The Book of Missionary Heroes

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Book of Missionary Heroes, The

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Title: The Book of Missionary Heroes
Author: Basil Mathews
Release Date: September 5, 2005 [EBook #16657]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[Transcriber's note: Some Footnotes in this text contain special characters, including a, e, and o with superior macron, represented by [=a], [=e], and [=o], and a and u with superior breve, represented by [)a] and [)u], to indicate pronunciation of native-language words.]

THE BOOK OF MISSIONARY HEROES
BY
BASIL MATHEWS, M.A.
_Author of "The Argonauts of Faith," "The Riddle of Nearer Asia," etc._
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
_Copyright, 1922,_
_By George H. Doran Company_

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CONTENTS
PAGE
PROLOGUE THE RELAY RACE 9
BOOK I: THE PIONEERS

CHAPTER I
THE HERO OF THE LONG TRAIL (_St. Paul_) 19 II THE MEN ON THE SHINGLE BEACH (_Wilfrid of Sussex_) 30 III THE KNIGHT OF A NEW CRUSADE (_Raymond Lull_) 36 IV FRANCIS COEUR-DE-LION (_St. Francis of Assisi_) 47
BOOK II: THE ISLAND ADVENTURERS
V THE ADVENTUROUS SHIP (_The Duff_) 65 VI THE ISLAND BEACON FIRES (_Papeiha_) 72 VII THE DAYBREAK CALL (_John Williams_) 80 VIII KAPIOLANI, THE HEROINE OF HAWAII (_Kapiolani_) 86 IX THE CANOE OF ADVENTURE (_Elikana_) 92 X THE ARROWS OF SANTA CRUZ (_Patteson_) 103 XI FIVE KNOTS IN A PALM LEAF (_Patteson_) 108 XII THE BOY OF THE ADVENTUROUS HEART (_Chalmers_) 113 XIII THE SCOUT OF PAPUA (_Chalmers_) 118 XIV A SOUTH SEA SAMARITAN (_Ruatoka_) 126
BOOK III: THE PATHFINDERS OF AFRICA
XV THE MAN WHO WOULD GO ON (_Livingstone_) 131 XVI A BLACK PRINCE OF AFRICA (_Khama_) 136 XVII THE KNIGHT OF THE SLAVE GIRLS (_George Grenfell_) 150 XVIII "A MAN WHO CAN TURN HIS HAND TO ANYTHING" (_Mackay_) 158 XIX THE ROADMAKER (_Mackay_) 164 XX FIGHTING THE SLAVE TRADE (_Mackay_) 172 XXI THE BLACK APOSTLE OF THE LONELY LAKE (_Shomolakae_) 186 XXII THE WOMAN WHO CONQUERED CANNIBALS (_Mary Slessor_) 196
BOOK IV: HEROINES AND HEROES OF PLATEAU AND DESERT
XXIII SONS OF THE DESERT (_Abdallah and Sabat_) 213 XXIV A RACE AGAINST TIME (_Henry Martyn_) 224 XXV THE MOSES OF THE ASSYRIANS (_Dr. Shedd_) 236 XXVI AN AMERICAN NURSE IN THE GREAT WAR (_E.D. Cushman_) 249 XXVII ON THE DESERT CAMEL TRAIL (_Archibald Forder_) 260 XXVIII THE FRIEND OF THE ARAB (_Archibald Forder_) 271

THE BOOK OF MISSIONARY HEROES

PROLOGUE
THE RELAY-RACE
The shining blue waters of two wonderful gulfs were busy with fishing boats and little ships. The vessels came under their square sails and were driven by galley-slaves with great oars.
A Greek boy standing, two thousand years ago, on the wonderful mountain of the Acro-Corinth that leaps suddenly from the plain above Corinth to a pinnacle over a thousand feet high, could see the boats come sailing from the east, where they hailed from the Pir?us and Ephesus and the marble islands of the ?gean Sea. Turning round he could watch them also coming from the West up the Gulf of Corinth from the harbours of the Gulf and even from the Adriatic Sea and Brundusium.
In between the two gulfs lay the Isthmus of Corinth to which the men on the ships were sailing and rowing.
The people were all in holiday dress for the great athletic sports were to be held on that day and the next,--the sports that drew, in those ancient days, over thirty thousand Greeks from all the country round; from the towns on the shores of the two gulfs and from the mountain-lands of Greece,--from Parnassus and Helicon and Delphi, from Athens and the villages on the slopes of Hymettus and even from Sparta.
These sports, which were some of the finest ever held in the whole world, were called--because they were held on this isthmus--the Isthmian Games.
The athletes wrestled. They boxed with iron-studded leather straps over their knuckles. They fought lions brought across the Mediterranean (the Great Sea as they called it) from Africa, and tigers carried up the Khyber Pass across Persia from India. They flung spears, threw quoits and ran foot-races. Amid the wild cheering of thirty thousand throats the charioteers drove their frenzied horses, lathered with foam, around the roaring stadium.
One of the most beautiful of these races has a strange hold on the imagination. It was a relay-race. This is how it was run.
Men bearing torches stood in a line at the starting point. Each man belonged to a separate team. Away in the distance stood another row of men waiting. Each of these was the comrade of one of those men at the starting point. Farther