These Prayed

Allen Gardiner Martyrs Seed

A story of the tragic death in the area of the "ends of the earth" during the nineteenth century of the English Christian missionary, Martyr and sailing vessel captain, Allen Gardiner in Tierra Del Fuego.


Captain Allen Gardiner (1794-1851)

From earliest childhood, Allen Francis Gardiner was thrilled by stories of adventure and strange lands and of war. In 1808, when he was 14, Allen left home to enter the Naval College at Portsmouth, England. Though he had an exciting career in the British Royal Navy, God had bigger plans for him. He accepted Christ in the navy, and became aware of the futility of idol worship when he saw it firsthand in China. This was a turning point in his life. He had to do something to reach those who were putting their faith in idols. He became an avid Bible reader. From God's Word Gardiner became acutely aware of the Lord's desire to be glorified among all nations. His naval career ended in 1826.

Gardiner was called by God to reach Indian tribes in South America that had not been reached even by the Roman Catholics. In 1838, he crossed the Andes Mountains on muleback. He had no plan; all he wanted to do was reach the unreached tribes. All of his attempts to reach the Indians failed. Then in the early 1850s, Allen Gardiner and six other men attempted to go to tribes in southern Argentina. This ill-fated effort left all of them dead from starvation. But the challenge he gave to reach animistic tribes is still carried on by the South American Missionary Society, an Episcopalian outreach to Latin America. The two books he wrote paved the way for Protestant work. In the second half of the 20th Century, the Holy Spirit has been moving mightily in Latin America. Gardiner was one who planted the seeds that lead to a harvest many years later

Allen had arrived on Picton Island not far from Puerto Williams in the summer of 1850 with six other Anglican missionaries. His sole mission was to bring the word of God to the Yagan Indians of Tierra Del Fuego. He had known about the Yagans by way of four of them which were brought to England by Captain Fitzroy of the BEAGLE. Fitzroy on his next voyage in 1832 accompanied by Charles Darwin brought the Yagans back to Wulaia. Gardiner wanted to go to Wulaia, to find Jemmy Button in order to translate fro Yagan to English. As he had not raised enough money to buy a Schooner, they bought 2 small steel sailboats named "Speedwell" and "Pioneer".

With his two small sailboats Gardiner took off again for an evangelizing trip along with a surgeon by the name of Richard Williams, a young Bible teacher named John Maidmant, carpenter Joseph Erwin and three strong fishermen from Cornwall: Badcok, Pearce and Bryant. Upon arriving in Tierra Del Fuego, serious problems overcame these Anglican missionaries; first by accidentally leaving their gun powder aboard the ship on which they had arrived.

The 5th of December, 1850, after 3 months of voyage, the boats of Gardiner arrived in Tierra Del Fuego, to the island Picton, where the goats were still at pasture which he had left a year before. The "Ocean Queen" that brought sailed away from them , so from now on, they only could depend on their two small boats. Then they could not locate the Yagan Indian, Jimmy Button who had been brought back to Tierra Del Fuego from England. They wanted to find him so he could be their interpreter of the Gospel to the other Yagans.

They did find some Yagan Indians who only wanted to take everything they saw. As they couldn't detain them or combat them (the mission is to evangelize), they re-loaded the boats, saved what they could and sailed away from Picton. The Yagans chased Gardiner constantly with their canoes which were lighter than the heavy missionary boats. Finally they found protection in Spanish Harbor (Bahía Aguirre) on the island of Tierra Del Fuego. It was not a favorable coast and the "Pioneer" was destroyed on landing, and the men started to have problems with their health. The sea invaded the cave where they are living taking everything with it including their Bibles. So they decided to go back to Picton with the "Speedwell", where they painted a large message on the rocks of Banner Cove for a passing rescue boat to see: " Dig here below- Go to Spanish Harbor –March 1851" and there they buried a bottle containing a message.

Fate was already playing it's role in their lives. A very hard Patagonian winter (which can reach 20 degrees below zero Celsius) set in and they started dying one by one of sickness, starvation and cold.

The last notation in the diary of Williams is on 22 of June. His last words: "The will of the Lord be done". Bradcock is the first to die. In July, Gardiner writes that they have been on reduced rations for 7 weeks. In August Edwin and Bryant die.

Allen was the last to die Spring came without ever having shared the Gospel of God with even a single Yagan Indian. These are some passages found in his diary: (translated from Spanish)

"Lord, at your feet I humbly fall, And I give you all I have, All that your love requires. To lack is best, For all is yours, Take care of me in this hour of test. Do not let me have the thoughts of a Complainer. Make me feel your power which gives life And I will learn to praise you while carrying your cross... On the 29th of August, 1851 at age 57, when the winter was coming to an end, he said good-bye to his wife and children and included these words:

"If a wish was given to me for the good of my neighbor it would be that the Mission in Tierra Del Fuego be pursued with vigor. But the Lord will direct and do everything because time and reason are His your hearts are in His hands...".

His last lines written in his diary on the 6th of September were: "By God's Grace this blessed group was able to sing praises to Christ for eternity. I am not hungry or thirsty in spite of 5 days without eating; Wonderful Grace and Love to me, a sinner..."

On the 21st of October, 1851, the ship "John E. Davison" at the command of captain William Smiley and with Piedra Buena as official, found the "Speedwell" with the bodies of Williams and Pearce aboard, with Bradock meagerly buried nearby. They left because of a bad storm without finding anyone else.

In January 1852, by order of the Admiralty, the ship"Dido" commanded by Captain Morshead also guided by the paintings over the rocks at Picton, finds the boat "Pioneer". Then his crew buries Gardiner and Maidment, and rescues the diary of the missionary. All of them, Allen Gardiner, the doctor, the Bible teacher and the sailors died of hunger, cold and sickness.

This man of incredible will tried to evangelize the pagans of Africa, the Chilean Araucania Indians, natives in New Guinea, the Telueche Indians of the Magellan strait, the Caco Indians of Bolivia and the Yagans of the Beagle Channel. Turned down everywhere without converting anyone, he was the first Martyr of Tierra Del Fuego.

The story of these martyrs does not end here: Upon learning of Allen Gardiner's death the still existing South American Missionary Society, which Allen had founded, constructed a 65 foot missionary schooner, the "ALLEN GARDINER" and launched her in 1855.

A party of 9 missionaries aboard the "ALLEN GARDINER" arrived at Wulaia on Navarino Island (close to Puerto Williams) in 1856. There they finally found Jimmy Button to help them to translate. Five days later, while attending a Sunday service onshore all except the ship's cook who had stayed aboard the "ALLEN GARDINER" were viciously attacked and killed with sticks and rocks without motive or warning. Jimmy Button was said to have been one of the rabble rousers.

By this time a total of fourteen missionaries had been martyred with the intention of saving some of the Yagan's souls, but there still were no results! This last attack put a halt to all missions in the area for 6 years until a young English missionary, Thomas Bridges built a house in Wulaia. He had previously mastered the Yagan Language in the Falkland islands where some of the Yagans had been taken and was able to make friends with them.

Bridges returned to Wulaia a year later and found the house burned and everything destroyed. The missionaries then moved farther North to Leuaia on the Beagle channel. (He later founded the Tierra Del Fuego tourist attraction, the "Harborton Ranch" and wrote a complete dictionary of the Yagan language)

In 1869 the missionary Waite Sterling founded the first Anglican mission in the area in Ushuaia. Ushuaia is now a bustling tourist town of 40,000 in Argentina territory. It is some 50 miles North across the Beagle Channel from the then unfriendly Wulaia village and gave them protection from further attacks. Thomas Bridges was soon afterwards put in charge of this new Tierra Del Fuego mission which was then abandoned in 1916 some 66 years after the arrival of Allen Gardiner in Patagonia.

The South American Mission
Society, SAMS

September 6 is Allen Gardiner Day in the Anglican Calendar for remembering saints and heroes of the Christian Faith.

Best known for founding what became known as the South American Mission Society (SAMS), Allen Gardiner's love for Christ led him to many different parts of the world. Born in Basildon, Berkshire, he entered naval college in Portsmouth aged 13 and went to sea two years later. His Christian mother died and he turned against his childhood Christian faith. As he sailed to Cape Town, Ceylon, India Malaysia and China he pondered on God. A letter describing his mother's final months and prayers for him and his own disillusion with Buddhism accelerated a spiritual crisis which ended in his conversion to Jesus Christ. A new Christian he yearned to share Christ with Mapuches he met in Chile.

He saw Christian work in Tahiti. Reacting to the death of his first wife, Julia, he set out with his own boat to evangelise Zulus in South Africa and founded Durban. With his second wife Elizabeth he returned to Africa. Opposition there sent him back to South America to his original desire to share Christ with Chilean Mapuches. He, his wife and children travelled 1000 miles overland by pack mule from Buenos Aires to Santiago and Concepcion distributing Scripture. Indigenous Chileans would not trust him, regarding every Christian as "the enemy". Rejected in Indonesia, he went to the far south of Chile where he thought he would not be opposed. In the following years, reacting positively to every opposition, he distributed tracts and Bibles in the Falklands, Tierra del Fuego in Patagonia, Santa Fe, Cordoba and Tucuman in Argentina, and Bolivia. His heart with the indigenous tribes, he went out to Tierra del Fuego and concluded that any mission would have to be by boat using the Falklands as a base. Back in Britain he recruited six men including three "frank, brotherly Cornish fishermen, Pearce, Badcock and Bryant".

They landed, but fierce weather, few fish and no way of shooting birds led to disease and death. Gardiner's journal, water damaged but readable by the crew of HMS Dido, who found it in his hand, reads "Let not this mission fail", and it contains this prayer: "Grant O Lord, that we may be instrumental in commencing this great and blessed work, but should Thou see fit in Thy providence to hedge up our way , and that we should even languish and die here, I beseech Thee to raise up others and to send forth labourers into this harvest. Let it be seen, for the manifestation of Thy Glory and Grace that nothing is too hard for Thee..." The work of those in partnership with the South American Mission Society in Britain, Ireland, Canada, USA, Australia, and New Zealand who serve with the Anglican Churches in South America and Iberia is one answer to his prayer. The South American Mission Society (SAMS) was formed over 150 years ago by Allen Gardiner, an intrepid explorer and sailor, whose chief desire was to share the good news about Jesus with unreached tribes. Since then, we have been working in South American countries, not only preaching the gospel, but living it out with the real people, in education, in land rights for indigenous people, in Bible translation, in evangelism and much more. The Latino Experience 2001 gives you the opportunity to give some short-term help to our work, and get a first-hand taste of working as a Christian in a totally different culture

I have held in my own hands Gardiner's journal. One would expect the dominant theme to be grief, but remarkably Gardiner's words reflected a contagious joy that was undiminished by his dismal circumstances. As Gardiner was in the final stages of starvation, he was focused on the future and came up with a new name for the mission society. In his journal, he proposed that the Patagonian Missionary Society should expand its field of work to the entire continent and be renamed the South American Missionary Society. As he died, his heart seemed to overflow with thanksgiving for God's many mercies. "Great and marvelous are the loving kindnesses of my gracious God. He has preserved me hitherto, and for four days, although without bodily food, without any feelings of hunger or thirst." September 5, 1851. Dr. Richard Williams, the physician of the missionary team, described the same peace that passes understanding, "Let all my beloved ones at home rest assured that I was happy beyond all expression . . . and would not have changed situations with any man living . . . that heaven, and love, and Christ . . . were in my heart . . ."


When news of the missionaries' deaths reached England, The Times carried a blistering editorial decrying the loss of life and resources for so foolish a cause. The missionaries' deaths caught the attention of the nation, and a book on their mission, which included Allen Gardiner's journal, enjoyed wide circulation. Biblically-minded churchmen responded to the criticism of the mission with contributions, and new missionary recruits made it possible to launch a second mission, this one better planned and equipped. Using the Falkland Islands as a base, the missionaries learned the language from three Yaghans that Darwin had taken to England 25 years earlier as examples of this primitive people. Safely transported to a Yaghan Island in November 1859 on a schooner christened in Allen Gardiner's memory, catechist Garland Phillips was now ready to continue the mission to the Yaghans. As Phillips, Captain Fell, and six crew members came ashore, they found themselves suddenly under attack. Within minutes all eight were speared to death. The field director of SAMS, George Despard, was crushed by the loss of the second missionary team. He returned to England, along with his family and the remaining missionaries. Two missionary teams had gone out with high hopes, and the results were 15 dead, 7 by starvation and 8 murdered by the Yaghans. All was lost, and apparently for nothing. In the darkest moment, a seventeen-year-old boy came forward and asked Despard's permission to stay behind and carry on the work. His name was Thomas Bridges, a surname he was given because he was found as a baby, abandoned on a London bridge. The Despards had taken him in and given him a place in their family. When Paul prayed for his "thorn in the flesh" to be removed, God's reply was, "My grace is sufficient for you, my power is perfected in weakness." It was in complete weakness and vulnerability that Bridges, often alone, would visit the Yaghan settlements, many of whose inhabitants had murdered the second missionary team. But unthreatened by his vulnerability, and moved by the forgiveness that he embodied, the Yaghans were finally able to hear the Good News. In fact, Bridges baptized many of the same people who had killed his friends. The most dramatic demonstration of the change in the people Darwin had labeled the "lowest form of humanity" took place when an Italian ship was sinking offshore from Yaghan territory. Formerly the Yaghans would have most likely killed the sailors and helped themselves to their belongings. But as followers of Christ, the Yaghans risked their lives to rescue these complete strangers. The King of Italy was so impressed by their heroism that he had a medal struck in their honor, and in honor of Bridges and SAMS, with a Latin inscription signifying "Religion has brought safety to the mariners rescued from a watery grave". Darwin himself was so impressed with the change that he became a supporter of SAMS for the rest of his life.

And a new annotation was added to navigational charts, "A great change has been effected in the character of the natives . . . the Yaghans . . . can be trusted." Through the Gospel, the Yaghans were transformed from a lost cause to being a people whose heroism and altruism were internationally acclaimed. This early history of SAMS is packed with profound lessons about God's work. 1. We all have an important role to play in God's work; however, success or failure doesn't depend on us but on God. Allen Gardiner was greatly used by God, yet despite his exemplary faithfulness, he saw little fruit come from his ministry. We should walk by faith, as did Allen Gardiner, with a joy that flows from our relationship with God and is not dependent on circumstances nor the apparent fruitfulness of our efforts. 2. We should do our best to plan, but how God accomplishes his work may be very different from what we expect. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways" (Isaiah 55:9, NIV). What God accomplished went far beyond what the missionaries had hoped for, and at a higher cost. In retrospect we can see that: * Without their starvation, Gardiner and his companions couldn't have shown the depth of Christian joy. * Without the murders, Bridges couldn't have shown the radical nature of God's forgiveness. * Without the storm, the Yaghans couldn't have shown the doggedness of God's rescuing love.

When things go wrong, we are tempted to think that God has failed us, or that evil is triumphing. But in fact, God may be bringing about fruit of a more enduring quality than that which is born in a trouble-free season. Starvation, murders, and storms provided the canvas on which God painted a self-portrait, revealing his joy, forgiveness and rescuing love. When we face setbacks, we need to cling to the knowledge that he is still at work, even though we may not be able to see how. "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." (Matthew 16:24, NRSV). Like the pangs of childbirth, there is unavoidable pain in bringing to birth God's work in the world. 3. God's plan for us is that we receive his Good News and, in turn, share it with others, much as the Yaghans became instruments of God's love. In the fabric of God's work, a once-nameless abandoned baby became the means by which God expressed his love to the Yaghans. Through a people deprecated as being barely human, Italian sailors were pulled from the jaws of death. In the same way, our missionaries aim to encourage and equip the people with whom they work in their own ministries. On the 150th anniversary of the death of the founder of SAMS and his missionary companions, I am profoundly moved to redouble our efforts to serve God faithfully in Gospel outreach in Latin America and Spain. Please join me in praying that we would be faithful in our day, just as they were in theirs. May God grant us success in season, patience out of season, and through whatever setbacks beset us, may God grant us unshakable joy.
Your Co-worker in the Great Commission,


Captain Allen Gardiner (1794-1851) 'He died near the upturned boat in September 1851' (Lionel Fitzsimons. The flaming Zeal. 1998) September 6 is Allen Gardiner Day in the Anglican Calendar for remembering saints and heroes of the Christian Faith. Best known for founding what became known as the South American Mission Society (SAMS), Allen Gardiner's love for Christ led him to many different parts of the world.

Born in Basildon, Berkshire, he entered naval college in Portsmouth aged 13 and went to sea two years later. His Christian mother died and he turned against his childhood Christian faith. As he sailed to Cape Town, Ceylon, India Malaysia and China he pondered on God. A letter describing his mother's final months and prayers for him and his own disillusion with Buddhism accelerated a spiritual crisis which ended in his conversion to Jesus Christ. A new Christian he yearned to share Christ with Mapuches he met in Chile. He saw Christian work in Tahiti. Reacting to the death of his first wife, Julia, he set out with his own boat to evangelise Zulus in South Africa and founded Durban. With his second wife Elizabeth he returned to Africa. Opposition there sent him back to South America to his original desire to share Christ with Chilean Mapuches.

He, his wife and children travelled 1000 miles overland by pack mule from Buenos Aires to Santiago and Concepcion distributing Scripture. Indigenous Chileans would not trust him, regarding every Christian as "the enemy". Rejected in Indonesia, he went to the far south of Chile where he thought he would not be opposed. In the following years, reacting positively to every opposition, he distributed tracts and Bibles in the Falklands, Tierra del Fuego in Patagonia, Santa Fe, Cordoba and Tucuman in Argentina, and Bolivia. His heart with the indigenous tribes, he went out to Tierra del Fuego and concluded that any mission would have to be by boat using the Falklands as a base.

Back in Britain he recruited six men including three "frank, brotherly Cornish fishermen, Pearce, Badcock and Bryant". They landed, but fierce weather, few fish and no way of shooting birds led to disease and death, illustrated here by Pat G de Hunter's drawing. Gardiner's journal, water damaged but readable by the crew of HMS Dido, who found it in his hand, reads "Let not this mission fail", and it contains this prayer: "Grant O Lord, that we may be instrumental in commencing this great and blessed work, but should Thou see fit in Thy providence to hedge up our way, and that we should even languish and die here, I beseech Thee to raise up others and to send forth labourers into this harvest. Let it be seen, for the manifestation of Thy Glory and Grace that nothing is too hard for Thee..." The work of those in partnership with the South American Mission Society in Britain, Ireland, Canada, USA, Australia, and New Zealand who serve with the Anglican Churches in South America and Iberia is one answer to his prayer. For further information please contact SAMS Mission Education.

CHAPTER XI. CAPTAIN ALLEN GARDINER, R.N.

WHO, alas! has not heard the story of the Patagonian Mission? It was in 1851 that Britain rang with the tale, and sorrow was felt and tears shed for the fate of the noble Captain Allen Gardiner, R.N., and his martyr band. Previous to the enterprise, Captain Gardiner had on a survey expedition been deeply moved at seeing the miserable state of the Patagonians-a people so low in human degradation that Darwin pronounced them incapable of being civilised. Captain Gardiner, however, resolved that he for one, by the grace of God, would make the attempt not only to civilise but Christianise this unhappy people. He returned to England, but on announcing his project met with little encouragement. Finally he came to the Isle of Man; and in Douglas, in Athol Street Schoolhouse, held his first missionary meeting before starting on his hazardous journey, the same building where St. George's Sunday-schools were and are held.

At this, meeting there were conspicuously present two who were heart and soul with Captain Gardiner in his enterprise-these were Mrs. Elliott and her son Willie. We can only conjecture the nature of the speaker's appeal on that occasion, when bringing before his audience the burning need of helping those beings of their own flesh and blood, who were, nevertheless, in their persons and habits, little removed from the brute creation. Willie Elliott sat intently listening-his great eyes open and flashing with the fire of an earnestness and sympathy that welled up in response to every word Captain Gardiner uttered, whilst his young heart beat loud and fast as the particulars of the intended expedition were unfolded by the zealous pioneer. He was himself, Captain Gardiner said, ready to die, if need be, in the attempt to start this Mission in the dark miserable region of Tierra del Fuego- the Land of Fire.

The meeting over, up rushed the youthful Willie to the speaker, panting with enthusiasm, and regardless of all observers. "I would like a card, Captain Gardiner, please, to collect for your Mission," he said, extending his little hand, trembling with emotion. Every heart was moved at the sight, and many a person present took a collecting-card who had no thought of so doing until impelled by the eager impetuosity and Christ-like example of the boy. Sweet child, what were thy mother's thoughts "what her intense feeling, when she saw thee her heart's love" breaking through all restraint, and braving all eyes to win a golden opportunity of doing something in the name and for the love of the Redeemer of men!

Eleanor Elliott had truly the reward that night, when she beheld her young son step on to the platform, anxiously tendering his request, of a mother's many prayers and sacred yearnings. Ah! dear mother, hadst thou known what so soon was to befall thee and thy darling, thou wouldst have clasped him to thy breast there and then with the convulsive energy of a last clasp of mortal love! But in mercy the future was veiled from thine eyes. Willie Elliott's was the first South American Missionary collecting-card given to any one by Captain Allen Gardiner.

The missionary party left England in September 1850, and what befell them afterwards is now a matter of history, familiar to many. It may not, however, be out of place to mention a few details of the tragic story, as the event and its results were of such painfully thrilling interest to the subject of this memoir; and as the South American Missionary Society.  They embarked on their ship again, and set sail for the opposite shore, on the south-west of Tierra del Fuego. Here they had no more success than formerly with the natives; also they lost one of their boats, which was run upon the rocks, the other they hauled on shore, and converted into a sort of dormitory. Soon scurvy broke out amongst the party.

In April their provisions ran very short, and as sickness increased there was a great difficulty in getting more food. Everything in the shape of birds, fish, a fox, and even vermin that came in their way they ate. For months they lived on mussels, until the brave Captain Gardiner could eat them no longer, though he managed to drink mussel and limpet broth. One and another of the band were stricken down with illness, and yet in the midst of all this distress and semi-starvation the figures of Gardiner and his friend Maidment might have been seen by their dying comrades kneeling on the shore thanking God for His loving-kindness and mercy towards them. Finally, all were gone but Gardiner and Maidment, and of the two Gardiner was the weaker and apparently the nearer death. Maidment, however, died first, though he waited upon his fellow-sufferer almost as long as his own life lasted.

From Captain Gardiner's diary, written on that desolate shore as his life was wasting away, several most touching entries are given in the history of the Mission, circulated for the benefit of the South American Society. They all breathe a spirit of noble heroism and of most affecting Christian resignation under privations and sufferings of a most distressing kind. Such was the pitiful end of those noble men who were left to their fate in the far-off region of Tierra del Fuego. Why the stores they expected never reached them it is useless now to inquire. They died as thousands of martyrs have died, their blood proving in the order of God the seed of the Church. They died, but the cause did not die. No, the heart of Christian England was stirred to sympathise in the work, and other devoted men were found to take up the mantle of the noble Gardiner, and start forth better equipped and better prepared in every way to prosecute the Patagonian Mission. Years of faithful service since then have redeemed the character of the Patagonians; and to his astonishment Darwin looked before he died upon specimens of that race so changed physically, mentally, and spiritually; so humanised, in fact that henceforth he not only pronounced his belief in the regeneration of the people, but became a subscriber to the South American Missionary Society during the remainder of his life.


Chap11 - Manx Recollections, 1894
http://www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/fulltext/kf1893/ch11.htm
Friday, December 14, 2001

On December 17, 1850, Captain Allen Gardiner and six companions, after enduring a long trip from England, landed at Patagonia on the southern tip of South America. They came to bring the Gospel to people there who were so primitive that evolutionist Charles Darwin said they existed "in a lower state than in any other part of the world." The natives were fierce cannibals and the land and weather absolutely treacherous. The team had brought six month's worth of supplies. England had committed to sending a relief ship with more supplies in six months. After leaving England, Gardiner wrote in his journal, "Nothing can exceed the cheerful endurance and unanimity of the whole party . . . I feel that the Lord is with us, and cannot doubt that He will own and bless the work He permitted us to begin." Unfortunately, things began to go wrong. Unbeknowns to Gardiner, his supporters back in England couldn't find a ship to carry the next six months' supplies to Patagonia. No one wanted to make such a dangerous journey. So as the missionaries carried out their work on the cold tip of South America and as their supplies ran dangerously low, they scanned the horizon for the approaching ship. It never arrived. Those men faced a tough test. Alone in a hostile environment, without food or supplies, hunger and death stalked them like hungry wolves. By the time a relief ship finally reached Patagonia in October 1851, almost a year after the missionaries had arrived, Gardiner and his men had all died of starvation. Gardiner's emaciated body was found lying beside a boat. He was clothed in three suits, with wool stockings over his arms to ward off the numbing cold. What had that English missionary thought during those last horrifying days? Had this terrible ordeal destroyed his faith? Were his dying days filled with nothing but despair and disillusionment? The men off the relief ship found his journal. They were amazed at one of his latter entries: "Poor and weak as we are, our boat is the very Bethel [house of God] to our soul, for we feel and know that God is here. Asleep or awake, I am, beyond the power of expression,happy."

Back

Home