Although Mary was busy she was not well.  During most of 1906 she had been ailing.

“If you want to keep on with your missionary work,” said the government doctor, “you must go home to Scotland where you can rest up and get the fever out of your system.”

Mary did not want to leave her work.  A few days after her talk with the doctor, when he came to see her again, she was much better.

“It looks as if God wants me to stay.  Does that sound like He could not do without me!  I do not mean it so.  How little I can do!  But I can at least keep a door open for missionary work so others can come and do more.”

The year 1907 came.  Mary was much worse.  She could walk only a few steps.  When she wanted to go anywhere, she had to be carried.  At last she decided to do as the doctor told her and go to Scotland for a vacation.

“Oh, the dear homeland!” she said with tears in her eyes.  “Shall I really be there and worship in the churches again?  How I long for a look at a winter landscape, to feel the cold wind, and the frost in the cart ruts!  How I want to take a back seat in a church and hear the congregation singing, without a care of my own!  I want to hear how they preach and pray and rest their souls in the hush and silence of our home churches.”

Mary took her six-year-old Dan, one of the many children she had adopted.  The government officers were kind and helpful to her in getting ready for her trip.

“God must repay these men,” said Mary, “because I cannot.  He will not forget that they did it to a child of His, unworthy though she is.”

Mary was now a wrinkled, shining-eyed old lady, almost sixty years old.  She was carried on board the ship that would take her to Scotland.  Her friends, both white and native, cried and wondered if she would ever come back to Africa again.

#14#

Journey’s End

“Send us workers for dark Africa,” said Mary.  “If I can get the Board to send us one or more workers, I will give half my salary to add to theirs.  I will give the house for them to live in and find the servants.  You who have so much, won’t you do something for these poor people of Africa?”

Mary was speaking in the churches of Scotland telling about her work in Africa.  After she had returned to Scotland, she felt much better.  The air and climate was much better than in the steaming jungles of Africa.  As soon as she was strong enough, she began to go about telling about her work.  She urged the people to give money and to send workers to Africa.

Above all, she wanted to get money to support the industrial home for women which she had planned.  From May until October she went among the churches telling about the “African sheep” whom the Good Shepherd Jesus wanted brought in.

In October Mary asked to be sent back to Africa.  She wanted to carry on her work there.

“I am foolish, I know,” said Mary, “but I just feel homeless without any relatives here in Scotland.  I am a poor, lonesome soul with only memories.”