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June, 1933
T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
guest chamber into the small room, and I had been breath ing in that atmosphere, my head ached, I had a pain down my spine, my eyes were bloodshot, my tongue was swollen to the roof o f my mouth. I was afraid. “ Doctor, what shall I do?” He said, “ There is nothing to do.” “ But, Doctor, don’t tell me that. You must do some thing.” He said, “ I do not know what to do for you. We do not know what it is, and we do not know how to combat it. I f you were in Britain, they would have a serum to admin ister.” “ But, Doctor, it is time for me to go home, and I am waiting at the rail shed for the train. You must do some thing.” “ Well,” he said, “ you can gargle with salt and water, and sniff iodine.” I stood in front o f the doctor like a madman. The hor ror o f it—-thousands o f miles from loved ones, and the day arrived to come home to them! Suddenly, beloved, there came over my mind and heart the thought that the God I had been preaching about had promised to be my
white officer in that place. They are cannibals; they will eat you ; you cannot go.” When they received that letter, they applied again, and the government said, “ No.” They applied again, and the government said, “ No.” They applied again— the government got sick of their applications and said at last, “ All right, you seem determined, but you go into that place on your own responsibility, and if anything happens, do not cry out to us.” That young couple were married, and for their honey moon, they walked out five hundred miles into the bush. A fter several weeks, they arrived one morning at the brow o f a hill looking over the valley that held thousands o f villages which made up the Tangali tribe. As they stood looking over that magnificent scene, they bowed their heads and thanked God for bringing them safely so far, to a place where a white man had never been known. When they opened their eyes, they saw coming up the hill a big, filthy, brutal, burly savage, a man whose father had been eaten by cannibals, and who himself had eaten human flesh. As he stood in front o f them, he jabbered away, and they did not understand him ; they answered, and he did not under stand a word o f their tongue. But as they looked into his face, they remembered that the British Government had said, “ The Tangalis are cannibals, and they will eat you.” In a little while, he turned on his heel. They thought he had gone for help, but in a short time he brought them something to eat. There are certain things that are uni versal, and the gnawing at the stomach is one of them. He brought them mangoes, bananas, and other things so they would not suffer for a few hours. He brought them something to eat every day. Every day he came, they used him as a pump to pump the language from his lips, until they were able to make phrases, sentences, paragraphs. Using the Roman characters, they reduced it into writing and began to give him back a little portion o f the Scriptures, the first literature that they ever had; they gave the Tan galis Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, some of the epistles, and now the entire New Testament is completed in Tangali. I went out on that journey o f five hundred miles after I got into the heart o f Africa. I stood on the brow of the hill where they had stood, and looking over the valley, I saw a horde o f savages coming up the hillside, but I was not afraid. As they came up the hillside they were singing, They were not singing it in English; they knew no English; but the tune is the same; they sang it in Tangali while I sang in English, and it was a great anthem. When we had finished singing it together, they bundled me into a hammock, swinging me down the hillside at a dogtrot, singing again. Leaning out o f the hammock I noted a large thatched building, and asked what it was. They said, “ White man, that is the church o f Jesus.” They took me into the church ; I sat down on the mud floor; and the first service we had was a Communion ser vice where the Lord’s Table was set and the Lord’s Supper was celebrated, and who do you think officiated at the Lord’s Table ? That black savage who had met John and Edith Hall a little while before, naked and filthy ! Those who served walked down the aisles o f the church and put into my hand a little bit o f bread symbolizing the Lord’s body broken for sinners; and they put into my hand a china cup without a handle, that contained a concoction that was supposed to be wine. As I took that bread from their black fingers and sipped from the side o f that cup, the tears ran down my [Continued on page 195] Oh, happy day, that fixed my choice On Thee, My Saviour and my God. Well may this glowing heart rejoice And tell its rapture all abroad.
C h ristian B aptism at J os , N igeria .
Father, and He knew and cared. I flung my case at His feet, and more quickly than it takes for me to tell it to you, there came over my whole being a flood o f that peace we talk about, peace that passeth all understanding— all under standing o f men, all understanding o f angels, all under standing of devils. I bid good-by to that doctor and walked back to the mission house. The first thing I did was to take my suit case and pack it with odds and ends. Then I sat down and wrote a letter without a tremor. I said, “ Mrs. Hall is dead; Mrs. Playfair is dead; the natives are dying by thousands; who the next one will be, we do not know. I have packed my suitcase, and if I am taken, it will come home to you. Good-by.” Oh, it is good to know God, it is good to know God like that! T he P ower of the G ospel There also came to me in the Sudan a new faith in the gospel o f Jesus Christ, to believe as I had never believed it, that it is the power o f God unto salvation unto every one that believes. One illustration is enough to prove my case. My college chum, John Hall, was a prize scholar in Greek; he turned his back on very tempting offers, on special priv ileges, on home, to sail to the Sudan for $420 a year. He took the young woman whom he intended to marry after twelve months. They put in the time studying certain things necessary; then they applied to the British govern ment to go out five hundred miles in the bush to the Tangali tribe with the gospel. But the British government said, “ No, it is not safe. W e have never been able to put a
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