It Is Well With My Soul

On October 8^th, 1871, Mrs O’Leary’s cow kicked over a lantern and started the Great Chicago Fire.  This devastating fire lasted three days, destroyed over 3 square miles of the city, including over 17,000 structures, killed about 300 people and left over 100,000 residents homeless.

Horatio Spafford, a Presbyterian church elder, a friend of D.L. Moody, and a godly man was affected by this tragedy.  A lawyer by trade, he lost much of his financial investments in the fire.  Despite the setbacks, he, his wife Anna, and their four daughters Annie (age 12), Maggie (age 7), Bessie (age 4) and Tanetta (age 18 months) poured their lives into ministering to the victims of this disaster.

After two years of work, the family decided to visit friends in England for a respite.  Anna went ahead with the girls while Horatio stayed behind to wrap up some business.  On November 22^nd, 1873, en route to England, the steamship Ville du Havre on which they were passengers was struck by another vessel, with great loss of life.  Anxiously, Horatio awaited news.  He eventually received a telegram from his wife with two words, “Saved, alone.”

Immediately, Spafford traveled to England to be with his grieving wife.  En route, he asked the ship’s captain to notify him when they reached the place where his daughters were lost.  When word came to him, Horatio went up on deck and penned the words to a beloved hymn:

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way.

When sorrows like sea billows roll.

Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,

“It is well, it is well with my soul.”

It is well (it is well),

With my soul (with my soul),

It is well, it is well with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,

Lest this blest assurance control,

That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate,

And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought!

My sin, not in part but the whole,

Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no mare,

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

And Lord haste the day, when the faith shall be sight,

The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;

The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,

Even so, it is well with my soul.

Following this tragedy, Anna gave birth to three more children, Horatio, Bertha, and Grace.  In 1881, they moved to Jerusalem and became part of an American Christian colony there, focused on ministry to people of all backgrounds.  There, they adopted a teenager named Jacob.

Horatio Spafford died of Malaria in 1888, age 59.  He is buried in Jerusalem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Spafford

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chicago_Fire

Minnie Watson

Minnie Watson

Minnie Cumming came to what is now Kenya, Africa, from her native Scotland in 1899 to marry her fiancé, missionary Thomas Watson.  The young couple began the work of planting a Presbyterian church in a city called Kikuyu.  Soon after she arrived, the town was hit with a locust swarm, resulting in famine, which was followed by a severe Smallpox plague.  The back-to-back disasters resulted in hundreds of people dying, many dropping in the fields where they labored and expiring there.

Thomas and Minnie labored tirelessly to minister to the sick, but before the crisis had passed Thomas contracted pneumonia and passed away - less than a year after their marriage - leaving Minnie, a young widow, to run the entire enterprise on her own - a task she performed with energy and enthusiasm.  A year later, the Presbyterian Church of Scotland assumed responsibility for the effort.  Minnie was asked to stay on and supervise the refugee school established by the mission.

She adopted two children and ensured their education.  She became a fearless advocate for the education of girls in Kenya, something that aroused opposition, sometimes the form of violence.  She also advocated against the cruel practice of female circumcision, a practiced which declined steeply in the country under her influence.

One of the children that attended her school was a boy named Jomo Kenyatta.  Five years after arriving at the school in 1914, Jomo came to faith and was baptized at the local church.  This young man became the founder and the first president of the modern nation of Kenya, serving in that role from 1964-1978.  

Minnie stayed in this role for 32 years, establishing an extensive network of schools in Kenya and laying down the standards that guided Kenyan education for generations.  Minnie had the nickname "Granny Watson" among her pupils.  She was remembered by her students as the model of a Christian lady: strict when necessary but always loving, humble, and patient.  Her diligence in her task blazed the trail for many missionaries who followed her.

Minnie retired to Scotland, where she lived the last few years of her life.  When she passed away in 1949, her ashes were returned to Kenya and were buried beside her husband.

Feb 13, 2022 Christian History E-mail

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-39351913

 

John Roberts

Rev John Roberts was a Welsh missionary to Native Americans in Wyoming.  Born in North Wales in 1853, he came to faith at an early age and yearned to be a missionary.  As a young man, he was ordained as a Deacon in his Anglican church and served there briefly before sailing to the Bahamas to minister in Nassau.  There, he was ordained as a Priest and concentrated his ministry among the poor and outcast, including lepers. 

However, John was restless and wanted a greater challenge.  His heart was drawn to Native Americans, so John made his way to Colorado where, meeting with his Bishop, he asked for the most difficult field in the region.  He was told that was among the reservation of the Shoshone and Arapahoe tribes which would later be known as the Wind River Indian Reservation, but his Bishop first wanted him to gain some experience so John was assigned to minister to coal miners in Greeley, Colorado, and to a community in Pueblo.  There, Roberts established a mission church in South Pueblo.  When a smallpox epidemic quarantined the community, he fearlessly worked in the hospital tending the sick.

Finally given permission to go to the reservation, he left in late January of 1883.  He traveled by train, then took the last 150 miles by stagecoach.  They journeyed for 8 days in the middle of a blizzard where temperatures neared 60 degrees below zero, and arrived at Fort Washakie, on the reservation, on February 10^th.  John established a church there and was offered a government-paid position as principal of a school – a job he accepted both for outreach and to learn local customs.  He branched out from there, establishing congregations in eight outlying communities, five of which remain active today.  He traveled extensively on horseback between congregations officiating numerous baptisms, communion services, weddings, and burials.  One such burial was a woman who estimated herself to be a hundred years old who claimed, and Roberts believed, to be Sacajawea.  (Note: South Dakota also claims to be the burial place of Sacajawea.)

While in the Bahamas, Roberts had become engaged to a young church organist named Laura Brown.  They corresponded by mail until the year after Roberts arrived in Wyoming.  She traveled by train and stage to meet him there (in much fairer weather) and they were married on Christmas Day of 1884.  Laura was his faithful partner through his missions.  John and Laura were blessed with five children. 

Roberts also became friends with the Shoshone Chief Washakie, in his early 80s when Roberts arrived.  One story of their friendship comes soon after John’s arrival.  The Chief’s son was involved in a liquor purchase, which led to an argument and culminated in the young man being shot to death.  Two contradictory accounts of the Chief’s response exist: the first account is recorded by a woman who interviewed Rev Roberts late in his life and attributed the account to him.  In her account the elderly Chief, upon hearing of his son’s death, vowed to kill every white man he could find until he himself was killed.  Roberts, hearing of this vow, interceded with the Chief and offered his own life if it would assuage the Chief’s anger.  The Chief’s heart softened and he came to faith as a result of John’s intervention.  The second, less dramatic account comes from Roberts’ children.  In this account, Roberts did visit the Chief after the killing.  During his visit the Chief remarked, “The white man did not kill my son.  Whiskey killed him.”  Regardless of which accounting is true, the two had a remarkable friendship which lasted the remainder of Chief Washakie’s life.  The Chief, in his old age, was a vibrant Christian, leading many to Christ until his death in 1900 at age 102.  He was buried with full military honors at the post cemetery, given his many years as a US Army Scout.

Rev Roberts, early in his ministry, established a school for girls is Fort Washakie with the Chief’s blessing and financing.  It operated as a school until 1949, the year of John Roberts’ death.  He translated the Bible into numerous Native languages.

The success of the Shoshone mission attracted the attention of the Arapaho tribe, which was also settled on the Shoshone reservation.  Roberts energetically expanded his mission and his vision to include them, establishing churches among their people, learning their languages, and translating the Bible for them as well.

The Bishop over his region thought very highly of Roberts and once offered him a more prominent position.  Roberts wrote back, “Thank you, Bishop, but I hope you will never take me away from my Indians.  I prefer to spend my life here among my adopted people.”  Roberts served with full vigor and enthusiasm his entire life.  He was a bridge for the Indian people with the white culture that surrounded them.  He died in January of 1949, and is buried in Wyoming.  His ministry in Wyoming lasted 66 years.

Christian History e-mail: 22 Jan 2022.

https://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/reverend-john-roberts-missionary-eastern-shoshone-and-northern-arapaho-tribes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts_(missionary)