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Updated: June 25, 2025
"How can this poor tabernacle do it, even with six lads to push and pull and carry the cart through the streams? But I have opened the way, and that is something." In Ikpe itself the currents of heathenism ran deep and strong, and she found progress as difficult as in Okoyong. But she solved all the problems in the same fearless way as she had done there.
On June 14 she wrote: Market Morning. Got 5 small yams, oil, and shrimps, with pepper and a few small fresh fish. It was on the following morning as early as six o'clock that the doctor called to examine her again. His decision was that she was not to go to Ikpe, she was not to cycle, she was to lie down as much as possible.
Not long afterwards she left Ikpe at 6.30 A.M., was in the canoe all night, and reached the landing-beach at 5.30 on Christmas morning with the usual motherless baby. On this occasion she received a message, "Ekereki said I was to tell you that his mother is asleep" referring to the death of one of the first members of the congregation, a gentle and superior woman for whom she had a great regard.
But fifty men and lads were employed, and she had never handled so lazy, so greedy, so inefficient a gang. Compelled to supervise them constantly, she often had to sit in the fierce sunshine for eight hours at a time; then with face unwashed and morning wrapper still on she would go and conduct school. If she went to Ikpe for a day, all the work done required to be gone over again.
There was the Settlement to consider, but that, she thought, she could manage to carry on along with the occupation of Ikpe. Her bright and eager spirit did not reckon with the frailties of the body. When she returned, she entered on a long period of weakness. Now and again deputations came down to her. Once a score of young men appeared, and before stating their business said, "Let us pray."
Both the Calabar Council and the Women's Foreign Mission Committee in Scotland felt that the most fitting memorial to her would be the continuation of her work, and arrangements were accordingly made for the appointment and supervision of teachers and evangelists at Use, Ikpe, and Odoro Ikpe, and for the care of the children.
Some native workmen passing his station later mentioned the incident, and within a few minutes the officer had a mounted messenger speeding along the tract to Ikpe, with an urgent order to the people to get her conveyed in the Cape cart to the nearest point on the road, where he would have a motor car waiting.
She continued to teach school and hold worship services on Sunday. Dr. Hitchcock of the Slessor Hospital came to see her every week. "You must not go to Ikpe again," he said. "You must not ride your bicycle. You must spend more time resting." But Mary disobeyed the doctor and held services the following Sunday. It was too much for her. She almost fainted before the service was over.
At last she lay in a stupor as if beyond help. It was a scene which suggested the final act in Dr. Livingstone's life. The girls were crying. The church lads stood alarmed and awed. Then they raised her in her camp-bed and marched with her the five miles to Ikpe. Next morning they lifted the bed into a canoe and placed her under a tarpaulin and paddled her down the Creek.
She literally ran away, and was up at Ikpe at once, exultant at having the privilege of ministering again to the needs of the people. There was a throng at the beach to welcome her. She was soon as busy as she had ever been, though she was usually carried now to and from church and other meetings.
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