Seven years in Sierra Leone; the story of the work of William A. B. Johnson, missionary of the Church missionary society, from 1816 to 1823 in Regent's Town, Sierra Leone, Africa

Front matter

^^L^ PRINCETON. N. J. *^

Purchased by the Hamill Missionary Fund.

BV 3625 .S5 J6 1897 Pierson, Arthur T. 1837-

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 dignity of increasing responsibility and enlarging usefulness, is of foremost consequence, but it represents a gem as rare as it is radiant. It has been said that, while human development 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 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 fondhng 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 research 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 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 results wrought by the gospel. The aim in this recasting of the narrative has been so to rearrange 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 involving 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 success. 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, 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 crucified 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, forgot 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 ourselves 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 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 written on Africa that it supplies " a text for a scoffer." This narrative, on the contrary, furnishes a whole volume of apologetics and evidences 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.

Chapter I

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 accompanied with the heart-heat of holy ardor, fervor, zeal, often with a fanaticism that cold critics stigmatize as madness; a passion for 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 Falconer, " of being ridiculed as eccentric. Eccentric is out of center, and he who is revolving 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 sufficient reason for giving prominence to this brief story of seven years: it furnishes so singularly luminous an example of the readiness 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 character, views of truth, and singleness of aim commended them to the judgment of the society, and they were willing to give themselves entirely 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 committee'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.

Johnson was then working in a sugar-refinery 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 learning, for he was plain in person and comparatively 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 destitution, 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 Monday mornings something of the sermon he had 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 fastening 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 pittance 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 breakfasthour 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 applied 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 further payments for her service.

The hungry man was amazed at the goodness 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 exhortation, telling of Jesus and His love for sinners, and how He came into the world to save them. Like young Spurgeon in the Primitive 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 doctrinally 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 qualifications : a clear, unmistakable conversion, an 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 conversion 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 Sunday 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 invitation 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 understand better than any other Christian minister whom he had hitherto heard. His text on that night was, " There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." He had never before heard so much of the Saviour of sinners, and was so attracted by this simple gospel message that henceforth he and his wife regularly attended at this place of worship. His half-informed mind staggered much at the doctrine of free and saving grace, but afterward, 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 realized the high privilege and calling of a Christian disciple and the misery and wretchedness 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 unconverted 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 yourselves, 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

24 SEI/EN YEARS IN SIERRA LEONE

intercession in his wife's behalf, and strengthened 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, another 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 remarkable as proofs of God's direct care over us than what may be called gracious providences.

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 service 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 accomplished. 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 desire 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 disheartened 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 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 committee of the London Missionary Society, he was told by Mr. Diiiing, who was in the employ of the Church Missionary Society, that they would send out with himself another laborer, 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. Johnson and his wife met the committee and were accepted, as has been recorded in the previous 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 instrument of Grod in lifting him out of the horrible pit of despondency, by a sermon on these words: "Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men ; and the weakness of God is stronger than men."* As though to emphasize the fitness of his message, Mr. Stodhardt, 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 nevertheless 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 committee 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 is sufficient for thee" — became to this lowlydisciple 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 remove 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 deliverance came, it came through the infallible Book, and so it was to the close of life. He never fell into any snare without finding relief 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 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 disappointments, 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 experience 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 impetuously 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, till thou hast thrice denied that thou knowest 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 imprisonment and death . He was sincere, but he did not know himself ; and even after this awful warning 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 earnest 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 "converted " 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 resolution 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 spiritual 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 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 evangelist, 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

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 civilization 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 increased 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 destroyed by a band of pirates. Sharp, Wilberforce, and others had then formed the Sierra Leone Company, and Freetown became the center of the colony. The inhabitants suffered greatly from fever, and the French in 1794 made Sierra Leone the scene of further inroads and phmders. After the reestablishnient of the colony it was finally transferred, in 1808, to the British government, since which time it has steadily advanced.