Descended on the paternal side from a line of Scotch-Irish Presbyterians and on his mother's side from a family which had produced many missionaries, he inherited a tradition of religious service which was heightened by the strictly pious atmosphere of his home life.
It was only at the death of his father in 1886, the year before his graduation, that he surrendered this ambition for the career to which his parents had destined him.
Young Morrison kicked against the pricks, however, and throughout most of his college course at Washington and Lee University he was resolved to become a lawyer.
Only after six years of teaching in the South did he enter the Presbyterian Theological seminary in Louisville, Ky. , where he graduated in 1896.
Soon afterward, having been ordained to the ministry, he set out for Africa as a missionary of the Southern Presbyterian Church (Presbyterian Church in the United States).
Six months out of Philadelphia he reached his station at Luebo in the heart of the Congo Free State.
Morrison was successful from the beginning.
Brought up on a farm, he knew how to use his hands to perform the innumerable practical tasks incident to life in the jungle.
Knowing from infancy the negro character, he had little difficulty in dealing with the natives; almost instinctively he knew how to win their confidence and affection.
He had a quick ear, a retentive memory, and considerable linguistic training.
By dint of great patience and persistent labor, aided by some of the more intelligent natives, he completed in 1906 his Grammar and Dictionary of the Buluba-Lulua Language as Spoken in the Upper Kasai and Congo Basin, which was printed in the United States.
This work, intended for the use of the missionaries, was followed by translations of Bible paraphrases, of the catechism, of various tracts, and finally of the New Testament.
The translation of the last named had proceeded only through Acts when Morrison died.
His work was the more useful because the Buluba tongue was a sort of a lingua franca over large sections of the Congo.
His protests began soon after his arrival at Luebo; they continued until the needed reforms were introduced.
At London, in 1903, where the reform movement was already under way, he cooperated with the Congo Reform Association, addressed Parliament on the subject, and wrote several stirring articles for the press.
In America he continued the campaign through the press and on the platform.
Calls for American interference in the Congo situation resulted; the government at Washington, not being a signatory to the treaty of Berlin, felt unable to act.
Undoubtedly his work was effective.
The resulting revelations, plus the continued campaign in which Morrison had his part, set in train the movement toward reform, effected only after Belgian assumption of sovereignty in the Congo.
Thanks to his efforts the missionaries were acquitted.
Morrison continued his work at Luebo until March 1918, when he died of tropical dysentery.
[Who's Who in America, 1914-15; T. C. Vinson, William McCutchan Morrison (1921); S. H. Chester.
Behind the Scenes (1928); Missionary Review of the World, June 1918; files of the Missionary and the Missionary Survey, Nashville, Tenn. ]
Morrison, William Mccutchan, , 1867 1918 Male Southern Presbyterian clergyman and missionary to the Congo, was born on a farm near Lexington, Va. , the eldest of the eight children of James Luther Morrison and his wife, Mary Agnes McCutchan.
The missionaries were defended at the trial by Émile Vandervelde, Socialist leader from Brussels, who had long been known as a champion of Congo reform.
Indeed, almost at his birth his parents had "consecrated William to God. "
They had no children.
His wife, Bertha Marion Stebbins, whom he had married in 1906, died in Africa in 1910.
His wife, Bertha Marion Stebbins, whom he had married in 1906, died in Africa in 1910.
In 1909 Morrison, with his colleague, W. H. Sheppard, was sued for damages by the Kasai Company on account of an allegedly libelous article written by Sheppard and published by Morrison in the Kasai Herald.
