Was
Mtesa sincere in his desire to become a Catholic?
Those who knew him well doubted the probability of his ever taking a step which meant breaking with the witch doctors, risking his popularity, and above all, sending away his wives. But Father Lourdel, trusting in the power of prayer and the Grace of God, was hopeful.
Below: King Mtesa
The
missionaries had several friends at court, who admired and were interested
in their religion, but were too strongly bound by pagan ties and customs
to face the sacrifices necessary to adopt it. "As yet there are no
conversions in Uganda" wrote one of the Fathers to a friend.
One day, in the November of 1879 — some five months after their arrival in the country — a young native came to Father Lourdel and asked to be taught to read. A short conversation elicited the fact that he was troubled about his sins. He had been to the Mohammedans, who had told him to wash himself with sand and water: "I think they are liars" he said. Then he had been to the Protestants but they had not been able to set his mind at rest. Father Lourdel gave him a first lesson on the catechism, and next day he came back with a friend. Two pupils of Father Girault joined the class, and so the work began.
The language was the chief difficulty. By dint of a natural facility and the energy he put into everything he undertook, Father Lourdel had mastered it sufficiently to compile a little dictionary of the most common words and phrases for the use of the others, and a little catechism for the natives. In order to be able to speak it fluently he seized every opportunity of talking to the natives and learnt all that he could from everyone he spoke to. "He is full of zeal," wrote Father Livinhac to Cardinal Lavigerie "and desires nothing but to sacrifice himself wholly for the salvation of these poor people. He is the pillar of the mission. Unfortunately his health is not equal to his energy; he has never completely recovered from the effects of our long journey."
As Mtesa had been in ill health for some time, his chief men persuaded him to have recourse to the spirit of the Lake (incarnate in an old witch-doctress). One of the Protestant missionaries went to expostulate with him and the king at last yielded to his instances, so far as to promise that he would send for the remedies, and not allow the witch to come to him and apply them with incantations, as was intended. The chiefs were furious, and vented their anger on the Protestants, who were summoned to their Court, accused of being spies and impostors, and insulted in every way. When they answered that if the king believed such tales of them they had better leave Uganda; Mtesa refused to let them go; he meant to retain them as hostages.
To most of the natives, Catholics and Protestants were all the same thing, and the Fathers awaited their turn. The witch-doctress, a fearsome old hag, arrived, and turned the court into a very pandemonium. A few days later she departed and another, equally hideous, arrived. The missionaries were told by Toli that the king did not want these creatures, but was obliged by the chiefs to send for them.
Meanwhile the poorer natives were beginning to come, in ever increasing numbers, for instruction. They were full of goodwill, and one, Kaddu by name, was a real enthusiast. One day twenty presented themselves at once, while hardly a day went by without several applications. On the 27th of March, 1880 (Holy Saturday), the first converts of the Church in Uganda were secretly baptised. They were four : Peter Damulira, Saul Nalubandwa, Joseph Luanga, and Leo, a little ransomed slave. The next morning they were confirmed, for they were likely to need the strength of the Holy Spirit—and the three elder men made their first Communion. The other catechumens, at the sight of their joy, seemed to long for the day when they would share it. In May, four more were ready for baptism, who, when they were told that they must be ready to give up their lives rather than their Faith, answered solemnly that they would die rather than renounce Jesus Christ. Among them was a young soldier of eighteen, called Fuké, handsome, intelligent, and full of good sense. He too, had been first to the Moslems and had left them, disappointed with their teaching. They had told him such evil tales of the Catholics that he had sworn he would never set foot in their house. One day, however, his gun went off by accident and nearly shot off one of his fingers. The Protestant missionaries, to whom he went for treatment, said that it must be amputated. His father, who, like all the natives, had a horror of any kind of mutilation, went in despair to Father Lourdel. He too thought that amputation of the injured joint of the finger would be necessary, but said that he would try to save the rest. Fuké came every day to have his hand dressed, and found that the Catholic priests were not so bad as he had been led to believe. Out of pure curiosity, and with no intention whatever of conversion, he attended some of the catechism classes, determined to disbelieve all he heard. One day, suddenly touched by the grace of God, he sought out one of the Fathers. "I want to save my soul," he said, "and therefore to be of the true religion. When will you. baptise me?" He was reminded that for baptism a thorough knowledge of the Faith was necessary, together with the determination to preserve it at every cost. "I know all that," he answered, "I have been thinking it all over. I desire one thing only, to save my soul.”
In the meantime the witch doctors had demanded that Mtesa should offer a solemn sacrifice on the tomb of his father Suna. The order was suddenly given to arrest everyone who wore his cloak draped in a certain manner, and a quantity of slaves were caught and imprisoned. It soon became apparent that these were the victims to be immolated.
But Mtesa's health did not improve, and the witch doctors departed. On the 18th of May a messenger suddenly arrived at the house of the White Fathers. Mapera was to come at once to the palace. Father Lourdel had hardly recovered from a bad attack of fever, but he set out instantly. Mtesa was lying in a dark corner of his great hut alone, saving for one or two of his most trusted slaves; he was dangerously ill with dysentery. Father Lourdel hastened back to the mission to fetch the necessary remedies, though without much hope of success, while the others took to their prayers. Two days later he was summoned again. Mtesa was better, but not yet out of danger. The Arab traders, who had been refused admittance, were anxiously enquiring how he was. If Mtesa died, they would be ruined. They had sent word that they too had wonderful remedies, but had not been received; the king put his trust in Mapera. If Mtesa had died while in the hands of the missionaries, it would have been a very serious matter; the prayers redoubled.
The next day at an early hour Mapera was again summoned. Mtesa was getting on well, but as he refused to take any medicine he did not like, the issue was still uncertain. In the afternoon a breathless slave arrived, gasping: "come quick, Mapera. The king wants you."
Was he dying? Father Lourdel hastened to the palace, to be met on the way by fresh envoys. "Quick! quick! the king wants you." Mtesa, who felt much better, and was seeing his chief minister and a few of the chiefs, desired to honour his doctor by inviting him to the first reception he had held for ten days. Mapera was generally complimented, and declared the saviour of Uganda. On the king's complete recovery he was asked to name his reward. "Permission to do God's work in your kingdom," was the prompt reply. The chiefs were astounded at such an answer, when Mapera might have become rich in ivory, oxen, and goats.
“I am at present occupying the position of physician in chief to his Majesty," he wrote to his Superior-general, "a physician without skill and without resources. By the goodness of God, Mtesa is now in his usual state of health. His providential illness and cure will, I hope, by the grace of God, help to further the spread of our holy religion in this country."
Father Livinhac describes conditions at the mission during this time. He was alone with Father Lourdel and Brother Amans, the two others having left Uganda on business connected with the fruitless attempt to found a second centre.
"Father Lourdel is in charge of the orphanage and the sick. We have none of the things necessary for the equipment of a school, and he has to content himself with teaching the catechism to the children. Two of them manage the kitchen, two others the goats, one keeps the chickens out of our little garden, and the rest work with Brother Amans. We have no luxuries; the ground serves both for chairs and tables, banana leaves for plates; a cotton garment or two goatskins form the children's clothing. We live much in the same way, as we are continually with them. It is difficult to get even the simplest necessaries, but Father Lourdel is as great an adept at buying and selling as he is at doctoring. He is becoming famous and has many patients among the poor, and some even among the chiefs. Mtesa, since his cure, has shown him great favour. He has to visit the palace continually. This takes up a great deal of time, but is indispensable for the sake of the mission which he represents. I go very seldom."'
Father Livinhac was busy instructing the natives, and receiving the chiefs, who did not come for instruction but to talk, in the hope of getting a present.
The mission house was a good way from the palace, which, when the king had to be visited almost daily, was a drawback. There was no supply of water on the property, and it was too small to produce sufficient food to nourish the household. Mtesa was easily persuaded to grant another piece of land nearer the palace, and sent his own workmen to build the new house, much on the lines of the old, but larger. A hut was erected at a little distance, for the use of the catechumens, for if Mtesa had learnt that his subjects were coming in such numbers to be instructed, he would probably have put a stop to it.
One evening a young man, called Kaddu, came to the mission. He had long begged for baptism, but as Cardinal Lavigerie had given the prudent order that no native—for fear of apostasy—was to be baptised without very thorough instruction and a long probation, he had always been refused. "I have done a thing," he said, "for which I may be put to death. I could leave the country, but in that case, my father and all my brothers would be deprived of their possessions, and perhaps killed. So I have decided to give myself up. I shall be executed, and I cannot die without baptism. Now will you baptise me?" After a rapid summary of all that he had been taught, with a special exhortation to contrition and resignation, the boy was given the much desired Sacrament, and went off happily, after a touching farewell to the Fathers, to be burnt alive—the penalty of his fault. But Mtesa pardoned him—a thing unheard of in the annals of Uganda, and he came back declaring that God alone could have worked such a miracle.
Another catechumen, one of the king's pages, denounced to Mtesa for a crime which he had never committed, did not get off so easily. Two other pages, his friends, also catechumens, came in great sorrow to tell the Fathers of his arrest. "They may kill us too," they said, "but it does not matter. Now we know the true religion, we shall go to heaven."
Father Lourdel went to the palace to see if anything could be done, but soon realised that it would be useless to intervene. The boy was a general favourite, and everyone pitied him, but no one dared to suggest what they all knew—that he was innocent. Seizing a moment when they were all busy discussing something else, Father Lourdel made his way over to him. “Are they going to put you to death?" he asked. "Probably," answered the young man smiling, "but I am not afraid of death any more, I even long for it." "Have you been able to get Baptism?" he asked again. "Yes” was the answer, "One of my companions baptised me last night." He was a young man of strong character, who had brought many of his friends to be instructed, and the Fathers had often been struck by his energy and determination. "As I watched him sitting there,"wrote Father Lourdel, "in all the vigour of youth, calmly facing a most horrible death, I asked myself if in these people, who sometimes seem so inert and apathetic, there will not be found some day the material for martyrs.
"In the afternoon the other pages came in great distress to tell us that he was to be burnt alive. He was tortured first, and bore his sufferings bravely."
"One day" he writes again, "as I was going to visit the king, I met one of the pages of the chief minister, a bright little fellow who has been begging for a long time to come to the catechism classes, but was told, so as to be sure that he was in earnest, to wait for a month. The month was long over, he said; he knew his prayers already, in proof of which he proceeded to make the sign of the Cross and say the Our Father and the Hail Mary. I asked who had taught him, and he told me that it was a friend of his, one of the king's pages. Many others, in the same way, have taught their friends and relations what they have learnt with us, and they come to us half instructed already. There is excellent material for native catechists here, but unfortunately those who are the most promising are not free. They are either soldiers or pages of the king or the chiefs, or slaves."
At the end of the year the number of catechumens was over two hundred and fifty. The good seed had been sown; it was to be ripened by suffering.
Those who knew him well doubted the probability of his ever taking a step which meant breaking with the witch doctors, risking his popularity, and above all, sending away his wives. But Father Lourdel, trusting in the power of prayer and the Grace of God, was hopeful.
Below: King Mtesa
The
missionaries had several friends at court, who admired and were interested
in their religion, but were too strongly bound by pagan ties and customs
to face the sacrifices necessary to adopt it. "As yet there are no
conversions in Uganda" wrote one of the Fathers to a friend.One day, in the November of 1879 — some five months after their arrival in the country — a young native came to Father Lourdel and asked to be taught to read. A short conversation elicited the fact that he was troubled about his sins. He had been to the Mohammedans, who had told him to wash himself with sand and water: "I think they are liars" he said. Then he had been to the Protestants but they had not been able to set his mind at rest. Father Lourdel gave him a first lesson on the catechism, and next day he came back with a friend. Two pupils of Father Girault joined the class, and so the work began.
The language was the chief difficulty. By dint of a natural facility and the energy he put into everything he undertook, Father Lourdel had mastered it sufficiently to compile a little dictionary of the most common words and phrases for the use of the others, and a little catechism for the natives. In order to be able to speak it fluently he seized every opportunity of talking to the natives and learnt all that he could from everyone he spoke to. "He is full of zeal," wrote Father Livinhac to Cardinal Lavigerie "and desires nothing but to sacrifice himself wholly for the salvation of these poor people. He is the pillar of the mission. Unfortunately his health is not equal to his energy; he has never completely recovered from the effects of our long journey."
As Mtesa had been in ill health for some time, his chief men persuaded him to have recourse to the spirit of the Lake (incarnate in an old witch-doctress). One of the Protestant missionaries went to expostulate with him and the king at last yielded to his instances, so far as to promise that he would send for the remedies, and not allow the witch to come to him and apply them with incantations, as was intended. The chiefs were furious, and vented their anger on the Protestants, who were summoned to their Court, accused of being spies and impostors, and insulted in every way. When they answered that if the king believed such tales of them they had better leave Uganda; Mtesa refused to let them go; he meant to retain them as hostages.
To most of the natives, Catholics and Protestants were all the same thing, and the Fathers awaited their turn. The witch-doctress, a fearsome old hag, arrived, and turned the court into a very pandemonium. A few days later she departed and another, equally hideous, arrived. The missionaries were told by Toli that the king did not want these creatures, but was obliged by the chiefs to send for them.
Meanwhile the poorer natives were beginning to come, in ever increasing numbers, for instruction. They were full of goodwill, and one, Kaddu by name, was a real enthusiast. One day twenty presented themselves at once, while hardly a day went by without several applications. On the 27th of March, 1880 (Holy Saturday), the first converts of the Church in Uganda were secretly baptised. They were four : Peter Damulira, Saul Nalubandwa, Joseph Luanga, and Leo, a little ransomed slave. The next morning they were confirmed, for they were likely to need the strength of the Holy Spirit—and the three elder men made their first Communion. The other catechumens, at the sight of their joy, seemed to long for the day when they would share it. In May, four more were ready for baptism, who, when they were told that they must be ready to give up their lives rather than their Faith, answered solemnly that they would die rather than renounce Jesus Christ. Among them was a young soldier of eighteen, called Fuké, handsome, intelligent, and full of good sense. He too, had been first to the Moslems and had left them, disappointed with their teaching. They had told him such evil tales of the Catholics that he had sworn he would never set foot in their house. One day, however, his gun went off by accident and nearly shot off one of his fingers. The Protestant missionaries, to whom he went for treatment, said that it must be amputated. His father, who, like all the natives, had a horror of any kind of mutilation, went in despair to Father Lourdel. He too thought that amputation of the injured joint of the finger would be necessary, but said that he would try to save the rest. Fuké came every day to have his hand dressed, and found that the Catholic priests were not so bad as he had been led to believe. Out of pure curiosity, and with no intention whatever of conversion, he attended some of the catechism classes, determined to disbelieve all he heard. One day, suddenly touched by the grace of God, he sought out one of the Fathers. "I want to save my soul," he said, "and therefore to be of the true religion. When will you. baptise me?" He was reminded that for baptism a thorough knowledge of the Faith was necessary, together with the determination to preserve it at every cost. "I know all that," he answered, "I have been thinking it all over. I desire one thing only, to save my soul.”
In the meantime the witch doctors had demanded that Mtesa should offer a solemn sacrifice on the tomb of his father Suna. The order was suddenly given to arrest everyone who wore his cloak draped in a certain manner, and a quantity of slaves were caught and imprisoned. It soon became apparent that these were the victims to be immolated.
But Mtesa's health did not improve, and the witch doctors departed. On the 18th of May a messenger suddenly arrived at the house of the White Fathers. Mapera was to come at once to the palace. Father Lourdel had hardly recovered from a bad attack of fever, but he set out instantly. Mtesa was lying in a dark corner of his great hut alone, saving for one or two of his most trusted slaves; he was dangerously ill with dysentery. Father Lourdel hastened back to the mission to fetch the necessary remedies, though without much hope of success, while the others took to their prayers. Two days later he was summoned again. Mtesa was better, but not yet out of danger. The Arab traders, who had been refused admittance, were anxiously enquiring how he was. If Mtesa died, they would be ruined. They had sent word that they too had wonderful remedies, but had not been received; the king put his trust in Mapera. If Mtesa had died while in the hands of the missionaries, it would have been a very serious matter; the prayers redoubled.
The next day at an early hour Mapera was again summoned. Mtesa was getting on well, but as he refused to take any medicine he did not like, the issue was still uncertain. In the afternoon a breathless slave arrived, gasping: "come quick, Mapera. The king wants you."
Was he dying? Father Lourdel hastened to the palace, to be met on the way by fresh envoys. "Quick! quick! the king wants you." Mtesa, who felt much better, and was seeing his chief minister and a few of the chiefs, desired to honour his doctor by inviting him to the first reception he had held for ten days. Mapera was generally complimented, and declared the saviour of Uganda. On the king's complete recovery he was asked to name his reward. "Permission to do God's work in your kingdom," was the prompt reply. The chiefs were astounded at such an answer, when Mapera might have become rich in ivory, oxen, and goats.
“I am at present occupying the position of physician in chief to his Majesty," he wrote to his Superior-general, "a physician without skill and without resources. By the goodness of God, Mtesa is now in his usual state of health. His providential illness and cure will, I hope, by the grace of God, help to further the spread of our holy religion in this country."
Father Livinhac describes conditions at the mission during this time. He was alone with Father Lourdel and Brother Amans, the two others having left Uganda on business connected with the fruitless attempt to found a second centre.
"Father Lourdel is in charge of the orphanage and the sick. We have none of the things necessary for the equipment of a school, and he has to content himself with teaching the catechism to the children. Two of them manage the kitchen, two others the goats, one keeps the chickens out of our little garden, and the rest work with Brother Amans. We have no luxuries; the ground serves both for chairs and tables, banana leaves for plates; a cotton garment or two goatskins form the children's clothing. We live much in the same way, as we are continually with them. It is difficult to get even the simplest necessaries, but Father Lourdel is as great an adept at buying and selling as he is at doctoring. He is becoming famous and has many patients among the poor, and some even among the chiefs. Mtesa, since his cure, has shown him great favour. He has to visit the palace continually. This takes up a great deal of time, but is indispensable for the sake of the mission which he represents. I go very seldom."'
Father Livinhac was busy instructing the natives, and receiving the chiefs, who did not come for instruction but to talk, in the hope of getting a present.
The mission house was a good way from the palace, which, when the king had to be visited almost daily, was a drawback. There was no supply of water on the property, and it was too small to produce sufficient food to nourish the household. Mtesa was easily persuaded to grant another piece of land nearer the palace, and sent his own workmen to build the new house, much on the lines of the old, but larger. A hut was erected at a little distance, for the use of the catechumens, for if Mtesa had learnt that his subjects were coming in such numbers to be instructed, he would probably have put a stop to it.
One evening a young man, called Kaddu, came to the mission. He had long begged for baptism, but as Cardinal Lavigerie had given the prudent order that no native—for fear of apostasy—was to be baptised without very thorough instruction and a long probation, he had always been refused. "I have done a thing," he said, "for which I may be put to death. I could leave the country, but in that case, my father and all my brothers would be deprived of their possessions, and perhaps killed. So I have decided to give myself up. I shall be executed, and I cannot die without baptism. Now will you baptise me?" After a rapid summary of all that he had been taught, with a special exhortation to contrition and resignation, the boy was given the much desired Sacrament, and went off happily, after a touching farewell to the Fathers, to be burnt alive—the penalty of his fault. But Mtesa pardoned him—a thing unheard of in the annals of Uganda, and he came back declaring that God alone could have worked such a miracle.
Another catechumen, one of the king's pages, denounced to Mtesa for a crime which he had never committed, did not get off so easily. Two other pages, his friends, also catechumens, came in great sorrow to tell the Fathers of his arrest. "They may kill us too," they said, "but it does not matter. Now we know the true religion, we shall go to heaven."
Father Lourdel went to the palace to see if anything could be done, but soon realised that it would be useless to intervene. The boy was a general favourite, and everyone pitied him, but no one dared to suggest what they all knew—that he was innocent. Seizing a moment when they were all busy discussing something else, Father Lourdel made his way over to him. “Are they going to put you to death?" he asked. "Probably," answered the young man smiling, "but I am not afraid of death any more, I even long for it." "Have you been able to get Baptism?" he asked again. "Yes” was the answer, "One of my companions baptised me last night." He was a young man of strong character, who had brought many of his friends to be instructed, and the Fathers had often been struck by his energy and determination. "As I watched him sitting there,"wrote Father Lourdel, "in all the vigour of youth, calmly facing a most horrible death, I asked myself if in these people, who sometimes seem so inert and apathetic, there will not be found some day the material for martyrs.
"In the afternoon the other pages came in great distress to tell us that he was to be burnt alive. He was tortured first, and bore his sufferings bravely."
"One day" he writes again, "as I was going to visit the king, I met one of the pages of the chief minister, a bright little fellow who has been begging for a long time to come to the catechism classes, but was told, so as to be sure that he was in earnest, to wait for a month. The month was long over, he said; he knew his prayers already, in proof of which he proceeded to make the sign of the Cross and say the Our Father and the Hail Mary. I asked who had taught him, and he told me that it was a friend of his, one of the king's pages. Many others, in the same way, have taught their friends and relations what they have learnt with us, and they come to us half instructed already. There is excellent material for native catechists here, but unfortunately those who are the most promising are not free. They are either soldiers or pages of the king or the chiefs, or slaves."
At the end of the year the number of catechumens was over two hundred and fifty. The good seed had been sown; it was to be ripened by suffering.