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As Bishop Hannington said just before going out as a missionary "If I lose my life in Africa, no one must think it has been wasted. The lives that have been already given for the cause are not lost. They are filling up the trench so that others may the more easily pass over to take the fort in the name of the Lord!"
The letter was unanswered for over a year; but coming at a time when the man of twenty-five was beginning to find that there were better things to be done in life than cliff-climbing in the country, or giving pleasant parties at Oxford, it wrought its purpose, and formed the first step towards the new life. Having spent some time in study, Hannington went up for his ordination examination.
He was utterly broken down by continued fever; and, though the thought of returning to England without accomplishing his mission was bitter to him, it was a necessity. By June, 1883, he was again in London. How favourable was the impression Hannington had already made upon the Missionary Society is apparent from the fact that the bishopric of East Equatorial Africa was offered him.
Hence it was that The Revenge fought alone on that September day the entire Spanish fleet, and has given us one of the most glorious pages in the annals of our national history. Fancy Hannington, of all persons in the world, turning missionary, and going out to preach the Gospel to the blacks!
It seems that about this time a college friend began to think much of him, and to pray earnestly for him; and finally wrote to him a serious, simple, earnest letter, which had much effect on Hannington.
Not long afterwards he could write, "I know now that Jesus Christ died for me, and that He is mine and I am His". After little more than a year in Devonshire, Hannington was appointed curate in charge of St. George's, Hurstpierpoint, near Brighton. By his earnestness he roused the people to a fuller faith and to better works.
What could possibly make such a man as that go into the wilds of Africa to be tormented, tortured, and slain by savages? I will try and show briefly how it came about. At school Hannington was the veriest pickle, and was nicknamed "Mad Jim".
Every heathen land has now associated with it the name of valiant soldiers of the Cross, who have given their lives to add it to their Master's, kingdom. In India among many others, there have been Carey, Duff, Martyn, Marshman and Ward. In China, Morrison, Milne, Taylor, John Talmage and Griffith John. In Africa, Moffat, Livingstone, Hannington and Vanderkemp.
This remarkable man, who was the son of an attorney at Dover, descended, it is claimed, from the Yorkes of Hannington in North Wiltshire, a family of some consequence in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, was born in that town in the year 1690, and rose from a comparatively humble station to the commanding position he held so long in English public life.
Coming out of this district, we passed through the Rift Valley and part of our safari went up to Lake Hannington. So, from personal experience, I can speak with knowledge of only these sections. Along the Tana we were in fever country, the altitude being only about thirty-five hundred feet. And yet only two of our party had touches of fever, so light that they readily yielded to quinine.
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