Let My People Go

The Life of Robert A. Jaffray

NEXT TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES the greatest aid to the life of faith may be Christian biography. It is indeed notable that a large part of the Bible itself is given over to the life and labors of prophets, patriarchs and kings—who they were, what they did and said, how they prayed and toiled and suffered and how they triumphed at last. Sometimes this is given in brief outline—a quick candid shot and no more—but often there is much fullness of detail covering page after page of the Sacred Word.

These favored ones whose names appear on the roll of the spiritually great have been adopted by succeeding generations of pilgrims as guides and teachers in the holy way. We have all felt their presence. We have stood with Abraham as he shielded his eyes and peered down the centuries to see by faith the fulfillment of the promise. We have sat with David under the pale light of the stars as, accompanied by his homemade lyre, he tried out some verses that were later to become immortal. Who among us has not been made wiser and better by knowing Elijah or Daniel or Paul? And who has not thanked God that their story was written down for us to read?

Only the conviction that a reading public would receive immeasurable aid from an acquaintance with the subject of this story gave me the courage to attempt it. The preparation of a biography of a person like Robert Jaffray is no easy task.

To write the life of a stay-put local citizen who had been content to spend his life in one town or even one country would not have been too great an undertaking. One might visit the old homestead, photograph his birthplace, interview a few people who knew him well, and the rest would be easy. But a person like Jaffray is not captured so painlessly. To collect data on one who lived all over the world and would never stay put is a real job for anyone.

Robert A. Jaffray was a citizen of no single country. From his early manhood he moved about over the face of the world—not aimlessly, but with clear intelligent purpose. He was an explorer, a pioneer, and this accounts for the gaps that will be found in this or any story of his life. He lived in too many places too far from each other to allow a closely woven biography to be written. One could have journeyed half way around the world to see him, only to find that he had left the day before to visit some remote point in the Far East where some important gathering looked to him for guidance.

Jaffray was a Canadian by birth. Wherever he traveled, home to him always meant Canada. Of Canada he was ever proud, and he remained loyal to his country as long as he lived. But he had met Christ as Moses had met God at the burning bush, and he had been baptized into His Spirit, made to feel the impulses of His heart. After that, Christ’s people were his people in a sense none other could be. For the lost tribes of the earth he felt a kinship such as Moses felt for the children of Israel. He felt them to be God’s people, though held under the bondage of sin. In the same way they were Jaffray’s own people, and he was called to set them free. He distinctly heard a Voice saying, “Say to Pharaoh: Let my people go!”

This feeling of kinship with the lost of the earth and the conviction that he had been commissioned to deliver them from bondage made Jaffray a prophet and a deliverer, as surely as Moses had been before him. It was not until his last and greatest adventure, when he entered the East Indies, that he stated this conviction in so many words, but it had always been in the back of his mind and in the bottom of his heart, and it gave him an air of command.

We may as well know at the outset that we have here no ethereal saint full of the gentler graces but too sweet and fragile for this rough world. Anything but that! Jaffray was a man of authority; his whole bearing bespoke it, and everyone who knew him felt it unmistakably. Toward the powers of darkness he took a stern, condemning attitude, and in the name of God he was always saying, “Let my people go!”

Such facts as I have I now present to interested readers. I am certain that the power and drive of this unusual man will be felt by all who read what is written here. It is possible that the very attempt to bring a life so long and a character so rich and varied into the narrow compass of a small book may serve to focus attention upon him and allow his voice to be heard again, that voice which has been temporarily silenced by death.

One word should be added concerning the treatment of the material before me. I have sought to capture the spirit of Jaffray, to present him as a real human being. For this reason I have not given too much care to dates nor to mere chronological sequence. I have not tried to write a history of Alliance missions in the Far East, but to write the story of a person, and a person is always greater than anything he or she has done. I believe the facts set forth here will be found to be accurate, but my aim has been to show the man above and beyond the facts. How well I have succeeded is for others to judge.

I wish here to acknowledge the courtesy of Christian Publications for permitting me to quote from After Fifty Years and With Christ in Indo-China. I am also indebted to G. Ricordi and Company for permission to use the poem, Go Down Moses.

To the large number of Mr. Jaffray’s friends and coworkers who so patiently submitted to my long cross-examinations and answered so cheerfully my endless prying questions, I also express my sincere thanks.

A.W. Tozer

Chicago

May 1, 1947