Samuel Morris: The Prince Who Heard God’s Voice
A teenage prince hung in ropes in a Liberian jungle camp, beaten daily, waiting to die. Then came a flash of light, a voice from heaven, and ropes falling into the dirt. His escape was only the beginning.
Who Was Samuel Morris?
He was born Prince Kaboo around 1873, eldest son of a Kru chieftain in Liberia. Captured by a rival tribe at fourteen, he was held as a pawn while his father’s ransom payments were rejected again and again. The beatings became a daily ritual. Then one night a light flashed over the camp, a voice said, “Kaboo, flee,” and the ropes fell from his body. He ran through the jungle for days, hiding in hollow trees and living on snails and mangoes, until he reached Monrovia.
The Voice That Set a Prince Free
In Monrovia a boy invited Kaboo to church, where a missionary preached on Saul of Tarsus, a man stopped by a blinding light and a voice from heaven. Kaboo sat stunned. He had already met this God in the jungle. He gave his life to Christ and was baptized as Samuel Morris. Hungry to know the Holy Spirit, he worked his passage across the Atlantic on a sailing ship and arrived in New York with empty pockets, asking for a man named Stephen Merritt. If a story of one soul answering a mysterious voice from God stirs you, read next about Amy Carmichael, whose whole life turned on a single childhood answered prayer.
The Room No One Else Wanted
Merritt sent Samuel to Taylor University in Indiana. Asked which room he would like, Samuel answered, “If there is a room nobody wants, give that one to me.” Students heard him praying through the door and he called it talking to his Father. He died in 1893 at just twenty years old, never seeing Africa again. At his funeral, students rose and volunteered to take his place on the mission field. “God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty” (1 Corinthians 1:27, NKJV). If Samuel’s surrender to God moves you, read next about John Wesley, whose own heart was strangely warmed after years of striving. And that, friend, is how God lifts up your day.