192 WESTERN AFRICA.-REV. JOSEPH WRIGHT. ray, Wyatt, Findlay, Mrs. Hesk, and Mrs. Watkins, are all within the spot over which our chapel must eventually be extended; and it would be a kind tribute to their memory to aid in extending God's house over their hallowed dust, and making such an arrangement that future generations may kneel at the Lord's table over the spot where rest the ashes of some of the early martyrs in this sickly clime for the truth of God. I wrote you a few days back from Abakrampa, in readiness for the mail, Νότι, reporting the result of our late Missionary Meeting at Akrah, and enclosing you a list of the subscriptions, which amounted to the noble sum of £60. 15s. 9d. sterling; but I regret to find that my letter was, by mistake, sent in the brig Maclean," a sailing vessel, instead of being kept in readiness for the mail. This will cause some delay in your receiving the subscription list, as I have, I regret to say, no copy of it which Í can enclose with this. MEMOIR OF THE REV. JOSEPH WRIGHT, BY THE REV. JOSEPH MAY, NATIVE MISSIONARY. THE "Notices" for September contained some account of the death of the lamented Joseph Wright; and in the October "Notices" was inserted a letter addressed by him, when dying, to his son. The publication of these documents has increased the interest which has been long felt in the Native Ministers who are raised up by Divine Providence for the evangelization of Africa. The Rev. Joseph May has sent us a brief and connected memoir of his late lamented friend and colleague, which cannot fail to be acceptable to our friends, as a tribute by one Native African Minister to the Christian character and worth of his fellow-countryman. It may be regarded as one of the most signal evidences of Divine favour to Africa, that her own children are now among the most earnest and zealous teachers of the things of God. To Mr. May's memoir of Mr. Wright, we add the letter of the Rev. E. A. Gardiner, Wesleyan Missionary at Lagos, who had the melancholy duty of tending Mr. Wright in his last sickness, and of committing his remains to the silent grave. Those of our readers who possess the Rev. Dr. Beecham's volume on Ashanti and the Gold-Coast will find in the Appendix an interesting account, by Joseph Wright himself, of his early life, the slave-war in which he was made a captive, and his subsequent conversion under the ministry of the Society's Missionaries at Sierra-Leone. Extract of a Letter from the Rev. Joseph May, Native Minister, dated York, Sierra-Leone, August 10th, 1855. As Mr. Gardiner, I believe, will put you in possession of all information relative to the death of our mueh-lamented brother, the Rev. Joseph Wright, one of your Sierra-Leone Native Missionaries, who died at the Mission-house at Lagos on the 8th of June last, I feel rcluctance in writing you any further on the subject; but as he will give you only an account of his visit, sickness, and death, I, therefore, think it will be proper, as you will require, probably in haste, a brief biographical sketch of his life, which, for brevity, and in the ab sence of his journal and books, not yet arrived from the coast, I attempt as follows. Mr. Wright was a native of Obbah, in Yoruba, Western Africa. He was cruelly taken away from his parents and relatives, upwards of thirty years ago, (he was then about ten or twelve years of age,) sold into slavery, and, by the interposition of a kind Providence, rescued, and brought into the colony by the British cruizers, upwards of twentyseven years ago. He was shortly afterwards taught to read English books. Under the preaching of the Wesleyan Missionary he was convinced of his sins, and with a broken and contrite heart sought the pardon of his sins, and by faith in the Redeemer's blood he obtained peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Shortly after this, he felt it his duty to make known to his country-people the love of Christ to all mankind; thus he began at once to go about, calling sinners to repentance; and through his instrumentality several of his young companions have been speed. ily brought to the saving knowledge of the truth. For a time he was employed as a hired Local Preacher. In 1842 he accompanied the Rev. Messrs. Dove and Badger to England, and was admitted into the Wesleyan Theological Institution, Hoxton, thence to Richmond. In 1844 he was appointed as an Assistant Missionary; and having been received into full connexion with the Conference in 1848, on Thursday evening, the 21st of December, together with the Rev. Charles Knight, was solemnly ordained to the full work of the Christian ministry, and for more than ten years laboured faithfully in the colony in the service of his Divine Lord and Master. Having heard that his parents were still alive, and frequently being urged to see them before their death, he obtained three months' leave of absence from the Committee, to visit at Abbeokuta his dear parents and relatives, whom he had lost for more than thirty years, as above stated. He left the colony in the schooner "Comet," on the 14th of February, arrived at Akrah on the 2d of March, and at Lagos on the 7th. On the third day after his arrival he wrote the writer as follows: "On Friday, the 2d of March, we landed at Akrah. I was kindly received by the Rev. Henry Wharton, who treated me with every possible kindness and attention. We left Akrah on Sunday morning, about nine o'clock," as he could not prevail on the ship-owner to leave either on the next or day before the Sabbath. "We landed at Lagos on Wednesday, about ten o'clock: twentyone day's passage from Sierra-Leone. Mr. Gardiner having heard that we were on the eve of arriving, sent a boy to wait for me. As soon as I made my appearance, the boy led me from the wharf directly to the Mission-house. I find Mr. Gardiner to be a lovely, entertaining kind of man; as for his attention and kindness to me since my arrival, it went beyond description.' On Sunday, the 14th, Mr. Gardiner preached in the morning, and he in the evening, from Psalm i. 6: "The Lord knoweth the way of the righteous," &c., which sermon, in one of the friends' letters, is said to have been very emphatic and touching. After spending a few days here, accompanied by a Sierra-Leone friend, he left in a canoe, by the river Ogu, for Abbeokuta, where he arrived on the 23d of March, and where, after the lapse of thirty years' violent separation, he had the pleasure of seeing once again in the flesh the faces of his lost parents and relatives. On the 4th of April, he was seized with diarrhoea, the rapid effects of which prevented him from preaching on the next day, Good-Friday. Return ed to Lagos, on Friday, the 8th of June, he died in peace at the Missionhouse, and was buried on the same day by the Rev. E. A. Gardiner, amidst the tears of a large number of Sierra-Leone emigrants, among whom he laboured in former years. The Mr. Wright was beloved and highly respected by the colonists. During his life-time he travelled throughout the colony, and preached nearly in every town and village. So he was well known nearly to all but strangers. news of his death was as thunder-stroke to all his dear friends, who had never at all heard of his sickness. He has left behind him a wife and six children, one of whom is a daughter. His eldest son is now in the Wesleyan Training Institution, Westminster. The feelings of the family are indescribable. Thus Mr. Wright, in the bloom of life and in the midst of his usefulness, has run his race, and finished his course. Truly, "God's way is in the sea, his path in the great waters, and his footsteps are not known." "How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!" To His character as a man and a Christian is too well known to the public. He was a man of promptitude. every duty and engagement he paid the most scrupulous attention. He was ever ready to co-operate with his brethren in the extension of the Redeemer's kingdom. For activity, diligence, and punctuality, he never was surpassed. His conversation and whole life are sufficient proofs that he loved God and the doctrines of Christian religion. He was a Wesleyan. His attachment to the doctrines and disciplines of Methodism was sincere. In a letter, while writing this, received from Mr. Gardiner, who was with him during his sickness, and even to the close of his life, writes : "Mr. Wright ever appeared to me to be a man of sound and unquestionable piety. Unlike too many from SierraLeone, whose only object seems to be the acquisition of wealth, to be content 194 WESTERN AFRICA.REV. JOSEPH WRIGHT. to have their portion in this life, he kept the faith, strenuously and courageously set his face against sin, exhibited in his daily walk and conversation the power of godliness, and manifested to all around that he was a stranger and a pilgrim upon the earth, an exile anxious for his native home. Consequently, he was a candidate for glorious bliss, beyond the skies. The world to him had lost its captivating charms. His treasure was in heaven, and his heart was consequently in heaven. He longed for his heavenly home, his everlasting inheritance, his eternal habitation, Built immovably secure, Built eternal in the skies." He literally panted for this rest to come, and he has now gone to enjoy it in all its transcendent and effable fruition. Then shall we mourn to see Free from doubts, and griefs, and fears, Can we weep to see the tears Wiped for ever from his eyes? No, dear companion, no; To a reigning church above : "During his illness, I had, of course, frequent opportunities of conversing with him on spiritual things, and of ascertaining the state of his mind in the prospect of death. It would be impossible, and indeed needless, for me to put down all that he uttered on his death-bed. Suffice it, therefore, to say, that, on more than one occasion near the close of his life, I asked the true and present state of his mind, if it was peaceful, and if he was still resting his soul upon the great atonement. He answered with much ani Nov., In mation, 'O yes, yes! All my trust in Christ, and the will of the Lord be done.' Several of the friends asked him similar questions, and received, in their turn, the same satisfactory answers. this calm, tranquil state of mind, he ultimately expired. As he found the exceeding great and precious promises of the Gospel his stay, and comfort, and support during life, so he experienced them to be especially so in the hour and article of death; and with a sweet abiding conviction of his personal interest therein he finally passed through death triumphant home.' scene. "I may just add, that I was with him only a few moments prior to his spirit quitting for ever this transitory I then spoke to him on several subjects, and he answered me as usual. He had no pain, apparently, and retained his senses to the last moment that his spirit passed quietly away. "Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright; for the end of that man is peace.' 'Let me,' then, die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his !'" He was about the forty-second year of his age, and the eleventh of his ministry. Among other things taken into consideration on the 26th of June at our last meeting, held at the Mission-house, Freetown, occasioned by his death, was his funeral sermon to be preached in all the principal chapels in all the Circuits. That at York, I preached on Sunday evening of the 29th of July, at Brunswick chapel, which was crowded to excess by our own friends and people of other denominations. It was a time of great solemnity, deep attention sat on the congregation, and I trust it was not unprefitable season to the crowded assembly, who was faithfully put in mind of their own mortality. Extract of a Leller from the Rev. Ebenezer A. Gardiner, dated Lagos, ERE this communication reaches its destination, you may possibly have received the sad intelligence of the demise of our much-beloved and now muchlamented friend and brother, the Rev. Joseph Wright, of Sierra-Leone; which painful event took place at Lagos on the 8th ult. The packet "Retriever," which was the last one here, came up, most unfortunately, from her leeward route on the very day of his death, and left so early the following morning, as not to afford me time to give you any intimation of the sad event. But as some of our people returned to Sierra-Leone in the "Retriever," and would doubtless inform the Society there of the loss it had sustained, and as the packet makes a much longer stay at Sierra-Leone than here, the brethren there may possibly have communicated to you, by that opportunity, the news so deeply painful to us all. They, however, may not have given you many particulars relative thereto I therefore sit down at once for the purpose of doing so. The Committee are already aware that our departed brother had get his heart upon this journey to his fatherland for some time back; and are likewise aware of the objects and designs he had in view, in visiting his native country. Leave of absence, if I mistake not, had been kindly granted him by the Committee for this purpose; but a suitable opportunity did not arise for the accomplishment of the journey, until the close of his term of labour in the York Circuit. He then conceived it a fitting time to make this long-meditated journey, and embarked, accordingly, on board the "Comet," a vessel belonging to Mr. Thompson, a native merchant at SierraLeone, on the 14th of February last. He arrived here on the 7th of March, and stayed with me at the old Missionhouse until the 20th, on which day he left for Abbeokuta, in company with Mr. J. M. Turner, one of our official brethren. Both arrived safely, and in good health; and Mr. Wright was received in the same warm manner by the friends there, as he had been here. He had also soon the satisfaction of seeing his numerous relatives, from whom he had been separated for nearly thirty years. His father and mother, as may readily be conceived, were especially overjoyed to see him, and received him as one from the dead. His mother immediately recognised him as her longlost son, and, with feelings known only to a mother, embraced him with fond affection, and called him by the name which he bore prior to his being severed from her by the ruthless hand of the manstealer. He found his parents, and most of his relatives, in a state painful beyond description or expression, to a mind enlightened, as was Mr. Wright's, by our holy and Divine Christianity; being still the willing vassals and devotees of Pagan rites and dark idolatry. His father is high priest of a certain grand fetish at Abbeokuta; and the mind of the poor man is therefore deeply immersed in the superstitions and customs of his ancestors, When asked by Mr. Wright, on one occasion, to attend the chapel at Abbeokuta, the old man was astonished, and replied, "What! you ask me to attend your chapel to learn religion, and I already a priest to teach others! The idea! No; you may attend your place, and I will attend mine. Your religion good for you; mine good for me," &c. Alas, poor man! Some of his relatives, however, during his stay at Abbeokuta, joined our Society there; which, of course, was to him a source of much pleasurable reflection on his return to the coast. God grant that his poor parents, and the rest of his relatives, may soon be brought into the same mind! Mr. Wright was perfectly well at Abbeokuta up to the 4th of April, when he was attacked with the complaint which ultimately proved fatal; namely, diarrhoea. Means were there adopted for arresting the progress of the disease, but without any lasting effect; and thus finding himself getting worse instead of better, he left Abbeokuta for Lagos on the 23d of that month. He arrived here on the night of the 24th, and I received him at the new Missionhouse the next morning, in a very weakened state of health. I had only one room in the new house ready; but I cheerfully and willingly resigned it and my bed to my afflicted brother, and laid myself at night in the piazza, on a bamboo sofa, or anything. He remained with me for about a week, during which time I, of course, did everything for him that a brother's affection and prudence could suggest, in order, if possible, to bring him round; and I had the pleasing satisfaction to find that my efforts were, under God, beyond my most sanguine expectations successful; for he was evidently gaining strength daily. Just at this important juncture, however, when the disease was taking a decidedly favourable turn, truth demands of me to state, that our late brother very inadvertently made a visit to a friend's house in the town, where he had a most virulent relapse of the disease, and was once more brought to the Mission-house, but in such an emaciated state of body, that I lost no time in applying to the medical officer of Her Majesty's ship "Pluto," Dr. Wilson, who, to that gentleman's honour be it spoken, that, although it was not his particular duty to attend on shore, did me, nevertheless, the great kindness to come, and that, too, on the very day I sent for him. When on shore, he, of course, saw Mr. Wright, and with much kindness and care prescribed for him. Yet, from the time of his relapse, notwithstanding our combined and utmost exertions, he gradually sunk under his distressing complaint, and finally departed this life about two o'clock on the morning of the 8th of June, to the great distress of myself personally, as also to a large circle of sympathizing friends and relatives. His dear remains were followed to their last resting-place by the greatest company I have ever seen on any such occasion in Africa; and were deposited, amidst sighs, and tears, and lamentations, in a secluded and strictly private portion of the new Mission-yard, a nice, quiet place of sepulture, "in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body, that it may be like unto his glorious body, according to the mighty working where by he is able to subdue all things unto himself." Permit me, in conclusion, to say one word in reference to the private character of him whose death it is now my most melancholy duty to report to you. Although I had not the pleasure of his acquaintance long, he was, I am fully persuaded, a truly sincere and pious character, a sterling Christian, a man of God, who felt it incumbent upon him, not only as an ambassador of Christ, but also as an individual Christian, to devote all his energies of both body and mind, with vigorous and untiring application, to the service of his Lord and Master. I had frequent opportunities, during his illness, of ascertaining the state of his mind, and his prospects in the approach of dissolution; and I invariably found his mind in a very sweet and peaceful frame, and his soul reposing itself upon the atonement and mediation of Jesus Christ, the great High Priest who has passed into the heavens, there to appear in the presence of God for us. I was in the room with our late brother only a few moments before his spirit quitted for ever this transitory scene; and his mind, in that solemn hour, was calm and peaceful, serene and tranquil as a summer eve; and in this delightful state his sanctified spirit passed, in the full triumph of faith, through the gates into the everlasting city. His death is a great loss to the weeping Societies at Sierra-Leone; for he was a faithful Pastor, and a devoted Missionary. It is likewise a loss, an irreparable loss, to his family; for he was to them all that an affectionate husband, and kind and loving father, could be. And the world at large may mourn in its turn his mysterious removal; for it has lost a most desirable inhabitan". But hushed be our sad spirits for ever; for, lo, a voice for Joseph Wright is heard from heaven, saying unto us, "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them." DEPARTURES. ON Monday, October 1st, the Rev. Thomas Stephenson and R. W. Pordige for Madras and Bangalore, John Scott and W. H. Dean for Colombo and Trincomalee, and Mr. Priestley for the Cape, embarked at Portsmouth by the "Windsor," Captain Voss, accompanied by the Missionary Secretaries and other friends; a valedictory service had been held the previous day in Portsea chapel: the Rev. Dr. Bunting gave the Missionaries a farewell address in their cabin, and mended them in solemn prayer to the Divine protection. com On Wednesday, October 17th, the Rev. Aaron Edman and Mrs. Edman, with Messrs. Protheroe and Raspass for Jamaica, Messrs. Webster and Mack for St. Vincent's, Mr. W. Green for Barbadoes, and Mr. Huxtable for Bahamas, embarked at Southampton by the "Magdalena." A valedictory service had been held the previous evening in the chapel at Southampton, in connexion with the Missionary Anniversary, which was attended by a large and deeplyaffected congregation; the Rev. Dr. Beecham in the chair. Messrs. Comben and Dove, appointed to Newfoundland, proceeded to Torquay on Monday, October 15th, the owner of the vessel which was to convey them to their destination having arranged to call for them at that port on the way from Hamburg. THE amount of Contributions and Remittances announced on the Cover of the Notices this month is £1,918. 11s. 11d. LONDON: PRINTED BY JAMES NICHOLS, HOXTON-SQUARE. |