers and critics were so effectually 
 stopped that they acknowledged the gospel 
 to be the only adequate means of civilizing 
 such heathen ; and the gentlemen of Freetown 
 were so thoroughly convinced of the general 
 success of preaching the gospel that they 
 publicly paid their tribute that, above all 
 other institutions, those of Regent's Town had 
 proved most beneficial to the degraded chil- 
 dren of ^Africa. Editors sought interviews 
 with reference to publishing accounts of the 
 work, and, what is a more crucial test, many 
 of these European residents, and among them 
 the governor, ashed Johnson to call upon them 
 for contributions I In fact, this humble man 
 was in fear lest the prosperity that exposed 
 him to so much flattery might involve serious 
 risk of inflating him with pride. 
 An American vessel arrived in March, 1821, 
 
192 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 with missionaries for the Sherbro coast. Two 
 of them, Messrs. Andrus and Bacon, visited 
 the church at Regent's Town. Mr. Andi'us 
 left on record his testimony that he had sup- 
 posed the accounts which he had heard to be 
 greatly exaggerated, but, like the Queen of 
 Sheba, he felt that the half had not been told 
 him. He had never, even in America, seen 
 any church filled with more devout and de- 
 corous hearers, nor so large a body of com- 
 municants behaving with more piety at the 
 Lord's table. Mr. Bacon, the other of these 
 American visitors, on his return to Philadel- 
 phia published a glowing account of his ex- 
 periences in Africa, which we likewise pre- 
 serve as essential to the completeness of this 
 volume.* 
 
 "We record another unequivocal tribute to 
 this work of God through His servant. In 
 1822, at a quarter-session at Freetown, his 
 honor the chief justice observed that "ten 
 years before, when the population of the 
 colony was but four thousand, there were 
 forty cases on the calendar for trial ; but that 
 
 * Appendix VI. 
 
THE CLOUD OF IVITNESSES 193 
 
 now, witli a population of sixteen thousand, 
 there were but six cases," and he congratu- 
 lated the magistrates on the moral improve- 
 ment of the colony. What was most notice- 
 able, however, was the fact that, among the 
 criminal cases, there was not one from any 
 of the villages under the superintendence of 
 a missionary or schoolmaster; so that his 
 honor dismissed Johnson and his consta- 
 bles politely, as having no business that re- 
 quired their attendance at the session. The 
 community at Regent's Town represented a 
 law-abiding and self-governing, as well as self- 
 supporting and self -propagating, church. On 
 December 27, 1821, at a meeting of communi- 
 cants, a law had been framed by themselves, 
 that if any person should begin a quarrel or 
 behave as did not become a Christian, he 
 should be turned out and fined five pounds, 
 or be confined in the house of correction for 
 two months. All, however, conducted them- 
 selves with such propriety that there was 
 found no need to put this law into execution. 
 The work was its own witness. Many a 
 lion was, turned into a lamb, and inquiring 
 
194 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 souls who, like Noah's dove, could find no rest, 
 sought refuge in the ark of the covenant, 
 Johnson's methods with candidates were very- 
 thorough. When he received them for in- 
 struction he appointed a time when all should 
 be present; he then read over their names, 
 places of abode, etc., and requested certain 
 communicants to watch over them, and if they 
 should observe in them any improper conduct 
 to inform him ; and in all cases of unbecom- 
 ing behavior the offender was dismissed or 
 kept on a sort of probation. All candidates 
 were kept three months on trial, subject to a 
 searching scrutiny. This was found to be the 
 most efficient method of getting acquainted 
 with the real conduct and character of intend- 
 ing communicants. No pains were spared to 
 put to proof the reality of conversion. 
 
 Few forms of witness are more convincing 
 and irresistible than those found in the death 
 of saints. The august exchange of worlds 
 is a crisis in any man's history, and in most 
 cases a decisive test of genuineness and sin- 
 cerity. A faith and hope and love that, in 
 the darkness of the dying hour, light up the 
 
THE CLOUD OF WITNESSES 195 
 
 valley of the shadow of death with the celes- 
 tial torch of a confident assurance may well 
 be the object of the envy of the unbeliever ; 
 and Balaam is not the only slave of greed or 
 other u.nholy appetites and passions who has 
 inwardly said, " Let me die the death of the 
 righteous, and let my last end be like his." 
 
 Johnson saw converted slaves not only 
 living, but dying, in the full assurance of 
 their high calHng. For example, on Easter 
 Sunday, 1820, he was called to attend the 
 funeral of a youth by the name of George 
 PauU, and spoke from Hebrews ix. 27: "It 
 is appointed unto men once to die, but after 
 this the judgment." Concerning the dead, he 
 sent home a tribute whose main outline fea- 
 tures we here preserve. 
 
 Five years previous to his death he had 
 been taken from the hold of a slave-ship a mere 
 lad. In 1817 he came begging to be taken 
 into the school, and was admitted, and within 
 a year he showed signs of unusual seriousness 
 and sobriety of mind, and shortly gave such 
 evidence of the working of God's grace that 
 he was welcomed into the church and bap- 
 
196 SE^EN YEARS IN SI ERR/1 LEONE 
 
 tized on Christmas day, 1818. From that 
 time his walk with God was obvious to all 
 observers. Habitually earnest and fervent 
 in spirit, he exhibited singular power in 
 prayer and skill in winning souls. A severe 
 cold, caught during the rainy season of 1819, 
 fixed itself upon him and brought on a fatal 
 attack of lung disease. When he died he 
 had already about him the distinguishing 
 marks of a mature and experienced saint. 
 His counsels were wise, his rebukes tender; 
 his expressions of faith in God and resigna- 
 tion to His will most Christ-like ; his joy in 
 God and his heavenly insight into truth such 
 as are seen in connection only with the ripest 
 fruits of godliness ; and all these characteris- 
 tics seemed incredible in a lad of sixteen. 
 The slave-boy had in a very peculiar sense 
 been made into the Lord's freeman, and knew 
 not only the clean heart, but the right, the 
 holy, the free spirit. He had thus early learned 
 both the joy of God's salvation and the secret 
 of converting sinners unto God.* 
 Toward the clpse of the year 1820 the anni- 
 
 * Ps. li. 12, 13. 
 
THE CLOUD OF WITNESSES 197 
 
 versary of the Sierra Leone Church Mission- 
 ary Society was observed. Twenty-one mis- 
 sionaries in all sat down at the same board, the 
 largest number that had ever dined together 
 in the western African mission field. Out of 
 the whole income of the society Mr. Johnson's 
 humble church had that year contributed 
 nearly one half, considerably over fifty pounds 
 sterling. 
 
 Thus, from a multitude of independent 
 sources came one consenting testimony to 
 the work of God's grace at Regent's Town. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 AT THE DESIRED HAVEN 
 
 To everything earthly there cometh the 
 end, but to the true saint and servant of God 
 that end is but the beginning of something 
 nobler, better, purer, and more satisfying. 
 Life here ends, that life elsewhere may begin ; 
 or rather let us say of the disciple's life that at 
 death it is left free to find its fullest exercise, 
 development, and enjoyment. 
 
 In no one thing, perhaps, does our cuiTent 
 unbelief more reveal itself than in our ceme- 
 teries, where over the graves of our sainted 
 dead we rear monuments with essentially 
 heathen emblems and symbols. What place 
 have inverted torches, closed urns, broken 
 columns, fading flowers, in resting-places of 
 saints? If to be absent from the body is to 
 
 198 
 
/IT THE DESIRED HAFEN 199 
 
 be present with the Lord, these symbols of 
 disaster, defeat, disappointment, destruction, 
 are wholly unfit to express our faith and 
 hope. Our blessed Lord taught the skeptical 
 Sadducees that God is not the God of the 
 dead, but of the living, and that those whom 
 we call dead all live unto Him. And the 
 Spirit speaketh expressly of the blessedness 
 of the dead who die in the Lord, that, though 
 they rest from their /«^&or5,— vexatious toils, 
 burdensome exertions,— their works— thQir 
 truest activities— accompany them into the 
 higher sphere ; and that they are before the 
 throne of God and serve Him day and night 
 in His temple. And the last glimpse we get 
 of them in the Apocalypse, where the door is 
 opened in heaven, is that of a sevenfold per- 
 fection, where there is : 
 
 1. " No more curse "—perfect sinlessness ; 
 
 2. "The throne of God and of the Lamb" 
 — perfect government ; 
 
 3. " And His servants shall serve Him " — 
 perfect service ; 
 
 4. " And they shall see His face "—perfect 
 communion ; 
 
200 SEyEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 5. "And His name shall be in their fore- 
 heads " — perfect resemblance ; 
 
 6. " No night there " — perfect day ; 
 
 7. " And they shall reign for ever and ever " 
 — perfect glory. 
 
 Johnson's earthly work was now almost 
 done. In seven years he had effected results 
 which would ordinarily be regarded as an 
 abundant reward, if crowning the labor of a 
 full lifetime. But all this extensity and inten- 
 sity of holy toils had told upon his physical 
 frame and spirits. Though not yet forty years 
 old, his zeal had been self-consuming, and his 
 health was steadily and rapidly declining. 
 At this time Mrs. Johnson was so much better 
 that hope was entertained of her being able 
 soon to return to Africa ; but the last attack 
 of ophthalmia had so seriously impaired the 
 sight of her husband's left eye, and sympa- 
 thetically of the right eye also, as to threaten 
 him with blindness ; and he had been so fre- 
 quently scorched in the furnace of African 
 fever that his whole constitution was under- 
 mined. In February, 1823, he made his last 
 report to the secretaries of the Church Mis- 
 
AT THE DESIRED HAyEN 201 
 
 sionary Society, and through it we may get 
 our last survey of the work before he left it 
 forever. 
 
 There were then ten different stations in 
 Sierra Leone, with an aggregate of 603 com- 
 municants, 410 of whom were at Eegent's 
 Town; and of the total number of scholars 
 (3168) 933 were under his care. In this letter 
 he refers to the qualifications of missionaries 
 and schoolmasters needed at Sierra Leone, 
 recommending that they be acquainted not 
 only with the gospel, but with husbandry 
 and mechanics, arithmetic, geography, and 
 land-surveying, and that, withal, they should 
 know how to rule well their own houses. This 
 shows the sagacity of this missionary states- 
 man, who, with all his humble estimate of his 
 own capacity, had set before him this aim : 
 to rear on African soil a MetlakaMla — a model 
 state — out of the refuse of humanity that he 
 found at Hogbrook. 
 
 At this time he was ministering to the lar- 
 gest congregation he had ever seen gathered 
 in Africa, and the church building, with all 
 its repeated enlargements, was far too small. 
 
202 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 Communicants were sometimes obliged to re- 
 main outside, especially when for any reason 
 converts from other stations met with those 
 at Regent's Town ; and yet the edifice would 
 accommodate two thousand, and he was per- 
 plexed how to provide for any more. 
 
 The schools were improving, and over 
 seven hundred had been taught to read. The 
 converts, poor as they were, were systematic, 
 habitual, self-denying givers, and a single 
 offering, taken at the meeting of the Re- 
 gent's Town Branch Missionary Association, 
 amounted to over ten pounds (fifty dollars.) 
 
 These are a few only of the indications of 
 the abundant prosperity of the work of God 
 at this stage of its history. It seemed never- 
 theless so imperative, on the whole, that John- 
 son should at least rest for a season, that the 
 secretaries agreed to his return to England, 
 and toward the end of April he embarked. 
 When he set sail for England, the superin- 
 tendence of Regent's Town devolved upon 
 Mr. Norman. 
 
 His journal makes mention of one Sarah 
 Bickersteth, the first of her nation who had 
 
AT THE DESIRED HAVEN 203 
 
 tasted that the Lord is gracious. She was 
 a native of the Kroo country, and some five 
 years previously, while yet a little girl, had 
 been brought to the colony. She was now well 
 grown, and, being a thoroughly new creature, 
 was very sad over the superstitions of her 
 country people, and very desirous to serve 
 her newly found Saviour in missionary labors. 
 This young woman was Johnson's compan- 
 ion on the voyage, and to her care was com- 
 mitted also an infant daughter of Mr. and 
 Mrs. Diiring. 
 
 It was but the third day of the voyage 
 when the seeds of the fatal disease which 
 Johnson must have carried on board with 
 him began to manifest their fruits. He was 
 prostrated by a fever, which so increased in 
 intensity and violence that two days later he 
 was too weak even to turn in bed, and his 
 general symptoms were such that, anticipat- 
 ing the end as near at hand, he said to his 
 weeping attendant, " I think I cannot live." 
 On Saturday, the 3d of May, he expressed a 
 deep desire to see his wife once more, and 
 sought to calm the fears of Sarah Bickersteth, 
 
204 SEI/EN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 who could not calmly contemplate his ap- 
 proaching departure, and he composedly di- 
 rected her how to proceed on her arrival at 
 London. At his request she then read to 
 him the same Twenty-third Psalm which to 
 so many saints in the valley of the shadow of 
 death has been God's staff and stay ; and then 
 adding, " I am dying ; pray for me," he passed 
 into the haven where he desired to be. Thus, 
 with a strange, poetic propriety, this earliest 
 convert of her people was permitted to soothe 
 by her simple, sacred ministries the last hours 
 of this pioneer missionary in Sierra Leone. 
 
 Just after embarkation the tender shepherd 
 had addressed his last letter to his little flock, 
 exhorting them to continue in the grace of 
 God. And his last intelligent and intelligible 
 words on earth were, "I cannot live; God 
 calls me, and this night I shall be with Him." 
 
 The tidings of his death reached the Church 
 Missionary House in July following, and was 
 the saddest intelligence which up to that time 
 bad ever reached that missionary center. The 
 accounts of the wonderful work which for 
 years had given singular occasion for joy were 
 
AT THE DESIRED HAFEN 205 
 
 now followed by one awful fact of bereave- 
 ment, that created a sorrow correspondingly 
 deep. When it was learned that this apostolic 
 missionary had departed on Sunday, May 
 4th, about one week after sailing, it was im- 
 mediately felt that the records of his brief 
 career in Africa must not be left to oblivion ; 
 a story of missions so instructive, so interest- 
 ing, so absorbing, so profitable, must be made 
 accessible to a large circle of readers ; and so 
 steps were taken to prepare a memoir of his 
 life and labors, which was published in 1852. 
 A letter was at once sent by the secretaries 
 at London to the native teachers at Eegent's 
 Town, breathing a most affectionate and 
 apostolic spirit; reminding them that the 
 hand of God was to be seen in their affliction, 
 and that in removing their beloved human 
 instructor He was teaching them to trust Him 
 the more, humbling and proving them as He 
 had done with Israel of old ; and the hope was 
 expressed that the death of their missionary 
 pastor might be the means of turning to God 
 many whom his preaching and life had failed 
 to convert. 
 
206 SEVEN YE/iRS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 The tidiugs of this great bereavement found 
 their way back to Sierra Leone in the early 
 part of September. Of course the informa- 
 tion spread there with telegraphic swiftness, 
 for both grief and joy have their own quick 
 signals for communication. In a few mo- 
 ments all Eegent's Town was ablaze with 
 excitement, and the mission house was at 
 once crowded with weeping inquirers. Mr. 
 Norman found it very difficult to assuage or 
 even relieve their excessive grief, and could 
 only beseech them to testify their gratitude 
 to God for sparing so long to them their be- 
 loved teacher, by bearing with meekness and 
 patience the trial of their faith, and by bring- 
 ing forth more abundantly in their lives the 
 fruits of the gospel. Advantage was taken of 
 the softening influence of grief to exhort them 
 to remember the words that he had spoken 
 unto them while he was yet with them, and 
 to attend faithfully to the instructions with 
 which these seven years had been so laden. 
 In the evening a more formal service was 
 held in the crowded church, when the Scrip- 
 ture lesson for the day proved singularly 
 
AT THE DESIRED HAVEN 207 
 
 appropriate: Jolin viii. 12-19. Mr. Norman 
 dwelt particularly on the twelfth verse: "I 
 am the light of the world : he that f oUoweth 
 Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have 
 the light of life ; " and one of the favorite 
 hymns of the departed pastor and teacher 
 closed the impressive service. 
 
 Knowing the strength of African emotions, 
 Mr. Norman was both surprised and gratified 
 at the admirably controlled behavior of this 
 bereaved community. Their grief was deep 
 and unmistakable, yet subdued and quiet, 
 like a deep-flowing river ; and when the ser- 
 vice concluded, all moved out in absolute 
 silence, restraining not only words, but even 
 sobs. 
 
 To supply the place of the man whom God 
 had translated to a higher sphere was no easy 
 matter. The faith of the committee having 
 the mission in charge was tried by severe 
 and repeated disappointments. Mr. and Mrs. 
 Norman were obliged to return to England in 
 January, 1824. Eleven months passed before 
 any resident missionary was sent to Regent's 
 Town ; and when the Eev. H. Brooks landed, 
 
208 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 he found that for want of any responsible and 
 capable leader the public works had been 
 stopped, the population had diminished to 
 thirteen hundred, and there were sad signs of 
 the need of a man of capacity and sagacity to 
 take charge of this newly gathered church. 
 But he also found that, notwithstanding two 
 years of such lack of proper spiritual guidance 
 and general superintendence, a better dressed 
 or better behaved congregation no\dllage even 
 in England could show. 
 
 The death of Mr. Brooks a few weeks later 
 again left Regent's Town without a minister. 
 And for upward of twelve years this mission 
 suffered from a strange succession of disap- 
 pointments and calamities. As our purpose 
 has been mainly to trace the history of the 
 seven years of Johnson's labors, it is not 
 needful to carry this narrative further into 
 the subsequent years. But one incontro- 
 vertible fact stands out as bold and un- 
 mistakable as a mountain-peak against the 
 sky. From wild, naked, wretched slaves a 
 church and congregation had been gathered 
 with a rapidity so astonishing, with a success 
 
AT THE DESIRED HAl^EN 209 
 
 SO incredible, with a transformation so inde- 
 scribable, that it could be traced only to the 
 God that worketh wonders; and the com- 
 panion fact that, after a lapse of more than 
 twenty years of seeming disasters and dis- 
 couragements, this congregation still re- 
 mained in existence and had not relapsed 
 into heathenism, but maintained its separa- 
 tion as a godly community, is a sufficient 
 proof of the reality and solidity of the work 
 which had been thus accomplished. 
 
 In putting the concluding paragraphs to 
 this story of seven years of labor, we cannot 
 forbear to observe both the coincidences and 
 the contrasts that history presents. God raises 
 up men to do His bidding, and provides for 
 a true apostolic succession of witnesses, war- 
 riors, workers. At the same time in different 
 quarters of the earth men appear, whose 
 words shake the world, and whose lives make 
 an ineradicable impress on the race. No 
 human forethought could have provided for 
 the simultaneous or coetaneous appearance 
 of these men in history ; it can be explained 
 by nothing short of a divine Providence. And 
 
210 SEyEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 the remarkable adaptation of these different 
 men to their spheres is a confirmatory proof 
 that a divine hand molded these various 
 vessels upon His potter's wheel for the exact 
 service, in His great house, to which they were 
 ordained. 
 
 Quite as impressive as these coincidences are 
 the contrasts of history. Up to a certain point 
 Luther and Loyola bear the most sm-prising 
 resemblance ; beyond that point it is only life- 
 long contrast, and a contrast of the utmost 
 significance. Let this seven years of William 
 Johnson at Sierra Leone be compared with the 
 seven years of Napoleon Bonaparte between 
 the capture of Madrid in December, 1808, and 
 the battle of Waterloo in June, 1815. Just 
 as Napoleon's great defeat made him a captive 
 and exile at St. Helena, Johnson's career was 
 about beginning in Africa. Let any candid 
 student of history carefully set side by side 
 the campaigns of the great Corsican and the 
 humble evangelism of the lowly Moravian, 
 and say which will best bear the^ searching 
 eye of God, or even the fixed gaze of wise 
 and good men. In one case a blaze of human 
 
AT THE DESIRED HAVEhl 211 
 
 glory, going out in disgrace and dishonor ; in 
 the other an unpretending career of service, 
 unobserved by men, but accounted of God 
 worthy to be accompanied by signs and seals 
 of divine power. The man who boasted that 
 he could "make circumstances" entered in 
 1812 on his Eussian campaign, and actually 
 concentrated between the Vistula and the 
 Niemen an army of half a million. He cap- 
 tures Wilna, ravages Lithuania, drives before 
 him the Russian generals, and marches di- 
 rectly into the snares of famine and frost. 
 God is not on the side of his heavy battahons ; 
 in Lithuania alone one hundred thousand of 
 his soldiers drop out of his ranks. He finds 
 Smolensk evacuated by the enemy, but oc- 
 cupied by flames. At Borodino, after bloody 
 battle, he holds the field, but nothing else. A 
 little later he enters Moscow, but five weeks 
 after retreats with an army reduced by nearly 
 four fifths of its original number. He returns 
 through the districts he had wasted in his 
 advance, and leaves Smolensk with only 
 forty thousand fighting men, and crosses the 
 Beresina with only twenty-five thousand, the 
 
212 SEyEN YE/iRS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 spell of his terrible name forever broken, and 
 nothing but disaster before him. 
 
 William Johnson, at the time when Napo- 
 leon breathed his last at St. Helena, in 1821, 
 had been for only five years at work in Re- 
 gent's Town. Here is a man presenting, at 
 every point, a most marked contrast to the 
 great Corsican, — a man of no wealth, acquisi- 
 tions, endowments, social standing, or educa- 
 tion, without one element of human greatness, 
 as men reckon greatness; out of a London 
 workshop ; having never been in college and 
 without eloquence or learning ; yet he is used 
 of God to give organized form to a chaotic mass 
 of human refuse, to civilize, humanize, and 
 Christianize men and women who are little 
 above the wild hogs that infested the district. 
 He wins them; he weans them from their 
 brutal, bestial vices ; he builds out of them 
 a Christian state ; a well-ordered community 
 grows up, with its streets and gardens, church 
 and schools, homes and farms, a model of 
 thrift, order, neatness, and industry. We find 
 him preaching the simple news of salvation, 
 and soon gathering fifteen hundred to two 
 
AT THE DESIRED HAl^EN 213 
 
 thousand hearers from among the slaves of the 
 colony, educating one thousand in schools, and 
 admitting four hundred to sealing ordinances. 
 Here is found within two years a flourishing 
 church, with crowds of sinners saved by grace 
 and seeking to save others, and denying them- 
 selves to send the gospel to the darker parts of 
 the continent. And when he dies, seven years 
 after landing, and is buried at sea, every 
 honest and honorable craft, and even the 
 callings which demand culture and education, 
 are represented at Regent's Town. Most 
 wonderful of all, while the brilliant star which 
 rose over Europe and went down in igno- 
 minious night deserves, for the incarnation of 
 selfishness, to be known as "Wormwood," this 
 man's whole course is one grand exhibition of 
 the one unconscious grace, humility, and of 
 the one celestial virtue, unselfish love. We 
 can find not a trace of selfish ambition, ap- 
 petite, avarice, in his whole labors, even when 
 his journals and private letters are scrutinized 
 with a critical eye. He went to Africa, not 
 to conquer for himself, but to achieve vic- 
 tories for his Master. And while the church 
 
214 SEVEN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE 
 
 of Christ shall read the stoiy of the miracles 
 of missions, loving eyes will linger in wonder 
 and amazement over the apostolic history of 
 William Johnson and his Seven Years in 
 Sierra Leone.* 
 
 * Appendix VII. 
 
APPENDICES 
 
 As tlie original " Memoir of W. A, B. Johnson," 
 published in 1852 in London and in 1853 in New 
 York, is now so difficult to obtain, it seems essential 
 to the completeness of this volume that it should 
 include and preserve at least some of the most im- 
 portant and striking- portions of the contents of 
 the former narrative. Hence there will here be 
 found seven somewhat copious extracts from the 
 pages of that fuller and more minute account, now 
 no longer within reach of most readers. Some of 
 these excerpts are in themselves invaluable both as 
 testimonies to the work and as revelations of Grod's 
 gracious power. 
 
 APPENDIX I 
 
 We extract this from Johnson's journal : 
 "In the evening a young man came to me and 
 said : ' Massa, them words you talk last night strike 
 me too much. When you preach, you read the 
 fourteenth and fifteenth verses of the forty-fourth 
 Isaiah, and explain them. You show how our 
 country-people stand. Me say, " Ah, who tell massa 
 aU this? He never been in my country." You 
 215 
 
216 APPENDICES 
 
 say, " Do not your country-people live in that fash- 
 ion ? " I say, " Yes, that true ; (iod knows all 
 things. He put them things in the Bible." Massa, 
 I so sure that the Bible God's Word, for man can- 
 not put all things there, because he no see it. That 
 time I live in my country, I hve with a man that 
 make gree-gi"ee. He take me into the bush and 
 teach me to make gree-gree too. He show me one 
 tree. He say, "That gi-ee-gree tree." He take 
 country ax and cut some of that tree. He make a 
 god, and he take the leaves and that what was left, 
 and give me to carry home. When we came home 
 he make a fire, and all the people come and sit 
 round the fire. Then they cook and eat. When 
 they done eat, the man take the leaves of the gree- 
 gree tree and burn tliem in the fire, and then all the 
 people stand round the fire and clap their hands 
 and cry, "Aha, aha ! " Massa, when you read that 
 verse, t can't tell you what I feel. You then begin 
 to talk about the text (twentieth verse), " He feed- 
 eth on ashes ; " and I was struck again, for when 
 they done cry, " Aha," they take the ashes and make 
 medicine ; they give it to people wlien they be sick. 
 You been see some gree-gree which looks like dirt ; 
 that is the same ashes they carry that our poor 
 countrymen feed on ashes. For true the Bible 
 God's Word. Again you talk about the twenty-first 
 verse, and tell us to remember this, and look back 
 and see how God pull us like brand out of the fire. 
 Massa, I thank God for the Word I hear last night ; 
 it make my heart sorry for my country-people, but 
 it make my heart glad when T see what God done 
 for me. But me so wicked. God h)ve me so much, 
 and still my heart so cold. Massa, one thing trouble 
 me too much : sometimes you talk about whore- 
 mongers and adulterers. I must say I not done 
 that sin yet, but I am so 'fraid. by and by I shall 
 
y4PP EN DICES 217 
 
 do that sin. Me done that sin plenty times with 
 my heart. I hope the Lord Jesus will have mercy 
 upon me and keep me. Another thing trouble me ; 
 I don't know if you like to hear it, but I will tell 
 you. My heart trouble me too much about my 
 country-people— me so much want to be a teacher 
 to them. I wanted to tell you before, but me so 
 ashamed; but when you preach last night about 
 our country-people, I think I must tell you.' " 
 
 APPENDIX II 
 
 Of the letters received by Mr. Johnson from 
 some of the converted negroes in Sierra Leone 
 during his stay in England, it seems proper here to 
 give one or two. The following are selected from 
 many: 
 
 " Eegent's Town, May 26, 1819. 
 
 "My dear Father in Christ Jesus : I have 
 wi-itten a few hues to you. I hope you are well in 
 the Lord, and youi- wife. I hope you will remember 
 me to my brethren and sisters, though I do not 
 know them ; but I trust one day or other we shall 
 meet on the right hand of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 "When I think about the office to which our 
 Lord has appointed me, I fear.* 
 
 "When I read the Bible I learn that God said, 
 ' Fear thou not ; for I am with thee ; ' and, ' If ye 
 have faith as a grain of mustard-seed, ye shall say 
 unto tliis mountain, Remove hence to yonder place ; 
 and it shall remove : and nothing shall be impos- 
 sible unto you.' And when I read in New Testa- 
 * The writer was a native assistant in one of the schools. 
 
218 APPENDICES 
 
 ment, I find Jesus said, ' He that believeth on Me 
 hath everlasting life.' ' I am the bread of life.' This 
 is my hope. But I fear again, because the Lord 
 said, ' Repent, or else I will come unto thee quickly, 
 and will fight against thee with the sword of My 
 mouth.' This is my trouble. 
 
 " Remember me to all my brethren and sisters ; 
 let them pray for me, that the Lord may give me 
 faith to beUeve in Him. I do not fear what man 
 can do to me, for the Lord is my shield and my 
 hope. 
 
 " Pray for me ! pray for me ! for I stand in 
 need. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be 
 with you and all His cliildren. Amen." 
 
 Another writes : 
 
 "I take this opportunity of Avritiug these few 
 lines unto you, my dear brother, and I hope God 
 may presei've and keep you when you pass through 
 the mighty deep ; and, by the will of God, I hope 
 we may see one another again. I remember you 
 day by day, and I ask you how you feel in your 
 heart, my dear brother. I hope you may be well 
 in the Lord Jesus Cliiist— you and Mrs. Johnson ; 
 and I pray unto God that He may keep you till 
 you come to Africa again, that we may see one 
 another. 
 
 **I thank almighty God for his loving-kindness 
 to me. I know the Lord is my Sa\aour and my 
 God. I pray for all the good people who are in 
 England, and the secretary. I hope you may be 
 well in Jesus, and that you may send more mission- 
 aries to Africa to preach the gospel to our poor 
 countrymen. My master, please to send me one 
 hymn-book. My wife ask you, how you do, Mrs. 
 Johnson ? " 
 
 The writer of one of these letters gives the fol- 
 
APPENDICES 219 
 
 lowing affecting account of the state of the colony 
 during the few months preceding. The feehngs 
 of the Christian natives under their bereavements 
 afford a fair indication of the value of the mission. 
 
 "I stayed at Charlotte Town when Mr. Taylor 
 was sick, and I speak to the people the Word of 
 God. One time we meet together for missionary 
 prayer-meeting. Oh, that time many white people 
 sick, and many of them die ! 
 
 " And that time we lose one of our sisters, Mary 
 Moddy; she was brought to bed, and the child 
 died, and herself caught cold. And I went to see 
 her, and I asked her, 'How you do?' She said, 
 'I fear too much.' I asked her, 'What you fear 
 for ? ' And she said, ' I done sin.' And I said, 
 'Pray to the Lord Jesus Christ; He only can do 
 you good.' And I prayed with her, and the next 
 day I went again, and I say unto her, 'How do 
 you feel in your heart ? ' And she said, ' Oh, my 
 heart too wicked ! ' And I said, ' Do you pray to 
 Jesus Christ ? ' She said, ' Yes ; to whom should I 
 pray, if I not pray to the Lord Jesus Christ 1 ' And 
 I talked with her a good while, and then I prayed 
 with her and went away. The next day I went 
 again, and she could hardly speak. I prayed with 
 her, and stop with her, and by and by she died. 
 
 " That time Mr. Cates sick, and Mr. Morgan sick, 
 and poor Mr. Cates die. I think the journey to the 
 Bassa country which he take, that too much for him, 
 the land so long to walk and the sun so hot. Yet 
 I cannot prove that ; but I think his work was done 
 and his time up. When he was sick I went to see 
 him. 'How do you do, Mr. Cates?' And he said, 
 ' I shall certainly die.' And by and by he got down 
 to Freetown, and he sink very much— all his 
 strength gone ; but he was a man of faith, and he 
 die on Friday about five o'clock. And on Satur- 
 
220 APPENDICES 
 
 day we go to bury him four o'clock, and we look 
 upon him ; and then we went to Mr. Jesty's house, 
 and Mr. Jesty tell us, and say, he think God would 
 leave this place, because white people die fast ; and 
 when I hear that I fear too much, and I consider 
 many things in my mind ; and I think hypocrites 
 live among us, and God want to punish us; but I 
 trust again in the Lord ; He knows His people, He 
 never forsake them. Then Mr. CoUier get sick, 
 and Mr. Morgan get sick again ; and our friend 
 said, * God soon leave this place.' And I said, ' I 
 trust in the Lord Jesus Christ; He knows His 
 people, and He never left them, neither forsake 
 them.' And next Sunday Mr. Collier die about 
 eleven o'clock. Then Mr. Morgan sick, Mrs. Mor- 
 gan sick, Mr. Bull sick ! Oh, that time all mission- 
 aries sick ! We went to Freetown Monday, bury 
 Mr. Collier, and we come home again and keep 
 service in the church. Oh, that time trouble too 
 much in my heart ! Nobody to teach me, and I 
 was sorry for my poor country-people. Mr. Cates 
 died, ]Mr. Collier died, Mr. Morgan sick ! Oh, what 
 must I do for my countrymen ? But I trust in the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, He know what to do; and I 
 went to pray, and I say, * O Lord, take not all the 
 teachers away from us.' " 
 
 APPENDIX III 
 
 MR. THORIAS MORGAN TO THE SECRETARY 
 
 "... I HAD in England read, heard, and thought 
 much on the African character, or rather given in 
 to some prejudices against the mental endowments 
 
APPENDICES 221 
 
 of the negroes, and leaning rather still to the side 
 of iincharitableness. On my arrival I resolved to 
 study, as much as possible, a particular acquain- 
 tance with their private thoughts ; and I now find, 
 from summing up the various occurrences which I 
 have myself witnessed, you have reason to adore 
 God for suffering you to open a door through 
 which the light of the Sun of righteousness is now 
 spreading its influence over the whole country of 
 Ethiopia. 
 
 "No blame can attach itself to any missionary 
 or superintendent for not becoming acquainted 
 wdth every occurrence which happens among the 
 negroes entrusted to their care. Their labors, were 
 they to do nothing more than absolute duty, and 
 what the w^orld, indifferent to the people's eternal 
 interests, would expect, are truly great, difficult, 
 and arduous ; and if, with your departed servant,* 
 I visited the members of each family separately, it 
 was to gratify my own inclination, and to try the 
 ground of those faults so often assigned to profess- 
 ing Christian negroes. Faults and crimes were 
 found, and many were great ; but none surpassed, 
 nor did they equal, the state of the towns of the 
 same size, and which for centui-ies have heard and 
 read the gospel, in England. This is a proof that 
 African towns (I speak especially of Regent's Town) 
 are superior to the towns of England in moral and 
 religious conduct ; and if we take into view the 
 short period since civilization began here, we may 
 say it is a light to the people of Britain. They 
 who in Africa have sat in darkness have seen a 
 great light, and it hath shined into their hearts. 
 
 " I have mentioned in former letters the ultimate 
 success which attended my exertions in Freetown 
 schools. I have seen there Dr. Bell's remark veri- 
 * Mr. Gates. 
 
222 APPENDICES 
 
 fied. A child of any ability may with facility pro- 
 ceed from readinj]^ the alpluibet to the readino: of 
 the Bible in four months. This leads me to offer 
 a remark on the abihty of the negroes. If I can 
 recollect my own at an early period of life, theirs 
 is as far superior as one child need wish to be to 
 another. A strong barrier this for those to con- 
 quer who think them only lit to labor for the grati- 
 fication of their owners. I wish e\'ery heart which 
 undervalues the character of these poor heathen 
 could have visited them Avitli me, have seen their 
 labors of love and imitated their zeal for religion. 
 
 " Soon after my arrival at Regent's Town, Mrs. 
 Morgan and myself were both seized with the fev^er, 
 in which we Avere tenderly and unceasingly watched 
 by the children around us. As I often suffered 
 much in my head, and, T Ix'lieve, frequently mani- 
 fested it by contortion of countenance, a boy, who 
 had attached hims(df to nu^ from his lirst entering 
 the colony, and Avhom I kept constantly about me, 
 sat for several hours in the night holding my head 
 and bathing it with vinegnr, ami, when I dropped 
 asleep, covering it fi-om cold or wiping away the 
 drops of ])erspiration. No aflt'cctiou, I think, in a 
 Christian land would surj^ass this. 
 
 "One morning iu the month of June, and dur- 
 ing Mrs. IMorgan's indisposition, Brother Cates and 
 myself being engaged, as was our custom at break- 
 fast, in reading Milner's ' Church History,' we were 
 alarmed by feeble cries of ' Massa, massa, fire live 
 here ! ' I went immediately to the adjoining room, 
 and found the flames issuing through the crevices 
 of the floor. Brother Cates followed, and with his 
 usual self-poss«^ssion and calmness said, ' We will 
 remove this child' (who was lying'sick in the room) 
 'and Mrs. Morgan; and God will assist us to get 
 the fire under.' This we accordingly did, and by 
 
APPENDICES 223 
 
 the application of wet blankets soon confined and 
 at last extinguished tlie fire. 
 
 " We were much struck with the integrity of tlie 
 people. In their anxiety to save as much as pos- 
 sible, almost every article was removed. In the 
 confusion many things were scattered about tlie 
 yard ; not one article, however, even the most 
 triiiing", was lost, but all were brought again to the 
 house and fixed in their proper places. A boy who 
 had got possession of the box which (contained the 
 money for pjiying the mechanics and laborca-s was 
 found in tlu; garden, parading with the box undcj- 
 his arm, and guarding it, though unnecessarily, 
 with a drawn eutlass in liis hand. 
 
 "I was struck, during a lire which broke out in 
 our house, with the sudden disi4)})t!arance of the 
 women, who at the comnu^ucement almost filled the 
 house. On inquiry I found that they had retired 
 to the church to offer up their prayers unto God. 
 What but a divine influence could draw them to 
 God in this trial, to ask His blessing on the exer- 
 tions of those employed? 
 
 " While we were replacing the books which had 
 been scattered on this occasion, two of the girls 
 came to us. I .isked what was wanted. 'Nothing, 
 massa,' was the reply; 'but we come tell you (lod 
 hear every time sonuibody go talk Ilim.' 'How, 
 my child,' said I, 'do you know that God hears His 
 people when they pray?' Slie said, 'Massa, when 
 fire come this morning I sab])y your house no burn 
 too much. Every morning I hear you and Mr. 
 Gates, and you pray God keep this house and all 
 them girls and boys what live here ; and when fire 
 come I say to Sarah, "Ah! God plenty good; He 
 heard what massa say to Him this mor-ning; He no 
 hit this house burn too much."' What a reproof 
 did I feel this ! I knew how often my heart was 
 
224 APPENDICES 
 
 indifferent while I asked for these mercies ; and I 
 trust it made me more anxious to urge the duty 
 of family prayer on others more earnestly. Soon 
 after the same gii-ls mentioned theii' desire for one 
 of the elder girls to pray with the school-children 
 before they went to bed and when they rose in the 
 morning. 
 
 " Scarcely an event occurs but what they notice 
 as springing from the overruling providence of 
 God. Taught of God, they mark the painful events 
 of His providence, as children would mark the deal- 
 ings of a father. After the death of Mr. Gates I 
 have frequently heard their expressions of sorrow 
 for sin, and acknowledgments of God's justice in 
 punishing them. They have used such language 
 as this: 'We have done something very bad— God 
 is very angry ; He is removing all our teachers ; 
 by and by nobody will be left to tell us good. We 
 must pray, dear brothers and sisters ; we must look 
 into our own hearts ; some bad live there.' Similar 
 occurrences in England would have passed, perhaps, 
 unheeded by the greater part of professing Chris- 
 tians. 
 
 " How many candlesticks spreading around them 
 the light of truth, and reflecting the rays of Him 
 who fed their luster by His own incomprehensible 
 glory, are removed from the congregation where 
 Jesus had planted them, without giving rise to the 
 thought, ' God is angry with us for sin ' ! What 
 has not our God permitted your society to do al- 
 ready ? What a call to go forward and increase in 
 the work ! 
 
 " No day passed, when I was capable of taking 
 exercise, without my entering some of the huts 
 around us. Visiting unexpectedly, as I often did, 
 the families of all classes of the communicants, I 
 could not be deceived as to their actual condition. 
 
APPENDICES 225 
 
 " I have found many commendably employed in 
 agriculture. I believe the society is apt to conceive 
 that a cultivated farm or garden in Africa must re- 
 semble the same thing in England, which it does 
 not. I have often myself drawn too strong a line 
 of comparison between the two. Agriculture is, 
 among many, especially those on whose hearts we 
 trust the dew of God's grace is continually de- 
 scending, flourishing. 
 
 "Many of the gardens are kept in very neat 
 order, though most of the owners have but little 
 leism-e to devote to this employment. I have fre- 
 quently known the whole of the time allowed for 
 dinner spent by both husband and wife in fencing, 
 digging, or planting the little spot of ground at- 
 tached to each dwelling. 
 
 " Decency and cleanliness manifest the diligence 
 of those who live under the power of religion. Their 
 time is, indeed, so well occupied that in cases where 
 they can read they may be frequently seen at leisure 
 moments with some friends around them searching 
 the Word of life ; and these little respites from labor 
 are often made a blessing to the whole town, as the 
 sick, the careless, the backsliding, and the profane 
 are not seldom visited, instructed, warned, com- 
 forted, and relieved at these seasons by their zeal- 
 ous brethren. 
 
 " The Christian negroes show a strong attachment 
 to the simplest views of religion. I began some 
 explanation as plain as possible, in successive even- 
 ings, of the Lord's Prayer. It pleased God gi*a- 
 ciously to bless these words to the people. They 
 made the most practical use of them. A display of 
 an unholy temper woidd receiA^e a reproof : ' If God 
 your Father, that be no like His child.' Some said 
 that they needed indeed such a Father ; others, such 
 daily bread. Some thought God could not be their 
 
226 APPENDICES 
 
 Father, because they did not feel sufficient desires 
 that His kingdom should come among their coun- 
 try-people ; and others felt that they were rebellious 
 children for not doing His will on earth more as it 
 was done in heaven. Some wept to think how He 
 delivered them from temptation and evil ; and all, 
 I believe, burned "with love to ascribe to him the 
 kingdom of His love, the power of His Spirit, and 
 the glory of their salvation . 
 
 " I was obliged, by the pressing requests of the 
 people, to repeat these explanations four or five 
 times, and resolved in future to know nothing and 
 to speak of nothing among the negroes but the plain- 
 est words of the Redeemer. How much better cal- 
 culated His language is than any other to reach the 
 heart may be judged of by this instance out of many. 
 
 " How much may be gained by the simplicity, or 
 rather sublimity, of the gospel, I never knew before. 
 The work in which the missionary engages must 
 be the work of Jesus, for He suits and opens every 
 capacity to receive heavenly manna. 
 
 " But there was another reason which tended to 
 render this subject useful. I had it frequently read 
 before I spoke on it, which proves how rapidly, 
 under God's blessing, the knowledge of the gospel 
 must increase if the soil wherein the grain is cast 
 were more cultivated and maniu'ed by acquaintance 
 with the Bible. Difficulties, I know, are great, and 
 the man who goes as a schoolmaster to labor among 
 the heathen must expect many trials on earth. 
 However the comprehension of the minds of the 
 Africans may be ridiculed, I have found them, 
 though needing cultivation, far from barren. The 
 finer feelings of the soul in the attachment of these 
 people to their instructors, families, and friends are 
 equal to the sons and daughters of the princes of 
 Europe. 
 
APPENDICES 227 
 
 " How eminently the gospel shines in the conduct 
 of the people, and how strikingly its influence is 
 manifested, no one can possibly conjecture but 
 those who have been eye-witnesses. I have fre- 
 quently experienced myself, and seen experienced 
 by different superintendents, the most docile and 
 tractable dispositions. 
 
 " On the disbanding of the West India regiments 
 sent to the colony for that purpose, a natural degree 
 of affectionate feeling was excited in the breasts of 
 the negroes to see them. These regiments had been 
 several years before formed of liberated negroes, 
 and many of the people were expecting to find 
 parents, brothers, and friends among them. The 
 feelings of glowing hope were strongly dehneated 
 in almost every countenance. When in the evening 
 intelligence arrived that on the following morning 
 the troops would be permitted to land, after evening 
 prayer it became a matter of general conversation. 
 Some were looking forward with hope, while their 
 joy cast a cloud over the faces of others, whose 
 friends had been murdered in different skii-mishes 
 when they themselves were enslaved. In the morn- 
 ing, at prayer, the church was particularly full, and 
 a few words were spoken on the danger to which 
 a Christian was exposed when running into temp- 
 tation, and some desire intimated that none would 
 visit Freetown that day. I gave this intimation 
 against my own feelings ; for I thought their wishes 
 laudable, though I feared the consequences which 
 might arise from gratifying them. In the course 
 of an hour after, an old and faithful Christian came 
 to tell me that his brother was come among the 
 soldiers. 'Well,' said I, 'and do you wish to see 
 him ? ' ' Yes, massa, I want to look him, but I no 
 want to go to-day.' 'Well,' I replied, 'I want to 
 send to Freetown j if you can find another commu- 
 
228 APPENDICES 
 
 nicant who wishes to go and see the soldiers, I will 
 send you down.' After a search of near two hours 
 he returned with : * Well, massa, me no find one 
 tliat want to go; all them x)eople what belong to 
 church think 'tis no good for them to run where 
 (iod say temptation live.' Two days elapsed before 
 this poor fellow, whose heart was full of affection 
 to his brother, went to Freetown to see him. I 
 singled him out as a fit object of reward ; and hav- 
 ing mentioned the subject to the governor, that 
 father of the liberated negroes, anticipating my 
 request, promised, and kept his promise, that the 
 l)r()tliers should have the privilege of hving together. 
 
 " I know of many similar instances, but this one 
 struck me much. I thought it an example worthy 
 of imitation, and was fully convinced that w^hile I 
 had known the gospel longer I had obeyed it less. 
 
 " You must think that, more than according to 
 the labors of the societ}^, God has blessed. The 
 church has much reason to take up David's ex- 
 clamation, and say, ' Bless the Lord, O my soul, and 
 forget not all His benefits.' There are, as must be 
 expected, many errors in large towns, but the good 
 which has been done in Africa neither we nor the 
 generations to come will be able to fathom. Per- 
 haps never one of your servants ever noticed the 
 field of your labors with more impartial views than 
 did my dear Brother Gates and myself ; and it was 
 not till I had left that field that I suffered my mind 
 to form a sentiment on the subject." 
 
 APPENDIX IV 
 
 Op a Sunday spent at Regent's Town, Mr. Jesty, 
 after speaking of an early mooting in the church, 
 at six o'clock in the morning, thus writes : 
 
APPENDICES 229 
 
 " At ten o'clock I saw a sight which at once as- 
 tonished and delighted me. The bell at the church 
 rung for divine service, on which Mr. Johnson's 
 well-regulated schools of boys and girls walked, two 
 and two, to the church— the girls extremely clean, 
 and dressed entirely in white, in striking contrast 
 with which were their black arms and faces; the 
 boys, equally clean, were dressed in white trousers 
 and scarlet jackets. The clothing of both boys and 
 girls is suppKed by government. 
 
 " The eagerness of the inhabitants to hear the 
 Word will appear from their early attendance on 
 the means of grace. It is true, there is a bell in the 
 steeple of the church, but it is of little use at Re- 
 gent's Town, for the church is generally filled half 
 an hour before the bell tolls. The greatest atten- 
 tion is paid during the service. Indeed, I witnessed 
 a Christian congregation in a heathen laud— a 
 people 'fearing God and working righteousness.' 
 The tear of godly sorrow rolled down many a 
 colored cheek, and showed the contrition of a heart 
 that felt its own vileness. 
 
 "At three o'clock in the afternoon there was 
 again a very fidl attendance, so that scarce an in- 
 dividual was to be seen throughout the town, so 
 eager are they to hear the Word, and to feed on 
 that 'living bread that came down from heaven.' 
 The ser\'ice was over about haK-past four o'clock. 
 
 " At six we met again ; and although many had 
 to come from a considerable distance, and up a 
 tremendous hill, I did not perceive any decrease of 
 number, or any weariness in their frequent atten- 
 dance on the means of grace. 
 
 <' We left the church about eight o'clock, and re- 
 turned to Mr. Johnson's house, which is close by 
 the church. While at supper I heard singing, and 
 on walking into the piazza found that about twenty 
 of the school-girls were assembled under it. One 
 
230 APPENDICES 
 
 of the elder girls gave out the hymn in an impres- 
 sive manner, while a younger girl held a lamp. 
 After we had supped, the girls, in a very respectful 
 and humble way, sent up to Mr. Johnson to know 
 if he would allow them to come upstairs into his 
 sitting-room, to sing a parting hymn. On their 
 entering the room Mr. Johnson gave out a hymn, 
 and in a few minutes I think we had at least one 
 hundred and twenty boys and gii'ls in the room and 
 piazza. They sang three hymns ; and after a few 
 suitable words from Mr. Johnson they departed, 
 pleased with the favor granted them. 
 
 "Thus was the last Sabbath spent in Regent's 
 Town. Never did I pass such a day in my dear 
 native country. Never did I witness such a con- 
 gregation in a professing Christian land, nor ever 
 beheld such apparent sincerity and brotherly love." 
 
 Of the monthly meeting, held on the following 
 evening, Mr. Jesty thus wi*ites : 
 
 " Mr. Johnson and myself entered the names of 
 subscribers and received their mites ; and I cannot 
 but notice that, in one minute after Mr. Johnson 
 and myself were ready to receive the money and 
 names, we were surrounded by several hundreds of 
 humble friends to missionary exertions, crying, as 
 it were with one voice, ' Massa, take my money ! ' 
 ' Massa, massa, take mine ! ' < Eight coppers one 
 moon.' It was indeed a pleasing sight to behold a 
 people— once led captive at the will of Satan, de- 
 voted to gross superstition and folly, embracing 
 their gree-grees and trusting in them for defense, 
 nud once expending all the money that they could 
 spare in the purchase of these false gods— now con- 
 quered by the love and power of Him that taketh 
 away" the sin of the world, and with cheerful and 
 renewed hearts giving of tlieir little substance to 
 aid those means which, by the blessing of God, will 
 
APPENDICES 231 
 
 communicate the privileges of the gospel to their 
 countrymen also. 
 
 " From these few poor and once injured and de- 
 spised Africans we collected that evening about 
 £2. 7s. O my countrymen, fellow-Christians in 
 highly favored Enghmd, you wlio liave multiplied 
 and daily renewed comforts and blessings, ' go and 
 do likewise ' ! " 
 
 Of the manner of closing this day Mr. Jesty says : 
 
 " After we left the church the children of the two 
 schools retired to their school-houses, and the rest 
 of the congregation to their respective homes. 
 
 '' But that faith which cometh from above and 
 worketh by love has taken such possession of the 
 hearts of this people, that they delight to be con- 
 tinually 'speaking one to another in psalms and 
 hymns and spiritual songs, and to sing with grace 
 in their hearts to the Lord.' 
 
 '' The school-houses are situated behind Mr. John- 
 son's, on a higher part of the hiU. The school-girls 
 assembled in a row before tlieir school-house, with 
 three or four lamps dispersed through the line. 
 Their eldest teacher gave out the hymn, and they 
 were singing deUghtf ully : 
 
 ' How beauteous are their feet, 
 Who stand on Zion's hill ! ' 
 
 While the girls were singing this hymn the boys 
 had climbed a little higher up the hiU, when one of 
 their teachers gave out the hymn : 
 
 ' Come, ye sinners, poor and wretched ! ' 
 
 '' It was a beautiful moonlight night, so that the 
 children could be seen from all parts of the town, 
 while the lofty mountains resounded with the echo 
 of their voices. I was walking up and down in the 
 
232 APPENDICES 
 
 piazza listening to them, and anticipating the time 
 when all kings shall fall down before the Redeemer 
 and all nations shall serve Him, when I saw at the 
 foot of the hill some men and women coming to- 
 ward the childi-en. The men joined the boys, and 
 the women joined the girls. 
 
 " The boys and girls had now snng several hymns, 
 and after a few minutes' cessation began again. I 
 was thinking of our Christian friends in England, 
 and said to Mr. Johnson, ' Could all the friends of 
 missionary exertions but witness this scene, they 
 would be more and more zealous for the universal 
 diffusion of the gospel of a crucified Saviour,'— when 
 I looked around me and saw numbers of the inhabi- 
 tants, men and women, coming in every direction. 
 They joined respectively the boys and girls, and 
 sang for some time, when the boys and girls retired 
 to their school-houses, and the men and women re- 
 tired to their homes in peace. 
 
 *' This is a great work, and it is marvelous in our 
 eyes; but it is the Lord, and to Him be all the 
 glory ! " 
 
 Mr. Jesty adds : 
 
 "We rose next morning between five and six 
 o'clock, and attended morning prayer at the church. 
 After the service was over a few more came for- 
 ward, and begged us to take their coppers to aid 
 the cause of missions. We collected on this occa- 
 sion upward of fifteen shilUngs, which, with the 
 collection made the evening before, amounted to 
 more than three pounds. Mr. Johnson has a mis- 
 sionary meeting and sermon once a month, on 
 which occasions he generally collects three pounds. 
 Do not these poor people hold forth a bright ex- 
 ample to all Christians ? 
 
 " I have now given you a faithful and imperfect 
 picture of the state of Regent's Town. The Lord 
 
APPENDICES 233 
 
 has certainly blessed, in a peculiar manner, the 
 labors of Mr. Johnson. The people love him as 
 their father, and reverence him as theii* spiritual 
 g-uide. Should a dispute arise among any of them, 
 they come to him to settle their palaver, and they 
 abide by his decision. He seems in every respect 
 suited for these people— unwearied in his exertions, 
 and an excellent example to all his brethren." 
 Mrs. Jesty thus concludes her letter to her sister : 
 "The love which these people manifest among 
 themselves, and toward their minister and all faith- 
 ful missionaries, their anxiety and the fervency of 
 their prayers that the gospel may be made known 
 through all nations— these things are worthy the 
 admiration of all Christians. It may almost be said 
 of the inhabitants of Regent's Town that they 
 ' dwell in love,' and that they hve a life of prayer 
 and praise to Him 'who loved them, and gave 
 Himself for them ' ; for besides their meetings for 
 prayer every morning and evening, the hearts of 
 many of them seem to be full of the love of Christ 
 the whole day ; and when ' they are merry they sing 
 psalms ' ; such vocal music resounds from all parts 
 of the town. A dispute is seldom known among 
 them. They have every one of them cast off his 
 gree-gree, and nearly all of them are become wor- 
 shipers of the blessed Jesus. A few years since 
 none of the inhabitants of this place had ever heard 
 the name of Jesus ; they went about naked, and 
 were in every respect like the savage tribes; but 
 now — oh, what a happy change!— they are all de- 
 cently dressed ; and it is the most heart- cheering 
 sight to see them flock together in crowds to the 
 house of prayer. 
 
 "Mr. Johnson has been made an instrument of 
 incalculable good to this people. Under his minis- 
 try one hundred and sixteen persons have become 
 
234 APPENDICES 
 
 communicants, and one hundred and ten are can- 
 didates for baptism and the Lord's Supper ; these 
 will be received as members of the church of Christ 
 on Easter Sunday. Ho is very particular in his 
 examination of the people before they are admitted 
 to the Lord's table. 
 
 " It may indeed be said that 'numbers are added 
 to the church daily ' ; for Mr. Johnson has frequently 
 live or six in a day coming to his house to talk of 
 the state of their souls, who appear to be very sin- 
 cere. During the few days that we have been here, 
 upward of lifty persons have been to tell Mr. John- 
 son of their troubles, wliich they confess in affect- 
 ing terms : ' My bad heart trouble me, me no sleep 
 all night} me no peace, me know me very wicked, 
 but God good too much ; me t'ank God for what He 
 done for my soul ; me want love Jesus more ; me 
 want to go to Jesus ; me know nothing else but de 
 blood of Jesus can wash away my sin.' Such com- 
 plaints as those from these lost sheep of Israel are 
 incessantly brought before their worthy pastor, 
 who with affection directs them to the great Com- 
 forter, and advises them to embrace that gospel 
 which is ' the power of God unto salvation.' 
 
 *' my dear sister, is not this encouraging to all 
 Christian friends in England to be doubly zealous 
 and active in their missionary exertions ? Let me 
 entreat you all to be unwearied in your efforts and 
 prayers, that all Africa may become as Regent's 
 Town. This is the fruit of the gospel. Oh, send 
 forth th(; gospel and more faithful laborers into the 
 vineyard of the Lord ! Let me again beg of you, 
 my dear sister, to ' pray and not to faint.' Let the 
 interests of Christ's kingdom be ever uppermost in 
 your heart. Here is yet a wide field for labor. 
 May the happy effect of the gospel be felt by all 
 benighted Africa, and to God shall the glory be 
 given forever." 
 
APPENDICES 235 
 
 APPENDIX V 
 
 Mr. Singleton thus writes of Regent's Town : 
 
 " The population of Regent's Town is about 1350 ; 
 of this number, 700 are able to provide for them- 
 selves and families by means of their farms. One 
 man sold the produce of his little spot last year for 
 fifty pounds, and the quantity of cassava sold then 
 was ten thousand bushels. 
 
 " A small market is held each day, but the sev- 
 enth day is the principal one. Five oxen are weekly 
 consumed, besides pork. 
 
 " The people, with a few exceptions, are indus- 
 trious, as may be seen by the improved houses 
 which they build for themselves, by their furniture, 
 all of their own making, and by the neatness and 
 cleanliness of their habitations. In several houses 
 are sofas covered with clean print or the country 
 cloth, tables and forms, or chairs ; and especially I 
 noticed in each house a corner cupboard with its 
 appropriate crockery ware. The beds and sleeping- 
 rooms are remarkably neat and clean. A few of 
 the inhabitants, more ingenious or richer than the 
 rest, are building houses of board, with stores below 
 and piazza in front. 
 
 ''The superintendent appears to have consider- 
 able influence with the people, and his advice is 
 readily followed. 
 
 " A woman whose husband absconded about four 
 years since, and has not been heard of during that 
 time, asked the superintendent some time after the 
 man's departure if she might not marry again ; he 
 informed her that the law of England required a 
 period of seven years before that was allowed. She 
 submitted, and to the present has lived alone, main- 
 taining herself and acting with exemplary propriety. 
 
236 APPENDICES 
 
 "As we were standing under the piazza this 
 morning (sixth day), a young African came to ask 
 permission to marry. W. Johnson gave good 
 reasons for withholding his assent, which he had 
 scarcely done when he was called away ; and I ad- 
 vised the hesitating youth to acquiesce. He readily 
 answered : ' My massa good man. He say girl too 
 young. We wait. I no pass de word of my massa.' 
 
 '' Returning from a walk over one or two of the 
 farms, and coming near the market-place, we were 
 met by an elderly African, with a basket on his head 
 covered with a cloth. He stopped, and, placing the 
 basket on the ground, drew out a glass bottle, which 
 he held up that the superintendent might see its 
 contents, and uttered a few words which I could not 
 understand. The bottle contained palm-wine ; and 
 the man in his simplicity produced it uncalled for, 
 to assure the superintendent that it was not rum, 
 the use of this liquor being prohibited. 
 
 " Soon after breakfast Captain Grant came in. 
 We visited the schools together. The girls behaved 
 with seriousness, and appeared under good care. 
 There was an agreeable solidity in their counte- 
 nances which, I . hope, indicated something good 
 within. The boys were attentive, and tlie monitors 
 active, as was the case too at Gloucester and Kissy. 
 
 " I visited with satisfaction the school at Freetown 
 and those at several of the villages in the moun- 
 tains. At Regent's Town I remained two days, and 
 left the family and villagers with regret. This is 
 a favored place, and while there I indulged in a 
 wish that if the Friends should be induced to com- 
 mence a settlement on the Gambia, their success 
 might equal that of the superintendent of Regent's 
 Town." 
 
APPENDICES 237 
 
 APPENDIX VI 
 
 Mr. Bacon published on his return to Philadel- 
 phia an account of his visit to Africa, containing 
 the following sketch of Regent's Town : 
 
 " March 17, 1821, Saturday. About one o'clock 
 we arrived at Regent's Town. Mr. and Mrs. John- 
 son had been at Freetown, where Mr. Johnson was 
 sick several weeks. On oui' arrival great numbers 
 of his people came to shake hands with him, and 
 inquired affectionately after his health. The ex- 
 pression of every countenance bore strong testimony 
 of their ardent love for him, and of the joy which 
 filled their hearts on his recovery from sickness and 
 his safe return to his flock. 
 
 "At six o'clock in the evening the beU at the 
 church rang for divine service. The people were 
 immediately seen walking from different parts of 
 the town, the parsonage house being so situated 
 that there is a fair view of almost the whole settle- 
 ment ; and it was delightful to observe the eager- 
 ness which the people manifested to hear the Word 
 of God. A prayer-meeting was held by the com- 
 municants after the usual evening prayers, it being 
 expected that the Lord's Supper would be celebrated 
 the next day. 
 
 "March 18th, Sunday. At six o'clock the bell 
 rang for morning prayers, when the church was 
 again filled. How pleasing to behold hundreds of 
 those who were once wretched inmates of the holds 
 of slave-ships assembled in the house of God on the 
 morning of that holy day on which our blessed 
 Saviour rose from the dead and ascended up to 
 heaven ! With a hundred copies of the Holy Bible 
 spread open before their black faces, their eyes 
 
238 APPENDICES 
 
 were fixed intently on the words of the lesson which 
 their godly pastor was reading. Almost all Mr. 
 Johnson's people who can read the blessed book are 
 supplied with BiV>les from that best of institutions, 
 the British and Foreign BiVjle Society. Surely 
 ChrLstians ought to feel themselves encouraged in 
 the support of missions when such cheering fruits 
 j;resent themselves to view ! 
 
 "At ten o'clock the bell again rang, though the 
 church was nearly filled before that hour. The 
 members of the well-regulated schools, which passed 
 in review before the parsonage in regular succession, 
 were all clad in clean and decent apparel. When 
 we arrived at the church there were no vacant seats 
 to be seen. The greatest attention was paid during 
 di\'ine service. ' Indeed, I witnessed a Christian 
 congregation in a heathen land— a people "fearing 
 God and working righteousness." The tear of godly 
 sorrow rolled down many a colored cheek, and 
 showed the contrition of a heart that felt its own 
 vileness.' There were three couples married and 
 one child baptized. After the sermon Mr. Johnson, 
 with the assistance of Brother Andrus, administered 
 the communion of the body and blood of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ to nearly four hundred communicants. 
 This indeed was * a feast of fat things ' to my soul. 
 
 " At three o'clock the church was again filled, and 
 the most devout attention was paid to the reading 
 and hearing of the Word. The whole congregation 
 seemed eager to cateh every word which fell from 
 the pastor's lips. 
 
 "Again, before the ringing of the bell at six 
 o'clock in the evening, the people were seen from 
 the distant parts- of the town leaving their homes, 
 and retracing their steps toward the house of God. 
 There we again united in praising that God who 
 hath wrought such wonderful things even among 
 
APPENDICES 239 
 
 the mountains of Sierra Leone, where the praises 
 of Jehovah resound not only from His holy sanc- 
 tuary, but from the humblest mud- walled cottage — 
 from the tongues of those childi'en of Africa who 
 have been taken by the avaricious slave-trader, 
 di'agged from parents, separated from brother and 
 sister, and perhaps from wife or husband, bound in 
 chains, hurried on board the slave-ship, crowded in 
 a space not exceeding their length and breadth, nor 
 even allowed to breathe the \dtal air. These per- 
 sons, after being recaptured by order of the British 
 government, have been put under the charge of a 
 faithful minister of the gospel, whose labors have 
 been accompanied by the Holy Spirit. These are 
 the mighty works of God." 
 
 APPENDIX VII 
 
 The original memoir of Johnson thus impressively 
 concludes : 
 
 "And now we bring our narrative to a close. 
 The lessons it teaches are many ; but two or three 
 thoughts more immediatel}^ present themselves. 
 
 " The first is, the sovereignty and power which 
 mark certain of the di^'ine operations. 
 
 " It was remarked a few years since by an aged 
 and thoughtful minister : * We do the best we can 
 to raise up a succession of faithful ministers of the 
 gospel. We look out for young men of promise- 
 men whose hearts God seems to have touched ; we 
 put them under instruction ; we make them theo- 
 logians and preachers ; and thus whatever is in our 
 power we do, and in so doing we act rightly; no 
 other course is open to us. To a certain degree we 
 
240 APPENDICES 
 
 succeed, though we often have to mourn over grie- 
 vous disappointments. But now and then it pleases 
 God to take the work into His own hands. He 
 raises up a man, and makes him a preacher of the 
 gospel by His own especial teaching, and then we 
 behold a very different sort of minister from any 
 that human efforts or human skill can produce.' 
 
 "The truth of this remark, which was uttered 
 long before either of these remarkable men had 
 been given to the Christian church, has since been 
 made strikingly evident in the histories of Williams 
 and of Johnson. No two individuals in modern 
 times have been so honored of God in the mission- 
 ary work as were these two men, and none could be 
 more evidently prepared by Himself for the work. 
 
 "It was in the year 1816— a year which will be 
 ever memorable in the angelic annals— that the 
 mission of these two men was commanded. An 
 eminent prelate of our church once compared Mr. 
 Williams's narratives with the Acts of the Apostles,* 
 and under such sanction we cannot hesitate to say 
 that, as in a.d. 45 (Acts xiii, 2) so in a.d. 1816, ' the 
 Holy Ghost said, Separate Me Johnson and Williams 
 for the work whereunto I have called them.' And 
 what was that work ? It was one as absolutely be- 
 yond all human power as was the subjection of the 
 Roman empire to the sway of Him who was cruci- 
 fied on Calvary. 
 
 "Two regions of the earth were preeminently 
 reigned over by the Evil One. In Airica, among 
 the degraded race of Ham, the slave-trade had done 
 its work in crushing, brutalizing, exterminating, 
 while their religion was avowedly deinl-ivorsMp. In 
 Polynesia some of the most lovely spots on the earth 
 were becoming depopulated by vice and unnatural 
 
 * The late Bishop of Eipon, who called these narratives 
 the "twenty-ninth chapter of the Acts."— A. T. P. 
 
APPENDICES 241 
 
 cruelty. Mothers slept calmly on beds beneath 
 which they had buried many of their own murdered 
 infants. Over these two regions Satan ruled su- 
 preme, and his kingdom of hell was almost visibly 
 established. To overthrow that dominion it pleased 
 God to send forth two young men— not a phalanx 
 of learned theologians or well-taught divines or 
 clever and astute philosophers, but two men of no 
 learning, possessing only a scanty measure of the 
 most ordinary instruction. There cannot be a 
 doubt that this was ordered as in the apostle's day : 
 'After that . . . the world by wisdom knew not 
 God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching 
 to save them that believe. . . . Because the fool- 
 ishness of God is wiser than men ; and the weakness 
 of God is stronger than men' (1 Cor. i. 21, 25). 
 
 " Had the event proved otherwise, the directors 
 of the London Missionary Society would have been 
 deemed by many to have laid themselves open to 
 censm-e. John Williams had not arrived at the age 
 of manhood when he was sent forth, and his previous 
 instruction had occupied but a few short months. 
 
 " As to William Johnson, he had been a mechanic ; 
 had been placed in the National Society's training- 
 school for a single twelvemonth, and was sent forth 
 by the Church Missionary Society to labor in West 
 Africa as a schoolmaster. It is quite certain that 
 neither of these societies had an idea, when they 
 sent forth these young men with far less than the 
 ordinary preparation, what important instruments, 
 in the hand of the Holy Ghost, they were then dis- 
 missing to their labors. 
 
 " But, though called to the work at about the same 
 period and sent forth in the same year, and resem- 
 bling each other greatly in their previous histories, 
 there was a wide difference in the two spheres of 
 labor for which they were destined, and there was 
 
242 ylPPENDICES 
 
 a similar difference in the character of their minds. 
 He who 'knew what was in man/ and who 'fash- 
 ioneth the clay like a potter/ gave to Polynesia the 
 conqueror and civilizer, Williams, and to oppressed 
 Africa the sympathizing consoler and preacher, 
 Johnson. The same gospel dwelt in the hearts and 
 on the lips of each, but the outward circumstances 
 of their respective missions were very different. 
 Mr. Williams's lot was cast in a land 
 
 ' Where every prospect pleases, 
 And only man is vile.' 
 
 Luxury, indolence, and luxurious vice were the foes 
 with which he had to wrestle, Wliat a picture of 
 the native opulence of those regions is given by the 
 single fact that the people of one of those islands, 
 few in number, were able, when really awakened to 
 their duty, to send home to the parent society in one 
 year a contribution of the value of eighteen hundred 
 pounds ! 
 
 " It is no detraction from the merits of Mr. Wil- 
 liams to remark that Mr. Johnson, placed in more 
 painful and difficult circumstances, shines under 
 these circumstances with a still brighter light. Ease 
 and luxury, sunny climes and softeningatmospheres, 
 are not those which are most favorable to Christian 
 heroism. Multitudes of predecessors in the mis- 
 sionary work had sunk under these temptations, and 
 had failed in the same undertaking in which Mr. 
 Wilhams so remarkably succeeded. The difficulties 
 which surrounded Mr. Johnson were of a different 
 class. The climate, it is true, was in each case un- 
 favorable to vigorous effort ; but, while surrounding 
 circumstances in Polynesia almost resembled those 
 of Bunyan's ' enchanted ground,' the case of a mis- 
 sionary in western Africa was widely different. 
 Despondency might cooperate with a relaxing cli- 
 
APPENDICES 243 
 
 mate, a.nd so produce a despairing inertness ; biit as- 
 suredly everything around was replete with pamtui 
 sights and dread-iuspiring alarms. Poverty, degra- 
 dation, physical and moral wretchedness among the 
 people, conspired, with frequent sickness and death 
 among the laborers, to throw the missionary upon 
 his God as his only refuge and strength, ' a very 
 present help in time of trouble.' And whe.n this re- 
 sult was produced, the effect was naturaUy most 
 salutary. It recalled Cowper's lines : 
 
 'For He who knew what human hearts would prove,— 
 How slow to learn the dictates of His love ; 
 That, hard by nature and of stubborn will, 
 A life of ease would make them harder still,— 
 In pity to the souls His grace designed 
 To rescue from the ruins of mankind, 
 Called for a cloud to darken all their years, 
 And said, "Go, spend them in the vale of tears. 
 
 " The general effect, then, of these differing cir- 
 cumstances was, that while both these eminent men 
 preached the same gospel, and with the same sim- 
 plicity and faithfulness, the results were modihed 
 by external influences. In Mr. WilUams's case we 
 find large and rapid successes ; in Mr. Johnson's, 
 more limited but perhaps more deeply spiritual con- 
 versions. We remark the difference not m depre- 
 ciation of Mr. WilUams's labors ; had he been placed 
 in Mr. Johnson's circumstances he would probably 
 have been what Mr. Johnson was ; while Mr. John- 
 son, in Polynesia, would have proved liimself an- 
 other WiUiams. ' But all these worketh that one 
 and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man 
 severally as He wiU' (1 Cor. xii. 11). Nor must 
 the reader forget, in comparing these two eminently 
 successful missionaries, that Mr. Williams's course 
 was prolonged to more than two and twenty years, 
 while Mr. Johnson's ended in less than seven. 
 
244 APPENDICES 
 
 " A second remark whicli naturally sug:gests itself 
 is this : that when God speaks to any man diredhj, 
 as He spoke to William Johnson, the speech of that 
 man to his fellow-sinners will often be found to be 
 similarly direct and effective. 
 
 " Johnson was awakened and called ' out of dark- 
 ness into marvelous light' without human instru- 
 mentality. By the Holy Ghost, working with con- 
 spiring circumstances, his heart was penetrated. 
 The preacher's part which followed was only to 
 administer comfort and to point to Christ. And 
 when so built upon the only sure foundation, and 
 made desirous of spreading the knowledge of sal- 
 vation, it is most worthy of remark that he could 
 scarcely open his mouth without some one being 
 stricken to the heart. The proofs of the directness 
 and effective character of his preaching pervade his 
 whole history. The ' live coal from the altar ' evi- 
 dently had ' touclied his lips,' and his speech was 
 * with demonstration of the Spirit and with power.' 
 
 " One more observation must be made, though 
 with fear and trembling. In the short but emi- 
 nently successful career of Mr. Johnson, we see 
 how practicable it is to unite a burning zeal with a 
 sound judgment, and how excellently the two com- 
 bine to form the able minister of the gospel. 
 
 "In the present day, prudence and caution and 
 decorum are more common than fervency and ear- 
 nest zeal ; and hence it follows that any overflow- 
 ing of earnestness is almost sure to be checked 
 and reproved, as 'bordering on enthusiasm.' It 
 was so in Mr. Jolmson's case. His very first stej) 
 in liis public duty exposed him to such a check ; 
 but a review of his whole course presents him in 
 the light of one who merely felt and acted in the 
 spirit of St. Paul. He was willing to be 'made aU 
 things to all men, that he might by all means save 
 
APPENDICES 246 
 
 some.' He was ' instant in season, out of season^ 
 reproving, rebuking, exhorting with all long-suffer- 
 ing and doctrine.' But he was ever watchful, 
 humble, desirous to receive the counsel of his elders, 
 and prompt in obeying it. He kept an even course 
 between the urgency of the governor, on the one 
 hand, desirous of a general admission into the 
 church, and the apprehensions, on the other, of 
 'that fearful Tamba, dreading that the church 
 would be filled with hypocrites.' The soundness 
 of his judgment and the wisdom of his course are 
 seen in the rapid disappearance of disorder, and the 
 perpetual increase of his influence over his people. 
 Not by mere priestly pretensions, but by the legiti- 
 mate sway of mind over mind and heart over heart, 
 he won his way, till toward the close of his course 
 the control exercised by him seemed all that a pastor 
 could desire. It is not indeed to be doubted that, 
 as in the apostolic churches, so in Regent's Town, 
 the enemy was sedulously employed in sowing 
 tares among the wheat. We have already seen 
 that within a few weeks after his departure the 
 temptation of ardent spirits crept in. If we had 
 pursued the story still later, we might have met 
 with the sad story of a quarrel, ending with the ap- 
 pearance of some of the Regent's Town communi- 
 cants, as criminals, before a magistrate. But the 
 counterpart of all this had been written before, in 
 St. Paul's and St. Peter's epistles (2 Cor. xii. 21 ; 2 
 Pet. ii. 18-22). And the best criterion of Mr. John- 
 son's having followed Paul, as Paul followed his 
 Master, is that his whole narrative bears the closest 
 resemblance to the apostle's own experience, as we 
 find it depicted in his various epistles. 
 
 '' Such is the work of God, carried on by a few 
 of His people, for 'accomplishing the number of 
 His elect and hastening His kingdom.' Let us 
 
246 APPENDICES 
 
 compare it, for a few moments, with some of the 
 works of man. 
 
 " And the contrast which first and most naturally 
 presents itself is that of such a mission as Regent's 
 Town with the missions of Rome. 
 
 "All the missions of which Rome boasts have 
 been enterprises begun and carried on within the 
 last three centuries. And wliatever the Roman 
 Church might have been in earlier times, we beheve 
 that from the Reformation downward, at least, it 
 has been apostate, and its works, therefore, the 
 works of fallen man and not of God. Let us com- 
 pare those works with a Protestant mission such as 
 that of Regent's Town. 
 
 " We have here the narrative of a plain and simple 
 mechanic, educated but scantily for a schoolmaster 
 of poor li])erated negroes, but who, in the course of 
 his labors, speaking of Christ to thorn, becomes the 
 means of building up an extensive Christian church. 
 Very soon we find him assembling fifteen hundred 
 people together, Sunday by Sunday, adnutting four 
 hundred of them to the Lord's table, and educating 
 one thousand in schools. The reality of the work 
 is shown by its endurance. After much adversity 
 and many discouragements long continued, Re- 
 gent's Town at this moment r(goices in the Chris- 
 tian church which was founded by William Johnson. 
 From that church many redeemed souls have joined 
 the blessed company in paradise. Now a parallel 
 to all this may be found in other Christian missions, 
 such as those of Mr. Williams, already alluded to, 
 the churches gathered by the Moravians in diflPeroiit 
 countries, and the churches now multiplying in 
 Tinnevelly. But is the like to be found in the his- 
 tory of the papal church ? There are iutlocd largo 
 records of their successes, and we believe that, at 
 various periods, the missionaries of Rome in divers 
 
APPENDICES 247 
 
 countries have succeeded in hnptizmg great numbers. 
 To baptize myi-iads of ignorant and unconverted 
 heathens, however, if this be all, is a mere delusion. 
 Has there been, among the annals of Romish mis- 
 sions, a single instance resembling that of Regent's 
 Town in its reality — a single instance, we mean, 
 of a Christian congregation not only haptized, but 
 brought into the habits, feelings, and tempers of 
 the Christian life ? We have met with no such his- 
 tory, and we doubt if such a one exists. 
 
 " I3ut we may pass from the counterfeit Christian- 
 ity of apostate Rome to the other religions of 
 mankind. Do we find among them anything re- 
 sembling a genuine Christian mission, either in its 
 self-sacrifice or in its wondrous results ? 
 
 " 'Look at the spirit of aggression which charac- 
 terizes this religion, its undeniable power to prompt 
 those who hold it to render it victorious— a spirit 
 which has not been least active in our own time. 
 We do not see anything like this in other religions. 
 We do not see mollas from Ispahan, Brahmans 
 from Benares, bonzes from China, preaching their 
 systems of religion in London, Paris, and Berlin, 
 supported, year after year, by an enormous expen- 
 diture on the part of their zealous compatriots, and 
 the nations who support them taking the liveliest 
 interest in their success or failure.' * In fact, it is 
 Christianity alone which professes to have received 
 a divine command to ' go and teach all nations ' ; 
 and it is only Christianity which acts upon such an 
 injunction. 
 
 "Isolate, for a moment, the case of Regent's 
 Town, and let it be regarded with close attention. 
 Here is a single man but just escaped from a Lon- 
 don workshop, employed in organizing, civilizing, 
 and humanizing a large body of rescued slaves, of 
 * « The Eclipse of Faith," p. 218. 
 
248 APPENDICES 
 
 a different race and of various other tongues. In 
 a wonderfully short space of time he so gains the 
 affections of these poor savages that a large Chris- 
 tian village arises almost as if by magic. Streets 
 and gardens, a church and schools, fields and farm- 
 yards, are occupied and cultivated by hundi-eds of 
 willing hearts and liands. At once, without any delay, 
 a congregation of redeemed and saved men and 
 women is seen. The church is filled to overflow- 
 ing ; the schools are crowded with eager learners ; 
 hundreds press forward to beg for the benefit of 
 the Christian sacraments ; meanwhile, industry and 
 its fruits abound on every side, and purity of morals 
 such as no Englisli village knows universally pre- 
 vails. Such are the results of even three or four 
 years' labor ; may we not reasonably ask, Wlien did 
 the religion of Rome or of the East, or when did 
 the philanthropy of rationalistic philosophers, pro- 
 duce such a wondrous transformation as this ? 
 
 " It is well that men should thoroughly under- 
 stand that Christianity is alone in tlieworld as a 
 religion. There is no other faith which even pre- 
 tends to be made for mankind; and there is no 
 other the adherents to which make any attempt to 
 diffuse it among mankind. The reason is easily 
 discernible. The various forms of heathenism have 
 all one original and one patron : they constitute 
 different provinces of the one kingdom of ' the god 
 of this world.' They do not make war upon each 
 other, for ' if Satan be divided against Satan, how 
 shall his kingdom stand ? ' But with the religion 
 of Christ the case is wholly different. Five hun- 
 dred years before it was distinctly manifested, a 
 prophet was inspired to foretell that after the As- 
 syrian, Persian, Macedonian, and Roman empires a 
 totally different power should arise— 'a stone, cut 
 out without hands, which should become a great 
 
/iPPENDICES 249 
 
 mountain, and should fill the whole earth.' And 
 Christ Himself, when departing from the earth for 
 a season, said to His disciples, ' All power is given 
 unto Me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, 
 and teach all nations.' 
 
 "This command was given eighteen hundi-ed 
 years ago, in the land of Palestine, and it was ad- 
 dressed to a few poor fishermen and artisans. And 
 in this nineteenth century, lamentably as the in- 
 junction has been neglected, we still see several 
 hundreds of men traversing, like Johnson and Wil- 
 liams, different regions of the earth, braving the 
 pestilence here and the club of the savage there, and 
 even rejoicing to lay down their lives in such a 
 cause. 
 
 " The prediction, the command, and the fact which 
 are at tliis moment before our eyes, should all be 
 taken in connection ; and if this be done, the sincere 
 seeker after truth will find that which admits of but 
 one reasonable solution. 
 
 " But let us for a moment take a still larger view, 
 and compare the narrative we have just closed with 
 the works and ways of men in general, taking for 
 the stronger argument men in their most civilized 
 and humanized condition. 
 
 " What are the thoughts and pursuits of men in 
 society, even if we look chiefly to the most refined 
 and humanized of the species— nay, even to men 
 associated together in Christian churches? Are 
 they not bent, for the most part, either on the ac- 
 quisition of money, or on the pursuit of what is 
 called pleasure ? fakin g even the more respectable 
 and moral classes apart from the rest, do we not 
 find that either the pursuit of wealth, or the enjoy- 
 ment of the things procured by wealth, is the one 
 predominant idea ? 
 
 " What a contrast is furnished by the memoir we 
 
250 APPENDICES 
 
 are closing! A most active and energetic mind, 
 engaged for seven years in one engrossing pursuit, 
 and that pursuit so far above the sordid aims of 
 men in general, that his letters, journals, and re- 
 ports for a long series of years may be searched, 
 and not a thought connected with self, selfish gains, 
 or selfish enjoyments wiU be found. As, in para- 
 dise of old, and in the paradise yet to be revealed, 
 all thoughts of such things would seem absurd, re- 
 volting, and out of place, so, in the higher atmo- 
 sphere to which Johnson had attained, he seems to 
 have left such thoughts behind. He had his ' food 
 and raiment ' provided for him, and he had his work 
 to do ; that done, there only remained the blessed 
 termination : * God calls me, and this night I shall 
 be with Him.' 
 
 " It is true that some few cases of less selfish and 
 sordid views and feelings do now and then occur in 
 the world at large. One higher and nobler aspect 
 of human labors and human ambition has been 
 presented in the most emphatic way while these 
 closing pages were passing through the press. All 
 that human nature in its noblest and best condition 
 could offer has just passed before us, in the person 
 of the greatest warrior of Europe, now on his way 
 to his last earthly resting-place.* Let us honor, as 
 David honored Abner, the memory of one of the 
 powerful of the earth, who acknowledged heaven's 
 law, subjection, and knew it to be his safest and 
 wisest course to follow only the dictates of duti/. 
 But while we rejoice in such an example, let us 
 rightly appreciate the sphere and character of his 
 labors. The noblest of his kind, still that kind was 
 not the highest. The warrior has to do witli eartli 
 only; the preacher of the gospel has to do witli 
 
 * The reference is to the Duke of Wellino^ton, who died 
 September 14, 1852, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. 
 
APPENDICES 251 
 
 heaven So long as our present condition lasts, 
 which will be but a few years longer, Waterloo 
 will be one of earth's most thrilling names. It de- 
 cided the fate of empires ; it gave Europe 'rest for 
 forty years.' But when the transitory thmgs ot 
 the present world shall have vanished, and the real 
 and eternal shaU rise in then- proper form and con- 
 sistency, then Waterloo and Agincourt and Mara- 
 thon will be remembered only with wonder and 
 with pity, while such names as Bethelsdorp, Raia- 
 teia, and Regent's Town will be ' had in everlasting 
 remembrance.' 
 
 "What is the brightest hope held out m Irods 
 Word to the truest and most faithful of His ser- 
 vants! We know, indeed, that salvation is the 
 common hope of all ; that to be admitted ' withm 
 the gates of the city ' is the humble trust of every 
 believer. But our Lord has said, ' In My Father's 
 house are many mansions.' His apostle adds that 
 ' one star differeth from another star in glory.' The 
 meaning of the gospel parable is not dubious, which 
 relates that the king rewarded his servants with 
 authority over two cities, over five, or over ten, 
 according to their previous success in his serAdce. 
 Now the most glorious promise of future bUss that 
 is to be found in Holy Scripture is that which de- 
 clares that 'they that be wise shall shine as the 
 brightness of the firmament ; and they that turn many 
 to righteousness, as the stars for ever and ever.' 
 
 ''Behold, then, a poor mechanic, laboring m 
 Whitechapel, ' almost naked and in want of food.' 
 God suddenly, without any human aid, 'speaks to 
 his heart.' * At once does he respond to the call ; 
 at once does he spring ' out of darkness into mar- 
 velous light.' Soon after, he hears of the wretched 
 state of the heathen, and he steps forward with 
 * Hos. ii. 14, margin. 
 
252 APPENDICES 
 
 ' Here am I ; send me.' He is sent, and for seven 
 years each month's labor is a visible inroad on the 
 kingdom of Satan. All that he does, whether in 
 teaching or exhorting or mthstanding error, is done 
 with the whole heart. His success is almost with- 
 out a precedent. Doubtless a whole company of 
 redeemed souls went before him to paradise. The 
 church built up by him in six short years, although 
 long aflQicted and left destitute, endured, and is a 
 living and thriving church at this day. Its candle- 
 stick remains, a light to all western Africa. And 
 what of its founder ? Gone, to shine ' as the stars 
 for ever and ever ' ! Few, when seated in ' heavenly 
 places,' far above myriads of the learned, the 
 wealthy, the honored, and the powerful of the 
 Christian church— few, very few, will cry louder 
 than he, 'O the depth of the riches both of the 
 wisdom and knowledge of God ! how unsearchable 
 are His judgments, and His ways past finding 
 out!'" 
 
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