The Troubled Gardener
Robert Moffat
"Aye, Robert, I don't know what's a-coming' to ye." And with that lament, the Scottish schoolmaster "Wully" Mitchell laid on the rod. Robert Moffat grimaced and took his punishment, vowing to know his Presbyterian catechism next time.
But there were ships to watch and sailors' tales to hear, and each time he was called upon to recite from his catechism, he seemed to merit only the teacher's rod.
Robert lived only a few miles from Edinburgh, and when he was ten, a friendly captain took him on several voyages. Robert's ship had some hairbreadth escapes along the rocky coast, too many for even the boy's adventuresome spirit. He hurried back home, sadder and wiser.
He endured a few more months of school, picked up a little knowledge of geography and astronomy from his older brother, then at the age of fourteen was apprenticed to a gardener.
The work was hard. He rose from the shed where he slept and started his day's planting, spading, and stoking hothouse fires, at four A.M. Often it was so cold he had to rap his knuckles against his spade handle to bring feeling into them.
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Four years later, Robert received a job offer from the High Legh estate in Cheshire, England. His parents bade him a tearful farewell. He promised to read a chapter from the Bible every morning and evening.
At the estate he was given a shed and the responsibilities of tending nineteen fires in the greenhouses. He stoked in the morning and banked in the evening. In between he pored over the books in his mistress' library. A thirst for knowledge was at last filling his mind.
He also had another thirst brought on by his daily Bible readings. He found a small group of Methodists meeting on a corner of the estate property. The class had been organized in 1783 by one of John Wesley's zealous preachers. The young gardener enjoyed the informal studies, until he became disturbed about his own spiritual condition.
As he tended his plants, the question, "What think ye of Christ?" kept disturbing him. One night he had a frightful dream. His sins seemed to pile up into a great mountain which was rolling down upon him. He awoke, shivering, and fell on his knees, but when he tried to pray, a black cloud seemed to fall over him.
Robert wanted desperately to have the conversion experience which the Methodists talked about, yet it seemed he could not.
"Perhaps," he thought, "if I were a great sinner I could have a great experience with Christ." But he was unable to force himself to do that which his godly mother had so earnestly warned him against.
Then he tried the opposite tack of forsaking foolish and worldly company, vain thoughts, and wicked
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imaginations. Still his mountain of sins loomed up before him.
Confiding in no one, he wrestled with his burden in the isolation of his hedges and flowers. Later he wrote, "I tried to hear Jesus saying to my soul, 'Only believe;' but the passages from which I sought comfort only seemed to deepen my wounds."
But Robert Moffat's day of peace did come. One night while meditating on the epistle to the Romans, the familiar passages seemed to give light he had never seen before. Of this experience, he testified, "The Book of God . . . seemed to be laid open and I saw what God had done for the sinner . . . I felt that, being justified by faith, I had peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ."
Soon after his conversion, his employers offered him the position of head gardener with several men under his direction. There was one stipulation, that he give up the Methodist meetings which they disliked.
But Robert Moffat's convictions had been whetted on the divine grindstone. "I thank you for your good intentions," he replied candidly, "but I would prefer my God to white and yellow ore."
A few days later he saw a poster by the town bridge advertising a missionary meeting. Over and over he read the announcement. And, there the resolve came "to go to sea again and get landed on some island or foreign shore where I might teach poor heathen to know the Saviour." The poster had brought back memories of missionary stories which his mother had read to him back in Scotland.
From that moment on, Robert Moffat's heart was set
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on a missionary career. He applied to a missionary society but was rejected because he was not promising enough.
Reverend William Roby, a missionary-minded minister, disagreed with the society. Taking young Robert under his tutelage, he helped him secure employment with a Christian man who needed a gardener. Robert could support himself and at the same time further his education for the mission field.
All went well until Robert and his employer's daughter fell in love. Mary Smith's parents agreed to a marriage, but only if Robert gave up his intentions of becoming a missionary. The two lovers labored and prayed over their problem for hours. Finally, they agreed that Robert must fulfill God's call at whatever cost it took. Mary would wait and hope that her parents might relent.
In the year 1816, Robert Moffat departed alone for Africa. Before leaving, he wrote to his parents, "Oh, that I had a thousand lives and a thousand bodies!"
Two years later, Mary Smith's parents finally consented to the marriage, and Mary sailed across the Atlantic. In Capetown, South Africa, she and Robert had a joyful reunion and were married.
Robert and Mary Moffat spent fifty-two years of pioneer mission service together before returning to England at the age of seventy-five. They put down the foundations and set the pattern for mission work throughout the dark continent. Thousands were converted through their ministry. Fierce tribal chieftains became peace-loving. Robert Moffat became the first to translate and print Christian literature for Africans in their own tongue.
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From the sparks that flashed from Robert Moffat's heart, another Englishman caught fire for Africa. This was the great David Livingstone, who married Moffat's daughter, Mary, and following his father-in-law, opened up vast jungles of the great continent for spiritual conquests.
