A HERO IN AFRICA by Wm. T. Ellis

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 18, 1897

A HERO IN AFRICA.

By Wm. T. Ellis

DEEP in the heart of the “Dark Continent” there lived not long ago a mighty hero. Like so many of the world’s greatest heroes, this man was a missionary. Alexander Mackay was his name, and it was in the year 1876 that he first set foot on the shores of Africa. Mackay was not a clergyman, but he was a wise and skilful engineer and mechanic, and a fine student. He knew, did this loyal young Scotchman, that God could make use of the talents he possessed, and it proved that his training was just the most needful thing for the missionary work in far-distant Uganda.

The story of Mackay is too long to tell here. How he was deprived of his white companions by sickness and death, and how, altho stricken with fever himself, he persisted in his attempt to reach the interior, is told most interestingly in the life of Mackay, that I hope you all may read. There were dangers from flood, fever, robbers, and animals. But through them all he came safely to the king in whose country he was to labor.

Can you imagine how hard it must have been for this companion-loving young man to be left alone, amidst wild savages, and far away from the reach of white men? And then the work he had to do! He must be builder, machinist, boat-builder, undertaker, teacher, preacher, and statesman. Savage slave-traders plotted against his life, because he was hurting their business. His goods were stolen, and he was left in abject poverty. The king turned against him, and it seemed as if all his work had failed completely. There was a time when he appeared to have not a single friend in all Uganda. Even his pupils, whom he thought were learning to love Jesus, turned again to the wild, heathen life of murder and torture and pillage.

A new king came to the throne, and he was worse than his father. A party of missionaries that set out for Mackay’s relief were butchered in cold blood. A great slaughter of Christians took place. Wherever a native was known to be a follower of Mackay’s religion, he was burned alive. Again and again plots were made against Mackay’s life, but God preserved him from them all.

In the midst of all this fierce persecution the poor black savages turned to Christ in numbers. What heroes they were! Many had to die for their faith, but they sang the songs of the Gospel even while the flames were roasting their bodies.

After a dozen years of glorious heroism in the land of his choice, after terrible persecution and poverty and all kinds of bodily distress, Mackay was stricken with fever and died. As for his work, it then seemed almost a failure.

But was it? Henry M. Stanley, the great explorer, has just heard from a great chief in Uganda, and in a letter to this country he says that there are now two hundred churches in Uganda, and the number of professing Christians is fifty thousand. The natives are becoming educated, and thousands of Gospels are sold each year.

Think of that, six years after the death of Mackay! Surely, this hero did not live and die in vain.—Wm. T. Ellis.