Women of Achievement

III.

NORA GORDON

This is the story of a young woman who had not more than ordinary advantages, but who in our own day by her love for Christ and her zeal in his service was swept from her heroic labor into martyrdom.

When Nora Gordon went from Spelman Seminary as a missionary to the Congo, she had the hope that in some little way she might be used for the furtherance of the Master's kingdom. She could hardly have foreseen that she would start in her beloved school a glorious tradition; and still less could she have seen the marvellous changes taking place in the Africa of the present. She had boundless faith, however, – faith in God and in the ultimate destiny of her people. In that faith she lived, and for that faith she died.

Nora Antonia Gordon was born in Columbus, Georgia, August 25, 1866. After receiving her early education in the public schools of La Grange, in the fall of 1882 she came to Spelman Seminary. It was not long before her life became representative of the transforming power of Christianity. Being asked, "Do you love Christ?" she answered "Yes"; but when there came the question, "Are you a Christian?" she replied "No." It was not long, however, before she gained firmer faith, and two months after her entrance at Spelman she was definitely converted. Now followed seven years of intense activity and growth – of study, of summer teaching, of talks before temperance societies, of service of any possible sort for the Master. She brought to Christ every girl who was placed to room with her. A classmate afterwards testified of her that the girls always regarded Nora somewhat differently from the others. She was the counsellor of her friends, ever ready with sweet words of comfort, and yet ever a cheerful companion. In one home in which she lived for a while she asked the privilege of having prayer. The man of the house at first refused to kneel and the woman seemed not interested. In course of time, however, the wife was won and then the man also knelt. At another time she wrote, "Twenty-six of my scholars were baptized to-day;" and a little later she said, "Ten more have been added."

In 1885 Nora Gordon completed her course in the Industrial Department, in 1886 the Elementary Normal, and in 1888 the Higher Normal Course. Her graduation essay was on the rather old and sophomoric subject, "The Influence of Woman on National Character;" but in the intensity of her convictions and her words there was nothing ordinary. She said in part: "Let no woman feel that life to her means simply living; but let her rather feel that she has a special mission assigned her, which none other of God's creatures can perform. It may be that she is placed in some rude little hut as mother and wife; if so, she can dignify her position by turning every hut into a palace, and bringing not only her own household, but the whole community, into the sunlight of God's love. Such women are often unnoticed by the world in general, and do not receive the appreciation due them; yet we believe such may be called God's chosen agents." Finally, "we feel that woman is under a twofold obligation to consecrate her whole being to Christ. Our people are to be educated and christianized and the heathen brought home to God. Woman must take the lead in this great work."

After her graduation in 1888 Nora Gordon was appointed to teach in the public schools of Atlanta. She soon resigned this work, however, in the contemplation of the great mission of her life. The secretary of the Society of the West wrote to Spelman to inquire if there was any one who could go to assist Miss Fleming, a missionary at work in Palabala in the Congo. Four names were sent, and the choice of the board was Nora A. Gordon. The definite appointment came in January, 1889. On Sunday evening, February 17, an impressive missionary service was held in the chapel at Spelman. Interesting items were given by the students with reference to the slave-trade in East Africa and the efforts being made for its suppression, also with reference to Mohammedanism, the spiritual awakening among the Zulus, and the mission stations established, especially those on the Congo. Several letters were read, one from Miss Fleming exciting the most intense interest; and throughout the meeting was the thought that Nora Gordon was also soon to go to Africa. On March 6 a farewell service was held, and attended by a great crowd of people, among them the whole family of the consecrated young woman; and she sailed March 16, 1889.

First of all she went to London, tarrying at the Missionary Training Institute conducted by Rev. and Mrs. H. Grattan Guinness. Under date April 11 she wrote: "It has been so trying to remain here so long waiting. I feel that this is the dear Lord's first lesson to me in patience. I am thankful to say that I feel profited by my stay. * * * * Yesterday coming from the city we saw a number of flags hanging across the street, and among them was the United States flag. Never before did the Stars and Stripes seem so beautiful. I am glad Miss Grover put one in my box. * * * * I do praise God for every step I get nearer to my future home. We expect to sail next Wednesday, April 17, from Rotterdam on the steamer African, Dutch line. We hope to get to the Congo in three weeks."

For two years she labored at Palabala, frequently writing letters home and occasionally sending back to her beloved Spelman a box of curios. Said she of those among whom she worked: "When the people are first gathered into a chapel for school or religious services, it is sad and amusing to see how hard they try to know just what to do, a number sitting with their backs to the preacher or teacher. When the teacher reproves a child, every man, woman, and child feels it his or her duty to yell out too at the offender and tell him to obey the teacher. Often in the midst of a sermon a man in the congregation will call out to the preacher, 'Take away your lies,' or 'We do not believe you,' or 'How can this or that be?' One of the first workers, after speaking to a crowd of heathen, asked them all to close their eyes and bow their heads while he would pray to God. When the missionary had finished his prayer and opened his eyes, every person had stealthily left the place." Then followed a detail of the atrocities in the Congo and of the encounters between the natives and the Belgian officers, and last of all came the pertinent comment: "The Congo missionary's work is twofold. He must civilize, as well as Christianize, the people."

Early in 1891 Nora Gordon, sadly in need of rest and refreshment, went from Palabala for a little stay at Lukungu. Hither had come Clara A. Howard, Spelman's second representative, under appointment of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the East. Lukungu is a station two hundred and twenty miles from the mouth of the Congo, in a populous district, and was the center from which numerous other schools and churches sprang. The work was in charge of Mr. Hoste, an Englishman, who, when Miss Gordon wrote of him in 1894, had spent ten years on the Congo without going home. Other men were associated with him, while the elementary schools, the care of the boys and girls, and work among the women, naturally fell to the women missionaries. A little later in 1891 Nora Gordon left Palabala permanently to engage in the work at Lukungu. Under date September 25 she wrote to her friends back home: "Doubtless Clara has told you of my change to this place. You can not imagine how glad we are to be together here. I have charge of the printing-office and help in the afternoon school. I am well, happy, and am enjoying my work. In the office I have few conveniences and really not the things we need. Mr. Hoste has written the first arithmetic in this language and I am now putting it up. I was obliged to stop work on it to-day because my figures in type gave out, and you know we have no shops in this land. My boys in the office are doing nicely."

Thus she worked on for two years more – hoping, praying, trusting. By 1893 her health was in such condition that it was deemed wise for her to return to America. So she did, and she brought back two native girls with her. All the while, however, her chief thought was upon the work to which she had given herself, and she constantly looked forward to the time when she might be able to go back to Africa. In 1895 she became the wife of Rev. S. C. Gordon, who was connected with the English Baptist Mission at Stanley Pool. She sailed with her husband from Boston in July and reached the Congo again in August. The station was unique. It was an old and well established mission, the center of several others in the surrounding country. It had excellent brick houses, broad avenues and good fruit-trees, and the students were above the average in intelligence. But soon the shadow fell. Nora Gordon herself saw much of the well known Belgian atrocities in the Congo. She saw houses burned and the natives themselves driven out by the state officials. They crossed over into the French Congo; but hither Protestants were not allowed to come to preach to them. In spite of the great heartache, however, and declining health the heroic woman worked on, giving to those for whom she labored her tenderest love. Seven months after the death of her second child a change was again deemed necessary, and she once more turned her face homeward. After two months in Belgium and England she came again to America, and to Spelman. But her strength was now all spent. She died at Spelman January 26, 1901. She was only thirty-four; but who can measure in years the love and faith, the hope and sorrow, of such a life?

Nora Gordon started a tradition, Spelman's richest heritage. Three other graduates followed her. Clara Howard was in course of time forced by the severe fevers to give up her work, and she now labors at home in the service of her Alma Mater. Ada Jackson became the second wife of Rev. S. C. Gordon and also died in service. Emma B. DeLany was commissioned in 1900 and still labors – in recent years with larger and larger success – in Liberia. Within two or three years of Nora Gordon's return in 1893, moreover, not less than five native African girls had come to Spelman. The spirit still abides, and if the way were just a little clearer doubtless many other graduates would go. Even as it is, however, the blessing to the school has been illimitable.

Such have been the workers, such the pioneers. To what end is the love, the labor – the loneliness, the yearning?

It is now nearly five hundred years since a prince of Portugal began the slave-trade on the west coast of Africa. Within two hundred years all of the leading countries of western Europe had joined in the iniquitous traffic, and when England in 1713 drew up with France the Peace of Utrecht she deemed the slave-trade of such importance that she insisted upon an article that gave her a practical monopoly of it. Before the end of the eighteenth century, however, the voice of conscience began to be heard in England, and science also began to be interested in the great undeveloped continent lying to the South. It remained for the work of David Livingstone, however, in the middle of the nineteenth century really to reveal Africa to the rest of the world. This intrepid explorer and missionary in a remarkable series of journeys not only traversed the continent from the extreme South to Loanda on the West Coast and Quilimane on the East Coast; he not only made known the great lake system of Central Africa; but he left behind him a memory that has blessed everyone who has followed in his steps. Largely as a result of his work and that of his successor, Stanley, a great congress met in Berlin in 1884 for the partition of Africa among the great nations of Europe. Unfortunately the diplomats at this meeting were not actuated by the noble impulses that had moved Livingstone, so that more and more there was evident a mad scramble for territory. France had already gained a firm foothold in the northwest, and England was not only firmly intrenched in the South but had also established a rather undefined protectorate over Egypt. Germany now in 1884 entered the field and in German East Africa, German Southwest Africa, Kamerun, and the smaller territory of Togoland in the West ultimately acquired a total of nearly a million square miles, or one-eleventh of the continent. All of this she lost in the course of the recent great war. Naturally she has desired to regain this land, but at the time of writing (November, 1918) there is no likelihood of her doing so, a distinguished Englishman, Mr. Balfour, the foreign secretary, having declared that under no circumstances can Germany's African colonies be returned to her, as such return would endanger the security of the British empire, and that is to say, the security of the world. This problem is but typical of the larger political questions that press for settlement in the new Africa. Whatever the solution may be, one or two facts stand out clearly. One is that Africa can no longer rest in undisturbed slumber. A terrible war, the most ruinous in the history of humanity, has strained to the utmost the resources of all the great powers of the world. Where so much has been spent it is not to be supposed that the richest, the most fertile, land in the world will indefinitely be allowed to remain undeveloped. Along with material development must go also the education and the spiritual culture of the natives on a scale undreamed of before. In this training such an enlightened country as England will naturally play a leading role, and America too will doubtless be called on to help in more ways than one. It must not be supposed, however, that the task is not one of enormous difficulties. As far as we have advanced in our missionary activities in America, we have hardly made a beginning in the great task of the proper development of Africa. Here are approximately 175,000,000 natives to be trained and Christianized. Let us not make the common mistake of supposing that they are all ignorant and degraded savages. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Many individuals have had the benefit of travel and study in Europe and more and more are themselves appreciating the great problems before their country. It is true, however, that the great mass of the population is yet to be reached. In the general development delicate questions of racial contact are to be answered. Unfortunately, in the attitude of the European colonist toward the native, South Africa has a race problem even more stern than that of our own Southern states. As for religion we not only find paganism and Mohammedanism, but we also see Catholicism arrayed against Protestantism, and perhaps most interesting of all, a definite movement toward the enhancement of a native Ethiopian church, with the motto "Africa for the Africans." Let us add to all this numerous social problems, such as polygamy, the widespread sale of rum, and all the train of African superstition, and we shall see that any one who works in Africa in the new day must not only be a person of keen intelligence and Christian character, but also one with some genuine vision and statesmanship. Workers of this quality, if they can be found, will be needed not by the scores or hundreds, but by the thousands and tens of thousands. No larger mission could come to a young Negro in America trained in Christian study than to make his or her life a part of the redemption of the great fatherland. The salvation of Africa is at once the most pressing problem before either the Negro race or the Kingdom of Christ. Such a worker as we have tried to portray was Nora Gordon. It is to be hoped that not one but thousands like her will arise. Even now we can see the beginning of the fulfilment of the prophecy, "Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God."