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The Message of Our Missionary Graves

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Jan 21, 1904

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 81, No. 3.

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The Message of Our Missionary Graves

By William Ambrose Spicer

AGAIN, by the death of Brother J. H. Watson, in Nyassaland, we are sternly reminded of the fact that the missionary campaign is a genuine battle. But in the hour of sadness, we may rejoice that, whether at home or abroad, loyal soldiers of Christ are ready to endure hardness or to yield the life in planting the standard of truth in new fields.
This is our first missionary grave in the Nyassa country. It speaks not at all of retreat, but rather of advance. More than ever it binds our hearts to the work which our brother had so wisely begun. This is true of every missionary grave that marks the soil where feet of our brethren have pressed. It is an added incentive to quickly hasten with the warning message through every land. Then shall the end come. These graves will open, and our comrades will answer to the roll call when the glorious victory is won.
It is thoughtless to ask at such times as this, Does it pay? The old answer, ever sufficient, comes from the lips of Christ, “If it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” To think of drawing back from needy fields because their evangelization means the sacrifice of life, is to suggest that if conditions were equally unfavorable in the home land we would not serve the Lord here. That is not the message that Brother Watson’s life leaves with us. He counted the cost when he accepted this truth, though but a lad alone, years ago in Ireland; and his life has witnessed that he counted nothing too precious to offer in the service of the Lord Jesus.
A missionary student, Dr. Cust, of London, once said, “Deaths are required as well as lives to complete the picture of the new life.” Given proper care and precautions as to health, one may never say that the death of a worker in the field may not be used of God to accomplish very great results. It is the promise that while the laborer rests, his works shall follow him. Our missionary graves are solemn missionary appeals to us. As the workers prayed by the bedside of Brother D. A. Robinson in India, as he lay smitten with the deadly hemorrhagic smallpox, while the conviction came, against the earnest longing of the heart, that our brother would be taken from us, yet there was also the conviction that God would use that death, even as the life, to bind hearts more than ever to dark India. So, I believe, it has been.
Whether the term of service has been long or short, no man may say the sacrifice was fruitless. All the bright story of missions repels the thought. Rosine Krapf, expecting to die at sea on her way to the East African Coast, begged her husband to have her buried on the shore in order that her grave might bear witness to the heathen Wanikas of the love that brought her there. It is a testimony that speaks to the very heart. It was the same thought that led the aged and feeble Dr. Duff, when volunteers were few, to declare to the Scottish Assembly that he would go back to India once again to let the Hindus know that one Scotchman was not afraid to die for them.
The fear that death in the field might hold back others and bring delays, has ever been a cause of anxiety to falling missionaries. Young Roland Peck felt the burden of West Africa. His mother said, “Roland, if you go to Western Africa, you will be the death of me.” “Mother,” he replied, “if you do not consent to my going to Africa, you will be the death of me.” He went with her consent. Six months he was used in reviving and saving souls, and then he was stricken with death. The last day of his life he said: “Nothing grieves me so much as the thought that my death will cause the hands of our friends in England to hang down.”
A few years ago, during the Boxer uprising in China, a young girl was writing a last message before her martyrdom. Face to face with eternity, she wrote in unswerving trust to her mother in England:—
Darling mother, don’t be anxious, whatever news you may hear of me. It will doubtless seem useless in the eyes of the world to come out here for a year, to be just getting on with the language, then to be cut off. Many will say, “Why did she go? Wasted life.” Darling, no. Trust. God never makes mistakes. We are glad to suffer with Jesus. We shall see his face, and, darling mother, I will wait for you.
No, it is not wasted—the life that teaches us how not only to live, but how to die for the Lord Jesus and his blessed cause. The French missionary Golaz, and his wife, died within a year of their landing to open work in Senegambia, on the African West Coast. His farewell battle-call has stirred hearts to action ever since. His message was:—
Do not be discouraged if the first laborers fall in the field. Their graves will mark the way for their successors,who will march past them with great strides.
It is the same spirit that rang in the apostle’s confession of missionary faith: “None of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.”
We rejoice in a world wide open for the final message, and in the fact that the Word of God speaks in over four hundred tongues to-day. Let us never forget that this way has been prepared for a quick work only at the price of sacrifice. Poor representatives of the final, and therefore most urgent, message would we be, if we held back because of hardships or losses by the way. A new grave now marks our way into Nyassaland. In loyalty not only to our Leader, but to the memory of our comrades who have fallen, we will press this missionary forward movement to the finish. This surely is the response of hearts everywhere to the message of our missionary graves. For we can not forget that it was the cry of the perishing that led our fellow workers to lay down their lives in service. Still the cry comes. Souls in darkness and ignorance are dying without hope. Wherever this is so, there do we belong with the message God has given us. Over every new-made missionary grave we will renew our consecration to service and our pledge of loyalty to the cause of our Leader.
“Dying in loveless silence, For there is none to tell The only message that comforts, The message we know so well; That the God of love who gave his Son Has given him freely for every one. “Dying? Lord, we are willing To tell them that Christ hath died; We are ready to go to earth’s darkest place And speak of the Crucified. Ready, dear Master, to work for thee, And to carry thy message wherever it be.”
W. A., S.