Biography
Samuel Morris, whose African name was Kaboo, was born around the year 1873, in the Kru tribe, in the interior of Liberia, in West Africa. His father was a chief of the tribe, and Kaboo was a prince, in a family that followed the traditional religion of the people. He grew up in a village on the coast, among the palm trees and the river, in a society of farmers and fishermen. He learned the customs of the tribe and the use of the weapons of a warrior. When he was about fifteen, a war broke out between his father's tribe and a neighboring one. His father was defeated, and as a part of the settlement, Kaboo was given as a hostage to the victorious chief. He was to be kept until a ransom was paid. His father refused to pay.
He was held as a slave for about two years. He was treated cruelly. He was beaten, and he was tied to a tree by his hands and flogged. He was left in the open air, with little food. The abuse was so harsh that he bore the scars of it for the rest of his life. One day, according to the account that he gave, as he hung in pain, he saw a bright light in the sky, and he heard a voice that told him to run. The ropes that bound him fell away. He rose and fled into the forest. He ran through the bush for a long time, and he reached the coast, where he was found by a missionary, a man named Knolle, a young German who had been a drunkard and who had been converted.
Knolle took him in. He told him about Jesus and about the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, who would be a guide. Kaboo listened with a great hunger. He was baptized, and he took the name of Samuel Morris, after a benefactor of the mission. He was struck by the words about the Spirit and asked his teacher how he might receive Him. The teacher told him that he did not know much about it but that he knew a man in New York, Stephen Merritt, a Methodist preacher, who knew the Spirit and who might teach him. Samuel Morris determined to go to New York to meet him.
He got to New York in 1891, as a stowaway on a ship, or in the company of sailors who took him on. It was a voyage of several months. He worked his way. He spoke to the crew about Christ, and it is said that the sailors, who were rough men, were moved by his witness and that some were converted. He arrived in New York in the winter of 1891. He was about eighteen. He had no money and no friends and he knew no one. He asked the way to Stephen Merritt's home, and he was directed. Merritt took him in. The two men talked for hours about the Spirit. Merritt was a minister of great kindness, who was also an undertaker. He was deeply impressed by the African's simple and total faith.
Merritt sent him to Taylor University, which was then in Fort Wayne, Indiana, a small school with a strong emphasis on holiness and missions. Samuel enrolled in 1891. He was welcomed by the students and the faculty. His influence was remarkable. He spent hours in prayer and spoke often of the Holy Spirit. He was heard to say, Isn't the Holy Ghost wonderful. He had a way of speaking of God as though He were in the room. Many of the students and teachers said that they had never met a man like him. The president of the school, Thaddeus Reade, said that he knew a man who walked with God. He spoke at a number of churches and was a blessing to many. A revival broke out among the students.
His health was poor. He had not adjusted to the cold of Indiana, and in the winter of 1892, he caught a cold that turned into pneumonia. He died on May 12, 1893, at the age of about twenty. He had been at Taylor for less than two years. His last words, according to the accounts, were of the king whom he was going to see. He was buried in the school cemetery. The school moved to Upland, Indiana, in the same year, and some say that his death was one of the reasons for its growth. His story was told by Lindley Baldwin in a book, Samuel Morris, which has been widely read. It should be said that the story has been told and retold, and that some of its details have grown in the telling. He left a lasting mark on the school and on the many who heard of him. His life shows the effect of a young man with a simple faith, who asked for the Spirit and who left a testimony.