Bio 8g1 Thomas L Johnson

Missionary in West Africa
In August 1877 the Johnsons were joined by Mrs Johnson’s younger sister and her husband, Rev C H Richardson, another African-American eager to go to Africa to preach the gospel. Richardson also became a student at the Pastors’ College and accompanied Johnson on various deputation meetings arranged by the Baptist Union. The Union was only committed to sending Johnson to Africa but he in turn was committed to sharing all he received with Richardson. The two families began language study with retired pioneer missionary, Alfred Saker (1814-1880). Saker [see pic], then in his sixties, was nearing his life’s end. He had laboured for 32 years in the Cameroon, translating the Bible into Douala and advancing the gospel on many fronts.
From the Autumn of 1878 they began a round of farewell meetings culminating in a large gathering at the Tabernacle itself with C H Spurgeon in the chair. In Ten years of my Life in the service of the book fund Mrs Spurgeon refers to a visit from the missionaries to Nightingale Lane. She particularly remembered them singing. A semi-invalid, in her weak physical state she especially appreciated the quaint negro spiritual
Keep inching along, keep inching along, Like a poor inch worm
Jesus Christ will come by and by.
She even had them sing it in the quiet whispers that were used in days of slavery when meetings for worship were prohibited. Mrs Spurgeon’s book fund had started three years before and the song was a great help to her as she personally parcelled up books for sending out to needy pastors. ‘Though prevented by my weakness from taking giant strides’ she says, ‘how gracious is the Lord to allow his unworthy child to creep even inch by inch along the pleasant road of service for him’.
On November 6, 1878, the missionaries bade farewell to London and headed for Liverpool, where they sailed three days later. On November 22 they sighted Cape Verde (Cap Vert), Western Senegal, Africa’s westernmost point. What a moment for Johnson to see Africa for the very first time, the land he had dreamed of since boyhood and where he so longed to bring the gospel. ‘My feelings of joy were indescribable. I could not leave the state room without falling upon my knees and thanking my heavenly Father for permitting me to see the poor suffering land of Africa’. He was so excited he could hardly sleep that night. The next day they sailed up the Gambia river and disembarked at Bathurst (now Banjul, capital of Gambia but then part of Sierra Leone). The town then was a mixture of fine colonial buildings, churches, hospital, barracks, administrative buildings — and native huts of bamboo with grass thatched roofs.
After a short stay the SS Kinsembo sailed down the coast to Sierra Leone capital Freetown. It had been established as a British Colony in 1787 for slaves repatriated from Britain and the US or rescued from shipwrecks. The land was purchased from local chiefs. The Sierra Leone Company administered the settlement until 1808, when it became a crown colony. Freetown lies on sloping ground at the foot of a range of hills and faces one of the best natural harbours on Africa’s west coast. Its fine buildings and many large gardens where banana, orange, coconut and pineapple grew abundantly all impressed Johnson. Again the people were hospitable and several were lively Christians. Several Africans there spoke English.
Next stop was Grand Bassa, in what came to be known as Liberia. Liberia was established by the American Colonisation Society, founded in 1816 to resettle freed American slaves in Africa. The first article in its original code of laws was ‘Christianity is the foundation of all true laws’. As their steamship moved along the coast Johnson was struck by its great beauty. By November 30 they had passed the Cape Mesurado colony, later named Monrovia for President James Monroe, and reached Nifou then Grand Cess. Johnson mentions the fine looking and industrious Kroo people going out in canoes to fish from these places. He also mentions Elmina, Cape Coast and Accra on the Gold Coast (Ghana) and Lagos and Bonny, Nigeria, the next places reached as the ship continued to hug the coast. In Bonny he saw human skulls hanging in the native huts, reminders of the fact that only 15 years before these people had been cannibals though the coming of the gospel was transforming lives.
After a brief stop on the island of Fernando Póo (now Bioko Island, part of Equatorial Guinea) they finally reached their destination on December 14, 1878. This was Victoria, Cameroon. Now known as Limbe, it lies on the Ambas Bay on the Gulf of Guinea, at the southern foot of West Africa’s highest mountain Mount Cameroon (over 14,000 feet), an active volcano. Limbe, now Cameroon’s second port (after Douala) was founded as Victoria in 1858 by Saker and other Baptist missionaries, when the Spanish expelled them from Fernando Póo. They purchased a coastal strip 10 miles by 5 miles that became a haven from slavery, witchcraft and polygamy. One ministry was rescuing people accused of witchcraft and forced to drink poisonous casswood juice as a means of trial by ordeal.
The missionary in charge was Rev Q W Thomson. At this time Victoria’s population was only 500. The people were literate, English speaking native Africans. Most were believers. At 7 am the day after his arrival Johnson heard the bell ring to summon the populace to church, where he preached for the first time on African soil using his sermon on Acts 16:31. ‘I cannot remember ever preaching to a more attentive audience’ he recalled. A day or two later he went down with a fever so was unable to join Richardson and Thomson who, on January 20, 1879, set off 80 miles into the interior to select a new missionary station.
On February 4, Thomson returned without Richardson, whom he had left with two native Christians, in Bakundu, the selected new station, also sick with fever. Two days later Johnson, his wife, Mrs Richardson and another missionary, George Grenfell (1849-1906) later to distinguish himself in the Congo, set off in an open boat up river, rowed by Kroomen. They were followed by a large canoe containing provisions and other men. They had hoped to pass the hostile towns of Mungo and Mbungo by night but were soon behind schedule and unsure of their bearings. On the Friday night they were spotted by a man with a ‘talking drum’ who ‘telegraphed’ their arrival. By Saturday morning a large group of nearly a hundred natives, armed with cutlasses, had surrounded them and they were forced to row to Mungo. There they refused to leave the boat, warning of grave consequences if they were harmed. In the end the Mungo king demanded payment to pass on and was satisfied with the tribute of an overcoat, a blanket, some sugar and rice and a barrel of hard biscuits. Though only six miles from Bakundu the party felt they had little choice but to return to Victoria.