Of his latest article about Scottish missionaries, Paul James-Griffiths of Christian Heritage Edinburgh writes, “This week we travel from Africa and Asia to Portugal, and to Dr Robert Kalley. This amazing Scottish medical missionary had a significant impact in Portugal, until he was driven out, and then in Brazil.“

Dr Robert Reid Kalley (1809-1888)

http://www.robertreidkalley.xpg.com.br/, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

That night the frenzied mob burst out of the cathedral onto the streets of Funchal, Madeira. The canon of the cathedral had been inciting them to acts of violence with his fanatical words of hatred. Surging like a torrent of water the crowds gushed through Cathedral Square and along the streets chanting,“Long live our Lady of the Mount! Long live the Holy Mother Church! Death to the Bible readers! Death to Kalley – the Wolf from Scotland!”

It was August 1846, but the scene was reminiscent of the riot in Ephesus so long ago when Paul preached the gospel. Then it was the Pagans with their chants of “Long live Artemis of the Ephesians!” because many locals had turned to Christ, and the silver smiths were losing business through the diminished sales of the silver idols of the goddess; now it was because of the success of a missionary who had won many to the gospel who were Roman Catholics. The crowds had just been celebrating a Mass to their saint, the Lady of the Mount, and were determined to root out the cause of their anger – a Scotsman from Glasgow named Dr Robert Kalley (1809-1888).

Dressed in a woman’s clothing as his disguise, Kalley escaped the seething mob just in time. Friends carried him in a hammock with a linen blanket over his head, as the smouldering pages from his library swirled around their heads from a fire caused by the protesters. They passed through the baying mob, joining other Christians who sought safety. A ship took the 200 beleaguered Madeiran Christians to Trinidad, and later to America, whilst Kalley and his wife Margaret returned home to Scotland for a while. It is reckoned that about 2,000 evangelical Christians left Madeira following them later.

As they travelled home Kalley reminisced about his experiences. He had studied obstetrics, chemistry, surgery, and medicine at Glasgow University in 1828-9. As a young man he had developed an intense dislike of anything religious, calling the Christian faith “a parcel of lies”. His atheism had grown whilst being a ship’s doctor because of all the suffering he had seen. He had been a conscientious general practitioner in Kilmarnock, but here he had witnessed the godly and serene character of a Christian woman facing death with a very painful cancer. It was this experience which shattered his atheism, causing him to seek Christ and find him. Soon after his conversion in 1834-5 he began to open his surgery with prayer and a Scripture reading for those who wanted it, and left copies of the Bible for his patients. He was surprised to find that those who complained about this were some church ministers and elders, not the patients themselves, who appreciated his care and kindness.

His passion for medical outreach stirred him to seek a posting with London Missionary Society (LMS), the largest agency serving missionaries abroad at that time. He was accepted in 1837 and underwent missionary training at Glasgow Theological Academy, being supervised by two leading Congregational ministers: Ralph Wardlaw and Greville Ewing. He prepared himself for China, but it was not to be: his wife Margaret struggled with an illness, so the LMS decided it would be unwise for them to travel there. It was decided that they would travel to Portuguese Madeira, which was regarded as a spa resort then.

From the time he arrived at Funchal, the capital of Madeira, he was kept very busy. After setting up a surgery there he gave free healthcare for the locals, helping about 100 people every day. Every morning during the week he opened his surgery with prayer and a Bible reading, giving a brief explanation of the text. Most of the people who came had only the slightest knowledge of the Christian faith, even though they were Roman Catholics. As a result of this practical care, he found the need to open up schools to teach people how to read and write, as most of his patients were poor and illiterate. “Almost two and a half thousand attended the schools between 1839 and 1845,” he wrote, and “well over a thousand… learned to read the Scriptures intelligently, and to study for themselves.”

In the seventeen schools he set up on Madeira most of the teachers were Roman Catholics, not Protestants, but they were keen to teach people to read and write by using a New Testament, which had been translated into Portuguese by a Roman Catholic priest. The municipal council of Funchal was delighted with Kalley’s medical and educational work, and as he did not show any anti-Roman Catholic behaviour, they were content to let him continue. However, as the gospel spread and Bibles were distributed, some religious people became incensed. “Soon the cries of ‘Calvinistas’ [followers of John Calvin] and ‘Kallistas’ [disciples of Robert Kalley] were very loud… Large companies of men marched through the city declaring that all Protestants, foreign and native, should be destroyed.”

Robert Kalley and many of the converts were rounded up and imprisoned in horrific conditions. After six months of languishing in jail, Kalley was released and allowed to continue his work with the others, but as his success grew, so did the anger of the religious fanatics, leading to his forced exile in 1846 when all of his schools, house, Bibles, and surgery, were destroyed by rampaging mobs. However, God was opening up another door in Brazil. This will be covered next week in Part 2 of the story of Robert Kalley.