Appendix A: Lessons from the Life of Mary Slessor

“Remember them that had the rule over you, men that spake unto you the word of God; and considering the issue of their life, imitate their faith.”

— Hebrews 13:7, ASV

The lessons below gather the themes of this book so that readers can return to them. Mary Slessor would not have wanted her life to be a pattern. She would have wanted it to point beyond herself to the God who, she said, had gone before her. Each lesson therefore rests on Scripture, not on her example alone. The letter to the Hebrews tells us to consider how those who went before us lived and died, and to imitate their faith, not every detail of their lives.

1. God Uses Unlikely People

A factory girl with almost no schooling, frightened of crowds and of public speaking, became one of the best-known missionaries of her age. God does not wait for impressive people. “God chose the weak things of the world, that he might put to shame the things that are strong” (1 Corinthians 1:27, ASV).

2. A Broken Home Is Not the End of the Story

Mary grew up with a father who drank and a mother who prayed through the night. She never saw her prayers for her father answered, but she found a heavenly Father she could trust. “When my father and my mother forsake me, Then Jehovah will take me up” (Psalm 27:10, ASV).

3. Hard Years Can Be Training Years

Fourteen years at the loom taught her endurance, thrift, and an understanding of the poor that she carried into Africa. “It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth” (Lamentations 3:27, ASV).

4. Courage Is Not the Absence of Fear

She walked into Okoyong so frightened she could only pray one word. She went anyway. “Be strong and of good courage; be not affrighted, neither be thou dismayed: for Jehovah thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest” (Joshua 1:9, ASV).

5. Learn the Language of the People

She learned Efik so well that people said she spoke it better than they did. The gospel travels best in the heart language of those who hear it. “To the weak I became weak, that I might gain the weak: I am become all things to all men, that I may by all means save some” (1 Corinthians 9:22, ASV).

6. Honour the Mercy of Those Outside the Faith

Ma Eme risked her life, again and again, to warn Mary of killings that were planned, and never became a Christian. Mary grieved her choice and never forgot her mercy. “Which of these three, thinkest thou, proved neighbor unto him that fell among the robbers? And he said, He that showed mercy on him” (Luke 10:36-37, ASV).

7. Speak for Those Who Cannot Speak

She sat at the entrance of a yard full of chained prisoners and would not move. “Open thy mouth for the dumb, In the cause of all such as are left desolate” (Proverbs 31:8, ASV).

8. Partial Victories Are Still Worth Winning

Many of her rescues were incomplete, and some failed. She kept going. “And let us not be weary in well-doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not” (Galatians 6:9, ASV).

9. The Weakest Are Precious to God

Twin babies thrown into the bush, their mothers driven out as cursed: these were the people she spent her life for. “Suffer the little children to come unto me; forbid them not: for to such belongeth the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:14, ASV).

10. A Life Laid on the Altar Is Not Taken Back

When she had to choose between marriage and the people she had promised to serve, she chose the people. “Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service” (Romans 12:1, ASV).

11. Make Peace

She knitted through palavers, knelt between armed men, and threw her own clothes over the gin. “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called sons of God” (Matthew 5:9, ASV).

12. Be Wary of Borrowed Power

Her authority was partly the consul’s, and she sometimes spoke of British rule as if it were Christian. Christians who work alongside governments must remember where their help comes from. “Put not your trust in princes, Nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help” (Psalm 146:3, ASV).

13. Leave the Results With God

Her first district saw no baptisms for fifteen years. “Christ sent me to preach the Gospel,” she said, “and He will look after results.” “I planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase” (1 Corinthians 3:6, ASV).

14. Rejoice When the Fields Are Empty

After the smallpox took four of her children and her chief, she wrote that she was “always satisfied and happy in His love.” “Yet I will rejoice in Jehovah, I will joy in the God of my salvation” (Habakkuk 3:18, ASV).

15. The Gospel Needs Ordinary Messengers

The church at Itu was begun by a former slave girl and two boys. Onoyom was sent to Mary by a homeless drunkard who still remembered the gospel. “There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither bond nor free, there can be no male and female; for ye all are one man in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28, ASV).

16. Do Not Look Back

When the rules said she must return to Akpap, she said, “I dare not go back.” “No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62, ASV).

17. Seek Justice, Especially for Women

She sat unpaid on a colonial court for four years so that women would get a hearing. “Seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow” (Isaiah 1:17, ASV).

18. Give People a Way to Live, Not Only a Message

She saw that women would not be free until they could support themselves, and planned a settlement on the land. Faith must care for the whole person. “Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction” (James 1:27, ASV).

19. Strength Is Given Day by Day

“I begin every day … in pain,” she said, “and whenever I begin, the strength comes.” “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9, ASV).

20. Doubt Is Not the Opposite of Faith

She called herself “a poor exponent of faith” and said the prayer “help Thou my unbelief” suited her in every syllable. “I believe; help thou mine unbelief” (Mark 9:24, ASV).

21. Know Your Faults, and Grow Gentler

She was often sorry for “hasty words,” and in her last days said of something harsh she had written, “I wonder I could have been so hard.” “Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, even as God also in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32, ASV).

22. Give Yourself, Not Only Your Message

She gave the people of the Cross River her salary, her health, her home, and her life. “We were well pleased to impart unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were become very dear to us” (1 Thessalonians 2:8, ASV).

23. The Greatest of These Is Love

Her faith was often weak and her hope sometimes dark, but no one who knew her doubted her love. “But now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13, ASV).