The Book of Missionary Heroes Part 24

"John Mackenzie is alone at Shoshong, and there is no one who can drive his wagon well for him."

The man who told him this was, as it happened, going by wagon to Shoshong, where John Mackenzie lived.

"Let me go with you," said Sh.o.m.olekae.

So he got up into the wagon, and away they went day after day northward on the same journey that Sh.o.m.olekae had taken when he was a boy.

So Sh.o.m.olekae served Mackenzie for years as wagon driver at Shoshong.

At last the time came when Mackenzie himself left the tribe at Shoshong--left Khama and all his people--and travelled southward to build at Kuruman a kind of small school where he could train young black men to be missionaries to their own people. And Sh.o.m.olekae himself went to Kuruman with Mackenzie. He set to work with his own hands, and he helped to make and lay bricks, to put in the doors and windows, and to place the roof on the walls, until at last the little school was built.

And when it was actually built Sh.o.m.olekae himself went to be a student there, and Mackenzie began to train him to be a preacher and a teacher to his own people.

For three years Sh.o.m.olekae worked hard in the college, learning more and more about Jesus Christ, preparing himself to go among his own people to tell them about Him.

At last the time came when he was ready to go; and he started out, and travelled long, long miles through sandy places, and then by a river, until at last he reached a town of little thatched huts called Pitsani, which means "The Town of the Little Hyena."

In that town he gathered the men and women and the boys and girls together and taught them the things that he knew.

While Sh.o.m.olekae was at Pitsani there came into that part of Africa a new missionary, whose name was Mr. Wookey.

It was decided that Mr. Wookey should go a long, long journey and settle down by the sh.o.r.es of Lake Ngami, which, you remember, David Livingstone had discovered long years before.

Sh.o.m.olekae wished to go out with Mr. Wookey into this country and to help. So he took the wagon and yoked the oxen to it, loaded it up with food and all the things needed for cooking as they travelled along, and drove the oxen dragging the wagon over many hundreds of miles of country in which leopards barked and lions roared, until at last they came to the land near Lake Ngami.

When they came into this land, and found a place in which to settle down, clever Sh.o.m.olekae mixed earth into mud just as boys and girls do in order to make mud-pies, but he made the mud into the shape of bricks, and then placed the bricks of mud out into the sun to dry.

The suns.h.i.+ne was very, very hot indeed--so hot that the bricks became hard and dry and strong. Day after day Sh.o.m.olekae worked until he had made a big heap of bricks. With these he built a little house for Mr.

Wookey to live in. But these sun-dried bricks soon spoil if they get wet, so he had to build a verandah to keep the rain from the walls.

When the house was built and Mr. Wookey was settled in it, they travelled still further up the river to learn what people were living there.

After a while it was decided that Sh.o.m.olekae should go and live in a small village by the river, and there again begin his work of telling the men and women of Jesus Christ, and teaching the boys and girls to read.

In his satchel, which was made of odd bits of calico print of different patterns, Sh.o.m.olekae had a hymn-book with music. The hymn-book was written in the language of the people--the Sechuana language--and Sh.o.m.olekae taught them from the book to sing hymns. The music was the sol-fa notation.

This is one of the hymns:

1. "Yesu oa me oa nthata, Leha ke le mo dibin; A re yalo mo kwalon, A re yalo mo pedun.

E, Yesu oa me, E, Yesu oa me, E, Yesu oa me, Oa me, mo loraton.

2. "Yesu oa me oa nthata, O ntehetse molato; O mpusitse timelon, O ntlhapisa mo pedun.

"E, Yesu oa me," etc.

This is what these words mean in English. I expect you know them very well.

1. "Jesus loves me, this I know, For the Bible tells me so; Little ones to Him belong, They are weak, but He is strong.

"Yes, Jesus loves me, Yes, Jesus loves me, Yes, Jesus loves me-- The Bible tells me so.

2. "Jesus loves me, He who died Heaven's gate to open wide; He will wash away my sin, Let His little child come in.

"Yes, Jesus loves me," etc.

But, you see, the missionary had to alter the words sometimes so as to make the Sechuana lines come right for the music; and the second verse really means:

"My Jesus loves me; He has paid my debt; He has brought me back from where I strayed; He has washed my heart.

Yes, my Jesus, Yes, my Jesus.

Yes, my Jesus. Mine in love."

They would learn the words off by heart because there was only the one hymn-book, and they would sing them together, Sh.o.m.olekae's voice leading.

They learned them so well that sometimes when the mothers were out hoeing in the fields, or the little boys were paddling in their canoes and fis.h.i.+ng in the marshy waters, you would hear them singing the hymns that they learned in Sh.o.m.olekae's little school hut.

Then on Sunday they would have Sunday-school, and when that was over Sh.o.m.olekae would gather the chocolate-faced men and women and boys and girls together--all who would come--and he would teach them to kneel down and pray to the one G.o.d, Who is our Father, and they would sing the hymns that they had learned, and then he would speak to them a simple little address, telling them of the Lord Jesus.

But Sh.o.m.olekae desired always to go further and further, even though it was dangerous and difficult. So he got a canoe and launched it in the river by the village and paddled further and further up the stream, under the overhanging trees, and sometimes across the deep pools in which the big and fierce hippopotami and crocodiles lived.

He paddled up the River Okanvango, though many times he was in danger of his life. The river was not like rivers in our own country, deep and with strong banks; it was often filled all over with reeds, and as shallow as a swamp, and poor Sh.o.m.olekae had to push his way with difficulty through these reeds. Always at night the poisonous mosquitoes came buzzing and humming around him. The evil-tempered hippopotamus would suddenly come up from the bottom of the river with his wicked beady eyes, and great cavernous mouth, with its enormous teeth, yawning at Sh.o.m.olekae as though he quite meant to swallow him whole.

On the banks at night the lions would roar, and then the hyenas would howl; but Sh.o.m.olekae's brave heart held on, and he pushed on up the river to preach and teach the people in the villages near the river.

So through many years, with high courage and simple faith, Sh.o.m.olekae worked.

A good many boys and girls in England before they are ten years old own many more books than Sh.o.m.olekae ever had and have read more than he. They also have better homes than he, for he pushed on from one mud hut to another along the rivers and lakes, and all the possessions that he had in the world could be put into the bottom of his canoe.

But our Heavenly Father, Who loves you and me, went with him every step of the way. When Sh.o.m.olekae taught the boys and girls to sing hymns in praise of Jesus, even in a little mud hut, He was there, just as He is in the most beautiful church when we wors.h.i.+p Him. Now G.o.d has taken Sh.o.m.olekae across the last river to be with Himself.

Sh.o.m.olekae was a negro with dark skin and curly hair. We are white children with fair faces and light hair. But G.o.d is his Father as well as ours and loves us all alike and wishes to gather us together round Him--loving Him and one another.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 56: p.r.o.nounce Shoh-moh-leh-kei.]

CHAPTER XXII

THE WOMAN WHO CONQUERED CANNIBALS

_Mary Slessor_

(Dates, b. 1848, d. 1915)