Many Adversaries by William Ambrose Spicer

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 12, 1908

“Many Adversaries”

By William Ambrose Spicer

ONE side of missionary life in tropical or unhealthful lands is seldom touched upon in missionary reports. It is that of personal discomforts and dangers to life and health that must be experienced day in and day out. Just a suggestion as to these may help some to pray more intelligently for the toiling missionary and his family.

Mr. Winston Churchill, M. P., of the British Cabinet, has recently made a trip through Africa, from the East Coast to Uganda, and up through the Nile Valley to Egypt. In an article in the Strand Magazine, he describes the precautions observed by his party in tropical Africa:—

With the approach of twilight comes the mosquito, strident-voiced and fever-bearing; and the most thorough precautions have to be taken against him and other insect dangers. We dine in a large mosquito-house made entirely of fine gauze, and about twelve feet cubically. The bedding, which should if possible be packed in tin boxes, is unrolled during the day, and carefully protected by mosquito-nets well tucked in, against all forms of vermin. Every one puts on mosquito-boots, long, soft, leather leggings, reaching to the hips. You are recommended not to sit on cane-bottomed chairs without putting a newspaper or a cushion on them, to wear a cap, a scarf, and possibly gloves, and to carry a swishing mosquito-trap. Thus one moves, comparatively secure, amid a chorus of ferocious buzzings.

To these precautions are added others. You must never walk barefoot on the floor, no matter how clean it is, or an odious worm, called a “jigger,” will enter your foot to raise a numerous family and a painful swelling. On the other hand, be sure when you put on boots or shoes that, however hurried, you turn them upside down and look inside, lest a scorpion, a small snake, or a perfectly frightful kind of centipede may be lying in ambush. Never throw your clothes carelessly upon the ground, but put them away at once in a tin box, and shut it tight, or a perfect colony of fierce-biting creatures will beset them. And, above all, quinin!

This last-named remedy, he explains, is not of great avail to the permanent resident in warding off malaria, as its action is diminished with constant use. But this is no overdrawn suggestion of the nagging and serious hindrances to be grappled with in some quarters.

To the traveler rushing through, with all possible provision of equipment, it is not so serious. It is not one month or one season under burning heat or amid “many adversaries,” seen and unseen, that breaks the missionary worker down. It is the constant warfare against these adversaries to life and health, year in and year out, unceasing and unchanging, that does sometimes wear into the nerves and sap the vitality.

But round the tropical belt of the globe are the millions in the darkness of ignorance and unbelief. The people are there, and we must go to them. As some go down into the pit, the rest must stand by with their prayers and their means. More help in these fields and better facilities will mean a better chance for the workers to maintain health, and to push the work to the end. There is no romance about foreign mission service. But there is sin, and sorrow, and death, and hopeless gloom; and the light of the last warning message finds everywhere ways of shining into some hearts that long for help. This is the thing which makes the hearts of the missionaries strong to hold on to the last limit of endurance.

Pray for the workers as you read their reports.

W. A. S.