While I mostly like to read books with my eyeballs, I sometimes also need an audiobook to entertain me during the menial tasks of cleaning or driving. One of my go-to apps for this is the LibriVox app, which allows for any ol’ Joe or Susan to record themselves reading books in the public domain. Sometimes the amateur readers are unlistenable, and sometimes they’re a gem that makes listening to the book enjoyable. The reader of this book was the latter, so I really had a good time with this one.

This 1907 book by John C. Lambert recounts the life stories of 25 missionaries from the 19th century in a way that’s not surprising, given the title. Rather than speak of their theology, doctrine, or ministry successes, Lamber instead focuses on their adventures and (sometimes) martyrdoms. I love missions and I love real-life adventure, so this book was a great fit for me. And seeing as it’s 116 years old, well, I think it’s held up pretty well over the years.

Granted, there’s the slight possibility that Lambert employed some of the exaggeration you might find in turn-of-the-century newspapers. It was, after all, the boon time for adventure novels by authors like H. Rider Haggard, Jack London, and Joseph Conrad. Still, I don’t think there’s any need to view these adventures as mere hype to get the youth interested in mission work. Especially regarding the accounts of Alexander McKay and Bishop James Hannington in Uganda, their stories have been pretty well established and verified, so I felt like I could take them mostly at face value.

It’s probably because Lambert’s denominational background differed from my own (and thus his river of church history would have followed a much different course), but I didn’t recognize very many names in his list of missionaries to profile. Here’s a quick summary of the missionaries and their locations:

• Asia: James Gilmour (Mongolia); Dr. Jacob Chamberlain (India); Joseph Neesim (Japan); George Leslie McKay (Formosa); Annie R. Taylor (Tibet); Dr. A. MacDonald Westgate (China).
  
• Africa: Alexander McKay (Uganda); Bishop James Hannington (Uganda); David Livingstone (Nyasaland); three Frenchmen (Barotseland); Fred S. Arnot (Garenganze); A.B. Lloyd (Congo).
  
• America: John Horton (Hudson Bay); James Evans (Far North); Stephen and Mary Riggs (Dakota Territory); Mr. Brent (Guiana); Allen Gardiner (Tierra del Fuego); Jemmy Button (Tierra Del Fuego).
  
• Oceania: Coley Patteson (Melanesia); Chalmers (P.N.G.); Father Damien (Hawaiian Islands); James Calvert (Fiji); John Williams and John G. Paton (New Hebrides); Titus Coan and Kapiolani (Hawaiian Islands).

What I get from this book is that author Lambert commenced upon his own adventure of reading as many primary and secondary sources as possible in order to give his readers a taste of the world of missions at the turn of the century (his explanation of James Gilmour’s book, Among the Mongols, for example makes me want to rush out a buy a copy!). In fact, his methods remind me a lot of modern author, M.R. Conrad, whose books Daring Devotion (2020) and Daring Dependence (2022) follow a similar model, only Conrad does focus more on the profiled missionaries’ ministries and really emphasizes spiritual application as well.

Rarely does Lambert write at length of the spiritual impact these missionaries had on a region, but neither does he ignore the realities of why the missionaries have gone to the far-flung places in the first place. At one point, he writes:

We speak of the romance of missions; and even from the most external point of view they are often full of the romance that belongs to all heroism and adventure. But to those who look deeper, the spiritual romance is the most wonderful—the transformation of character and life, the turning of a savage into a Christian. (239-240)

Although we wouldn’t use the same terminology today, that’s really the point of missions: to see lives transformed from self-worship and deception by false beliefs to a worship of God and understanding of the Truth. Christians get harped on for this understanding, and from the outside sure, we look arrogant and loveless in trying to change people’s beliefs and cultures. But if what we say (or rather, what the Bibles teaches) is true—that without forgiveness from God through the sacrifice of Jesus, every soul remains bound for Hell—then telling the world is the only loving thing we can do! So why aren’t we doing more of it?

I’m grateful for the Gutenberg Project that’s preserved this old book for current and future enjoyment, and even though you might not know many names on this list and might not even agree with Lambert’s stream of theology, I encourage you to take some time with this book (or better yet, Conrad’s!) and get re-inspired towards the Great Commission. You’ve only got one life to live, so why not live it adventurously for God through missions?

©2023 E.T.

Read More Great Missionary Stories:

• Raymond Lull by Samuel Zwemer (1902)
• The Romance of Missionary Heroism by John C. Lambert (1907)
• By My Spirit by Jonathan Goforth (1929)
• Adoniram Judson by Faith Coxe Bailey (1955)
• Green Leaf in Drought-time by Isobel Kuhn (1957)
• By Searching by Isobel Kuhn (1959)
• Among the Savage Redskins of the Amazon by Harold Wildish (1961)
• Arrows of His Bow by Sanna Morrison Barlow (1966)
• Peace Child by Don Richardson (1974)
• Lords of the Earth by Don Richardson (1977)
• From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya by Ruth Tucker (1983)
• John and Betty Stam by Kathleen White (1989)
• Let My People Go by A.W. Tozer (1990)
• Torches of Joy by John Dekker (1992)
• An Ordinary Man—A Great God by Joy Mielke (2011)
• Mountain Rain by Eileen Crossman and M.E. Tewskesbury (2013)
• Beneath the Ancient Dust by Melissa Meyers (2018)
• Daring Dependence by M.R. Conrad (2022)