Mary Slessor by Cuthbert McEvoy

Mary Slessor was recently featured in an on-line list of  six inspiring Christian missionaries, so I thought I would take a brief break from uploading CMS books to include this slim volume:

Cuthbert McEvoy [1870-1944], Mary Slessor, 6th edn. London: The Carey Press, n.d. Pbk. pp.63. Click to download complete book in PDF.

Mary Slessor served in the city of Calabar, which is in Nigeria. This material is in the Public Domain.

Contents

1 – Early Life and Trials
2 – “Send Me”
3 – On the Field
4 – Maryu Slessor at Work
5 – A Mysterious Check and a Perilous Enterprise
6 – The Great Achievement
7 – Spade-Work and Honour
8 – Personal Characteristics and Closing Scenes

Chapter I

Early Life and Trials

Mary Mitchell Slessor, the factory girl who became the most remarkable woman missionary of her age, was born on December 2nd, 1848, in Aberdeen. Amid the shadows of a home darkened by intemperance and poverty, Mary, the second of seven children, found guidance in the example of a saintly mother, who, with rare courage and patience, kept the light of faith shining above the dreary sorrow of her lot.

In these facts may be found a clue to the secret of Mary Slessor’s extraordinary career. The land of her birth was the native land of great missionary leaders such as Duff, Moffat, Mackay and Livingstone. The example of intemperance that darkened the days of her childhood explains why it was that her gentle nature flamed into a stem indignation that more than once cowed the drunken loafers of Okoyong. Her noble mother set the compass of her daughter’s devoted life. Her duties as elder sister trained her to be the mother of her people; and the struggle with poverty made her the stateswoman and economist she afterwards became. But in the fact that her spirit was the victor, and not the victim, of the unfavourable elements of her environment; that instead of succumbing, as so many in her position might have done, she soared-in this we can only acknowledge, as she herself would have acknowledged, the gift of the grace of God. [Continue reading]