Alfred Saker Pioneer of the Cameroons

Alfred Saker [1814-1880] was a pioneer of Baptist Missions to Cameroon, West Africa, where he served for 32 years. He is remembered for his translation of the Bible into Duala. Wikipedia has a superb article on Saker which is worth consulting. My thanks to Redcliffe College for providing me with a copy of the book to scan. This title is in the Public Domain.

Emily M. Saker [1849-?], Alfred Saker. Pioneer of the Cameroons, 2nd edn. London: The Carey Press, 1929. Pbk. pp.224. [Click to download complete book in PDF]

Contents

Preface

1. Early Days
2. The Call to the Field
3. First Experiences of Africa
4. First Settlement in Cameroons
5. In Perils by the Heathen
6. In Labours More Abundant
7. In Weariness and Painfulness
8. The Care of All the Churches
9. Cast Down But Not Destroyed
10. In Journeyings Oft
11. More Than Conqueror
12. Not Alone!

Preface

My father went out as a missionary to Cameroons in 1843, and came home finally in 1876, after thirty-two years of unresting labour in a deadly climate. He saw the inauguration of the greater work on the Congo, which was the direct outcome of the Mission in Cameroons, but he did not live to see the events of 1885, when the work in which he had spent his life was surrendered into foreign hands. It is his story that I tell in this book.

The memoir was first published in 1908, and has been out of print for some time. This new edition is issued by the request of the Baptist Missionary Society as one of its publications for the Jubilee Year of its Congo Mission. It was felt that the story of that earlier work might well be retold in this time of rejoicing. It was those brave men and women in the Cameroons Mission who laid the foundations of the greater work, and laid them faithfully and well in patience, devotion and self-sacrifice. Thomas Comber and George Grenfell, the first messengers to the King of Kongo, were Cameroons missionaries, stationed at Victoria, when they received the order to explore the new waterway opened up by Stanley. [Continue reading]