Send Someone Else Immediately
Henrey Stanley, the biographer and convert of David Livingstone, was the first Christian to reach Uganda, in the 1870s. He arrived to the court of King Mutesa and showed him a Bible. The king explained that Muslims had arrived previously to his court, and they also had a book to show him.
“How do we know which is better?” Mutesa asked. “I am like a man in darkness. All I ask is that I be taught how to see.”
Stanley published the words of the King in London’s Daily Telegraph, along with a call for a “pious, practical” missionary who would go to Uganda to bring the gospel message to the king and his people. “What a harvest ripe for the sickle,” Stanley wrote.
His call was answered, and soon the Church Missionary Society appointed Alexander Mackay, a 27-year-old Scottish bachelor, to lead a party of eight mission workers to Uganda. Mackay went forward with his eyes wide open:
“Is it likely that eight Englishmen should start for Central Africa and all be alive six months after? One of us at least will surely fall. When the news comes, do not be cast down, but send someone else immediately to take the vacant place.”
—Alexander Mackay
Mackay was injured in an accident before the team even reached Uganda. Two team members deserted the team; another was murdered. Yet another one contracted a terrible fever. Only three of the eight would set out from Zanzibar to Uganda, the final leg of the journey.
The three arrived in Mutesa’s court on January 30, 1877. But two of the three were soon killed, leaving only C.T. Wilson to start Sunday services. Mackay, recovered from the accident, soon arrived to help, but the two labored for years before seeing their first convert baptized.
As their work began to flourish, Mutesa’s son succeeded him and promptly tortured a group of converts when they wouldn’t agree to his demands. Mackay survived the threats of the young tyrant, but died of malaria at age 40. He was working on a translation of John’s gospel when he died.
The fruit of Mackay’s life and work lived on, and the church in Uganda became one of Africa’s strongest.
Source: On This Day: 365 Amazing and Inspiring Stories about Saints, Martyrs and Heroes by Robert J. Morgan.
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