15 The Last Five Months

Chapter 15

If this journey shall open a road for the light to enter this dark region into which I have penetrated a little way, I shall never regret the toil. I do hope God’s people in America will see to it that I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain.—A. C. G., 1892. THE LAST FIVE MONTHS July― December 13, 1894 FROM the day of his boyhood’s resolve in the apple-orchard, it had been Adolphus Good’s characteristic to aim straight for the mark. As the summer of 1894 waned, his goal was as definite as ever, and his plans, as usual, embraced a full year to come. First of all, a start must be made at the second station. Good news had come of two new men appointed and soon to arrive at the coast.

They should come up straightway and hold Efulen, while he and Kerr would take the ax and move on to Ebolowo’e. There November and December should be spent, vibrating between the building going on under Mr. Kerr’s direction and itineration in the district. He would move among the people, taking off the edge of curiosity and running a furrow through the fallow ground. Especially he resolved to see the Bene branch of Bulu speaking tribes and get sufficient data for locating two more stations. The opening of 1895 would carry them up to mission meeting, and then the husband and father-heart should be allowed to speak. He would ask permission to revise his Bulu gospels and take them home to be printed. Allowing himself six or eight months in America, he would hope his wife could return with him, and then ― more service for the Bulu, more toil and hardship for the redemption of Africa. So man proposed. And he had such resources of health at command. It had been his refrain all the year. In April: "Almost perfect health; " never stronger. After four hundred miles on foot: "Strong as ever in my life.’ In June: "Do not think I ever had better health; "do not need to go home on account of my health"; "no signs of fever or malaria at Efulen’’; " dismiss anxiety for my health.’

July: "We are busy, and that is all. I have been so occupied with translating, and Mr. Kerr with building and teaching, that our premises are rather out of repair; but now we shall get time to put them in better order. We are having fine tomatoes, cress, string-beans, and some potatoes are growing; not many, however, as we failed to get seed. Cabbage and cauliflower look well, but cannot tell yet whether they will head or not. Corn is abundant just now, but other food still scarce, plantains especially, and we miss them very much. We are trying to lay in a large stock of provisions from the beach before the arrival of the new-comers.

October rains were heavy, and when they had ceased at Efulen would be at their worst in the interior; " so I am likely to have a bad time of it; but I cannot put off this trip, for I want to visit the Bene country before I revise my translations.’’

Plans were defeated. The new missionaries were coming too late to permit of building at Ebolowo’e, and Mr. Kerr would be obliged to remain at Efulen. Therefore, instead of itinerating from the second station as his base, Dr. Good must take the more difficult alternative and make his journey of a month or six weeks from Efulen. Rumors of threatenings in various towns reached their ears and frightened the carriers. They defaulted; others were engaged and were exasperating. Certainly this was destined to be a laborious march; but " in all the years that are past of my life, the path has never failed to open before me clearly in good time." It opened in perfect day.

Already there was light in one direction. He would soon divide his " load.’’ " I shall probably be away when the new brethren arrive, and I am glad of it; for I am anxious to draw out of the position of adviser. By the time I am back they will be well started in. If they do not see things as I do, I shall give them large liberty to do what they like.’’

Before leaving he wrote with customary candor and caution to the Board about progress at Efulen: " There is a great deal of interest among the people here, and we hope there have been, or soon will be, several conversions; but I fear to write of these people as converts, lest my words should come out six months hence and find them gone back to the world.’’ At last it was November 12. Carriers were keyed up to marching pitch, and Dr. Good took a cheerful leave of his solitary comrade. But scarcely half a day out he was overtaken by Mr. Kerr’s messenger: the new men were coming. Back he turned and went forward at a rapid pace, welcoming them several miles the other side of Efulen, and escorting them in to the station. They were three young brethren fresh from America. All the afternoon and into the night they talked earnestly together, and next morning Dr. Good was off to catch up with his loads.

Now brace your back again, good soldier, to its burden of anxiety and care. March on once more, dauntless, through flood and forest and noisy towns bare of a single token of civilization. Open your lips again, brave soldier, warning the people lest they die in their sins, and give the message of life, eternal life; for this is the last journey, and your guerdon waits at the end. From the meager lines in his note-book the thread of events is followed. Dr. Good went eastward, spending the first Sunday at Olem of the Yevo clan, people " rough and careless, but meaning to be kind.’’ A whole week he preached among the towns of Ebolowo’e district. The chief, a mighty man of eighty wives, confessed to him that at the time of his father’s death he had cut the throats of ten people, and had killed twenty when his brother died, all for witchcraft. Dr. Good secured a pledge from him, made in public, that he would never repeat these deeds of blood. The first Bene town was struck the 25th, eight miles north of Ebolowo’e, at an elevation of three thousand feet, " November 27. I find the Bene country less populous than the Bulu. The course was thence westward, in touch with several tribes ― Yewondo, Yengone, Tando― and a line of towns belonging to the Yeno’e clan. With all of them Dr. Good made himself understood, and comparisons between their speech and the Bulu were recorded. The second week a severe cold had forced him to stay inside his hut one day. His carriers proved as inefficient as they had given promise. From stage to stage food was disastrously unsuitable and eaten with an anxious heart; and now, in one of these Yeno’e towns, his insidious enemy met him, like Joab in the gate.

" November 30. In the evening I felt fever coming on. I was quite chilly for a couple of hours, then went into a profuse perspiration. Took a heavy dose of quinine. Next morning the fever was broken."

Welcome would rest have been, but his quarters were " so mean and dirty " that the road seemed preferable.

Yeno’e towns ― course same as yesterday, nearly west. Distance for day, eleven miles.’ He might have added, "through mud and water. The third Sunday was spent in a small town whose chief was " anxious for a teacher. Next day he was cordially received at Lolodorf, the German government station in the Ngumba country, whence he sends a reassuring line, " Safe and well, to his dear ones far away. With the Ngumba he was " disgusted, and the roads out from their towns balked him, for they all ran east and west. But on the 6th he struck a southward line of Bulu towns, in one of which he spent the 9th. It was the fourth consecutive Lords day passed amid savage sights and sounds, separated as by an eternity from Christian sympathy and hallowed worship. The town was Bieti, the last name in the note-book.

Monday, at noon, he appeared at the door of the mission house in Efulen, and watchful eyes noted that his face was haggard and ominously yellow. He acknowledged to having suffered from unsuitable food, from sleeplessness, a feverish attack, and that a return of fever had hurried him home. But he dismissed it lightly; he would take quinine and be " all right in the morning." There was no loss of spirit and enthusiasm regarding the interior. They had never seen him more anxious to open the second station. In all his journey of two hundred and thirty miles he had found no place to compare with their chosen site. At midnight he was wakeful, and, calling to Mr. Ford, who had come up from the coast in his absence, they had two hours’ conference on mission affairs. Next day, worse. His five brethren surrounded him with every possible ministry of love and care. Wednesday, hematuria was manifest, and remedies were pushed as fast as he could bear them. Loyal hearts and true wrestled in prayer for his life; but the patient’s temperature rose steadily. " I felt,’’ wrote the physician, " that the noble man was to be called to his reward."

Delirium came on. Attempts at prayer in English: " God, help in this supreme hour," distinctly repeated at intervals. In conscious moments he charged his brethren to be firm; not to be afraid, but to push on. Turning to one of his watchers: " It has come to be the fashion to regard me as the representative of this interior work,’’ (with an expressive gesture,) "I never liked it." Now he was preaching in Bulu: "Listen carefully, and we will tell you about Christ." Then, " praying much" for the work of the interior: " May good men never be wanting to carry it forward." Again, he is on the road, calling to his carriers in Mpongwe and battling with the obstacles of travel. And the fever did not yield.

Thursday, near noon, in a few moments of mental clearness, he sent his last messages. " In semi-forgetful prayer " he commended his brethren to God, and asked for more laborers to the interior, and for himself preparation for death. All the afternoon, wild delirium ― the last struggle of a strong vitality and abounding energy; but at evening a hush fell. The little sixteen by twenty-eight dwelling at Efulen was shaken with a tread more stately than cathedral processional; for a messenger from the King of kings was at the door. As peacefully as a child falls asleep in his mother’s arms, the Spirit returned to God.

’’ ’A hut to die in! ’ Let me rest;

God bids me fall asleep;

Here lay my pillow down. This earth My wearied bones shall keep.

’’It is well that I died upon the field Where I have lived and worked and fought;

I die upon my shield." The Galwa, boys from the Ogowe were first to find out the truth, and, heathen fashion, were disposed to wail, but quieted at a word of warning. The tidings flew down the line of Bulu villages, and in the darkness a motley company of men and boys came straying up Efulen Hill and seated themselves on the ground, each on his piece of bark, within the radius of flickering light from a fire which was burning behind the house. They sent in a request to the missionaries to address them, and, overwrought though they were with nursing, excitement, and grief, they came out and spoke to an audience at the moment strangely solemn and receptive. A funeral service was conducted next day in Bulu, Mpongwe, and English; and, significant of the scope of Dr. Good’s labors in Africa, his last " carriers were two Galwa, two Mpongwe, and two Bulu men. The spectacle of people who, a year before, would have cared nothing for a white man’s death now coming by hundreds to express their sympathy, many of them with tears of sincerity in their eyes, was sufficient evidence of the faithfulness of their missionary among them, and that his efforts had not been thrown away.

Dr. Good died, like Hannington, at only thirty-eight years of age. The one penetrating the continent from the west side, the other from the east, both moved forward towards the heart of Africa, and, valorously carrying the standard of the cross something nearer to its center, held it with their solitary graves. Let the army come up to the colors! The last halting-ground of the pioneer in Bululand is on Efulen hilltop, overlooking towns to the south. It is encircled with a hedge of pineapple, and marked by a low bronze monument adapted to endure the climate. This was sent out by Montclair friends, and on it they caused to be engraved these words: "FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH.’’

" Lo, I am with you alway " has been coming down the ages, and it came to the support of those five young servants of Jesus Christ left at Efulen. They were Ford, to whose ear the last messages were entrusted; Kerr, on whom it fell to make the coffin for his friend and counselor; Johnson, the good physician; Roberts, at the moment blind from African fever; and Fraser, just recovered from his first attack. There was no flinching down that picket-line; a tightening on of the armor, rather.

" Those of us who stood at his bedside have promised not only Brother Good, but Him who gave us life and has the right to take it, that while strength and life last we will be faithful to our trust.’’ Their brief message, cabled to America, though weighted with sorrow was winged by courage: "Send more workers.’’ A few young men, like-spirited with them, raised an answering signal and stepped out from the ranks of the church militant to join their brothers. More will follow. The second station is manned. Echoes from Dr. Good’s instruction float back from all the forest paths.

One day in November, 1896, Dr. Johnson led two Bulu young men into the same little room where Dr. Good breathed his last, and, after a farewell prayer and words of counsel, "with emotion not to be described," he watched them march down the hill towards somewhat remote towns. These were the first witnesses, in their great tribe, to catch up the evangel which had reached their own hearts and attempt to pass it on. They were sent to give their testimony by the wish and at the charges of their own Bulu school-fellows. This was, therefore, the initiative of independent proclamation of the gospel by Bulu lips. And so a new chord has been struck in the new song, and a voice dumb for nineteen Christian centuries begins to blend with the sound of many waters before the Throne. It is the prelude of the victory, when the glory of the King shall illuminate the farthest river town and darkest forest tribe, and, remembering all the travail of his soul, he shall be satisfied in the redemption of Africa.