Fruits of Toil in the London Missionary Society — Background and Themes

Persecution as a Crucible

The Madagascar section receives the most dramatic treatment. The narrative recounts three waves of persecution under the Merina monarchy, beginning in 1837 when 'profession of christianity was forbidden.' Specific martyrs are named: Rasalama, speared; Rafaralahy; and later, fourteen thrown from a precipice while 'the four nobles sang hymns amid the burning flames.' The account emphasizes that persecution did not extinguish the church but caused it to multiply—a claim supported by the repeated pattern of scattering and regrowth.

Numbers are given precisely: seventeen dead by 1842, nineteen hundred fined in 1849, fourteen stoned in 1857. The language is restrained but the cumulative effect is stark. The editor frames these events as evidence of divine grace enabling 'without fear to meet all penalties for conscience' sake.'

Material Progress as Evidence

Across the missions, the editor measures success in tangible terms. In Tahiti, 'towns and settlements are becoming seats of constant industry; waggons are purchased by chiefs and people; cottages and gardens multiply.' The South African mission notes that Sechele and five thousand people hold prayer meetings for rain, signaling a decline in the rain-maker's influence. Such details tie spiritual change to observable social order.

The preface frames this as a contrast with the Society's early poverty: 'money was scarce; Christian benevolence was little understood.' Now, churches are wealthier, the ministry more established, and 'a native ministry' appears on the lists. The book's title—Fruits of Toil—is literal: the harvest is both souls and infrastructure.

The Rhetoric of Contrast

The editor repeatedly sets past against present. The opening paragraph lists what early missionaries lacked: 'They knew little of the manners and systems of heathen nations; they knew less of their literature; they knew nothing of their languages.' The following paragraph begins 'In all these elements of usefulness we occupy… a position… in marked contrast.' This binary structure—then/now, obstacle/achievement—governs the entire work.

Even within mission narratives, contrast operates. Madagascar's 'long trial of suffering' is juxtaposed with the eventual liberty of 1861. The Matebele hope that Moselekatse's successor 'will have learned the religion of the gospel' implies a future still in tension with a violent past. The book does not present a simple triumphalism; it acknowledges that progress is hard-won and incomplete.

Readers should note that the excerpts are drawn from the opening and closing sections; the full text includes additional mission fields. The editor's voice is institutional, but the inclusion of named individuals and specific numbers gives the account a documentary quality. Pay attention to how the Society's own history is woven into the mission reports—the book is as much about the LMS as about the peoples it sought to convert.

Reading about the LMS missionaries’ steady, often costly labor in Tahiti made me think of another kind of patient endurance—the soldier’s march in Three Years in the Service A Record of the Doings of the 11th Reg. Missouri Vols. — Text and Context. Both accounts hum with quiet perseverance, the unassuming weight of ordinary days given to something larger than themselves.