Mary Slessor
Mary Mitchell Slessor was born in 1848 in Aberdeen, Scotland, one of four surviving children to a poor working-class family. Her father was a shoemaker and an alcoholic, and unable to consistently provide for their family. Her mother was a devout Presbyterian who brought income to the family by working as a weaver. At times, her mother pushed her out of the house into the streets to escape a drunken beating from her father. While on the streets, she had to fend off drunks.
By the time she was eleven, she was working from 6AM to 6PM in the mills preparing jute and flax for the weavers. Eager to improve herself, she signed up for night schooling offered by the factory for the child workers. When she would nod off in class from exhaustion, she would be forced to stand for the lectures as punishment.
She became a Christian when a woman held her hand near a fire and warned her of Hell. As she grew older, she began holding Bible classes for the poor children in her area – children she shared a background with. She organized picnics and ‘fun’ days, raising the eyebrows of “proper” Christians by running races with the children.
During this time, a gang of young men tried to intimidate her. They slung mud at her and mocked her during her teaching. At one point, they grabbed her and stood her up. The leader of the gang whirled a lead weight on a string around, getting closer and closer to her face. Praying inwardly for strength to stand her ground, Mary faced the threat down until the weight grazer her forehead. Impressed with her courage, the gang leader made all in his group attend her meetings. “What is courage, but conquering fear?” she later said.
Presbyterians at this time were very missions-minded. Letters from missionaries were circulated among churches and read aloud during the service. A monthly magazine was published called the Missionary Record containing the writings and needs of various missionaries around the world. When the great Dr Livingstone died, Mary was 27 years old and resolved to follow the legendary missionary’s footsteps in Africa.
Mary immediately began laying the groundwork for a missions trip herself, and a year later boarded the S.S. Ethiopia in August of 1876 headed to what is now Nigeria. Recalling the effects of alcohol on her family, she was distressed to see the main cargo of the ship was large barrels of whiskey. She remarked, “Scores of barrels of whiskey, and only one missionary.”
In Nigeria, despite having read up on the culture there, she was shocked at the level of depravity and native superstition in her field. Life meant little – it was nothing to kill a slave, or a child. The birth of twins to a family was regarded as an evil omen, dealt with by slaughtering the babies and either killing the mother or running her out of the village. Matters of guilt or innocence were often determined by having the accused eat poisoned berries of seeing if they survived being immersed in burning oil. The death of a village elder was accompanied by the human sacrifice of his servants so they would accompany him into the afterlife.
Mary, noted among the people there for her bright red hair and bright blue eyes as much as her quick ability to pick up the local languages, had a tremendous impact among the locals. She was very active in rescuing twins and their mothers, helping them to see their lives had value in the eyes of Christ. She ministered to the mothers and children, helping them to see their worth in Christ and helped them acquire vocational skills to take care of their children and themselves. She adopted a number of orphaned children. At great risk to herself, she spoke against the dehumanizing practices in the culture and worked to change them, village by village. Fearlessly, she often ventured alone into remote villages to combat the dehumanizing religion of the area, at one point chasing down a group of masked bandits and ripping the mask off the ringleader to demonstrate their weakness. She played a major role in stopping or preventing outright wars between villages.
She contracted Malaria more than once, having to return to England on occasion where she was a great inspiration to the church. Earlier sicknesses of Malaria rendered her body weak later in her life, to the point that she had to be pushed in a homemade wheelchair from village to village.
While at a missionary station in early January of 1915, she fainted after hearing the news of Europe at war. She was revived, but weakened to the point where she died on January 13th of that year, age of 64.
A memorial plaque over her grave in Nigeria reads: “In loving memory of Mary Mitchell Slessor. For thirty-eight years a heroic and devoted missionary chiefly among the up-river tribes of this land. The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light. They that turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars for ever and ever.”
e-mail from Christian History, 10 January 2021
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Slessor
https://infomaryslessor.org/page%202.html
