It is impossible to chronicle this enterprise in any detail, all one can do is select a few telling examples of the people and their work for the Lord.
For Methodism, the story begins with a fiery Welsh doctor of laws, called Thomas Coke. He was an actual convert of John Wesley, who having met two former African slaves in London, felt challenged to take the Gospel to the West Indies. Wesley disagreed and sent Coke, now an ordained minister, to America to support Francis Asbury who was already spreading the Word across the eastern sea-board..
Coke was a remarkable man for, in the age of sailing ships, he crossed the Atlantic 18 times visiting the States and also the West Indies. Whilst in America, Coke met a certain English wheelwright who had already set up a mission station in Antigua in the West Indies. He wanted to accompany Baxter back to Antigua but the autocratic John Wesley called Coke back to England. However, later in 1786, Coke set off for Newfoundland but the ship was so badly blown off course that they finished up providentially in the West Indies and so Coke visited Baxter in Antigua. He joined Baxter in his Sunday morning service of 2,000 slaves and visited with great delight the spreading work begun in the neighbouring islands, including St. Vincent, St. Kitts and both the Leeward and Windward Islands.
The significant thing about this and much missionary enterprise was that the work was started not so much by professional ministers or missionaries, but by converted soldiers or artisans and even traders who had seized the opportunity to witness to their faith. Often when the professionals arrived, even in some apparently God-forsaken corner of Empire, they would find the rudiments of a work for God already begun .
Dr. Coke also had a life-long ambition to visit the great sub-continent of India with the Gospel. The Wesleyan Conference of 1813 gave him permission to begin work in Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, so he sailed with a team of young men, first to Bombay and then to Ceylon, however, as the ship lay becalmed off the Seychelles, the aged and frail Coke was found dead in his cabin, in an attitude of prayer. So the ‘Father of Methodist Missions’ was dead but his faith and enthusiasm had launched an enterprise that would see the Christian Faith carried to all the continents of the world.
One of the areas opened early to Christian missions was the West Coast of Africa. George Warren was the first Methodist to be sent to Africa by the Missionary Society in London. He landed at Sierra Leone on the 12th November, 1811, after a stormy sea journey out of Liverpool, lasting 52 days. He was welcomed by the Governor and chaplain of the settlement and found a society of 110 members out of a total population of about 4,000 with three local preachers and six other class leaders. Two years passed before his successor arrived and within months this man and his wife had both died of malaria. Not for nothing was the West coast of Africa called, the white man’s grave. Malaria, and other tropical diseases, claimed one after another of the servants of Christ and yet, nothing deterred, they continued to come in loyal dedication to Christ. Thus opened a grim yet glorious chapter in the story of Christian missionary enterprise in the 19th century. And it wasn’t until almost the end of the century that the English physician, Sir Ronald Ross discovered that malaria was carried by the mosquito fly – until then it was thought that the disease came from the dank air that hung over swamps. It was found that in certain cases of malaria quinine could aid recovery. But the roll call of early missionary deaths continued throughout the continent.
Besides George Warren, another great Methodist missionary pioneer was the Rev. William Shaw who, as a young married man arriving at the Cape Coast of South Africa in 1820, established a chain of Methodist stations and later pushed inland into the Plain of the Great Karoo facing the war-like Kaffir tribesmen. His dear wife Ann shared his courage and between them they established small Methodist Societies both deep in the bush and on the coast. To illustrate the personal sacrifices missionary families had to make in those days, William Shaw’s mother-in-law would only allow her daughter to accompany her husband to Africa, if they agreed to leave behind in England their first-born child so that if : we perished in the sea or in the deserts of Africa they might at least have this relic of a lost family remaining, to whom they might show kindness and love for our sake.
William Shaw did in fact return to the home work in 1856 after a dazzling missionary career and was elected President of the Methodist Conference in 1865.
Perhaps the most valiant and colourful of all the Wesleyan Methodist missionaries was Thomas Birch Freeman. Freeman was the son of an African father and an English mother. They were not well off, his father who was a gardener died when Freeman was only six years old and with three other children his mother had a struggling time. Eventually Freeman, after training as a botanist, became head gardener to a large estate near Ipswich. Whilst there he was converted through meeting Methodists and later became a local preacher. Later he quit his gardening post and offered himself to the Missionary Society. Before he could sail he had first to be ordained and secondly to find himself a suitable wife.
He and his wife, Elizabeth arrived on what was the called the Gold Coast, off the West Coast of Africa on the third of January, 1838. They received an enthusiastic reception and they soon responded quickly to African ways and customs. He showed immediate practical judgement by having the Mission House moved from a swampy mosquito-ridden area to a dry hill. He showed immense fortitude for within six weeks of his landing, his wife, Elizabeth had died of disease. He worked off his loneliness with constant labour and within six months had built his first new chapel, which was packed to the doors.
Like Shaw before him, Freeman was anxious to push inland, making for the land of the Ashanti tribe and their capital, Kumasi. Carrying a letter of introduction for the King, Freeman accompanied by eighteen carriers, with loads on their heads, seated himself in a travelling chair, journeyed through two hundred miles of difficult forest paths, eventually reached Kwakuu Dua, the great King of the Ashanti. They were given a royal welcome by the king surrounded by his numerous chiefs and captains in a setting of splendid umbrellas and golden encrusted idols. There were also present the royal executioners displaying their blood-stained stools on which probably thousands of their enemies had met their death, by decapitation, and they also carried the large death-drum which was beaten the moment the head was severed by a sharp knife. Freeman was naturally horrified by these barbaric practices and hoped that: a brighter day is dawning when the death-drum shall give way to the Bible.
In spite of these gory rites the two men exchanged gifts and shared a friendship which would augur well for the future of the Gospel. Freeman and his friends returned safely, just escaping a violent tornado, having to cope with swollen rivers and little food. But Freeman maintained his resolute spirit quoting Wesley’s hymn, How do Thy mercies close me round.
Freeman returned to England on his first furlough in 1840 to discover that his missionary exploits had already made him a hero in British Methodism. He travelled the country preaching in many of Methodism’s most prominent chapels. He raised £5,000 for missionary work, found himself a new wife in Lucinda Cowan. He also travelled for the first time on the newly established railway system in England. Eventually he returned to the Cape Coast in 1841 bringing with him eight new missionaries. Again the African climate took its toll and within a year or so two had returned home and the remainder had died, including Freeman’s second wife, Lucinda. Eventually Freeman married again, this time an educated African woman with whom he had four children.
Thomas Freeman laboured on in what is now Ghana, returning home for his second furlough in 1844 where, though acclaimed in the Church at large, he was criticised for overspending in the work. And, instead of increasing their grants to the work in West Africa, the committee sent a certain Daniel West to examine the financial state of the mission states and report back. Naturally Freeman was very depressed by their mean and ill-conceived attitude but West found to his delight that Freeman’s demands were justified and was amazed at the extent the country was opening up to the Gospel. Unfortunately West died abroad and only his letters reached Mission House in London and these gave a false impression of the work. Sadly Freeman received a stern rebuke from the then President of Conference and was ordered to repay certain debts out of his own funds. This was, of course, outrageous treatment of one of God’s most honest and devoted servants. The unacceptable side of church politics!
However Freeman still laboured on, with no rancour in his heart and lived to celebrate the Jubilee of the Gold Coast Mission in 1885. It was said, that in old age, Father Freeman was a dignified figure. A very tall, straight, stately old man, with silvery hair, graceful manners and a splendid presence, he was kind and courteous to all, and wherever he went he was loved. He died on the 12th August 1890 with the words of the great hymn on his lips:
And so, as the century proceeded, each branch of Methodism sent its missionary advocates to every part of the world. The Methodist New Connexion pioneered the work in China when in 1858 John Innocent and William Nelthorpe Hall were commissioned in Leeds and reached Shanghai on 23rd March 1860. They were based in the mercantile city of Tientsin and by 1867 they had about 40 converts. A medical mission was established the Methodist New Connexion in the 1890’s.
Another branch of English Methodism which established missionary work
in China were the Bible Christians. Their most celebrated advocate was
Samuel
Pollard who with another missionary sailed to China in 1887. Pollard
who was also a medical doctor suffered physical violence during the infamous
‘Boxer Riots’ of the turn of the century. Like Hudson Taylor, Pollard’s
contribution to the spread of the gospel in South West China was immense
and sacrificial.
Douglas Graham