This long letter begins with an appreciation of Miss Crawford’s last letter and of her support. She mentions the support given to her by her fellow missionaries, particularly Miss Peacock, who is only two miles away. Miss Peacock will be extra busy as her assistant Miss McMinn has been recalled to assist with the secondary schools in Calabar - a move which Miss Slessor has had difficulty in accepting as she feels the bush mission work is so important. She tells how they have spent Christmas. She has tried to answer some pleas for help from one of the villages by bringing some very lively children to her own home, with the idea that they shall return to spread the light after their training and experience with her. The women’s settlement is well on its way to completion. The Head of the Prison Department is to supply them with an instructor in basket-making, while a Christian lad from the Institute is to be sent by Mr. Wilkie to assist. She seems no nearer to keeping her promise to the Ikpe people to go to them, but they are visiting her and receiving advice and she says the spirit is there. She will move as soon as someone is able to take over from her.
We’ll see about the *REPORT*
You dear, dear friend,
What kind of an Answer am I to send for this precious letter of yours? speak of “a Pat on the back!” You dear old thing! If I were only near enough I should hugg you up till you wd. be breathless. don’t *I* need a pat on the back!! & am I brave enough not to long for it??? O if you knew! But God has been so good to me in giving me a sister like Miss Peacock so close, for I can see her at least once a week, & often twice, & she is so good & so kind to me, & because of just what she is in her character, she is a tower of strength to me. And we have such a nice girl in Miss McMinn too, Only just when we are beginning to appreciate her & to love her so dearly as a helper, the order comes, that she go to one of the Calabar schools as Miss Robertson has had to leave already. I feel bad about those secondary schools here! I fear, for I feel, that drain on our resources, & the time for them is not yet in Calabar, & that they shd. shut up an evangelizing agency in a dark heathen province for a wheen(Note 1) girls who cd. easily go to the town schools, makes me feel rather like a resentful critic, than a sympathizing sister. However, we thank God for the months we have had Miss McMinn, & she will go down a very much wiser woman in regard to natives & native needs & character after her stay in the bush than she would have been by her first 2 years stay in Calabar, & God rules & over rules! I do hope Miss Peacock will be able to bear the strain of the Ikot Obon work. I rather fear for her though she puts her soul into what she does, & the school & congregation & Dispensary & family are too much for any woman. Xmas day has passed. It was hard to realise it was Xmas in this heat & brightness, but the lassies came & stayed for 3 hours with me, & Dr Adam came & spent 3 hours in the morning, & he is a good Xtian(Note 2) man, & *alone* in this sense among the officers, so it did him good no doubt, & certainly it was a treat to me. We have made no difference in the Church. No decorations or anything as the Creek Congregations have borrowed from the R.Cs(Note 3) in Calabar & make a lot of fuss. We think the spiritual, is the *only* side we shd. hold up, so we had a play with the bairns, & some sweeties & etc., & have just kept it at that with our people. She is having fine Congregations, & this morning my Kirkie was filled, & nearly all were dressed in some way, & all are so reverent & devout in demeanour, it is quite an inspiration. Last night there were 3 women at the Candidates Class, 6 men, & as many lads & boys who read in school, so we are having some cheer from the Lord. After the Church was dispersed I ought to have gone into the bush, but a sick baby had to be treated, & I came back, & found heathen from a long way with a motherless baby 2 or 3 weeks old. The poor thing has bones & strings & charms, & a bell round its neck & body, & the grannie & the father were with it. A Church member from Okpo in the Creek sent them on with the tiny wee morsel of humanity, so I have stayed in with a wild flock of bush children I picked up last week in the Aki country above Okoyon. Four boys & a girl, all at the Pickle age, & all as wild & undisciplined as the goats in the bush. I was asked to go up there to settle some trouble, when they came with their yearly tribute of food & fowls. They came to the Okoyon House during the last decade with all their sicknesses & sorrows, & now they are in a sort of ’No Mans land’ civically(Note 4), & no missionary is nearer than this. They have prayed for teachers for years & the same plaint broke my heart when I was up, so to help as much as possible, I brought these youngsters down to try to give them the help that a stay here can give & let them go back & try to spread the light. With these, all full of spirit, to keep in order, & all rather young to be in the bush all day, I have stayed up & so these few lines may let you know, that far, *far* from forgetting I think of you & pray for you & often in fancy talk & write with you, though it never comes out into practical shape. If I dared write during the long sleepless nights, I cd. keep up with the stress a little, but I dare not do it, as it shakes me so for next day, & yet I *long* to write to the loved ones, but if God meant me to, He wd. give me the time & strength. Eh ?
You ask about the settlement? The Deed is in the hands of the 2 pastors in Calabar. It will emerge some day I have no doubt, when they get time, & we can meet, but during all the year we have been steadily working tho in a quiet way, towards it, by building new bits of houses, & putting additions to this house, so that Europeans may find it suitable, & by planting fruit trees, & in various ways working up towards being ready to flit whenever any one will come to take over. I think the Duke Town friends will find a great difference when they come up for New Year time. The Head of the Prison Dept. was up with the Judge & his lady, last week calling on me, & he wired round to Lagos for a teacher of basket making to be sent to us at once, as the ways & means here have not been of easy adjustment, & he has been home since I came out. It will take some time to get a man round, but it will be the best way, & will cost us nothing, & if one man is a prisoner, he can be put up in the Prison at Itu during the mid times. I have been without a Clerk, & the old one was worse than being without - for a long time: so I have never had the pen out of my hand while in the house, but I have got a Xtian boy from the Institute & from Mr Wilkies care, & when he learns the routine, & the language a bit, I shall have more leisure, & he will not be the same care to me, as he is a Church Member & one of ourselves, so that Miss Peacock will be able to hold him under her guidance & to look over things when I am not there. The Court buildings are next door to her, & I am 2 miles down. (Note 6) The Ikpe people are wondering Im sure, what kind of promisers we are, For I don’t seem any nearer to keeping my word to go to them than ever I was. They were down last week, & were telling me that one of the women members of their company had died, & she told her mother not to cry, & told her father not to trouble thinking her Dowry was lost, & told her husband not to dream that she was afraid or loth to go. For she said, “I have seen Jesus, & I want to go to Him, & it is He who calls me, & you must learn & come after me, and all the friends who love Him will come & by & by we shall all be happy for ever more.” etc etc. This from a flock without a shepherd! They just meet & sing & pray, & seperate, But the Spirit is there! & He teacheth savingly (Note 6) Mr & Mrs Mcgregor are meaning to go up with me when they get away next week & I hope we will have a good time among them. I hear that the R.Cs mean still, to get to Bendi. I got the first base before them, that was Aro Chuku, but there is to be a new route opened by Ikpe & the Upper Creek, & so I must be up & doing to get a place there. Whenever any one comes to take this place from me & be with the girls, I shall move. The settlement will begin in a *natural* & simple way, not by *hiring* people or bringing in people in a hurry, but by the one or two in hand getting taught & being able to teach others. It will be a great disappointment to you, as to us, to get Miss Robertson back so soon, & then Mrs Weir too will be going, & tho her loss will be mostly felt by her husband, there is the farther loss of Mr Topping, so a feeling to weakness comes over one. But our strength is in God, & He abides ever the same.
I’m glad to hear that Mr Stevenson is getting back to health. Miss Adam our beloved sister keeps me in touch with you all, & the changes at the offices have been before us very vividly during late months. It seems all so sad, & strange, you grow into it by degrees, but to us it is just the bare fact, that old friends are gone & we don’t know the new ones. May God get His proper Place as the Chooser, & then all will be well, For He is able to guide His Church as ever He was, only we sometimes make the choosing & the doing OUR business too much, & then we get trouble.
I am sure that though deadness is the prevailing feature generally over the life of the Churches, those who live *near* to God, are intensely in earnest & live farther “ben”(Note 5) than perhaps ever was the case with the Church, & **they** hold the Keys of the Kingdom ? Eh ?
O my dear, What a scribble this is?! & here are 2 of those mad caps at my window, & wanting something, so I suppose I cant lift another sheet of paper. If I don’t get a bit more added, you will know I couldnt, & you will give my love to your dear parents, & take a whole heartful warm & true to your precious self, & may all the years in future turn to purest gold all that concerns you. I am dear sister
Yours most affectionately
M M Slessor
Editorial Notes:
- Wheen = a few (Scots)
- Xtian = Christian
- R.Cs. = Roman Catholics
- meaning of this word is unclear
- ben = “in or toward the inner or better” (Scots word, defined by “Chambers Dictionary”)
- In these two places has been placed a St. Andrews cross with a dot in each segment - the whole forming a diamond. The editors feel this may not be of Mary’s making, and suggest these are marks made prior to subsequent publication.