03 Embarrassed by Government Restriction

Chapter 3 EMBARRASSED BY GOVERNMENT RESTRICTIONS

1884

THERE was no foreign governmental establishment within one thousand miles on the coast, and for two thousand miles eastward, all the way to the Indian Ocean, was unexplored savage territory, when Gaboon Mission was founded in 1842. But the very next year a French cannon-ball struck the mission school-house while a religious service was in progress. A French Jesuit mission soon planted itself within three miles of Baraka, and not long after a French administration was formally extended over the district, in spite of the helpless remonstrance of the more shrewd headmen in Gaboon villages. Relations between French officials and the Americans were friendly in the early days, and as late as 1864 Walker wrote: "Embarrassments from the French government are not to be apprehended. It has shown as much regard for our mission as could be expected from any government." In 1882 the situation was somewhat altered. The scramble for Africa had begun among European powers, and the French were on the alert to legally establish their claims in the Gaboon. The Spanish, who appeared on Corisco Island as early as 1858, had disappeared and reappeared again, came now to stay. In 1884 a German man-of-war took possession of the Benito River and various points north; and the French, having with great promptitude discovered an old treaty which gave the Benito to themselves, took possession of the south bank. The political situation became, and all summer continued, " uncertain."

Mr. Good was drawn into several conferences with the French commandant. It was a delicate position for a man so young, so new in the mission, unversed in social etiquette, only beginning to speak in French, and wholly without experience in diplomacy. One burst of temper, one social blunder, a hasty inference, a little slowness in comprehending the commandant’s tactics, might jeopardize the future of the mission. The responsibility weighed heavily. He longed for "Campbell to be back to share the burden," as he was forced, the only man at headquarters, step by step to take action alone. The course natural to him was the best possible. His directness, his habit of taking straight aim, the sagacity which had been cultivated in watching the wily ways of birds and rabbits in his boyhood, added to a fund of good nature and self-control, carried him through. He had bent before the storm at its first approach and closed his school. The commandant still refused his opening it in the vernacular. If the Americans could not meet the requirement of the law themselves, they must secure French teachers. This was reasonable, and the missionary yielded again. The retired veteran, looking out from his Wisconsin watch-tower, " did not think there was any one at Gaboon who knew what to propose this year, except to work on, preaching the gospel, confirming saints, and winning sinners. It seems to me a time to stand still and wait the moving of God’s providence." But he had a successor, yet too young and too energetic to be warranted in simply standing still. He proposed to do some moving himself in connection with God’s providence. Mr. Good more than met the situation: he formulated plans for action.

Now began a gentle but firm bombardment of the doors of the home office. From month to month he writes about the course of the commandant. In March he observes that some property at Gaboon is held by "the Board," while French law recognizes only such as is held in the name of an individual. He finds the Jesuit mission prohibited from preaching in the vernacular because the colony pays them twenty thousand francs a year for teaching exclusively in French. " Still, I cannot help asking. How have we escaped this blow?" And his intention is that this blow shall not fall. He points out that restrictions are not laid on account of the Protestant religion, but because of the feeling in France that "our schools are making the people of the colony English." The commandant promised that the other schools should be taught in the vernacular if a French school were opened at Gaboon.

Plan No. 1 has therefore developed. He asks the Board to grant a French teacher to assist in the Gaboon school, " in order to satisfy the commandant." Concerning this letter he tells an associate, " I wrote it to induce the Board to make an advance of some sort. He wishes they had a light-draught steam or naphtha-launch, for with it they could give the gospel with reasonable regularity to one hundred thousand souls within easy reach on the Gaboon and its tributaries. He has just seen five missionaries on their way to the Congo. "By every steamship there is somebody going to that mission. We might well take a lesson from them." In August, though not yet officially informed, he learns that the commandant " has orders in his pocket to close our only vernacular schools left at Benito."

September. He had been notified of fresh instructions from France. A school might be opened at Talaguga Station but in French only. Much suspicion was directed towards the Sabbath services.

Then follows cautious see-sawing between Baraka and the colonial office, the main end never lost sight of. Nor does Baraka always lose. One official concession grants "religious services in the native language"; so that nail was driven.

There is another tap at the secretary’s door. Mr. Good recalls the experience of English missionaries on Tahiti — how, after French occupation, they had been constrained to turn their mission over to French Protestants. One of his colleagues had already suggested to the Board a similar course in their mission. For himself, he begins to think that " getting French teachers is a compromise plan; I am afraid of it. It is the settled policy of France to make every one of her colonies a new France in language and customs. I am sorry to believe it, but I do believe we shall in the end be forced to transfer our work to French missionaries; and this will be best for the kingdom of Christ in the colony. The government is determined to make this a French people. If so, a French church can best harmonize with that policy; we never can." But men were needed. " At present, with just enough to guard each station, we are doing nothing. People we taught have gone to their towns, and we cannot even follow them. If we keep on thus a few years, there will be nothing either to hold or to transfer." He corresponds with his associates in the mission concerning a possible transfer. One of them having first broached the subject to the Board, he can "follow." Otherwise he would have been "afraid they would take such a suggestion from the youngest member of the mission as assumption. Let us discuss this among ourselves. Nothing will make our Board act but something like unanimous opinion boldly expressed by mission meeting. I want this mission to adopt some definite policy."

November. He is " sorry to say I have had the so-called malignant fever, which is becoming so fashionable in our mission." He credits the attack to a sedentary life. After active exposure, " all night wet and cold, eating all kinds of food, drinking all kinds of water, I have never been the worse for it. When I have walked fifteen or twenty-five miles a day it put new life into me for weeks; but when confined a month or two at Baraka I have become languid and bilious."

December. A parting shot to the home office: " The French are likely to get Benito, and we may expect our schools to be closed there, just when the harvest is being gathered in so fast."

All the year Mr. Good had been mission treasurer, and pastor of Gaboon Church, and superintendent of the station. " Of course I do justice to neither." He might have added that watching through the alarming illness of his wife, his own recurring attacks of fever, and anxiety for the future of the mission had drained his strength. But the year had its joys. He had welcomed a little son with fatherly pride. There had been " a quiet work of grace in a few hearts " — a few; he will not overrate it. He had succeeded in visiting " a few Fang towns," and he " rejoiced while he sorrowed " for Bessie, the good Bible-woman. She had "labored beyond her strength" among her country women, and led many of them to the Saviour; and when painful illness kept her foot from the oft trodden paths, she "gathered women of the towns around her death-bed and prayed with them." This woman was a Kroo, who had been trained from a child at Gaboon. A few other facts were outstanding. " We discipline church members; the Jesuits do not, and are attracting great numbers. We shall have baptized heathenism instead of confessed heathenism to deal with." More breakers ahead: " Three times as many trading establishments in the Gaboon as eighteen months previous." The Mpongwe race was "dying out" on account of its viciousness. From six thousand of them at Gaboon in 1842, they were now reduced to between two and three thousand, and were likely to become extinct in twenty years or less. " Is it wise to lay foundations in a sinking beach that in twenty years will be submerged? I confess I should like to see promise of more permanency for the work to which I devote my life. I should like to see a move interior-ward most of all, but suppose that in any case the coast must be held."

Several members of the mission had been obliged to flee for their lives during 1884. One had lain down in her last sleep at Talaguga, beside the great Ogowe. All had borne hardship, some of them in desperate loneliness; but all were united in resolve to stand by their banner in Africa. Not specially heartening could have seemed to them the report of the Board presented to General Assembly in the following spring:

"Frequently grave doubts have arisen whether it is best to continue the mission in such a climate. These doubts are now intensified by the disturbing influence of French regulations." The necessary frequency of furloughs is referred to: " Perhaps the best remedy for these climatic evils is to remove the mission to some other African field." Requests from the mission to employ French teachers, or to consider a transfer of some of the stations to the care of French Christians, are at first presented as " suggestions," but in the end, as it were, laid on the table. " There seems but one course open, that of standing in our lot."