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WESLEYAN-METHODIST MAGAZINE.

APRIL, 1883.

MEMORIAL SKETCH OF THE REV. WILLIAM SWALLOW: WITH EXTRACTS FROM HIS JOURNALS.

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WILLIAM SWALLOW was born at Lound, in 1813, and subsequently removed with his parents to Bawtry. There he passed through quiet years of thought which culminated in a crisis of earnestness, when, at the age of fifteen, he soberly embraced the truth as it is in Jesus, after listening to a sermon from the late W. Oliver Booth. Religion with him was too deep to be dry or dreary. At the Conference of 1837, with serene intensity of spirit, he answered ‘I will,' to the question, Who can go to Western Africa?' It was the 'grave of the Missionary;' but he went gladly as a pioneer on the Gambia Mission. The Gambia runs a serpentine course of more than one thousand miles, and is fourteen miles wide at its mouth. For about one hundred and fifty miles its banks are covered with thick mangroves, which being always green, afford the eye great relief from the glare of the scorching sun. Further inland the country becomes more hilly, vegetation assumes a richer and more varied appearance, palm and mahogany trees are conspicuous, and not unfrequently the scenery is highly picturesque. Fish abound, from the sprat to the shark; and feathered fowl, from the exquisite humming-bird to the towering eagle; and all sorts of apes exist, from the red monkey as small as a rat, to the chimpanzee and orang-outang; with all kinds of insects, and reptiles, from the lizard to the boa-constrictor and serpent of thirty feet long. Night on the banks of the Gambia is enlivened by the bite of the mosquito, the snort of the hippopotamus, the scream of the hyena, the snarl of the leopard, and the roar of the lion.

For a long period the Portuguese held the exclusive commerce of this noble river, and made it the theatre for the most revolting system of slavery. The following description of what took place on board a captured slave-ship during a stormy night at sea will give some faint idea of the horrors to which the poor Africans were subjected.*

'The night being intensely hot, four hundred wretched human beings, crammed into a hold twelve yards long by seven wide, and only three and a half high, made frantic efforts to issue forth. They crowded to the grating, striving to force their way through apertures fourteen inches in length, and barely six in breadth. The

* Fifty Days on a Slarer. By Rev. P. G. Hill, Chaplain H.M.S. Cleopatra, 1843.

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cries-the heat-I may say without exaggeration the smoke of their torment--which ascended can be compared to nothing earthly. Next day fifty-four crushed and mangled corpses, lifted up from the slave deck, were brought to the gangway and thrown overboard. Some were emaciated by disease. Some were found strangled, their hands grasping each other's throats, and tongues protruding from their mouths. Thus had they been trampled to death, the weaker under the feet of the stronger in the madness and torment of suffocation. All had been branded by hot iron with the initials of the men to whom they were consigned.'

Exclusive possession of the Gambia was assured to the English by the Treaty of Paris in 1817, and fifty European soldiers erected a fort at St. Mary's, near the mouth of the river. During the years 1825 and 1826 three hundred and ninety-seven soldiers were sent to the Gambia, and in nineteen months two hundred and seventy-nine of these perished.

The idea of maintaining English troops in such a climate was then abandoned. An English chaplain landed at St. Mary's in March, 1821, and died in the following August. At the invitation of the late Sir Charles Macarthy, Governor of Sierra-Leone, the Rev. W. Bell was sent out by the Wesleyan Missionary Society in 1822; he only lived forty-six days. During the same year several lives were lost in an attempt made by the Society of Friends to establish a Mission on the Gambia. Six Wesleyan Missionary agents perished in two years, yet the supply was maintained. So great was the enthusiasm evoked by the West African Mission, that one young man, W. Rowland Peck, declared: 'If the Committee will not accept me, I will ask my father for my worldly portion, and go to Africa at my own expense. If my father should refuse, I will beg my way to the sea-shore, and work my passage over.' He reached Africa with a young friend in 1828, and both of them died seven months afterwards.

The Rev. R. Marshall landed at St. Mary's in 1829, and died after a residence of about twelve months. Mrs. Marshall succeeded in reaching Bristol, but in such a shattered condition that she died soon after landing. Her faithful negro nurse found her way to Newcastle-on-Tyne, where, with many tears, she delivered up the Missionary's orphan child to the care of friends. In 1837, among the undaunted little band of Wesleyan Missionaries on the West African Coast, eight deaths occurred in nine months. It was during this fatal period that the subject of this memoir landed in Africa. Let us take a glimpse of life as it appeared to him on the shores of the Gambia.

'Dec. 17th.-Preached twice to a crowd of natives armed with cutlasses. We sang a hymn, at which they laughed heartily. A chief called Habdoriheem was much amused with my clock and watch, and refused to believe that they were inanimate. He begged hard for the watch, and for my wife. Finding that he could read Arabic, I gave him a Bible. I long to preach Christ fluently in the Mandingo language.

'March 4th.-Met a Foulah chief who could speak a little broken English. He said he loved rum. I asked him whether he would rather hear about

rum than the great God. He replied, "All two." Poor fellow, he spoke the truth at least. We are not all so ready to acknowledge our fervent desire to serve God and mammon. Ardent spirits are a great curse to the poor Africans.

'June 4th, 1838.-Left M'Carthy's Island for St. Mary's to get a little seabreeze after the intolerable heat of the interior. Eight days' passage down the river. Tornado came upon us, with torrents of rain. Vessel leaked very much in the decks; berths soaked; impossible to procure a light at night; but the flashes of lightning were intensely vivid, revealing swarms of cockroaches crawling around and upon us.

Feb. 2nd, 1839.-The labourers are few now in the vineyard. Three months in this climate killed Mrs. Moss. Mr. Wilkinson is dead; Mr. Wall is dead: he was very young and strong, but he died alone; no pious friend near to utter a prayer. I have had a marvellous escape: I lay insensible two days in the little room built of bamboo above the Mission chapel. The natives assembled below, and asked God to spare their last Missionary. Recovering consciousness, I heard them singing, and thought I was in heaven. 'March 8th, 1839.-On board the General Brock, bound for England.

'May 13th.-Full of fever and weariness. My old enemy has followed me across the water.

'Nov. 18th.-Getting better. Preached at Tunbridge Wells from "I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.” Mr. Parkinson, who took my place in Africa, is dead, his wife is dead also, leaving one infant to the care of strangers.

'Sept. 12th, 1840.-Mr. James has died in Africa. What then? Shall the soldiers give up the conflict because their fellows have fallen? Nay, rather let us recruit our courage. They tell me I ran away from Africa. Very well,

"He that fights, and runs away,

Shall live to fight another day."

Living or dying, we are the Lord's. We will go back to Africa, my wife

and I.

'Christmas-Day, 1840.-Landed once more on the shores of Africa, and preached from "Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy." Mrs. Fox and her little son have been carried to the Missionaries' grave, and Mr. Fox is left to toil alone at St. Mary's.

'Feb. 2nd, 1841.-I visited the Mission-chapel at M'Carthy's Island, and found a negro woman kneeling in prayer; I listened to the broken words: -"0, massa Jesus, poor negro woman gib her heart to Thee. Help poor negro. Be her leaning-post. Bless kind good Missionary dat lub poor negro. Help kind good Missionary. Be his leaning-post, Amen." I went away thankful, and felt less lonely in my work. Afterwards I spoke to some Mohammedan traders from Timbuctoo.

June 15th.-Yesterday the Foota Foulah tribe attacked several Mandingo

villages near us. They carried off bullocks, corn, and six hundred negroes as slaves. All the huts were burnt, and the infirm people murdered.

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Aug. 6th.-At Boavista, one of the Cape de Verd Islands, five hundred miles from the Gambia. There have been only a few good showers here for the last three years, and there is scarcely a blade of grass to be seen anywhere; but it is a welcome change from the African swamp.

'Sept. 13th.-No ships have touched here for a long time. We live upon fish and the sea breeze, and there is nothing for the soul save Popery. I read prayers every Sunday morning at the British Consulate, and spend most of my time in writing a Mandingo grammar and vocabulary.

'Nov. 8th.-Finding an old negro from the Gambia in slavery here, 1 determined to purchase his freedom, and succeeded in buying him for forty dollars. The blessing of Him that was ready to perish came upon me, and thus was it:

"Nte baraka, baraka! Allah baraka, baraka! Nte nola fo ite kumolu munne u jusso be kono, barri Allah, si jo ite Arjenato": "I bless you, bless you! God bless you, bless you! Ah! I cannot tell what words are

in my soul, but God will reward you in heaven.”

'Nov. 29th.-I brought back my negro in the schooner, and saw him safe among his own people, who wept tears of joy over him. He seemed to them like one returned from the dead. Their gratitude was indeed overwhelming; and the old man himself declared he would freely follow me all over the world. If that had been possible he would indeed have astonished the world, for his person was sadly disfigured through the cruelty of his captors.

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'Dec. 12th.-Preached at M'Carthy's Island from "What are these who are arrayed in white robes, and whence came they?" A man named Arraboo fell down and cried for mercy. I directed that he should be removed to the new chapel, where he might be left quite undisturbed with a few friends. Afterwards I found him kneeling among the shavings, his large, lustrous eyes beaming with joy. "Arraboo," said I," why did you fall down in the church?" "Ah! Massa," he answered, me no help it; me see one very white person come close to me, and dis make me fall down to pray." I feared at first that this was but the wild fancy of a weak, uninformed mind; but I took good care to see Arraboo again and again, so that he might have a fair chance of apprehending the Truth. He was certainly at one time a wicked man. He is not so now. He " thought he saw a vision." Would that many more might think so, if like results could thereby be obtained! Thus was our new chapel consecrated.

'Dec. 25th.-Held service at five a.m. in the old chapel, and at eleven a.m. for the first time in the new. Text, "That Thine eyes may be open toward this house night and day." Chapel crowded with people differing much in language, colour, tribe and disposition. Every European on the Island was present. Great luncheon in the open air, and cheers three times three for the people of England.

'April 18th, 1842.-Preached to Mohammedans at Brukoo on "What think ye of Christ?" After a while the chief said, "If you want to dig a well,

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