Pilkington of Uganda

Introduction To The American Edition

This brief record of the short life of George Lawrence Pilkington, who recently fell in Uganda, and whose name, like that of Mackay, is so closely linked with Gospel triumphs in that land, is full of suggestion and instruction.

This volume has great value as the story of Pilkington's own life, that extended over only thirty-two and a half years, from June 4, 1865, to December 11, 1897, when he was shot down in the effort to quell the "second mutiny." His seven years in the field had shown him to be one of the most efficient workers ever in Africa, especially gifted as a translator of the Word of God.

This record forms a fitting sequel to the biography of Alexander Mackay. That traces the story of the earlier days of the Uganda mission up to the appointment of Pilkington, so that the two together give a connected account of the most remarkable missionary triumphs known in Africa within a half century. Indeed, it may be questioned whether, with the exception of Johnson's work at Sierra Leone, the revival at the Hawaiian Islands, and the great work among the Telugus, anything else, equal to the victories of the Gospel in Uganda since the martyrdom of Hannington in 1885, has been known during this whole century. These fourteen years have witnessed a transformation equal, perhaps, to anything recorded even in apostolic days.

11 INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.

This book, however, possesses another attraction, in the wise and spiritual sayings scattered through its pages, which will of themselves repay careful reading and amply justify its publication.

The main interest of this biography lies, perhaps, in its demonstration and illustration of the need of even missionaries themselves of an enduement of power from on high. This is the story of a Modern Pentecost, preceded by its days of prayerful waiting, attended by unmistakable signs from Heaven, and followed by abundant harvests of souls. Nothing more practical has been put before the body of believers and workers for God than this fact, that all disciples may know and make real their share in the Pentecostal gift, and that men and women are in our day coming into an entirely new experience by the endowment and enduement of the Holy Spirit.

Pilkington presents an instance in point; he came to feel his own need of the Spirit so deeply that he could not continue at his work without some new experience of a baptism of power.

About this time a great desire arose for mission services, and, in the absence of special missionaries from abroad, it became plain that God wanted to use the missionaries themselves, and all in prayer newly dedicated themselves to Him and asked Him to baptize them anew. This was December 8, 1893. They had not told the people, but went up after prayer, at the usual time, believing for a blessing. Mr. Pilkington conducted the meeting, and spoke earnestly of the need of a new power from God coming down on the native Church, and even on the missionaries. A certain native convert had returned to the state of a heathen,

Introduction To The American Edition, 111

and the reason he gave was startling. He said: "' I get no profit from your religion. Do you think i have been reading seven years and do not understand? Your religion does not profit me at all; I have done with it." Pilkington, dwelling on this case, pointed out what a cause of shame and reproacli it was to the missionaries.

The sense of need of fuller life and Spiritpower took strong hold on the preachers and teachers, and, first of all, humbled them before God. Then blessing came upon the whole native church. Five hundred at a time attended the daily morning services, and they found themselves in the midst of a great spiritual revival, and their joy was beyond expression. The after meetings saw hundreds waiting for individual dealing, and among other fruits of this work was that same man who had asked to be announced as having gone back to heathenisin! Great chiefs boldly confessed their wish to accept Christ, and the spirit of evangelistic work so prevailed that the functions of government were in danger of being neglected by the eagerness of the officers of state to go about announcing glad tidings ! The work was so searching, and such a spirit of confession and humiliation prevailed in the native church, and such secret sins came to light in this great upturning and uncovering of hidden things, that the missionaries felt called on to restrain public confessions, lest these should bring too great reproach on the name of Christ, and the awakened backsliders were counseled to seek the brethren for private confession and prayer.

Mr. Pilkington in 1895 went to England on furlough, and electrified audiences by his account of the

IV INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.

dealings of God with the Uganda mission. Nothing was more noticeable than the emphasis he laid on this fact, that the Jlrs^ step in this vivification of the church in Uganda was that the missionaries and teachers themselves were led to just views of their own deep need; they saw the absolute necessity for personal consecration and the experience of a direct and supreme work of the Holy Spirit in themselves.

This tale of Christian labor furnishes another mighty argument for seeking with a desperate sense of helplessness, and with a confident faith in God's promise. Holy Ghost power. Not to Mr. Pilkington and his fellow-workers was this indispensable only, but the whole native church of Uganda owes the almost unparalleled movement of the last decade of years to the new enduement which proved such a divine equipment for the work of soul-saving.

It was this outpouring of Holy Spirit power whereby the native evangelists do such grand work — another proof that Africa is to be ultimately evangelized by Africans, and that the office of missionaries from America and Europe is to raise up a native church with trained native teachers. In Uganda, as in many other parts of the heathen world, the people can follow but can not lead, and some one from outside must therefore lead and organize.

Pilkington pleaded earnestly for a sufficient force to take possession of this great opportunity in Uganda— for a hundred additional missionaries, men and women filled with the Holy Ghost, as organizers and leaders for native workers, at least ten of whom could master, and then translate into, the native tongues; and, with rare insight into the true philosophy of

Introduction To The American Edition. V

missions, he urged a fiew policy of occupation. He contended that the only true method of distributing missionary workers is to send a large force when and where a desire for itistruction and an aggressive missionary spirit have been strongly developed among the native converts, instead of sending the bulk of the missionary force to places where there is neither desire for teachers nor a missionary spirit. And his argument was that the ultimate outcome of the former method will be far the greater in good, for after ten years little or no impression will have been made on the indifferent and hostile community, and this begets depression among the workers and in the church at home ; whereas, if the work at the field where God's Spirit has been outpoured were reinforced, it will so advance as to become a source of wide influence, a strongnative church being developed, with a large force of native evangelists; and thus the fire God has kindled will be carried to the other field and transferred to this other center. The result will be encouragement both among the missionary band and the supporters at home.

So strongly did this plea move others that, for example, the missionaries of the Church Missionary Society in India asked the Society, when it could be done, to send candidates, offering to go to India, to Uganda, for the time being, instead, that the Society mi^'-ht avail itself of the exceptional opening in that field, the growing conviction being that God's singular blessing in any particular field is a signal for a special reinforcement at that time and place.

How immeasurably important that every disciple should know his own need, should feel the impossi-

VI INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.

bility of any compensation for such a lack, should understand how ready God is to give the Spirit, and should pray in faith for the blessing!

There is one ditch into which many fall so that they never get to the firm resting-place of actual reception of this crowning gift of God: they say the Spirit of God was on the day of Pentecost given fully, finally, and to all believers, and hence is not to be sought as an unbestowed boon. In one sense this is true, but in another it is a snare. There was on the day of Pentecost an outpouring of the Spirit on all believers. The new dispensation of the Holy Spirit was then inaugurated, and we are not therefore to look for any such subsequent bestowment. But, individually, we find disciples filled with the Spirit subsequently, and we find a distinct command, " Be filled with the Spirit." There must therefore be some true sense in which we are to claim, receive and avail ourselves of this last and greatest gift of God. Christ was once offered for all, a sacrifice for sin, but every new believer takes Christ as a Saviour, and so makes practically available the work of Christ for sinners; and so the Holy Spirit was once for all given, but every believing child of God must accept and receive the fullness of this gift by a separate, individual act of faith, and thus practically it is to him as though the Spirit had been specially given to him.

We can safely and cordially commend this book not only to all who love Missions and watch the signs of the times and the wonder-working of God, but also to all who wish to understand thedeeper secrets of holy living and holy j-civing. Arthur T. Pierson.

Preface

This book is an attempt to record the life story of one who, whether as a boy at school, as a Master, or as a Missionary, " tried to do his duty." Wherever possible he speaks for himself, and it will be understood that the majority of the letters are private, and were never intended for publication. The usual allowances must therefore be made for some freedom of style, and for a certain abruptness in passing from one subject to another, which may be noticed in some letters. It is hoped that this memoir may form a fitting sequel to the biography of Mackay of Uganda, which tells the story of Uganda work during the earlier days of the Mission, up to the time when Pilkington was appointed to Uganda. "With this in view, a title has been adopted which may serve to connect the two volumes. There is no attempt here to give a history of the Mission, except in so far as it refers to the life and work of Pilkington of Uganda.

The author begs to tender his hearty thanks to the Rev. J. H. Skrine, friend and former master of George Pilkington, for an Introductory Chapter, and for many valuable suggestions ; to his parents

U PREFACE.

and other members of the family, who have unreservedly placed at his disposal letters and other materials, besides assisting in many ways ; to the Church Missionary Society for free permission to use any portion of their publications, and for supplying the maps which are given in this volume, and to which special attention is directed; to Messrs. Lafayette, of Dublin, for permitting the reproduction of the frontispiece ; and to Dr. Cook, for allowing the use of the photograph taken by him in Uganda.

Also to a large number of friends, who have supplied materials or otherwise rendered assistance.

That this book may lead to practical results in the Evangelisation of Central Africa is the prayer of

The Author,

November, 1898.

Preface To Second Edition

A Second Edition having been called for within a month of publication, the Author has taken the opportunity of correcting a few typographical errors kindly pointed out by various friends, and he has added an important letter from the Foreign Office with reference to the Unyoro Campaign.

He also has great pleasure in adding an index to this Edition for which he is indebted to Mr. Harold Balme, who is at present a Medical Student at King's College, and who is in training for Medical Mission work.

December, i8g8.

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

I AM asked to give my reminiscences of George Pilkington as a boy at Uppingham and later. My first sight of him was when he came from Ireland to try for an Entrance Scholarship, which he gained. His look is still distinct in my memory. A solid little figure of a boy, with features promising to be handsome when the nose should rise ; a complexion with the bloom on it of a boy from the soft West ; and fine eyes, large and deep. But most I remember the steady, purposeful air with a shade of attractive shyness in it. It was the look of a boy who would have, perhaps, genius, but certainly the power of doing something distinctive in life. Most boys at that age (and it is well for them) look as if they were only conscious of being boys ; he looked also conscious of going to be a man.

I do not think that I knew him, as a boy, * all round.' As a pupil in class, I saw much of him, and in another aspect which I am coming to. But he was not in my own House, and I hardly have a view of him in his ordinary life among other boys.

The gravity which one noted in him when * on duty' did not, I believe, prevent him from being as blithe as the rest of the world, and an eager talker ;

xii INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

also, I fancy, fond, as afterwards, of argument. On the football field I remember him distinctly, where his play was solid, business-like, of a good quality, though without genius.

We formed good expectations of his scholarship, which were not disappointed, but classical scholarship, in the strict sense, was not a thing in which the strongest side of his mind was represented. He rather lacked pliancy and imagination in the direction of language ; and his success in Latin and Greek was somewhat of a ioiir de force. His friends look back upon his classical studies as the foundation of his linguistic success in Uganda; and so, no doubt, in a sense they were. Yet it was not because he was a 'scholar,' in the literary sense, that he made so great an interpreter and translator : the power of languages is not the same thing as the power of language, and his splendid work on the African tongue is owed, I expect, first to the scientific element in him, and next, to that characteristic of him noticed by those who knew him best from childhood — a power of minding his own business and doing it.

Only one incident of his school life, worth chronicling, recurs to me. But it was nearly being the last. Bathing in the pool under the Welland ' lasher,' at Thorpe, before he could swim, he stepped out of his depth, went under, not once, but twice, within a few yards of his unconscious comrades, and was sighted and saved only as he sank a third time. He told me there was no discomfort or anxiety in the experience. Remember, superstitious mortals, that

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. xiii

one may be saved from drowning to die, not by the basest, but the noblest, of all deaths.

But if I recall few incidents, there is a season of his school life which, among my memories of him, is to myself the most worth retaining, for it is the most prophetic of the life which followed. It is the season when he was preparing for confirmation. It fell to me to be his instructor, and as he did not join one of the confirmation classes (his confirmation was at home and at another time than the Uppingham Confirmation), but came to me alone, my observation of him was the more intimate. It is one best record :d, however, by briefly saying that, in the young boy then at my side, with his silent but felt intelligence and shy enthusiasm, I see the man who lived and died for Christ in Africa.

And I ask myself, did he, in the later stress of religious vehemence, tell himself that this young boy was not yet converted, and did not yet know Christ aright ?

When he left Uppingham, I saw him only once more. He came back there in the summer of 1886. He was much transformed. No wonder, for the tide of that religious impulse which set in during his Cambridge days was now running strong. I felt something of shock at first. The enthusiasm, of course, was boyish, crude as new wine always is, and slightly, though only slightly, aggressive. The strain of what I should have then called Salvationism had, in a man reading for a classical First, much of the unexpected and even odd : it xiv INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

wanted taking in. Then an Uppinghamian of those days could not but 'eel a shade of regret to notice how the ' old school ' sentiment and what we will call the * Uppingham legend ' had been pushed (most naturally) into the background of his mind. But all this went by when we came, as we did at once, to close quarters, and he laid bare the new thoughts at work in him. He talked out the religious movement at Cambridge (which was leaving poor old Oxford a long way behind, I remember), and the group of men who brought the ' new wine ' in ; and we argued with much fulness, and mutual tolerance, I hope, the theory of Conversion, touching on the question, which some of his Cambridge friends had raised, of the practicability of sinlessness. Then we came upon Missions to the Heathen, and here, I must frankly say, I trembled ; for he told me of some one who had gone out to convert China (if I am correct) with no companions, and no appliances except the Bible in his pocket. George seemed to think my demur to this plan had some reason in it : but I trembled, seeing how congenial was the plan to the theories running in his brain, lest another life, and one I had some share in, should be lost in a morass.

That fear of mine was not unshared by other friends. A knightly love of adventure conspired with the disproportion of thought inevitable in a time of religious stress, to push him towards courses which we thought barren, if not dangerous. It was with a sense of rehef that we heard later of his destination to a well - organised field of mission

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work. Meanwhile, the touch of the ' clear spirit,' of the glorious whole-heartedness of him, charmed these apprehensions away. It was hard to do anything but rejoice in him. It was easy to say he was a little fanatical (why not, at one and twenty?), but whatever there was of the fanatic was sweetly redeemed by his sincerity, by a true freedom from self-conceit, in spite of his assurance of mind, and from any harshness, except, again, that which new wine must always have. Pleasant, too, it was to see how the old patriotism of school had only undergone transformation, like the rest of him, and was there again in the desire to evangelise. Two years later, I heard of him as having given the boys at Uppingham a singularly moving address on religion and conduct.

As we walked, we reached the Welland and the pool (it made him tell me the story) where he was all but drowned ; and I remembered how, when we had bathed, he discovered on the bank a gypsy camp, and was at once in talk with the wanderers on the greatest matters. Next morning he was away across the hot three miles to endow the camp with a Bible, which they promised him to read.

Where could I leave off better than with these gypsies ? For I never talked with him again, and have no further first-hand memories of him, except a letter from Uganda describing some of his doings with a modesty and an absence of colouring which quite disguised the splendid character of his work there ; a note on his coming the last time to England with the promise of a visit to me ; and xvl INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

another, dated from an unmooring ship, to wish goodbye and speak his regret that his hard work had robbed us of the visit. So I like to think of him last among the gypsies. Are they not named, -rightly or wrongly, of Africa ? Is not the little scene a picture in small of the scene to come, of the brave, whole-hearted, confident love of his 'barbarian ' brother in Christ, which has been so echoed in the wild men's love for him ?

And yet that must not be my very last word. For it does not fall to me to write of the Missionary, bat of the boy of my ' old school.' So what I would say is this. A chivalrous boy from an English Public School is one of the beautiful things in God's world of men ; and, to me, that knightly tale in Africa will be most thought of as the full blowing of a beauty of soul which I saw first and shall last remember in a boy at Uppingham.

John H. Skrine.

Chapter I. Home

Oh 1 'tis a noble thing to trace Our lineage thro' a noble race ; But nobler far where lineage leads To noble thoughts and nobler deeds.

George Lawrence Pilkington was born ©n Sunday, June 4th, 1865, at 35, Gardiner's Place, Dublin; being the fourth son of H. M. Pilkington, Esq., Q.C., ©f Tore, Westmeath.

It is no mere formality to speak, in his case, of a noble ancestry, and the lines with which this chapter opens, taken from a story in verse, by his father, recounting the brave deeds of some early members of the Pilkington family, voice well the aspirations which have been handed down from generation to generation, and which found a response in none more truly than in Pilkington of Uganda.

To come to more recent history, the family of the Pilkingtons is universally respected in the country side of Westmeath, and amid all the troublous times through which the Irish landlords have passed, they were able to secure the love and affection of their tenants. Though well known as an old Protestant family amid a Roman Catholic constituency, they have been able to over-ride the B 1 bitter prejudices which have so often been aroused over religious questions, and by their care of their poorer neighbours, endeared themselves to all, Roman Catholic and Protestant alike.

George's father was a most respected member of the Irish Bar, from which he has now retired, and he is chiefly known in connection with the framing of the constitution of the Irish Church in which he played a prominent part, and, for his distinguished services in this respect, he was awarded the Honorary Degree of LL.D. Trinity College, Dublin.

His mother was a member of the McDonnell family, so well known in Ireland, her grandfather being the celebrated Dr. McDonnell, of Belfast, and her uncle, the late Sir Alexander McDonnell, a scholar of the first rank, and one who, as Resident Commissioner to the Board of Education in Ireland, earned a brilliant reputation. Some words written concerning him at the time of his death, in the Spectator of Feb. 20th, 1875, are so striking in their likencbs to the character of this Memoir, that they are worth recording.

After a description of his life and work, the article concludes: — "Those who have enjoyed his conversation must despair of expressing its charms. Frank, enthusiastic with the enthusiasm of a boy, full of recollection of the men he had known and of the statemanship of fifty years, yet happiest and most winning in the region of pure literature, and above all, poetry. With his physical constitution, his abstemiousness of habit, and his love of air and exercise, he seemed to bid fair for fourscore and

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ten, but bronchitis, caught in a seasan more than usually deadly, carried him off at the age of 80, leaving few like him or approaching him."

With traditions such as these, it is not surprising that Mrs. Pilkington possessed an unusual power in the training of her children, to whose education and development she devoted herself.

One who was a companion of George Pilkington as a boy, and who shared with him Mrs. Pilkington's teaching, says unhesitatingly that "his gift of languages came from his mother." It is remarkable that, in teaching her children to spell, she adopted a phonetic system, very similar to that system which George afterwards so strongly recommended as a basis for the learning of a foreign language, though we are not aware that he himself recognised the likeness to his mother's teaching.

His mother, and those who knew him as a child, noticed from very early days a remarkable power of concentrating his attention upon anything he had in hand, whether it was upon his lessons or the manipulating of a toy. He seems to have had naturally a scientific bent of mind, rather than any particular taste for languages, and he was always anxious to learn about everything.

He had a profound admiration for his uncle, Dr. Robert McDonnell, of Dublin, and was particularly fond of questioning him ; on one occasion when he had inflammation of the lungs and his uncle was attending him, his mind was absolutely set on the scientific aspects of his illness. " Now, Uncle Robert." he would say, " I want to know what is giving me this pain," or, " My pulse is too quick, and I'm very hot, I w^ant to understand about it."

At that time, his mother was afraid that, young as he was, he had sceptical tendencies. He would often say when he had been reading in the Bible about some miracle, " I don't believe a word of it." On one occasion, when they were reading the old story of Elisha and the complaint of the sons of the prophets that there was " death in the pot," George vehemently exclaimed, " I don't believe there was death in the pot either before or after."

On another occasion, he came to his mother with the question, " Is every word in the Bible absolutely true ? " His mother's answer was one that might well be remembered by others under similar circumstances,— " The Bible is intended to teach you to serve God ; read it for that purpose, and in that sense every single word of it is perfectly true."

With the advice of various friends, it was considered best that his attention should be turned to classics, rather than that his mathematical and scientific powers should be too strongly developed.

The basis of his classical training was well laid by Mr. Bassett, to whose school, in Dublin, George went as a day scholar when he was eight years old.

Mr. Bassett seems to have been a schoolmaster of great power, and with an intense belief in the influence of Latin and Greek. He was noted for extreme accuracy, and was a strict disciplinarian.

A former schoolfellow writes : — " He may be said to have been Mr. Bassett's ' white boy,' as he was

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clever and hard-working, and was always well up in his work. He was often held up to us other boys as an example we would do well to follow. He was by no manner of means, however, a bookworm. On the contrary, he was fond of football and of all other games, and took an active part in them.

He was of a distinctly pugnacious turn, and I remember many a fight in which he played a principal part. I have very vivid and distinct recollections of a terrible encounter I had with him, which ended in much bloodshed. We bathed our bleeding noses in the pond in Wilton Square, Dublin, in the presence of an admiring crowd.

He was chiefly characterised by a certain stubbornness of will and a tenacity of purpose which showed themselves by his hard work at his books, his pluck and doggedness in a fight or in games, and his determination in sticking to a thing, once he had put his hand to it."

Another, writing of the same time, says: " He was always a boy with great confidence in himself. Often he would almost irritate us by the way he would develop a line of his own in any game we were playing. He was always full of spirits."

Although born in Dublin, and at school there later on, he spent the greater part of his childhood at his father's country seat at Tore, in the county of Westmeath. Here he was in his element, revelling in all kinds of outdoor occupations. Here he gained his knowledge of cooking, which was so useful to him afterwards, and he was known, with one of his brothers, to have improvised a rough oven in a field

« PILKINGTON OP UGANDA.