British Central Africa by Joseph Booth

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 23, 1902

British Central Africa

By Joseph Booth

Cholo.— We are now fairly at work, and though there have been some serious discouragements, the encouraging features very largely preponderate. Many new stones of Ebenezer have been made visible, while at other times we have had to say of some events, “An enemy hath done this.” The Branch family were objected to by the British officials without the slightest cause, but finally they prevailed over the prejudice aroused. The small body of Sabbath keepers—a little over forty—have fallen away during the past fifteen months to about half that number, owing largely to the “no-law” or “changed-law” theory of our missionary opponents. Some have become polygamists, arguing that if the law is done away or changed, they may adjust the law as to adultery to suit their former customs, just as white men make the Sunday-keeping custom to suit themselves. At present, therefore, we can count only twenty baptized Sabbath keepers, and of these we have yet to see how many will receive the fuller advent teaching which Brother Branch is quietly unfolding to them.

A most cheering feature is that about thirty new students have come voluntarily from Sunday-keeping missions, in face of the fact that they are called “seceders,” struck off the books of the missions they leave, and are not allowed to mix freely, even as visitors, with their friends at home, lest they infect them with the seventh-day heresy, etc. Almost daily there are new arrivals of this character. One of these is an intelligent, English-speaking youth from the Atonga tribe, from three hundred and fifty to four hundred miles north of this place, from Bandawe, Lake Nyassa, Northend. Most of these are married, since it is the custom here to marry early. Two dollars a month clothes, feeds, and provides a clean, plain home for these students. Fifteen dollars is the cost of a neat, whitewashed three-room house, thatched with grass; or fifty dollars for a four-room brick house, thatched, with a good plot of land attached. Fifty such carefully selected students are sufficient, constantly renewed, to provide for the eight tribes of British Central Africa, reached by the Chinyanja tongue. We have five Yao students, and through their tongue, called Chiyao, we hope to reach some Swahili-speaking tribes. On the whole, it is an advantage to have married students, as we can then train the wife in womanly duties at the same time, and in due course plant them in out-stations, fit to become a modest, cleanly, Christian object lesson to those to whom they are sent.

We all are persuaded that there are

many good Seventh-day Adventist brethren or sisters who would like to make an extra and special effort to support one of these students as their proxy in the field; that is, if the Mission Board see no serious objection to specific offerings of this kind. A native student should not have less than three years’ Bible training. We jointly and separately ask for the support of fifty students at two dollars a month, from individuals or Sabbath schools or churches, as an extra offering. Perhaps some would like to make a gift of a teacher’s brick house, costing fifty dollars. The bamboo and clay houses costing fifteen dollars each, stand only three years, and then have to be rebuilt.

In a former letter I stated that we had two students’ from the Chipeta tribe. Yesterday two men from that people arrived, sent by their chief to ask us to reopen a school at a river called Diampwi, which flows into Lake Nyassa. It is a fourteen days’ journey from here. I say “reopen” because two years ago two of our Sabbath-keeping families asked to be allowed to make a school there, and did so; but for some inscrutable reason the British officials, who do not like to have the ten commandments taught, ordered it to be closed on pain of being burned down.

There is a story in connection with that place, which some might like to hear: In September, 1899, I was a fugitive, as I had taught the laws of God to the natives, telling them that those laws are binding on black and white men alike. This was held to be seditious, so I was hunted for five months. The country around the Diampwi River was notorious for wild beasts, and for a long distance the country was uninhabited and forsaken, so we chose that as a good place to stay. We arrived one afternoon on the banks of the stream, and began to make a sleeping place by cutting down large white thorn bushes, and heaping them close together in a semicircle, using the river at a deep part as one line of defense. In process of clearing away the brushwood we came to a heap of bones, and found we had chosen the lair of some wild beast, but it was too late to change; so we cleared them away, and cut grass to lie upon, making fires inside our thorn fence. An aperture was left for egress or ingress, closed from the inside by a thorn bush, drawn in by the last man to enter. I was tired, and slept well. The natives said they heard lions roaring; I heard hyenas once when I awoke in the darkness, the fires being nearly out; and I heard something else which surprised me. It was two boys—our two present Chipeta students—singing very gently to each other the hymn:—

“We are but little children weak, Nor born in any high estate; What can we do for Jesus’ sake, Who is so high and good and great?”

They sang in the Chinyanja tongue. I did not speak, but felt very grateful; for it seemed to me an angel’s message, which made it quite a pleasant place, and good to suffer a little for the truth. We slept there for some time, and afterward went into Portuguese territory to the Kami wilderness, where we were fed in a wonderful way at a place we called “Cherith,” as a memorial of God’s goodness there. In June, 1900, two teachers asked permission to go back to the Diampwi wilderness to make their homes by the spot where we slept, intending to open a school, in faith that people would come.

Now there are three chiefs who have built many villages there, who followed us from the regions beyond British occupation. A good school was built, and well attended until the officials ordered it to be closed. These chiefs now send the message that they have obtained permission to open the school again. We hope this may be the end of the opposition.

I am delighted to see the gladness of the natives of different tribes to see that Brother and Sister Branch have a visible and acknowledged relationship to them. Plainly they must increase while we must decrease in influence. I think this is as it should be. I sought for friends for the native whom he could at sight receive, and the reception of our colored brethren—so called—is very gratifying; indeed, the interest and confidence is mutual. The daughter and mother seem to be a perfect and unending source of wonderment to the native women. Often strangers—mothers and girls—will come and sit down in silent amazement to watch the movements of Miss Branch or her mother; it seems like a revelation of new possibilities to them.

My last word is, Send clothes; we are besieged for shirts, cotton coats, trousers, women’s and children’s clothing, like the samples left.

JOSEPH BOOTH.