<rso
EAINENT
MISSIONARY
VOAEN --
BY i'-^o • c-Nj) . r-^o
M^ J-T-GRACEY
'^ PRINCETON, N. J.
Purchased by the Hammill Missionary Fund.
BV 3703 .G73 1898
Gracey, Annie Ryder, 1836-
Eminent missionary women
%
MARY LYON
THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB
EMINENT
Missionary Women
MRS. J. T. GRACEY
INTRODUCTORY NOTES BY
Mrs. Joseph Cook and Mrs. S. L. Keen
LIBRARY OF PRINCETOW
SEP 1 6 2003
THEOLOGICAL SEMINARl
NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS
CINCINNATI: CURTS & JENNINGS
Copyright, 1898, hy
New York.
A FOREWORD
THIS unpretentious volume is the outgrowth
of experience in connection with current
missionary literature of many lands and of
many societies. A great many persons, widely
separated from each other, through a series of
years have solicited information from the
author about eminent missionary women, such
as could not be found except in fragments in
inaccessible reports or other current litera-
ture.
To meet the want thus indicated this group
of biographical sketches has been prepared,
covering one or two prominent women who
have been leaders or creators of missionary
sentiment at home, and typical women in many
missionary societies, with some independent
workers. It is thus pan-denominational.
It also represents the several classes of work
which women have been able to conduct on the
field — educational, evangelistic, literary, med-
ical, or eleemosynary.
The volume is not a contribution to hero-
worship. The persons whose life work is so
A FOREWORD
briefly sketched were eminently practical, sen-
sitive, devoted, seeking not their own, but ac-
complishing- their work without publicity except
that required to insure sympathetic cooperation
or to awaken inspiration in others for the exten-
sion of Christ's kingdom. Many of them en-
tered upon their work before the Modern
Woman's Societies were inaugurated, and had
not the impulse of association with a great
company upholding them with Christian love
and prayer.
In some instances it has been impossible after
protracted research even to ascertain their full
names, and they appear simply as '' Miss" .
It matters not if unrecorded here; ''these are
they," and their names are ''written in the
Lamb's book of life." Others eminent in their
own achievements can be spoken of only under
their husbands' names, because their Christian
names could not be ascertained.
In a few instances sketches have been found
compact and complete enough to require but
slight modification to adapt them to these
pages. The original source has been duly
credited.
Most of the names of persons whose lives
are sketched herein, are familiar to American
readers ; but we trust that the record presented
of toil, danger, loneliness, endurance, patience,
A FOREWORD
of Christian forbearance among strange people,
in climates hostile to health, and in contact with
all forms of debasing heathenism, may be an
inspiration to the workers of the present day,
and a source of greater interest in efforts to up-
lift the womanhood of the world, by all w^ho
may read its pages.
Annie Ryder Gracey.
Rochester, N. Y.
SALUTATORY
NOTHING is so stimulating to high endeavor
and heroic action as the record of those
who have made their ''lives sublime." Mrs.
Gracey will win the gratitude of all Christian
women for bringing together this constellation
of bright particular stars, whose light has not
only illumined the skies of the New World, but
has shown in the most distant dark places of the
earth. No one could be better equipped for
this task than one who has herself labored in
foreign fields, and for more than a quarter of a
century has been closely connected with the
foreign missionary work of the home churches.
The sketches, though brief, are as clear-cut as
cameos, and make a distinct and indelible im-
pression. The women of the various denomi-
national boards are to be congratulated on this
addition to missionary literature.
Mrs. Joseph Cook.
Cliff Seat, Ticonderoga, N. Y.,
June 27,
SALUTATORY
IT is sometimes said that to-morrow is the un-
known, unknowable land. It is so near us
— a few hours' rest and we shall be in it — but
we have no knowledge what it may bring to us.
Yet all nature and all life are getting ready for
the consummation of the ye.sterdays. We do
not clearly discern to what the signs of the
times are leading us, but we know that the
increasing activity in missionary enterprises
everywhere portends some grand future culmi-
nation. Those who are in the advance of the
movement and seem to have some direction of
its lines welcome every fresli reinforcement and
every new supply that can strengthen and com-
fort those in the midst of the fighting.
Much pioneer work has been done, but more
remains to be done. The enemy still holds far
the larger territory, and millions of foes are
yet to be changed into friends. Many a time
and oft a leader will say, ''Was ever a time like
this?" and will need to remind himself that
when God says, ''Go forward" he can open a
way through the midst of the sea and command
water from the rock to follow his children
through the desert.
SALUTATORY
We hail with delight this chronicle of heroic
patience and faith, and *we know no one so
thoroughly equipped for the preparation of such
a record as is our old and valued friend, Mrs.
Annie Ryder Gracey. Having learned by per-
sonal experience the hindrances and solaces that
come to a missionary in a heathen country, and
by subsequent loving study made herself famil-
iar with all phases of missionary work in all
lands, and by her skill as a writer, she is emi-
nently fitted to give us such a review of the
actual lives of these women as will be an anchor
to our faith and an inspiration to our zeal.
Many a timid heart, scarcely understanding
the call of the Spirit to separate herself from
kindred and the land of her fathers and preach
Christ in the wilderness, will learn the meaning
of the voice within, and find courage to give up
all for Christ as what others have done is un-
folded before her eyes. Every missionary so-
ciety needs such a book as an encouragement
to persevere in the work undertaken for the
Master's sake. It will receive a warm welcome
to our homes and libraries, and we believe its
value in educating the present generation of
young missionary workers will prove the wis-
dom of its author in bringing it out at this time.
Sarah L. Keen.
Philadelphia, Pa., July i, 1898.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Mary Lyon i
Mrs. T. C. Doremus lo
Fidelia Fiske . 23
Mrs. R. B. Lyth 38
Ann Wilkins 45
Mary Louisa Whately 50
Melinda Rankin 58
Lydia Mary Fay 66
Mary Briscoe Baldwin 71
Mrs. Bishop Gobat 78
Miss Aldersey 88
Mrs. H. C. Mullens 92
Mrs. Bovven Thompson ... 10 1
Sophia Cooke 106
Charlotte Maria Tucker 1 1 1
Mary Reed 121
Fanny Jane Butler, M. D 132
Mrs. Emma V. Day 141
Madame Coillard 146
Mrs. Hannah Marshman 154
xiii
CONTENTS
PAGE
Harriet G. Brittan i6o
Mrs. John Geddie and Mrs. John Inglis ., 167
Louisa H. Anstey , 175
Eliza Agnew 179
Gertrude Egede 186
Mrs. Murilla Baker Ingalls 196
Beulah Woolston „ ... ..o .... . 202
Clara A. Swain, M. D 211
xiv
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Mary Lyon Frontispiece
Mrs. R. B. Lyth ., 39
Mary Louisa Whately 51
Mrs. Bishop Gobat, , . 79
Mrs. Bowen Thompson 100
Fanny Jane Butler I33
Harriet G. Brittan 161
Gertrude Egede 187
Clara A. Swain, M. D 210
3 XV
€iiilnetit l))l$$ionarp (Uomen
MARY LYON
Preparing Missionaries
There is nothing in the universe that I fear but that I shall not
know all my duty, or shall fail to do it."
Mx\RY LYON was born in Buckland, Frank-
lin County, Mass., February 28, 1797.
Buckland is in what has sometimes been called
the Alpine region of Massachusetts, and the
site of Mary Lyon's earliest home is reached by
a " wild, winding way" through a maple grove
by a carriage drive from the railway, or by a
climb over a steep hill which rises eleven hun-
dred feet above the sea. It lies four miles
back from the village road, and the spot is
marked by a bronze tablet, inscribed with her
name, inserted in a rocky ledge.
She grew up, as girls of the period wxre
wont, learning household arts, embroidery, spin-
ning, now flax, now wool, or weaving or net-
ting. Her school advantages were limited, but
she early exhibited great aptitude for study,
and at seventeen had entered upon her life work
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
— teaching. At the age of twenty she entered
Sanderson Academy, in Ashfield, at first as a
pupil.
By birthright she was a woman of large faith.
It was said of her, '' Like the highborn in all
realms, in the realm of faith she began life at
the point where the few end and which the
many fail to reach." The historian of the
Buckland church at its centennial celebration
in 1885 said: ''In all her later schools here
she labored first and most for the conversion
of her scholars. The result was that through
these scholars revivals were carried to the towns
around." It came to pass that " when minis-
ters in the sanctuary prayed for colleges they
prayed, also, for the school at Buckland." Be-
sides Ashfield and Buckland, Derry and, more
eminently, Ipswich were the scenes of her ear-
lier labors, and her name is inseparably linked
with Mount Holyoke Seminary. It is most dif-
ficult to realize that in Massachusetts in the
eighteenth century women even of well-to-do
families were illiterate. Until 1790 girls were
not admitted to the public schools of Boston.
From 1790 until 1822 they were allowed to at-
tend in the summer months, when there were
not boys enough to fill the benches. Even the
town of Northampton at the close of the last
century voted '' not to be at any expense for
MARY LYON
schooling girls," and four years later they mod-
ified this by admitting girls under fifteen years
of age to the public schools from May to Octo-
ber. There were more than one hundred col-
leges for men in tlie State of Massachusetts
when, in 1836, she granted the first charter to
'' a school for the systematic higher education
of women." That was Mount Holyoke Semi-
nary, of which Mary Lyon was the heroine and
saint. She was the herald of the principle that
* ' education of the daughters of the Church calls
as rightfully for the free gifts of the Church as
does that of her sons." Her appeal was in the
name of religion. In a year she had raised the
thirty thousand dollars deemed requisite for her
adventure, and it was not till then that she
obtained the charter for the institution. A year
later she announced, '* So far we have been
enabled to accomplish on every point all that
we have encouraged the public to expect."
Mary Lyon's purpose was as philanthropic as
her impulse was religious — she wrought to in-
crease the usefulness of women. Mount Holyoke
was to train women to usefulness. *' For eleven
years the institution created by her power, or-
ganized by her skill, and maintained through
all its trials by her unfailing resources had been
under her kindly autocratic direction." Miss
Isabel Hart wrote of her thus: '' Thoroughness
1
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
of instruction, firmness with gentleness of dis-
cipline, lovingness of spirit, beauty of life, bore
their appropriate fruit in the type of woman-
hood molded by her formative hands. But
peculiarly what characterized her work was her
insatiate longing for that outpouring of the
Holy Spirit upon her pupils which would lead
to that rcQfen crating- work in their own hearts
which she felt was the only true basis of Chris-
tian character. Without this, at any season and
in any place, she felt her work was incomplete."
During the first six years of her seminary su-
perintendence at Mount Holyoke not a graduate,
and one year not a pupil, was left in the school
without a hope in Christ. Another year there
were only three. In twelve years there were
sixteen hundred pupils and more than four hun-
dred and sixty hopeful conversions.
The intense consecration of her spiritual na-
ture, combined with her lofty intelligence and
benevolence, made her essentially a missionary,
and a missionary whose sympathies and whose
work could know no geographical boundaries.
From the first her desire was to lay the king-
doms of the world at the feet of the Redeemer.
Her interest in foreign missions began in child-
hood with hearing of Carey and of Mills, and
grew with her growth and with the growth of
the American Board for Foreign Missions. She
4
MARY LYON
organized the first missionary society in Buck-
land, and either in person or by proxy visited
every house in the town, canvassing- for mem-
bers and for materials for work. Over sixty
children were enlisted. Though the Woman's
Board of Missions was not organized till twenty
years after her death, yet Mrs. Bowker, its
president, who received her inspiration for
missionary activities from Mary Lyon, declares
that a vast deal of the widespread interest
in missions which culminated in the organ-
ization of that Woman's Board must be at-
tributed to Mary Lyon. Not only she herself
was consecrated to the Lord, but the whole in-
stitution. The income of Mount Holyoke Sem-
inary was the Lord's money. She would accept
nothing but a home in the institution and two
hundred and fifty dollars a year for a salary.
Even of this, for several years before her death,
nearly one half was given away for religious
purposes, and, dying, she left property to the
American Board, in reversion, exceeding two
thousand dollars in value. The school itself
contributed, in the last seven years of her life,
nearly seven thousand dollars for foreign mis-
sions.
Mrs. Stowe, in her history of Mount Holyoke
Seminary, says that seventeen at least who had
been under her instruction before she left Ips-
" THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB "
wich became foreign missionaries. To this
number were added thirty-six of her Holyoke
pupils — of whom two were associate principals,
and seven others teachers at the seminary —
and twelve other pupils of the first twelve years
became teachers among the Indians in our
own country. Nineteen of these forty-eight
did not finish the seminary course. With one
exception, each senior class for the first fifteen
years had one or more representatives on the
foreign field, while those w^ho became wives of
home missionaries or teachers at the West and
South are numbered by hundreds.
One feature of the seminary w^as the constant
communication kept up with those who had gone
from the school to missionary labor, a journal of
the school being kept and copies of it sent to them
in various lands. In return, letters were received
in the school from the wilds of America, from
the islands of the sea, from Persia, India,
China, Africa, and thus an *' electric chain "
bound them to the altar of a common consecra-
tion.
Mary Lyon died March 5, 1849, ^^^ her
** works do follow " her. Soon after her death
a lady, principal of Vassar College, wrote: ** Is
she missed? Scarcely a State in the American
Union but contains those she has trained. Long
ere this, amid the hunting grounds of the Sioux
6
MARY LYON
and the villages of the Cherokees, the tear of
the missionary has wet the page that has told of
Miss Lyon's departure. The Sandwich Islander
will ask why is his white teacher's eye dim as
she reads her American letters. The swarthy
African will lament with his sorrowing guide,
who cries, ' Help, Lord ; for the godly man
ceaseth ! ' The cinnamon groves of Ceylon and
the palm trees of India overshadow her early-
deceased pupils, while those left to bear the
burden and heat of the day will wail the saint
whose prayers and letters they so prized.
Among the Nestorians of Persia and at the base
of Mount Olympus will her name be breathed
softly, as the household name of one whom God
hath taken."
Miss Lyon was interred on the Mount Hol-
yoke Seminary grounds. The monument erected
over the spot bears the following inscriptions :
MARY LYON,
THE FOUNDER OF
MOUNT HOLYOKE FEMALE SEMINARY,
AND
FOR TWELVE YEARS ITS PRINCIPAL.
A TEACHER FOR THIRTY-FIVE YEARS
AND
OF MORE THAN THREE THOUSAND PUPILS.
BORN FEBRUARY 28TH, 1 79/.
DIED MARCH 5TH, 1 849.
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
On the north side :
" Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her own works praise
her in the gates."
On the south side :
" Servant of God, well done ;
Rest from thy loved employ ;
The battle fought, the victory won,
Enter thy Master's joy."
On the east side the trustees directed to be
placed her own emphatic words :
" There is nothing in the universe that I fear but that I shall not
know all my duty, or shall fail to do it."
What Rev. Dr. Cuyler wrote after the gradu-
ating exercises of Mount Holyoke Seminary in
1879 l^^s been epitomized by Mrs. John Douglas,
in her Life Story of Mary Lyon, as follows :
'' Her body has been resting in yonder grove
for more than thirty years, but she was the
pioneer of the highest education for American
women. That crown belongs to her. Others,
like Harriet Osmer, have handled the chisel ;
like Maria Mitchell, the telescope; and the pen,
like Mrs. Stowe, but the life of Mary Lyon was
an epic — an added verse to the eleventh chapter
of Hebrews. She was a heroine. Not only
did she teach her pupils the higher branches of
literature, but she taught to labor and to pray,
* to suffer and be strong.' Scores of pastors'
wives have been trained at Holyoke, and more
MARY LYON
than seventy foreign missionaries have already
gone from her classes.
** So many wives and daughters of mission-
aries were present that it almost seemed like a
meeting of the American Board, and all
through the halls and art galleries was breathed
a gladsome spiritual atmosphere. ... I stood by
her monument — a plain block of marble. I read
the inscriptions, and thought of the motto she
used to give to her graduating classes : ' When
you choose your fields of labor go where nobody
else is willing to go.' What a seed-corn that is
for holy consecration to Christ ! It has germi-
nated into some of the noblest lives which
America has furnished. As I stood there I felt
the same thrill as when I stood by the historic
haystack where the American Board was born."
THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
MRS. T. C. DOREMUS
" Her life is her eulogy."
" Yet speakelh ! By that consecrated life,
The single-hearted, noble, true, and pure,
Which, lifted far above all earthly strife,
Could all but sin so patiently endure —
O Eloquence ! — by this she speaketh yet :
For who that knew and loved her could forget ?
ON a bright and beautiful Sabbath morning
in the month of May, 1868, the steamer
City of Paris ?c^r\vQ^ in New York, having among
her passengers a missionary and his family re-
turning from India. Among the first persons
to board the steamer was a lady tall in figure,
somewhat bent in form, with hair of silvery
whiteness, and a face with sweet and saintly ex-
pression. This was the subject of our sketch,
and she was there to welcome the missionary
and his family after an absence of seven years
from home and native land. In our distant
home in India we had received many a kind and
encouraging word from her pen, and substantial
aid for carrying on the work among the women,
but had never looked upon her dear face until
that hour ; and to her loving care we made an
unconditional surrender. Passing the custom
house officer she simply said, ''These are my
MRS. T. C. DOREMUS
friends, missionaries from India; they have
nothing contraband;" and passing out, we were
put into her carriage and driven to the home of
our friends. What she did for us was only
what she had done for many other returning
missionaries.
It is a very difficult matter to analyze the life
of one you have known and loved, particularly
when that life is very symmetrical and complete.
Mrs. Doremus'slife in any aspect — intellectually,
socially, or religiously — is a lesson and a treasure
to the women of any country ; for the wise may
be wiser and the good better by considering it.
There is only one solution of it : her whole na-
ture and all its possibilities were at the bidding
of a Master whom she loved, and in whose serv-
ice she was spent.
She was born well. Her parents were among
the most honored families of the city of New
York, and members of the Presbyterian Church.
In her early childhood they removed to Eliza-
beth, N. J., where she grew up under the train-
ing of one of the noblest of Christian mothers,
a woman of saintly excellence. In 1821 she
married a Christian merchant of New York and
returned to that city, where she spent the re-
mainder of her life. She was a communicant of
the Reformed Dutch Church, but she belonged to
all Churches, to all Christians. She was in the
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
truest sense cultivated ; having a culture that
had its springs, not only in family and educa-
tion, but in a full and pure surrender of her life
to Christ and his work. She was rooted and
grounded in faith ; she searched and found the
Rock, and her feet were firmly placed upon it and
her foundations were sure as the everlasting hills.
Her benevolence was as broad as her sympathies ;
not limited to rank or intelligence, creed or
character. She loved all and helped all. She did
not live in herself or for herself. God and his chil-
dren, their sorrows and their burdens, and how
she might help lift them, filled her soul.
Possibly no woman in our country has left her
mark more distinctly. She was a woman of
strong and independent mind. With her work
meant work. Her greatest happiness was in
making others happy, though it often involved
trouble to herself. She would rather have gone
forth with Martha to meet Jesus than to have sat
in the house with Mary.
It is her connection with foreign missions with
which we are more particularly interested. Mrs.
Doremus received her first interest in the cause
of foreign missions as a child when her mother
would take her to meetings held by herself and a
few Christian friends to pray for the conversion
of the world.
She was, without doubt, one of the most in-
12
MRS. T. C. DOREMUS
telligent women of her time on missionary sub-
jects. As interest in foreign mission work
developed, and organizations were formed in
the churches, she threw her heart and soul into
it, and it was her delight to serve the cause and
the missionaries. Facilities for procuring or
purchasing ready-made clothing were not then
what they are now, and the ladies of various
congregations met together to prepare outfits for
missionaries. Many of these were prepared in
her own home, the material freely given and
cut out by her own skillful fingers. Then, as a
missionary's departure in those days meant a
long voyage of months, sometimes in wretchedly-
furnished ships, often has she not only gone to
Boston — the usual place of embarkation — and
fitted up the miserable cabins with comforts for
the voyage, but with her own hands made tempt-
ing delicacies to sustain the messengers of Jesus,
whom, for his sake, she took into her great
heart, regardless of denomination. Her broad
catholic spirit knew no sect, no dividing lines.
They all melted away in the light of the truth
she loved and lived by — the oneness of all be-
lievers in Christ.
In 1828 the sympathies of our country were
stirred for Greece, so outraged by the Turks.
Mrs. Doremus, hearing of the necessities of the
Greek ladies, with several friends organized a
13
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
band to work for their relief. Dr. Jonas King
was invited to go to Athens as their representa-
tive, taking large supplies.
In 1835 she became interested in Mme. Fel-
ler's Baptist Mission at Grande Ligne, Canada.
In aid of this a society was formed in New York,
of which she was president. Many were the
boxes of school apparatus, delicacies, and useful
stores which were sent regularly to cheer the
hearts of those in that isolated and needy mis-
sion.
In 1834 the Rev. David Abeel, returning from
his mission in the East, had determined to arouse
Christian women to their duty to rescue heathen
women from degradation. He organized in
England the Society for Promoting Female Ed-
ucation in the East, from which the Union So-
ciety has taken its model. He attempted to ac-
complish a similar work in this country. Mrs.
Doremus entered into the plans with great zeal,
but the opposition of existing boards made it
expedient to postpone the organization. The
time had not come. The women of the churches
were not ready for it. Sufficient knowledge of
the condition of Eastern women had not reached
the Christian women of America for them to
have their hearts touched and aroused to action.
A quarter of a century passed, and the way was
being prepared for some connected action. Mis-
14
MRS. T. C. DOREMUS
sionaries pleaded for help. Influence had been
exerted by missionaries abroad and by those re-
turning home. About 1859 <^i' i860 Mrs. Mason, a
missionary of Burmah, visited this country and
told the story of the woes and wants of heathen
women, anxious to awaken an interest among
American women in their behalf. These ap-
peals resulted in the formation of the Woman's
Union Missionary Society. This society em-
braced all evangelical denominations of Chris-
tian women, and it worked independently of
church boards. Its direct object was to form
an agency whereby unmarried women might be
sent abroad as teachers and missionaries to enter
the hoijies and carry the Gospel to those who
could not receive it in any other way.
This undertaking was a great experiment, and
it needed the wisest and most judicious admin-
istration. The women of the churches were
to be brought together, collections so made as
not to interfere with existing organizations, gen-
eral missionary intelligence disseminated, and a
missionary enthusiasm enkindled all over the
country, if the venture was to be successful.
Naturally and wisely Mrs. Doremus was elected
the president of this organization. She threw
her life and soul into the work. She was ubiq-
uitous. With personal presence and with pen
she inspired everyone with her own zeal and
3 15
" THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB "
devotion. Her beautiful home in New York was
the headquarters of the society. Every mission-
ary appointed was her special charge. She not
only welcomed them to her home, but, when
strangers to the city, gave them every oppor-
tunity of seeing places and people of note. Then,
when they left this country or returned, how ten-
der was her parting or welcome ! How many
touching tokens of personal consideration she
surrounded them with ! In her correspondence
with them she carefully avoided business details
as far as possible, but wrote as a mother might
have done. She would glean items of daily in-
terest and sketches of lectures to send them, that
something fresh from their native land might
give variety to their lives of arduous toil. No
event of public importance transpired that she
did not send copies of newspapers to all the sta-
tions. Then she was always on the outlook for
inspiring books, which she sent to them by mail,
feeling that all that cheered their lives would
strengthen them for duty.
For fifteen years she held the position of presi-
dent of the society. She loved it, nurtured it,
prayed for it, and saw it grow and develop —
and saw also one denomination after another get
strength sufficient to organize independently.
She saw the beginning, but who can foresee the
grand result? After thirty years the united an-
MRS. T. C. DOREMUS
nual contributions of the various women's socie-
ties of America amounted to the magnificent
sum of one and one half millions of dollars.
It was in 1861 that Mrs. Doremus became the
link connecting the Union Society with our
Methodist women. In the early history of our
Methodist Mission in North India work was at-
tempted among women and girls, but the need
was felt of special help to prosecute the work
more fully. Soon after the writer arrived in In-
dia a letter was received from Mrs. Doremus
stating the fact of the organization of the
Woman's Union Missionary Society, and en-
closing a check for fifty dollars for the employ-
ment of some native Christian woman as Bible
reader or teacher. This w^as the first donation
made for distinctive woman's work in the North
India Conference.
Before me lies a note penned by the hand of
Mrs. Doremus in 1864, in which she inclosed
the annual remittance. The kindly sympathiz-
ing words always accompanied the money.
In this note she says :
* ' You have my warmest love and sympathy
in your missionary work . . . I inclose the check,
and wish it w^ere ten times more."
This remittance came regularly each year, and
when, in 1867, the writer left India it was made
over to one of our ladies in Lucknow, and aided
17
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
greatly in carrying on work in that important
but bigoted city. This was the beginning of
a work in India that now receives annually an ap-
propriation of about seventy thousand dollars.
WORK IN HOME CHARITIES.
Not often is a Christian w^oman permitted to
see the germs, planted in faith, grow up within a
lifetime into overshadowing institutions of heal-
ing for soul and body, but many such ow^e their
origin to her patient labors and far-reaching in-
fluence. Winning by her life the highest con-
fidence of the community, means and facilities
to a remarkable extent were placed at her dis-
posal, and in this way her efficiency was multi-
plied a hundredfold. The work she accomplished
in New York city alone was enough to engage
the time and thoughts of any ordinary woman.
She began a vSabbath service in the city prison
from which was developed the Women's Prison
Association, with w^hich she was connected for
more than thirty years. For thirty-six years
she was a manager of the City and Tract ]\Iis-
sion Society, and for twenty-eight years a man-
ager of the City Bible Society. She was one of
the founders of the House and School of Indus-
try, and for twenty-three years was connected
with the Nursery and Child's Hospital, which
she aided in foundino-.
MRS. T. C. DOREMUS
In 1855 she bent her energies to the establish-
ment of the Woman's Hospital, the first institu-
tion of this character in the world. To this she
devoted time and personal sacrifice, went repeat-
edly to Albany to secure its charter and State ap-
propriation, and collected large sums for it. She
visited the patients regularly, cheered them,
gave them spiritual comfort, and followed them
with her ministrations after they left. She as-
sisted in organizing, also, the Presbyterian
Home for Aged Women. During our civil war
she was most active in work for our soldiers.
Much of what she accomplished was due to a
very rare combination of endowments. She had
power to lay great plans and organize grand
movements, a marvelous memory, and a talent
for details. Nothing was too trivial to be made
use of if it would aid in perfecting the organiza-
tion, and to her latest day her memory was true
to its trust for dates and incidents, every one ac-
curate and thoroughly at her command, and all
used for the benefit and comfort of others.
If we turn from her activities in mission
work to the sanctuary of her home, we find the
devoted wife and mother. Home was the scene
of her tender and loving care. The mind that
could have ruled a kingdom gave its best ener-
gies to her family. She lived with her children,
painting, designing her own patterns for em-
19
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
broidery, modeling in wax, and excelling in all
the accomplisliments of her day. Nothing was
ever allowed to interfere with her high and holy
home duties. To her own family of nine chil-
dren she was all that a mother could be. In ad-
dition to these she adopted children into her
heart and home, caring for them and securing
means for their education.
From the very beginning of her Christian life
her many beautiful gifts, her rare intelligence,
her dauntless will, all were consecrated to the
service of her Redeemer, and thenceforth, trans-
fused by his Spirit, were quickened into ever-
brightening emanations of loving activities. But
there came a time when these tireless lovinof
ministrations must cease ; when the busy brain
must stop ; when she should hear the summons :
'' It is enough. Come up higher." Prostrated
by an accident in her own home in January,
1877, she suffered for a week, and then was
translated to see Him of whom Moses in the law
and the prophets did write — the King ; the One
whom she loved and for whom she had toiled.
There was sorrow in hearts, in homes, and in
churches as the news of her death spread, not
only in this country, but throughout the world,
for there was scarcely a mission field where she
was not lovingly known. Missionaries felt that
they had lost one of their best friends.
MRS. T. C. DOREMUS
The Rev. Dr. Tyng said, in his address at her
funeral: ''Mrs. Doremus seems to have given
the whole of herself to the Lord ; the whole of
herself to the Church ; the whole of herself to
every suffering heart she met, and yet the whole
of herself to home and children."
Dr. Prime said : "I never felt the power of
goodness as I have felt it exemplified in the
walk and life of that noble woman. I have the
memoirs in my library of nearly three thousand
women — in dictionaries, encyclopedias, and sep-
arate volumes — distinguished in many ages for
deeds that have made their names illustrious in
the annals of time. Among them there is not one
— no, not one — whose record is more bright and
beautiful in the light of heaven than hers. . . .
I never found in marble or on canvas, in history
or in poetry, one that embodied the idea of use-
fulness so perfectly as it w^as presented in the
life work of our sainted friend."
Dr. Ormiston said: "It would seem to me
that it pleased God to give her personally the
choicest gifts and rarest graces that she might
show to what an altitude of beauty womanhood
in Christ can rise, and manifest the perfection
of Christian service, which was triumphant, even
to the end."
Resolutions were passed by various mission-
ary and other societies, but none were more
21
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB "
liearty and appreciative than those of the
General Executive Committee of the Woman's
Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, which paid an ''affectionate
and reverential tribute to her memory" as
one ''known and honored, not only as the
originator of the Woman's Union Missionary
Society in this country, but as one of the most
beautiful specimens of Christian womanhood
and intense devotion to Christian work that has
adorned the century, her name being as oint-
ment poured forth, filling all churches and all
lands with its perfume."
The Woman's Union Missionary Society has
perpetuated her name in Calcutta, India, by
calling their home the " Doremus Home," but
she lives to-day in the hearts of thousands of
Christian people, not only in this land, but in
all lands ; her name is as ointment poured forth.
Her daily prayer was, " Lord, what wilt thou
have me to do? " We can offer the same, and,
though not having the diversity of gifts that this
consecrated woman had, we can do our part
in helping the oncoming of our Redeemer's
kingdom.
22
FIDELIA FISKE
FIDELIA FISKE
Prayer was her " vital breath," her " native air.'
REV. DR. ANDERSON, for many years
Secretary of the American Board for
Foreign Missions, in his Oriental Missions says
of Fidelia Fiske : *' She seemed to me the near-
est approach I ever saw, in man or woman, in
the structure and working of her whole nature,
to my ideal of our blessed Saviour as he ap-
peared on earth."
The Rev. Dr. Kirk, who spoke at her funeral,
said: " I wish to speak carefully, but I am sure
I can say I never saw one who came nearer to
Jesus in self-sacrifice. If ever there should be
an extension of the eleventh chapter of He-
brews, I think that the name of Fidelia Fiske
would stand there."
One of her associates writing from Persia
said : '' She was our beloved Persis who labored
much in the Lord ; in charity our Dorcas ; in
counsel and action our Deborah ; in prayer our
Hannah; our Phoebe, the succorer of many;
and now our sainted Fidelia the faithful."
These are remarkable testimonies, coming as
they do from such sources. The complete de-
votion of Miss Fiske to her work, her spiritual
23
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB "
power, her marvelous ability to influence those
about her, and her overcoming faith, have
seldom, if ever, been equaled in the records of
missionary work. Hers was most emphatically,
and in every sense, a " life hid with Christ in
God." She led a life of prayer, and carried
about her an atmosphere that showed she was
in constant communion with the Father.
Early in life she became interested in mis-
sionary work through the influence of a relative
who was in the foreign field, and the subject of
missions was a constant topic of conversation in
the family. This feeling of interest became
greatly intensified during her connection with
Mount Holyoke Seminary. Here she studied,
and afterward taught, partaking largely of the
spiritual and missionary character of its founder,
Mary Lyon. A missionary who returned to
this country from Persia visited Mount Holyoke
and made an urgent request for a teacher, and
Fidelia said, "If counted worthy, I shall be
willing to go." After overcoming many and
serious difficulties she sailed, in company with
Dr. and Mrs. Perkins, in March, 1843, and
reached Oroomiah in the following June.
Miss Fiske was not a pioneer in missionary
work in Persia, but she was the first unmarried
woman to enter that field, and she adapted her-
self at once to the situation. The missionaries
24
FIDELIA FISKE
had borne the privations and hardships incident
to the occupancy of a new and most trying- field.
They had secured the favor of an intolerant gov-
ernment and the confidence of a degraded and
depressed people. Mrs. Dr. Grant, a woman of
fine intellect and rare acquirements, prepared
the way for woman's work, and created a senti-
ment in favor of woman's education. When
the missionaries reached Persia in 1835, there
was only one woman, the sister of a Nestorian
patriarch, in the city of Oroomiah who could
read. Mrs. Grant did not rest until she had
opened a school for girls.
Up to the time of Miss Fiske's arri\"al, how-
ever, only a few girls were obtainable, and those
were day-scholars. She was exceedingly anxious
to make this a boarding-school, so as to have
pupils removed from the evil influences sur-
rounding them in their homes. But this idea
was not according to Nestorian ideas of pro-
priety, and the missionaries doubted the success
of the measure. Writing to a friend at this
time Miss Fiske said :
' ' The first Syriac word I learned was daughter y
and the next the verb to give, so I learned to say
to the people, ' Give me your daughters.' "
The Nestorians were poor, subjects of a most
despotic government, and their women fear-
fully degraded. It was counted a disgrace for
25
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
a woman to learn to read. Early marriage ob-
tained. Men beat their wives, and the women
knew nothing of a better life. They were
shockingly profane, given to falsehood, coarse,
passionate, quarrelsome. No wonder when Miss
Fiske saw what they were she should write
home, '* I felt pity for the women before going
among them, but anguish when, from actual
contact with them, I realized how low they
were, I did not want to leave them, but I did
ask. Can the image of Christ ever be reflected
from such hearts?"
However, notwithstanding the discouraging
outlook, preparations were made for opening
the school, and when the day came not one
pupil had been obtained. But the day wore on,
and the Nestorian bishop came, bringing two
girls. " These be your daughters; no man take
them from you," was his salutation. Soon
the number increased. These girls were un-
tutored and uncombed. The very first lessons
in personal cleanliness had to be taught them,
and in all morals it was necessary to begin at
the very foundations in order to renovate such
characters.
Miss Fiske had difficulties to overcome that
we can scarcely comprehend — the poverty of
the people, the want of books and proper
requisites, and the intense prejudices of the
26
FIDELIA FISKE
people. It required almost infinite patience.
But the book studied above all others was the
Bible, of which the New Testament appeared
in 1846 and the Old in 1852. Three hours a
day were devoted to this study, and the pupils
never wearied of it. They committed large
portions of it to memory, and their joy in receiv-
ing portions as their own could hardly be ex-
pressed. Depending- upon this word, and up-
on the power of the Holy Ghost, Miss Fiske and
her teachers toiled. These all waited upon God
day and night, feeling that importunate prayer
would bring the results desired.
After the seminary had become fairly estab-
lished only boarders were received, no day
scholars. These took charge of the household
affairs. Of the transformation in the habits
and lives of these children we get an idea from
a letter of one of the missionaries, written a few
years after the establishment of the school, in
which he says," The system, order, good con-
duct, and rapid improvement of the pupils are
unsurpassed in any schools in America."
^liss Fiske did not confine her labors entirely
to the school; she visited the mothers of her
girls, prevailed upon them to come to her room,
that she might pray with them, and visited not
only in the city, but in the adjoining villages.
On Sundays many congregated in her room,
27
" THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB "
and she soon had the satisfaction of seeing them
inquiring the way of salvation ; one woman re-
peated each petition after Miss Fiske, and rose
from her knees covered with perspiration, so
deeply was she moved. She acknowledged her
sins, and, as she expressed it, * ' The Lord poured
peace into my soul." She was the first convert
among the Nestorian women.
This work spread, and almost all who came
to the seminary and under Miss Fiske's influ-
ence for any time were compelled to surrender
and accept Christ. One Koordish chief, known
to be one of the vilest and most desperate of
characters, brought his daughter to the school.
He had his gun, dagger, and ammunition with
him, and acted in a most defiant way. But even
he was arrested, convinced of sin, and wonder-
fully converted before leaving the premises.
This man, the terror of that section of the
country, was clothed and in his right mind, and
all he could say was, '* My great sins, and my
great Saviour!" Through his influence other
members of the family were won to Christianity.
At one time this man was leading in prayer in
public, and when getting up from his knees
he exclaimed: '' O God, forgive me. I for-
got to pray for Miss Fiske's school." So,
kneeling down again, he prayed most earnestly
for it.
28
FIDELIA FISKE
The year 1846 was a most memorable one in
the history of the seminary. Patiently had the
truth been taught. Old superstitions had lost
their hold, and of the pupils, though many of
them had been converted, yet there were many
who had only an intellectual apprehension of;
salvation through Christ. Miss Fiske and her
associates fasted and prayed for a revival
that would stir them all. January 5, 1846, the
whole day was spent as a day of fasting and
prayer. Before the day closed two girls came
to her, weeping, and inquiring what they should
do for their souls. There was no private room
where they could go, so they made a closet
among the fuel in the wood cellar and spent
hours there in prayer. The following week
others were converted, and the teachers were
engaged often until midnight in pointing pupils
to Christ. The rooms of the teachers were
in demand as prayer-closets for the girls,
and sometimes upon awaking in the morning
the teacher would find some one in the room
ready to inquire about her soul. This con-
tinued for three weeks, and it seemed like one
continual Sabbath. Every corner was conse-
crated to prayer. Prayer and praise were heard
everywhere.
The work was genuine, as was shown in the
interest these girls had in the salvation of their
29
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
families. During their vacation many of them
held meetings in their villages for the women,
and went from house to house proclaiming the
glad tidings.
Conversions followed each year, and in 1849
was another wonderful outpouring of the Spirit.
Then again in 1856. In the meantime there
had been many discouragements. Cholera had
broken up the school at one time ; at another,
persecutions of the most violent kind were suf-
fered, lives and property threatened, and they
w^ere compelled to send the children to their
homes. But after a few months these all re-
turned, bringing others with them, and they
came in such numbers that it was impossible to
receive them. When the seminary had been es-
tablished nineteen years it had enjoyed twelve
revivals, and more than two-thirds of the pupils
were earnest Christians.
The pressure upon Miss Fiske during these
months of school was very great, and frequent-
ly during vacation she would take itinerating
trips, visit the pupils in their homes, and meet
with the women. It was on one of these trips
that occurred a little incident which is very
familiar.
In a village on a certain Sabbath she had at-
tended Sabbath school and prayer meeting, and
she was very weary and longed for rest, and
30
FIDELIA FISKE
felt as if she could not sit without support
through the preaching service, for she was
to have another meeting afterward with the
women. She says: '' I was so tired, but God
gave me rest in such an unexpected way ; a
woman came and seated herself directly behind
me, so that I could lean on her, and invited me
to do so. I declined, but she drew me back,
saying, ' If you love me, lean hard.' Then
came the Master's owm voice, repeating the
words, ' If you love me, lean hard,' and I did
lean hard, and that w^oman did preach me such a
good sermon ! " How these Nestorian w^omen
loved her ! They went to her for comfort in hours
of trial, for help when convinced of sin ; and she
was always ready to receive'them, and no one
left her presence without being pointed to
Christ.
These Nestorian converts have always been
noted for their spirit of prayer. They asked
for what they w^anted. During one of the re-
vivals two of the pupils in the seminary spent a
whole night praying for some relatives, and
Miss Fiske said, ''Sometimes I have gone to
their cold closets to persuade them to leave ; but
the fervor of their prayers has oftener driven
me to mine than it has allowed me to call them
from theirs."
But there was a connection between the semi-
4 31
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
nary in Oroomiah and the seminary at South
Hadley, and Miss Fiske watched the connection
with great interest. Miss Lyon and her pupils
prayed regularly and often for Miss Fiske and
her pupils, and when a religious interest devel-
oped in Oroomiah it was found that there had
been special seasons of prayer at Mount Hol-
yoke.
These girls were trained in mission work and
had their monthly concerts, and on that day,
from the rising to the setting of the sun, the voice
of prayer for a lost world constantly ascended.
They were trained in habits of self-denying be-
nevolence, and in one year the girls made some
fifty garments for poor children. But work so
varied in its character, so pressing and exhaust-
ing in its demands, seriously affected the health
of this devoted woman, and after fifteen years it
became necessary that she should return to her
American home for needed rest.
Miss Susan Rice, who joined Miss Fiske in
1847, ^^d who worked so faithfully and lov-
ingly, took the burdens of the school upon
her. It was, however, a sad day to the pu-
pils and the women not only of the city, but
of that whole section of the country, when Miss
Fiske departed. Just before she left she
had the joy of seeing four of her earliest
pupils, with their husbands, depart as mission-
32
FIDELIA FISKE
aries to the dark mountains of Koordistan. A
few days after that nearly one hundred of the
once degraded Nestorians knelt with her at the
communion service, and there was only one
present out of that whole number with whom
she had not prayed! One woman traveled
sixty miles through deep snow and piercing
cold over the mountains to be present on this
occasion.
Miss Fiske's work for Nestorian girls and
women, done in the corner of the earth and
hidden, was performed as royally and loyally as
if she stood in the center of the court, with the
eye of the king upon her all the time.
When the poor, filthy women, wild, rude, dis-
honest, and profane, kept on in their crooked
ways the outlook was very dark.
Mrs. Rhea, for some years a missionary in
Persia, sa3^s of the work of Miss Fiske and Miss
Rice, who was associated with her :
*' If they met the women in large companies,
as they often did, they acted like unruly mobs
or herds of Bashaw, violent enough to frighten
gentle ladies ; and there w^as never one single
thing attractive or lovely in these coarse
women, never the faintest flashing gleam of
the hoped-for hidden diamond, nothing but the
promise of God concerning the leaven — they to
hide it, he to make it work."
33
" THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB "
The Rays of Light from the Eastern land,
issued fortnightly, has a column or two written
by a woman. Sarra, wife of Priest Oshana and
a former pupil of the seminary, contributes to
it, and Mrs. Rhea says of her, "She wields a
burning-, poetical, eloquent, vivid, consecrated
pen." At a large public gathering recently in
one of the churches a woman presided in quiet
dignity, having a day's literary and devotional
program, with original essays and earnest dis-
cussions of evangelistic plans. Sarra, who was
present at this meeting, spoke, contrasting the
past with the present.
"She told of the unruly mobs around Miss
Fiske, and how it took all her strength and tact
to control them, and how often she seemed to
fail utterly, as one would fail who essayed to
bind and hold the waves, and added : ' I know
all that personally, for I was one of them. I
was there. I heard her, what she said, and
their replies, and now I am here in quiet rever-
ence, waiting on the Lord in his own house and
in his own work, and with hundreds of my Nes-
torian sisters, and I marvel and rejoice in the
wonderful change.' "
Such meetings as these referred to are held
in three districts of the missionary field on the
Oroomiah plain by societies of Nestorian women
who were educated in the female seminary.
34
FIDELIA FISKE
From the neighboring- villages these women
eome quarterly to spend a day together in
prayer, worship, and discussion of practical re-
ligious matters, and how they can best work
for the evangelization of their less favored
sisters.
The day of the departure from Oroomiah was
a notable one. Miss Fiske had prayed with her
pupils and commended them to God's care, but
on that memorable morning seventy of them
asked for just one more prayer meeting in her
room, or their " Bethel," as they called it, where
so many prayers had been offered and answered,
and this proved to be the last.
She reached her home in 1858, but not to
rest, as she had anticipated. Invitations came
to her from every direction to give ''parlor
talks," and these became vSO popular that she
had to go from parlor to church. She had
wonderful influence over an audience, but she
refused to speak to mixed audiences.
' ' I am so glad of an opportunity to tell the
people what the Lord has done in Persia," she
said. She was requested to take the principal-
ship of Mount Holyoke, but declined. She
went there for a time, until other arrangements
could be made, and of the three hundred and
forty-four pupils in attendance only nineteen
left the school unconverted. Leaving here, she
35
" THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
was urged to open a school in Boston of a high
literary and religious character, but to all these
offers she turned away with only one reply,
'' Persia."
She returned to her home in Shelburne,
Mass., where she was born, hoping to finish a
volume she had commenced on recollections of
her teacher, Mary Lyon, but disease rapidly de-
veloped, and for weeks she suffered intensely,
when, on July 26, 1864, in her forty-eighth
year, she exchanged the toils of earth for the
rest of heaven.
"Will you pray? "she said to a friend at
her bedside, and these were her last words. A
life of prayer had ended in prayer.
Her death caused grief not only among
friends here at home, but in the missionary
circle in Persia, among all classes of Nestorian
women, and her former pupils. Many of them
wrote letters of sympathy to her family, ex-
pressing their grief for her loss. One of them
said, in a letter to Miss Fiske's mother, " When
you see a band of Nestorian girls on the right
hand of the Redeemer, brought there by the
influence of your daughter, you will not regret
the sacrifice you have made;" and then touch-
ingly added, ''Is there another Miss Fiske in
your cotmtry? "
She was a rare Christian woman, a skillful
36
FIDELIA FISKE
teacher, an eminently successful and devoted
missionary. Her monument is the seminary
which now for forty-seven years has been
sending forth blessed Christian influences on
the hills and plains of Persia.
" God granted her that which she requested."
37
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
MRS. R. B. LYTH
South Sea Missionary
THE story of the founding of the Church of
Christ in the South Seas is full of hero-
ism. The Rev. R. B. Lyth, M.D., was one of
the pioneers and the first medical missionary.
In 1836 he married !Miss Hardy. At that time
few would have ventured to prophesy that the
cultured and gentle bride would develop the
fine qualities which have made her record one
of noble daring and wonderful success. She
combined the intrepidity of the heroine with
the fortitude of the martyr. She shared the
perils of her husband on sea and land, traveling
with him in frail canoes and living in the midst
of the wildest cannibalism, ever strong in faith
that God would put between them and every
danger his own broadest shield.
The first three years of her mission life were
spent in Tonga. Here she acquired a correct
knowledge of the Tongese language, which
proved of great service to her in other parts of
Polynesia. At that time a wave of spiritual
power swept over Tonga, and thousands were
soundly converted to God. One of the first ex-
pressions of that new life was in missionary fer-
vor and a desire to send the Gospel to the Fijians.
38
MRS. R. B. LYTH.
MRS. R. B. LYTH
Thus the Fijian Mission commenced as an
extension of the Friendly Islands Mission, and
Mr. and Mrs. Lyth were sent to Somosomo,
always the most trying and difficult station in
Fiji. Mrs. Lyth acquired now an accurate
knowledge of the Fijian language. Dr. Lyth's
mission was to care for the bodies of the Fijians,
and thus seek to win their souls for Christ. The
sick were brought to him from every quarter.
In the house given by the chief as a temporary
hospital patients requiring nursing and careful
dieting wxre under the special care of Mrs.
Lyth. She relieved suffering and prolonged
and saved life by her care for the sick, and thus
she was ever preaching a gospel which the can-
nibal could not gainsay or resist. She was also
teaching the natives how to nurse the sick and
training them for similar service. Many
profited by her lessons and became skillful
nurses.
All the while tribal wars were raging around,
the quiet of the hospital was broken by the can-
nibal death-drum, and bodies were dragged in
front of the mission house to be offered in sacri-
fice before they were put into the ovens. Yet
no word about hardship or sacrifice ever es-
caped her lips. We have the testimony of
another about her patient endurance. Com-
modore Wilkes, of the United States Exploring
41
" THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB "
Expedition, visited Somosomo, and he writes
thus of Mrs. Lyth and Mrs. Hunt :
* * There are few situations in which vSO much
physical and moral courage is required as those
in which these devoted and pious women are
placed, and nothing but a deep sense of duty
and a strong determination to perform it could
induce civilized persons to subject themselves
to the sight of such horrid scenes as they are
called upon almost daily to witness. I know no
situation so trying for ladies to live in, particu-
larly when pleasing and well informed, as we
found at Somosomo."
After five years spent at Somosomo Mr. Lyth
was removed to Lakemba, where the people had
become Christians and the great demand was for
native teachers. The whole circuit was turned
into a training institution. Two days each
week the local preachers and class leaders came
to the mission station for instruction. After a
lesson in theology the outline of a sermon was
written on the blackboard and explained; then
it was copied, to be preached in all the villages
on the following Sunday by men who had great
facility in illustration and the burning fervor of
first love. But while the men were thus getting
help for their work Mrs. Lyth had their wives
in another room teaching them to sew and to
knit, and giving a Bible reading, which the
42
MRS. R. B. LYTH
women would repeat when they returned to
the village. She was able to do more for the
wives of teachers because the nurses trained by
herself could do the work of the hospital under
her general supervision. The training of na-
tive pastors and their wives in this way was a
wonderful blessing to the Fijian churches.
Eight years were spent in Lakemba, and then
Mr. and Airs. Lyth were appointed to Viwa.
Here was the printing press, and Mrs. Lyth
was soon assisting in the translation of the
Eible. She was a cheerful and valuable helper
in all literary work, for her knowledge of the
language was accurate and her pen that of a
ready writer. It was during her residence at
Viwa that what she calls in her journal a
'' heavier cross than usual " had to be taken up.
The story has been often told, but may well be
told again.
When fourteen women, captured as prisoners
of war, were about to be killed and offered in
sacrifice, and then cooked and eaten at a great
festival in honor of important visitors at Bau,
Mrs. Lyth and Mrs. Calvert, when their hus-
bands were far away on a distant island, went,
at all hazards, to try to rescue the victims.
The death-drum, the firing of muskets, and
the piercing shrieks told that the butchery
was begun when they reached the shore, but
43
" THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB "
they hastened through the crowds of maddened
cannibals to the house of the old king, Tanoa —
admittance to which was forbidden to all women
excepting those of the household — and wath a
whale's tooth in each hand as an offering thrust
themselves into his awful presence with their
plea for mercy. Their audacity startled the old
king, whose hearing was dull, and in their terri-
ble earnestness they raised their voices to plead
for the lives of their dark sisters. The old king
was overcome, and said, " Those who are dead
are dead, but those who are alive sJiall livey
Five of the poor women were saved, and
blessed them for their work of love. They were
only conscious of their peril when they looked
back upon it after the excitement was past.
A navy officer after a visit to them wrote:
'* If anything could have increased our admira-
tion of their heroism, it was the unaffected man-
ner in which, when pressed by us to relate the
circumstances of their awful visit, they spoke of
it as the simple performance of an ordinary
duty."
These devoted missionaries lived to see a
great work accomplished — the islands Chris-
tianized, the Sabbath observed, and family
prayer held daily. They returned to their na-
tive land, and on September i8, 1890, Mrs.
Lyth was buried.
44
ANN WILKINS
ANN WILKINS
Missionary to Africa
THE name of Ann Wilkins is as '* ointment
poured forth " in connection with the mis-
sionary work in Liberia, Africa. She went to
the Dark Continent in the days when it took
heroic faith for a woman to penetrate the sin
and misery of that country.
The mere dates of her history are these : She
was born in 1806, of Methodist parents, in New
York State ; converted at the age of fourteen ;
sailed for Africa, the first time, June 15, 1837;
returned to the United States in poor health in
1841 ; went to Liberia a second time, January
30, 1842 ; returned again in June, 1853 ; went to
Africa a third time, October 25, 1854; reached
America again April 23, 1857, and died in No-
vember of that year, aged fifty-one years and
four months.
These figures may seem bare and uninterest-
ing, but they are essential, and if once clothed
with the character of our heroine, they become
instinct with intense beauty and sublimest inter-
est. Her birth was of parents whose love for God
and his cause became early infused into her life.
Her sailing was preceded by a call to -the work
and an offer of service, in words which have
45
'•THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
become historic. The Rev. John Seys had just
returned from Africa and, alive with the sense
of the need of the mission to Liberia, he pre-
sented the claims of the work at a camp meet-
ing at Sing Sing, N. Y., and among the contri-
butions came this note: " A sister who has but
little money at command gives that little cheer-
fully, and is willing to give her life as a female
teacher if she is wanted." She literally put
herself into the plate. She was wanted. She
was then a member of Bedford Street Meth-
odist Episcopal Church, New York city, and a
teacher in the Sunday school. When the CJiar-
lottc Harper left Philadelphia in the following
June she was among the passengers, going to a
field which had been the grave of so many de-
voted heroes for Christ, yet strong in her deter-
mination to do her Master's bidding. From the
hour when she beheld the low, palm-bearing
coast of Liberia she never forgot it in her con-
versation, her labors, or her prayers. Once
arrived, her eagerness to do good and restless-
ness at any delay manifested itself in her begin-
ning immediately to gather about her the dusky
faces of those anxious to be taught. When she
was, at length, settled at her appointed work it
was at a town situated some twenty miles from
Monrovia, just at the foot of the highlands,
where St. Paul's River forces itself over a rocky
46
ANN WILKINS
ledge with a rushing sweep and the hoarse
sound of a rapid. Here, at Millsburg, she be-
gan her labors in earnest, laying the founda-
tion for the school over which she presided
more than eighteen years, and to-day her for-
mer pupils and their children, grown to woman-
hood, cherish her memory and her pure. Chris-
tian instruction. The dates show that she re-
turned home twice previous to the last time,
compelled by her failing strength. When, after
ten long years of severest toil, she yielded to
the solicitations of her friends and came back
the second time, in 1853, it was not expected
that she would live to see her native shore.
But a kind Providence watched over her, and
gave her restored health and increased strength,
so that within a few months she gladly went
back again, to assist the three ladies whom the
Board was sending out to this field and to be
with them in the beginning of their work. Her
constitution had, however, become so shattered
by exposure to an inhospitable climate that she
remained but a year and a half, and then crossed
the ocean the sixth and last time Within a
year after her return she passed away.
Her welcome home in 1857 was warm as that
of a dear and long-absent child. The New
York East Conference was in session at the time
of her arrival, and her first appearance in pub-
5 47
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
lie was at the ordination of ministers in Fleet
Street Church, Brooklyn. Near the close of
the sacramental service which followed the ordi-
nation services Bishop Waugh announced that
Miss Wilkins was present, and invited her, if
able, to come forward to the altar. Slowly and
feebly, leaning upon a friend, her arm — which
had been broken by an accident during the voy-
age— in a sling at her side, the slight form
which enshrined so grand a soul moved down
the aisle and kneeled to receive the sacred em-
blems in remembrance of the Saviour she so
much loved. There were breathless silence and
quick heart-beats through the room ; and when
she arose and turned her worn and wan face to-
ward the congregation tears, both of joy and
sorrow, burst forth, and all hearts melted in
love toward her who had so long stood in
Christ's stead, partaking of his sufferings.
She lingered but a few short months after
this, but in her last moments she thought and
prayed for those she had taught in Africa.
"Such dying we never witnessed," said those
who were present at her deathbed. She was
buried in the family cemetery on the banks of
the Hudson, near Fort Montgomery, and after
thirty years the property passed into the hands
of strangers. The person who purchased it
declared his intention to remove the headstone
48
ANN WILKINS
and plow up the field. The Woman's Foreign
Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, learning this fact, passed a series of
resolutions authorizing a committee to solicit
funds to provide a suitable resting place and
erect a simple monument, A fitting and beauti-
ful site was donated by the trustees of Maple
Grove Cemetery, Long Island, and the body re-
moved to it. The reinterment took place June
19, 1886, at which time a number of the members
of the society were present. A memorial ad-
dress was delivered by the Rev. John M. Reid,
D.D. Upon the monument erected is the fol-
lowing inscription :
Here lies Ann Wilkins, a missionary of the Methodist Episcopal
Church to Liberia from 1836 to 1856. Died November 13, 1857,
aged fifty-one years. Having little money at command, she gave
herself. Erected by the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society.
49
THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB
MARY LOUISA WHATELY
THE name of no English missionary is prob-
ably more widely known than that of Miss
Whately, of Cairo, Egypt. The remarkable char-
acter of this woman and the missionary work she
accomplished in thirty years are known and ap-
preciated by Christians everywhere.
Miss Whately was the second daughter of
Archbishop Whately, of the Church of England,
the famous logician. She was born in 1824, at
the country rectory of Halesworth, in Suffolk,
where her father resided some years before his
appointment to the see of Dublin. The chief
part of her early life, however, was spent in
Ireland, where, under her father's roof, she and
her sisters received the highest educational
training, mental, moral, and religious, from a
father and mother of rarest gifts and graces.
Activity, energy, and intelligence of no com-
mon order distinguished her from her child-
hood. After the Irish famine, when so many
organizations were formed to help the poor and
ignorant, she found a field for those energies
especially in the ragged schools opened in Dub-
lin, in which she and her mother and sisters
were constantly employed. She often said in
later life that the training she received in the
50
MARY LOUISA WHATELY.
MARY LOUISA WHATELY
Irish mission schools was an invaluable prepara-
tion for the work in which she was afterward to
be engaged. She had learned before this early
beginning that the first step was to give herself
to Him who had bought her with a price, and in
this spirit her work at home and abroad was ever
carried on. She was a good Italian scholar, and,
with her sisters, was at one time much occupied
in visiting and teaching poor Italians, who were
very numerous in Dublin. This also served as
a preparation for the work she was to undertake
later on among various nationalities.
In 1858 she visited Cairo and the Holy Land
with some friends, and the interest awakened
in her mind by this visit w^as the first inspira-
tion for her life work in the East. At one time
after her return she had much wished to eneaee
in work at Jerusalem ; but circumstances made
this impossible, and another path w^as to open
for her soon afterward. In the winter of i860
her health had suffered severely, after the loss of
her mother and youngest sister, and she was
ordered to a southern climate. Her thoughts
turned toward the land of Egypt, which she
had already learned to love. She went there
with a near relative, and while residing in Cairo
felt a strong desire to do something for the little
Moslem girls, who seemed so utterly neglected,
living the life of mere drudges, without a thought
53
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
or hope beyond the outer life. At that time no
attempt liad been made in behalf of Moslems in
Egypt, and education for women, even for those
nominally Christian, was at the lowxst ebb.
In spite of difficulties and discouragements
innumerable, and prophecies of failure on all
sides, she opened a girls' school in her own
hired home. With a respectable Syrian Protes-
tant matron, whose services she engaged (whose
own native language, of course, was Arabic, and
who knew about as much English as her em-
ployer had learned of Arabic), she went forth
into the streets and lanes near her dwelling.
She -persuaded the mothers to let their girls
come and learn to read and sew. With great
difficulty she gathered eight or nine little ones,
taught them the Arabic alphabet from a card
which she had prepared, the first rudiments of
sewine, and a text which she had herself learned
by heart from the Arabic Bible. This was the
small beginning from which much blessed fruit
was to spring.
Later she was obliged to return to Europe.
She attended her father during his last illness,
and, her Irish home being broken up by his
death, she returned and settled herself in Cairo
for life. With the voluntary help of Mr. Man-
soor Shakoor, a devoted and highl}^ gifted mis-
sionary from the Lebanon, and of his brother a
54
MARY LOUISA WHATELY
little later, she was able to add a boys' school to
the one already opened for girls. This was
filled more rapidly, as the need of education for
lads to w^hom it might be daily bread was more
readily felt. In 1869 the Khedive, Ismail Pasha,
at the kind suggestion of the Prince of Wales,
who with the princess had visited her work,
gave her an excellent site, just outside the city
walls, on which to build her mission house and
schools. She erected a spacious building for
the boys' and girls' schools, a fourth part of the
price of which was collected by friends in Eng-
land, while the rest was supplied from her own
resources, by no means large.
Some years previously Miss Whately had been
joined by the betrothed bride of Mansoor Sha-
koor, her first missionary helper. This young
girl, a daughter of one of the landed propri-
etors in the Lebanon district, was educated
and treated as a daughter both before and
after her marriage, and was a fellow- worker
in all labors of love. When the two excel-
lent brothers who had been Miss Whately's
assistants in the work were taken to their
heavenly rest within a few years of each other
the young Syrian widow remained, instead of re-
turning to the home where her husband's family
wished her to join them, and resolved to devote
her life to that mission to which her husband
55
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
had given himself, heart and soul, and in which
he had spent all his strength.
A medical mission was added to the schools
in 1879, ^^^^^ which MissWhately built a dispen-
sary and patients' waiting room, also from her
own private means. This work originated in
her own unaided efforts to relieve the sick, and
is now carried on by a pious and skillful Syrian
doctor. Upward of six hundred are in daily
attendance. Half the boys and two thirds of
the girls are Moslems, the rest being Copts,
with some Syrians and a few of other nationali-
ties, including several Jews. Almost all the sub-
ordinate teachers were trained in the school.
The people in the Nile villages within a cer-
tain distance south of Cairo said to one another
in 1889, according to their wont in early spring:
"Where is the Lady of the Book? Will she
come again this year and read us the ' good
words? ' It is time for her to come." She did
go, but it was the last trip.
She ,had taken cold before she stepped on
board the hired dahabieh. It w^as engaged for
a certain date, and the hire must still have been
paid even if the trip were given up. For many
years she had been trying to raise money to
buy a mission boat, but English Christians did
not comprehend the need, and her owm re-
sources w^ere already heavily overtaxed. *' No,
56
MARY LOUISA WHATELY
she could not give up the voyage — It was the
one chance for the year," she said. So the ex-
pectant audiences were not disappointed. The
story of salvation was once more told at five
different halting places. The Book of books
was distributed, the feverish bronchial symp-
toms being meanwhile kept at bay by the happy
excitement of the good work done, and on re-
turning to Cairo it was hoped that rest and
nursing in her own quiet chamber would, with
good medical aid, undo the damage received.
Her sister's letter of March 2, giving these de-
tails, expressed the hope that convalescence had
set in. But the very same day that that letter
arrived by post the news was flashed by tele-
gram that, one week later, on Saturday, March
9, 1889, the happy worker had entered on her
happier rest.
All that is earthly of Mary Whately was
buried in the beautiful English cemetery at
Cairo, in the midst of the city and people she so
much loved.
57
THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
MELINDA RANKIN
MLSS RANKIN'S Tzvcnty Years among the
Mexicans is a thrilling missionary story.
I have been stirred as I have read the book, and
more deeply stirred as I heard Miss Rankin re-
late the story in the quiet of my own home.
She was a remarkable woman, combining great
strength and independence, womanly tender-
ness and religious devotion, and was a power in
any position. Born among the hills of New
England, she found her life work in the sunny
land of the Aztecs. She never shrank from
duty or from danger in all the varied and try-
ing experiences that came to her, and in writing
up some of these experiences she says, " I
tell them because I hope to prove by actual
facts which have occurred in one woman's life
that our divine Master has still work for woman
to do in his kingdom on earth."
She had unlimited faith in woman and in her
power to bring things to pass. " Had I yielded
to public sentiment," she .said, " I should have
settled down in my New England home ; but
when Christ took possession of my heart I sub-
mitted myself and all my possibilities to him,
and was filled with a desire to make known the
blessed Gospel, and I went out to do the Master's
58
• MELINDA RANKIN
work, and felt no proscription because I was a
woman." After her consecration she was sub-
jected to a series of trials which she believed
were sent to prove the depth and sincerity of
her motives, but she came through these years
of waiting and preparation refined and purified
for the work God had for her.
About the year 1 840 a call was made for mis-
sionary teachers to go to the Mississippi Valley.
European immigration brought great numbers
of Roman Catholics into that portion of the coun-
try, and American Protestantism made appeals
for counteracting influences. To this call Miss
Rankin responded, and went as far as Kentucky,
where she remained for a short time, establish-
ing schools, then pushed her way on to
Mississippi. The sunny South charmed her,
and among; its delio-htful scenes she fain would
have made her permanent residence; but she
was not seeking her own pleasure ; she was
about her Master's business, and this merely be-
came to her an observatory whence she looked
to the regions beyond.
At the close of the war between Mexico and
the United States, through officers and soldiers
returning home, she learned much of the Mexi-
can people, and their condition under a tyranni-
cal priesthood, and her sympathy became so
enlisted that she immediately wrote articles for
59
'• THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
the papers, hoping thus to awaken an interest
among the churches and missionary societies,
but her appeals met witli no response. "God
helping me, I will go to Mexico myself," said
she, and she carried out her determination.
But Mexico then was in a very unsettled state
and she could not enter; besides, the laws at
that time positively forbade the introduction of
Protestant Christianity in any form, so to Texas
she went, and settled at Brownsville, on the
American side of the Rio Grande, opposite
Matamoras, Mexico. The outlook was not
pleasant. With difficulty she found shelter, for
there were no hotels. She succeeded in renting
two rooms — one for a bedroom, the other for a
school. She had no furniture, but her wants
were simple and were soon supplied, ''For," she
says, ' ' a Mexican woman brought me a cot, an
American sent me a pillow, and a German wom-
an said she would cook my meals; and so I
went to my humble cot with profound feelings
of gratitude."
The very next day she opened a school for
Mexican girls, as there was a large population of
Mexicans in the city. This prospered beyond
her expectations, and she was encouraged by
the following little incident : A mother of one of
the little girls came to her door one day, bring-
ing her saint, as she called it; said she had
60
MELINDA RANKIN
prayed to it all her life and it had never done
her any good, and wanted to know if she might
exchange it for a Bible. "Indeed, I was so
well pleased," said Miss Rankin, ''that I gave
her two Bibles, as she had a friend over in
Matamoras that wanted one." This was the
beginning.
God's word she felt to be above all human
law, and while to carry Bibles into Mexico was
a direct violation of the laws of the country, she
maintained that no earthly power had a right to
withhold this book from the people, and so she
devoted her energies to getting the Spanish
Bible across the river.
''Better send bullets and gunpowder to Mex-
ico than Bibles," said one (a minister) to her
when she was pleading for help. But she found
opportunities for sending hundreds of Bibles
and hundreds of thousands of pages of tracts
furnished her by the American Bible and Tract
Societies. Mexicans came to her house earnestly
soliciting a copy of the book. Orders came to
her from Monterey and places in the interior
for dozens of Bibles, and with money to pay for
them. A Protestant portrait painter carried
great quantities of books for her into the coun-
try. ' ' The Mexicans take your books to turn
them over to the priests to be burned," said a
friend to her ; but in several instances she was
6i
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
told that they hid their books, and " only read
them at night when the priests were not about."
She wrote home for help, but was told that a
Christian colporteur speaking the Spanish lan-
guage could not be found ; so, getting assistance
for her school, she started out as the agent of
the American and Foreign Christian Union, and
the work received a new impulse.
** Every Bible going into Mexico pleads for
religious liberty," she said, and religious liberty
came very slowly ; but while she was watching
the struggle severe domestic troubles came upon
her. Her sister, who had taken care of the
seminary, was taken ill and died, and she her-
self was stricken with yellow fever and her life
despaired of. But faithful Mexican women
tenderly and lovingly cared for her, and she re-
covered. Then the civil war came, and she
was driven from her school because she was not
in sympathy with the Confederacy. She did
not, however, relinquish her hold readily, but
waited until three peremptory orders were sent,
the last with the intimation that force would be
used if she did not vacate at once. Confiscation
of all her property was urged, but the receiver,
a Roman Catholic, would not allow it, saying,
" It was bad enough for ;;/r;/ to be afflicted with
the horrors of war, and he could not take from
a zvoman her necessary articles of furniture."
62
MELINDA RANKIN
Thus driven out, she found shelter in Mata-
moras, and here she commenced her direct
missionary labors for Mexicans on Mexican soil.
But difficulties presented themselves, and often
she would spend whole nights in prayer.
She made a decision to go to J^Ionterey, which
on account of its commercial interest was one of
the most important cities, with a population of
about forty thousand, and was the center of
strong Romish influences and power; and in
this place this lone woman, after three months
of careful and prayerful consideration, decided
to establish the first Protestant mission in Mex-
ico. She rented house after house, each of
which she had to abandon as soon as the priests
found she was teaching the Bible. Feeling the
need of a chapel and school buildings for suc-
cessfully carrying on this work, she visited home
and secured several thousand dollars, with
which she bought land and erected the neces-
sary buildings. In the meantime converts were
multiplying, and some of them were selected
by Miss Rankin to go to the adjoining towns and
villages within a circle of one hundred miles to
preach Christ, who returned at the end of amonth
with reports of kind receptions. They went
from house to house and from ranch to ranch.
Then Zacatecas, distant some three hundred
miles, was selected as another center, and in
6 63
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
two years a cliurcli was erected by the Mexicans,
which in 1872, with one hundred and seventy
members, was made over to and occupied by the
Presbyterian Board. The work spread on all
sides. In one place the Bible readers wrote to
Miss Rankin, *' We can scarcely get time to eat
or sleep, so anxious are the people to hear God's
word." Mexicans themselves, after obtaining
some knowledge of the Bible, would organize
"societies" for the purpose of mutual in-
struction.
But in 1 87 1 came disturbances again, and
upon every available spot of her house was
written in large letters, * ' Death to the Protes-
tants." The mission followers w^ere in constant
apprehension of assault. Bloody battles were
fought not far from Monterey, and mounted
soldiers entered the town and came to her home
demanding '* her money or her life." She said
to these desperadoes: '' I am alone and unpro-
tected. You will not harm a helpless lady."
She gave them food to appease their hunger,
and they left, robbing, destroying other prop-
erty, and shooting down numbers on the street.
After a time order was restored, and the mis-
sion work which had been checked was again
prosecuted with great success. But all these
cares and responsibilities told upon Miss Ran-
kin's health, and she found it necessary to leave
64
MELINDA RANKIN
Mexico. *'I had entertained the hope," she
said, ''of dying on the field, with the Mexican
people, with them to rise in the morning of the
resurrection as a testimony that I had desired
their salvation." It was a tremendous struggle
for her to give up the work. " Never did the
trophies of Christ's love appear so precious as
when I felt I must tear myself away."
She had developed the work until it assumed
proportions which required ordained ministers.
This fact and failing health were indications
that her work in Mexico was done. Mission-
aries of Protestant denominations came forward,
saying, '' We will take Mexico for Christ." In
1872 she returned home and made over her
work to the American Board. For twenty years
she had toiled, wept, suffered, prayed, and re-
linquishing her hold cost a severe struggle.
'' I passed a night of meditation and prayer over
it," she says, "but about the fourth watch ap-
peared One who in other scenes of trial had
come walking upon the sea of trouble and
calmed my anxious heart."
This done, she occasionally visited the
churches, interesting the people in Mexico,
then retired to her home in Bloomington, 111.,
where, on December 7, 1888, in her seventy-
seventh year, she passed to her home above.
65
THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB
LYDIA MARY FAY
POSSIBLY the name of no one missionary
woman is more lovingly remembered in
China than that of Lydia Mary Fay. She was
one of the heroic band of women that laid broad
and deep foundations in the early days of mis-
sionary work in the Chinese empire. One of
her associates said of her, ' ' She was one of the
truest women and one of the best and most
efficient missionaries that ever lived, and her
life was a daily testimony to those about her
of the beauty and happiness of self-sacrificing
duty."
Miss Fay was a native of Essex County,
Va., but went out from Albany, N. Y. She
was appointed as a missionary teacher under
Bishop Boone, of the Protestant Episcopal
Church, and sailed for China, in the ship
Horatio, November 8, 1850 — the first single
woman sent from America to China by a mis-
sionary society. She had a remarkably well-
trained mind and a heart full of human sympa-
thy, and was qualified in a peculiar manner for
the arduous work that awaited her. Writing
to a friend soon after her arrival, she said: "■ It
is a difficult thing to keep the heart at the
spiritual heights it has gained, and perhaps the
66
LYDIA MARY FAY
first rude shock to the young missionary's faith,
on his arrival in heathen lands, is the utter in-
difference of the people, the clouds of incense
that dim his sight, and the harsh music that
deafens his ears, as he finds himself in some
lofty temple, near huge idols, before whom
crowds are prostrating themselves and offering
all the worship their darkened, untaught hearts
are capable of, and I exclaim, ' Who is sufficient
for these things, and how can the still, small
voice of the Spirit ever touch the hearts of these
noisy idolaters, or how can the missionary be
seen through the clouds of incense, or the voice
be heard in the din of gongs and drums?' " But
by ''patient continuance " the impress of her
mind and heart was soon made manifest.
She established in her own house in Shanghai
a boarding school for boys, which she called her
'* gravest responsibility," as through this agency
she hoped to raise up teachers and preachers
who would carry on future work. She not only
taught in the school, carried all the domestic
cares, provided for the clothing, kept all the
finances, but devoted much time to the study
and translation of the Chinese language — surely
enough for one woman. But besides this she
had the oversight of boys' day schools, con-
ducted a class of student teachers, and had the
care of several girls' schools, and in all she
67
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
sought not only to impart knowledge, but to de-
velop a deep .spiritual experience, and all who
came under her influence felt her power.
While busy with all these multiplied labors she
lived most frugally, without many of the com-
forts which are generally thought indispensable
in an inhospitable climate, and she was not
without her afflictions ; the Master called her to
pass through many severe experiences in the
twenty-eight years of her residence.
At the close of her twenty-fifth year the school
which she had established was made over to the
Episcopal Board. This was an occasion of deep
interest, and was duly celebrated. She was
permitted to see her small beginning develop
into Doane Hall and Theological School, with
president, professors, and with ten Chinese
teachers, and to see some of her pupils in the
Christian ministry. She had gone forth weep-
ing, but was permitted to gather in some
sheaves. This anniversary was held in her own
house, and was largely attended. A transla-
tion of an address was read, from a large num-
ber of Chinese, congratulating ''Lady Fay"
on the memorable occasion. The address was
drawn up and signed by Chinese who had
known ''Lady Fay" for more than twenty
years, who had been impressed by the sim-
plicity and purity of her life and devotion to
68
LYDIA MARY FAY
their interests, and who compared her to the
illustrious literary women of China. The vari-
ous translations that she had made from Eng-
lish into Chinese and from Chinese into English
were referred to, and a tribute paid to her
knowledge of the classics, for her reputation as
a Chinese scholar was the highest of any woman
in China. The closing words of this address were
memorable: ''If our countrywomen ever de-
served a mark of distinction for virtue and filial
piety, much more does this American teacher
deserve such a mark of imperial favor, as her
life is sacrificed not for father, mother, hus-
band, friend, or even for her own people, but
for a far-off and ancient people who had no
claim upon her sympathy except through the
religion of Jesus, the Redemer of the world."
A poet of high position in the Chinese literary
world wrote her praises in verse, and ascribed
to her all the charms that belong to woman and
all the intellectual qualities that are attributed
to man. It is said that no other foreigner in
modern times has been thus honored in China.
Miss Fay aided Dr. Wells Williams in the
revision of the manuscript of his Syllabic
Dictionary. She was engaged in this work
for nineteen months, and with the aid of
a Chinese assistant revised every one of
the sixty thousand phrases. She was also
69
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB "
a contributor to magazines and papers, and
published a good translation of the various
official documents connected with the emperor's
marriage in 1872.
In all these twenty-eight years Miss Fay
visited America but once. Her excessive la-
bors, however, told upon her, and she became
conscious that her work was drawing to a close.
''The great trial of sickness," she writes, "is
being laid aside from work. I must keep it in
mind that ' they also serve who only stand
and wait.' " Her health continued to fail, and
a trip to Che-foo was recommended, but it
brought no relief. She had a great desire to
return to her home in Shanghai, but this was
denied her, and on October 5, 1878, surrounded
by missionaries and loving friends, she passed
to her eternal home. The funeral was attended
by a large number of visitors and residents, and
the flag of the United vStates Consulate was put
at half mast in token of respect to this noble
woman. She rests in the foreign cemetery of
Che-foo, a beautiful spot overlooking the sea,
and she lives again and again in the lives of
those whom she labored to bring to the loving
knowledge of the Christ.
70
MARY BRISCOE BALDWIN
MARY BRISCOE BALDWIN
Missionary to Greece and Joppa
IN an old-fashioned Virginia mansion in the
Shenandoah Valley Mary Briscoe Baldwin
was born on the 20th of May, 181 1. Her
mother was a niece of James Madison, fourth
President of the United States, and Mary was
the second daughter in a family of twelve, all
of whom received their education from private
tutors. Early she showed a strong and original
character, and had her own opinion on all sub-
jects coming under her observation. During
her girlish days she surrendered herself to her
vSaviour, after deep conviction of sin, and was
ever after a most loving, earnest, and devoted
disciple. Bishop Meade, of the Protestant Epis-
copal Church, was a relative who greatly influ-
enced and helped her in her religious life.
Her Christian character was put to a great
test by the death of her parents, the breaking
up of the family home, and the separation of
the children. When about twenty years of age
she went to Stanton, Pa., to visit relatives, and
here she made the decision that influenced her
future life. She says : " I grew weary of fash-
ionable life. For some years I had felt a great
desire to be directly engaged in some Christian
71
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
work, especially in extending the knowledge of
the Gospel among my fellow-creatures, such as
is the privilege of clergymen to do, but, being a
woman, I could not possibly enter the ministry.
Next to this my thoughts turned to the life of a
missionary, and this seemed a position far too
high and heavenly for me to attain and enjoy."
During this period she was offered a position as
teacher in a young ladies' boarding school at
Stanton, which she accepted, and while there
the call came to devote her life to missionary
work.
The Protestant Episcopal Society received a
letter from Mrs. Hill, of Athens, stating her
pressing need of assistance, and urgently re-
questing that some one be sent to aid her in the
schools she had established. As Miss Baldwin
had some acquaintance with Mrs. Hill, she was
interested especially in that work, and after a
long consideration of the matter she wrote, '' I
rose up with a firm and steady purpose of heart
and said, ' I will go.' " Miss Baldwin was one
of the first unmarried missionaries to go out
from America. Her decision was a surprise to
her friends, some of whom said she was " going
on a wild-goose chase;" or, the old story, that
she was '' throwing herself away;" or, for her
it was **a descent in the social scale." But
none of these things moved her. After her
72
MARY BRISCOE BALDWIN
decision was made she at once commenced her
preparations — visited her old home, and traveled
over the country visiting- many points of inter-
est. She entered the service not for worldly
gain ; her salary was only two hundred and
fifty dollars, but she was willing to supplement
the deficiency by drawing upon her own finan-
cial resources.
Arriving in Greece, she realized with great
delight that her life was to be passed in a land
full of stirring memories. She was to labor
among a people to whom Paul preached the
truth about the "■ unknown God " and declared
salvation by Jesus Christ alone. The people
of Greece had a wonderful history, with great
genius and refinement, with a Church pro-
fessedly Christian, but corrupt, and they needed
a pure, practical, sound form of doctrine and
an open Bible. The worship of the poorer and
unlearned classes consisted mostly in the adora-
tion of pictures, images, and sacred symbols, or
in chanting prayers in the olden tongue. Many
years of cruel oppression and taxation had im-
poverished them, so that the missionary had to
minister to their bodily wants as well as to their
soul needs, and Miss Baldwin, comprehending
the situation, fulfilled her highest conception of
duty in ministering to their every need.
Dr. and Mrs. Hill, American missionaries
73
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
who had established a school and found the
project developing on their hands, sought the
assistance of Miss Baldwin, who took the entire
charge of the sewing department. She soon
won the love of the girls and the esteem of the
parents, who valued the art which enabled their
girls to maintain themselves.
After the acknowledgment of Greek independ-
ence the court was removed to Athens. Mil-
liners and dressmakers followed in the train,
and wanted girls who could use their needles;
and the only ones who knew anything of the
womanly art of sewing were found to be those
whom Miss Baldwin had taught. The great
temporal blessings thus conferred on impover-
ished families were such that Miss Baldwin be-
came known among the native population as
'' Good Lady Mary," and when she appeared
on the streets the people were ready to do her
homage. By this means a ready entrance was
made for the Christian teaching. Her great ob-
ject was to civilize and Christianize the daugh-
ters, and through them the homes of the peo-
ple ; and with three hundred and fifty children
under her care she had ample opportunity to
exert an influence. Not only did she train
Greek girls to be good daughters, wives, and
mothers, but she educated many of the better
class for teachers, who in their turn labored
74
MARY BRISCOE BALDWIN
among the Greek and Turkish women, and thus
perpetuated her influence. After laboring for
eleven years it became necessary for her to seek
relaxation, and, in company with friends, she
took a trip through Italy. Not receiving the de-
sired benefit, she made an excursion through
Greece, then came to her home in America;
but after a visit of a year returned to Greece,
taking her sister, and established a boarding
school in connection with the day school con-
ducted by Mrs. Hill. This school was for the
higher class of girls in Athens, and to this
project Miss Baldwin devoted much of her own
private fortune until it was a success, so that
practically she became the founder of Christian
female education in the country. She trained
all pupils coming under her with a heart train-
ing of which the blessings and benefits were
felt to the remotest corners of Greece.
During 1866, when the Christians of Crete
revolted against the Turkish government, many
impoverished and destitute Cretans fled to
Athens. Among these refugees Miss Baldwin
labored for two or more years with great suc-
cess, establishing day schools and Sunday
schools, feeding the hungry, providing the
women and girls with material for work and
teaching^ them to sew and knit, and thus o-'iv-
ing employment to hundreds. As the Cretans
75
" THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB "
returned to their home Miss Baldwin felt that,
having spent thirty-three years there, her work
in Greece was done, and she requested the Mis-
sionary Committee to transfer her to Jaffa — the
ancient Joppa — as her nephew had been ap-
pointed consul at that place. Her desire was
gratified, and she went to live with her sister
and nephew and to assist in the Protestant
schools. She became associated w^ith Miss Ar-
nott, a Scotch woman, who for some time had
been teaching a girls' school. Here was a great
field among Jewesses, Greek Christians, and
Moslems. She had often spoken of Palestine
with eager longing, and it was an epoch wdien
she commenced laboring in Joppa. For eight
years she labored unremittingly, with the ex-
ception of one brief visit home.
On account of failure in sight she was com-
pelled to sever her relations with Miss Arnott's
school, but, after rest and medical treatment,
she went to work in the boys' school established
by her nephew. Funds being required to put
up a bulding, she returned, after an absence of
twenty-five years, to America and collected
money for the purpose. While visiting one of
the churches she fell, meeting with a serious in-
jury, and from the time of her fall to her death
she was seldom free from pain, day or night.
Miss Baldwin returned, however, to toil on,
76
MARY BRISCOE BALDWIN
and was supremely happy in her work. Writing
to a friend, she said: " As to whether I am re-
ceiving the ' hundredfold ' promised in the Gos-
pel to those who forsake houses and brethren
and lands for Christ's sake, I reply, ' Yes; I am
enjoying the fulfillment of this promise, because
I esteem the position of a missionary of the Gos-
pel of Christ the very highest privilege which
could be bestowed upon me while on earth.' "
The associations of Palestine had a charm for
her. It was the Holy Land ! the land full of
memories connected with the great scheme of
redemption. She delighted to be at work in the
very city where Peter raised Dorcas from the
dead, and where he had a vision that salvation
was for the Gentiles as well as the Jews. But
the long period of patient, unfaltering work,
through dark and cloudy as well as through
bright and sunny days, was telling upon her
physically, and she struggled heroically, al-
though vainly, against pain and weakness, and
the weary wheels stood still June 21, 1877, after
forty-two years of loving service.
She was buried on a bluff overlooking the
Jordan Valley, and friends placed over her a
tombstone of Greek marble with the appropriate
and beautiful inscription :
" There is no difference between the Jew and the Greek : for
the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him."
77
THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB "
MRS. BISHOP GOBAT
THE REV. SAMUEL GOBAT, D.D., was
for many years the Anglican Missionary
Bishop of Jerusalem. Maria Zeller, who be-
came his wife, was born on the 9th of Novem-
ber, 18 1 3, at Zofingen, in Switzerland. Her
father, director of schools in that place, had
eleven children, of whom Maria was the second.
In 18 19 he founded a home for destitute chil-
dren, and soon after an institution for training
schoolmasters in Bruggen. In this place, in an
atmosphere of simple faith, love, and self-deny-
ing work, Maria spent her youth. Under the
influence and guidance of their excellent mother
she and her sisters learned to give a helping
hand everywhere, so lightening the burdens of
others. She received a part of her education
away from home, returning after a few years to
be her mother's right hand in every depart-
ment of household duty. She had a deeply re-
ligious nature, and was beloved for her unself-
ishness and her happy, contented disposition.
Her simple faith and her love to her Saviour
remained unchanged to the close of her long
life.
Toward the end of 1833 the Rev. Samuel
Gobat, of the Church Missionary Society, became
78
MRS. BISHOP GOBAT.
MRS. BISHOP GOBAT
acquainted with the Zellers. He was returning
to Abyssinia, his field of labor, after a time
spent at home, where he had been speaking of
the work in Abyssinia and the great need for
more laborers. He and Maria Zeller were mu-
tually attracted to one another, and, the consent
of her parents having been gained, the young
couple were married in May, 1834. They left
Switzerland soon after, and started on the diffi-
cult journey to Abyssinia.
They had a rough time in traveling on the
Red Sea in an Arab sailing vessel and through
the desert on camels. They could only take the
most necessary articles with them, and had
many hardships to endure, but they were strong
in their trust in God and in their love to each
other. Very soon after reaching Massowah Mr.
Gobat fell very ill, but resolved, if possible, to
push on into Abyssinia, in order to introduce a
young brother missionary to the work. The
latter had been appointed in consequence of Mr.
Gobat's eloquent and earnest representation of
the need for volunteers. With great difficulty
they reached Adowa, where Mr. Gobat was
confined for two years to his bed. Now be-
gan a time when the faith and devotion of this
exceptional woman were tested to the utmost.
When her first baby was born Mr. Gobat seemed
almost dying. There was no possibility of get-
81
" THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB "
ting any suitable food, and they had but few
medicines, so that the courage of the poor
young mother almost failed. But God is a very
present help in trouble ; and here, too, he raised
them up kind friends among the natives, who
did much to make the remainder of their stay
bearable.
It is strange that, notwithstanding all the tri-
als they had to endure in that land, the recollec-
tions of Abyssinia were, to the end of their lives,
dear and most helpful to them. In after years,
when some poor Abyssinians visited Jerusalem,
Mr. and Mrs. Gobat lavished love and kindnesses
on them. Mr. Gobat's health continued precari-
ous ; a doctor who happened to be traveling in
the country pronounced his case hopeless if he
did not immediately return to Europe, and Mr.
and Mrs. Gobat sorrowfully turned their backs
on the country where they had hoped to labor
for the Lord. The journey back was most try-
ing, but its benefit to Mr. Gobat's health was
little short of miraculous. They reached ]\Ias-
sowah with great difficulty, and embarked in an
Arab boat for the journey up the Red Sea. The
boat was so small that the only cabin measured
eight feet by four; they could not stand upright
in it, and had scarcely room on deck to walk.
The Arabs had laid in provisions for th^'ee weeks
only, but they were thirty-eight days en route,
82
MRS. BISHOP GOBAT
with no food save rice cooked in half -putrid
water. The goat died which Mr. Gobat had
taken on board to provide milk for the infant,
and the child became seriously ill from want of
nourishment.
After landing at Koseir the journey through
the desert commenced. Mrs. Gobat could never
speak of that journey without tears. It was lit-
tle wonder that her brave heart sank and en-
durance failed, for they had to travel many
days in the scorching sun, without a good hat
or an umbrella, with very coarse food and with
scarcely any water. Fortunately, Mr. Gobat
was better, but poor Mrs. Gobat was completely
worn out. The infant became worse, and
moaned and cried night and day, so that rest
was out of the question. At that time the
brave heart of the young mother nearly de-
spaired, faith was dim, and God seemed very far
off; but such bitter hours were short, and her
husband's meek, patient bearing of all these
trials was a great help to her, and enabled her
once more to say, '* Though He slay me, yet
will I trust in him."
In order to reach Cairo they had to travel a
few days by boat on the Nile, and now hope
revived that the baby might be .saved. Alas!
this was not to be, for a few hours before reach-
ing Cairo the little one died. Mrs. Gobat sat
83
" THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB "
with the dead infant in her arms during the re-
mainder of the journey, shedding bitter, una-
vailing tears over all that was left to her of her
firstborn.
In Cairo they buried the child. Five weeks
after their arrival a second baby w^as given
them, whom they pathetically named Benoni.
Not long after they reached Mrs. Gobat's be-
loved Switzerland, wdiere, among her own peo-
ple and her native mountains, she found health
for body and mind.
Two years later they went to Malta, being
sent to superintend there the translation of the
Bible into Arabic, and to take charge of the
printing press. In 1845 Mr. Gobat was ap-
pointed vice principal of the Malta Protestant
College ; but he had not been there a year before
he was nominated by P'rederick William IV of
Prussia to the see of Jerusalem. This call he
could not refuse, seeing in it a summons to
work in a desirable part of the Lord's vineyard.
Dr. Gobat was consecrated a bishop of the
Church of England in July, 1846. He and
Mrs. Gobat then proceeded to Jerusalem, where
they entered upon the work with the greatest
energy.
Mrs. Gobat, notwithstanding her large family
and many duties, was indefatigable in her labors
of love during those first years in Jerusalem.
84
MRS. BISHOP GOBAT
She was her husband's helpmeet in everything,
taking keen interest in all the schools and mis-
sions. These schools were all begun by Bishop
Gobat, and so successfully carried on that a year
before his death there were fourteen hundred
children under instruction in them.
The rule that guided his wife in all things
was love. She could not witness grief without
weeping with those that wept ; she could not see
a case of distress without helping. Her hospi-
tality was well known in Jerusalem, and many
travelers to the Holy Land have testified to
this.
All belonging to the mission were received by
her with kindness ; the poor and the stricken
ones sought her out. For all the schools and
mission institutions she cared with a mother's
interest, but she specially loved the school and
orphanage on Mount Zion. She knew every
one of the children by name, and cared for their
wants. This institution, with more than sixty
pupils, was supported by voluntary contributions,
the bishop and Mrs. Gobat making up all defi-
ciencies out of their private purse.
When, in spring, 1878, they left for their last
visit to Europe they were not quite decided
about returning ; but the bishop said to his wife,
" Let us come back to Jerusalem to die." Both
felt that Jerusalem was their only home, and
85
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
the place where they would like to end their
days.
They went to Europe, but in the autumn the
bishop had a stroke of paralysis, which alarmed
Mrs. Gobat, and rendered the venerable man so
feeble that it was with the greatest difficulty
they accomplished the journey back. In spite
of all the loving care lavished on him he sank,
and early on a Sabbath morning, at the age of
eighty, he entered into rest.
This blow was a crushing one ; but Mrs. Go-
bat tried to say, " It is the Lord," and was most
grateful for the loving ministrations of her chil-
dren. But it was evident that the silver cord
was well-nigh loosed ; their lives had been so
closely knit together in joy and sorrow for the
long period of forty-five years. She said repeat-
edly, " I have no more work to do in Jerusalem ;
my task is finished." On Sunday, though not
really ill, she asked to be prayed for in the pub-
lic services — not that she might get well, but
that she might be ready to die. On Monday she
w^as feverish, and the doctor bade her stay in
bed. She liked to have the children with her,
but gradually became indifferent to all earthly
things. On the Thursday night consciousness
had quite fled. She was very restless for some
hours, having acute inflammation of the brain ;
but God did not allow her to suffer long. On the
86
MRS. BISHOP GOBAT
istof August, 1879, she peacefully breathed her
last. Her death occurred not quite twelve
weeks after her husband's. Truly they were
** lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in death
they w^erenot divided."
87
THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB
MISS ALDERSEY
IT is a remarkable vStory, the way in which God
puts into the hearts of women whom he has
qualified to enter into doors which he has
opened, and to lay the foundations of his Church
among the women of the world. China, that
vast and populous country, was not open to
Protestant missionary effort until 1806, when
Dr. Morrison and Dr. Milne with their wives
attempted to enter ; but they toiled on for years
without sympathy or results. By the treaty of
1842 not only was Hongkong ceded to Great
Britain, but other ports were thrown open, with
permission to erect churches and establish
schools. Mrs. Gutzlaff and some other women
entered the open ports, scattered portions of the
Scriptures, and offered to teach any who were
willing to learn. A school was started in Macao
with twenty-three children, when Mrs. Gutzlaff,
in 1866, wrote home for help, saying: "Make
haste and send us a helper, for there is so much
to do. Thousands of children are here to be
trained, and only one teacher."
While these doors were being opened God
was preparing the heart of an English woman
to devote her life to the elevation of Chinese
women. It was an heroic undertaking for an
MISS ALDERSEY
unmarried woman to leave home, and the asso-
ciations dear to her, and enter upon a life of
whose isolation and sacrifice we in these days
can have little comprehension, but Miss Alder-
sey had long had a desire to go to China. As a
friend of Dr. Morrison she had, under his in-
struction, when only nineteen years of age, ap-
plied herself to the study of the Chinese lan-
guage. She belonged to a prominent and
wealthy family, but knowing that the life of a
missionary had its limitations, and privations,
she studied in every way to prepare herself to
meet and endure with Christian bravery what
might come to her.
As early as 1832 she made preparations to ac-
company a missionary party to the Straits of
Malacca to work among Chinese emigrants, but
just as she was ready to sail a death in the fam-
ily frustrated her plans. This was evidently a
great trial to her, but she accepted what she saw
to be her duty — devoted herself to the care of
five motherless children — and for the time aban-
doned all thought of going to China. Five
years afterward, in 1837, the way unexpectedly
opened. She accompanied Dr. and Mrs. Med-
hurst to the East, and settled first in Java, where
she opened an Indo-Chinese school and did
some medical work, thus having an opportunity
of giving religious instruction. Two of her
89
" THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB "
pupils in Java renounced heathenism, were bap-
tized, and followed her to China, becoming effi-
cient helpers. In 1844 Miss Aldersey, having
overcome great, almost overwhelming, difficul-
ties, went to Ningpo, and this place was the
scene of successful labors for thirteen of the
twenty-three years of her missionary career.
She established work among girls and women.
An elderly Chinese Christian in Shanghai, who
was one of the two girls who were the first pu-
pils in this first school for girls in China, after
half a century spoke with reverent love of Miss
Aldersey and her work.
As a pioneer Miss Aldersey had to face every
form of prejudice and opposition. For some
time she was regarded as a cannibal, and many
were the stories circulated amonof the natives
concerning her methods of taking out the eyes
of children and of murdering all who went to
her house. vShe was in the habit of rising early
and taking a morning walk, and the Chinese
said she went to hold intercourse with the evil
spirits. Upon one occasion, when a poor blind
woman who had heard the truths of the Gospel
sought instruction from Miss Aldersey, her
family were alarmed and a mob assembled
around the "barbarian" white woman's house.
They became so violent that Miss Aldersey was
compelled to leave and seek safety in a boat.
90
MISS ALDERSEY "
But the hearts of many of the natives were won
through the Christian spirit she manifested.
She was very useful among- the opium eaters
and among the blind, and was permitted to see
many positions of influence occupied by those
she had trained. Her work was one of prepa-
ration and laying foundations for future results.
But the time came for her to abandon the
work she loved so well, and, having resigned
her school in 1857, she went to Australia, where,
active to the kivSt in the Lord's service, she
passed on to her eternal reward. She was the
forerunner of a great army of Christian women
who have given their lives to save Chinese
women.
91
THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB
MRS. H. C. MULLENS
"Her work still lives; it blossoms from the dust,
And a glad future holds the fruit in trust."
IT was womanly tact that first penetrated the
homes of India's women.
Zenana work has been a development of re-
cent years. Of all the population in India
women have most felt the wrongs and burdens
of heathenism. Despised at their birth, subject
to chances of infanticide in earliest years, or
bartered to some unknown husband, condemned
by custom to lifelong imprisonment, ignorance,
and ill treatment, neglected in sickness, shut
out from the enjoyment of nature, without edu-
cation, without hope in Christ of a joyful here-
after— such is the condition of women in civil-
ized heathendom.
It became an all-absorbing question among
missionaries, ''How shall we reach and help
these women, thus shut away from all good in-
fluences?" For it was evident that until this
could be done very little progress would be made
in missionary work throughout the country. To
meet and overcome the prejudice against the
education of women was a gigantic task. All
the inherited notions of Hindu social life were
opposed to it, and, as a consequence, efforts
92
MRS. H. C. MULLENS
were often made in secrecy and prosecuted un-
der great difficulties. The hope of gaining- ac-
cess to the homes of the rich and of the better
classes seemed a dream, and the attempt to
reach out and help the poor was ridiculed.
Some endeavors were made to establish purely ;
secular schools for women and girls, but these
proved unsuccessful, for the natives said, "We
want religion taught in our families, although it
be a false one."
Schools were established for girls as early as
1807, and again in 18 19, and continued with
more or less success all through the years, but
it was oriven to Mrs. Mullens to inauofurate and
make popular zenana work.
Hannah Catherine Lacroix was the daughter
of the Rev. A. Lacroix, of the London Mission-
ary Society, who was one of India's most gifted
and devoted missionaries. He was intensely
interested in the uplifting of India's daughters.
He vSaid, *'In my opinion we ought to be any-
thing but sanguine of success in our work till
Christianity has imparted to the Hindus differ-
ent ideas of the female sex from those which
they now possess." The daughter drank in the
spirit of the father. She became known as one
of the most efficient and successful zenana
workers in the country, and now bears the title
of '' The Apostle of the Zenanas."
93
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB "
She was born in the city of Calcutta in 1826.
Her surrounding's were all of a missionary
character.
Amid the constant interruptions incident to
the life of a missionary, and lacking proper
schools, her education was somewhat limited,
but of such a practical character that it proved a
great preparation for the work God had in store
for her. She was naturally very bright and in-
telligent, and had a loving, sympathetic nature,
which reached out to help others. She spoke
the Bengali language with great fluency, and
when her mother started a day school in their
own garden she was able to take a class and in-
struct the children, thus at the age of twelve
years commencing her life work. When about
fifteen years of age she yielded her heart to
Christ and united with the Church. She sought
every opportunity to do good, sometimes teach-
ing a school of girls, at other times getting to-
gether the servants of the family and instruct-
ing them, and in this way spent her time
tmtil broader fields opened before her.
At the age of nineteen she was united in mar-
riage to the Rev. Dr. Mullens, of the London
Missionary Society. It was a very happy union.
The husband and wife read and studied together,
and, with her enthusiastic and deeply spiritual
nature, she was ready for any work that opened.
94
MRS. H. C. MULLENS
So extensive and correct did her acquaintance
with the language become that her father said
that, although he might preach better than she
could, her knowledge of words and idioms used
in familiar conversation was much superior to
his own. In later years she wrote a work for
native Christian women, and so simple and beau-
tiful was the style that it was sought for both
by the missionaries and the natives; at the time
of Mrs. Mullen's death it had been printed in
twelve of the dialects of India. She wrote other
works, TJie Missionary on the Ganges, Missionary
Pietures, etc.
But how did she get access to the zenana? By
her own handiwork. The story of the vslippers
is familiar to all missionary workers. She was
skilled in needlework, and a native gentleman
visiting the house was very much taken with the
beautiful slippers she was working. In a con-
versation with her about it he said, "I should
like my wife taught such things." Quickly she
caught at the suggestion, and the wrought slip-
per helped her to enter behind the curtain and
carry the Gospel of Christ. Then another op-
portunity was offered. A native physician with
whom Mrs. Mullens was acquainted, and w^ho
had very liberal ideas of female education, was
taken ill and died. His daughter had been
taught by a native. Mrs. Mullens went to the
8 95
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
house to express her sympathy, saw the women,
and was surprised at the intelligence of this
daughter, who was a widow. She proposed to
her to start a school for women, which she did,
and in a short time had gathered over twenty ;
Mrs. Mullens had the supervision of it. In this
way, by using good judgment and making vari-
ous efforts, she soon had access to all the homes
she could visit.
Mrs. Lacroix, the mother of Mrs. Mullens,
visited the zenanas also, and the wonderful
teaching of these two ladies was whispered from
one to another. Many desired to see the mis-
sionaries and hear these **new words." Some
of the women in the zenanas seemed content
with their lot — dressing the hair, counting their
jewels, or playing with dolls. But others pined
for vSomething better. They forgot their miser-
able surroundings in listening to the wonderful
story and in examining the pictures, books, and
fancy work. Many of them took great interest
in learning to work. Mrs. Mullens was now the
intimate and trusted friend of many a secluded
Hindu wife, and a welcome visitor into the most
carefully-guarded apartments of the Hindu
women. She had conquered prejudice by her
womanly tact, and had pointed many a weary,
heavy-laden woman to the Saviour of the world.
In 1858 she visited England, and her enthusi-
96
MRS. H. C. MULLENS
asm gave a great stimulus to the interest in the
work, which was then just beginning to attract
general attention. She gave missionary ad-
dresses, and had wonderful power in telling her
story. '' Missions are a passion with me," she
said, ''and I bless God that I have learned to
labor on so contentedly without much visible
success."
Upon her return to Calcutta from this visit
she found a great advance in public opinion
concerning work among women. wShe took up
her duties again, and the year of labor was
marked by most cheering instances of those who
sought and found the "true light."
But she had accomplished her work. She had
turned the keys in zenana doors to admit Chris-
tian women bearing the light of Christ's truth
to the sorrowful, where bondage and darkness,
ignorance and idolatry, had wrought such sad-
ness in the land.
In the midst of labors, and while preparing a
book for the women, she was taken suddenly
ill, and died in the midst of her family and
friends in 1861, aged thirty-five years. There
was sorrow in many an Indian household, and
the women who had been won by her tenderness
and love felt that they had lost their all. There
was general mourning. It would seem to our
mortal sight that she had only begun her work,
97
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
but she had finished it. Among the multitude
who followed her remains to the grave were a
hundred and fifty Hindu converts, with their
families, and one of the sermons in her memory
was preached by a Hindu minister.
Rev. Mr. Sherring, in his History of Protestant
Missions in India, says of her: ''She had at one
time under her own personal direction zenanas
and girls' schools containing eighty native ladies
and seventy girls. But her day was short. She
had tried to enter on a sphere so long desired,
to draw attention to its capabilities, to give the
cause of education a new and powerful impulse,
to attract to it the regard of willing friends, to
secure for it henceforth a fixed place among
missionary agencies in India. At last ripened
in character, most consecrated in labor, purified
by recent suffering, she was called suddenly
from the toils of earth to the joyous rest of the
better country."
98
MRS. BOWEN THOMPSON.
MRS. BOWEN THOMPSON
MRS. BOWEN THOMPSON
IN our Master's house there are vessels of gold
and of silver, of wood and of clay, and some
more honored than others. The clay ones are
easily molded, but are only for common use ;
the wooden ones require the knife, but the gold
and silver ones need the furnace to refine.
Most of us are content with being any sort of
vessel in the house, and are unwilling to submit
to even the knife, let alone the refining furnace.
The absolute surrender of one's life and plans
into our Father's hands invariably results in
our finding that he has done for us exceeding
abundantly above all we had asked or thought.
We stay-at-home Christian women have little
idea what the joy must be of looking back upon
a life full of work for the Master — work that
would not have been done had not our hands
taken it up. Of this description were the life
and the work of the young widow who is the
subject of the present sketch. Frances Haver-
gal's prayer, '* Lord, prepare me for whatever
thou art preparing for me," seems to have been
the habit of soul of this lady from her girlhood,
and marvelous were the providences by which
she was led.
After her marriage to Dr. Bowen Thompson,
" THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB "
who had devoted his talents to the service of the
Syrian Mission, the young couple settled at
Antioch, in 1847, ^i^cl both worked earnestly
and well.
Mrs. Thompson soon mastered the language,
and opened a school for women in her house.
This work went on for eighteen months, and
then, on leaving for the seat of war in the
Crimea, to which Dr. Bowen Thompson seemed
irresistibly drawn, the little school was left be-
hind— they thought for a short time, but it
proved to be forever.
It seemed a strange step to leave Antioch
for the seat of war, but Dr. Thompson had
gained much knowledge of Eastern epidemics,
and felt eager to place his services at the dis-
posal of the English government. Immedi-
ately upon their arrival at Balaklava Dr.
Thompson himself was stricken down with the
malignant fever which raged among the troops,
and in a few days he died of the very epidemic
from which he had been so eager to recover
others. The poor young widow laid his dust to
rest in the foreign land and returned to England
to make her home with her sister.
As the physician's widow she entered upon
the last term of her education, in God's school,
for a work that none could do so well as a
widow. The bloody massacre of the !Maronites
MRS. BOWEN THOMPSON
by the Druses of Syria attracted her sympathy.
All the males from seven to seventy years of age
had been killed. Possessing ample private
means, she gave generously for providing stores
and clothing, but her own experience of widow-
hood made her long to be on the spot to try to
make known to the widows in Syria the only
balm for a broken heart. She lost no time in set-
ting out for Beyrout, where she found crowds of
distracted women and girls who had fled from
their burning homes after having seen their
husbands and brothers hacked to pieces.
Mrs. Thompson at once opened an industrial
refuge. The gates were besieged by hundreds
clamoring for admission, and saying, " Even if
you cannot pay us for our work, let us sit and lis-
ten, for our hearts are sad." '' At first," said
Mrs. Thompson, " my heart almost died within
me at the squalor, noise, and misery of these poor
people. Ignorance and deeply-cherished re-
venge chiefly characterized them. When, how-
ever, their Christian teachers read to them fn)m
the Bible they would sit at their feet and ex-
claim: ' We never heard such words! ' Does it
mean for us women? "
Such was their avidity to learn tliat, although
women as well as children had to begin with
the alphabet, in a short time they could read
the Bible.
103
" THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB "
Twenty thousand women w^ere crowding the
city eager to get work at even road-mending, so
absolutely destitute had the cruel massacre left
them. Mrs. Thompson had her hands full
and her strength taxed to the utmost, yet she
found time to yisit the sick and dying in the
hospitals. Besides all this she opened indus-
trial schools, ragged schools, and evening
schools. The magnitude of the work would
have overwhelmed a weaker woman and ap-
palled one with less faith. She also found it
necessary to open a girls' school for the upper
classes, who were willing to pay a good fee for
the privilege of having their daughters edu-
cated by an English lady rather than by the
French nuns.
She could not have set on foot so many
branches of work had not her sister and brother-
in-law from England joined her. Their home
in England having been burned down, they re-
solved, rather than rebuild, to put their means
and their lives to the best interest in work for
the good of the Syrian people. A younger sister
had already been helping her for some time, so
that there were four members of one family all
at work in Syria. Why should such an exam-
ple be so rare?
Next a laundry was opened, and the schools
grew and prospered until Mrs. Thompson was
104
MRS. BOWEN THOMPSON
amazed at the magnitude of them. Many vil-
lages and important centers applied to have a
school opened, and the appeals were mostly re-
sponded to. Infant schools, orphanages, Sun-
day schools, schools for cripples, Moslem
boarding schools, and schools for the blind
were in fine working order in Beyrout and
throughout the Lebanon, supported principally
by her sister and herself.
In 1869 Mrs. Bowen Thompson suffered from
illness induced by overwork and responsibility,
but even in bed she occupied herself with re-
ports and operations of the school work. She
said, once, " Notwithstanding my great weak-
ness, I have never one instant lost my peace of
mind or the sense of the presence of Jesus."
She returned to England, but before many
days the doctor pronounced her case hopeless.
This did not disturb her nor stop her planning
for her Syrian schools.
She peacefully passed from earth to heaven
in November, 1869. Of the bitter lamentation
of the Syrian widows and orphans we need say
nothing. Of Mrs. Thompson it may truly
be said that she shall be held ' ' in everlasting
remembrance."
105
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB '
MISS SOPHIA COOKE
Forty-two Years a Missionary
ANOTHER missionary heroine lias fallen at
her post. Across the page of her heroic,
devoted, self-sacrificing lite may wel] be written
in illuminated letters the words " I have fin-
ished the work which Thou gavest me to do."
It was a real event in the history of woman's
missionary work when Sophia Cooke left her
English home and turned her face toward the
Orient. Christian womanhood in its organized
capacity had not come to the front in those days,
and she had not the help and spiritual uphold-
ing of a loving sisterhood in the home land.
With Abrahamic faith she set out for a land of
which she literally knew nothing, and concern-
ing which very little was known by the Church.
Singapore became her mount of observation,
her working center, but her life touched many
lands, and her elevated Christian character
helped all classes of people with whom she came
in contact. It is difficult to form an adequate
estimate of the unique place she filled for so
many long years or to giv^e a proper record of
her great life work.
Miss Cooke was identified with the Church of
England and was ever loyal to its forms and
1 06
MISS SOPHIA COOKE
spirit, but she took into her warm heart all who
loved the Lord ; in that great cosmopolitan city
in which she lived she had friends of all creeds
and among all churches, and her comfortable
and hospitable home on Government Hill was a
common meeting place for Christians.
In the year 1843 ^ school for Chinese girls
was opened in Singapore, as there was a large
Chinese population in the city. This work was
carried on under difficulties, the Chinese being
greatly opposed to Christianity, and Miss Grant,
who conducted the school, was often in actual
dan O'er of her life.
When Miss Cooke arrived she found a home
established and a few native girls fitted to be
teachers, but her activities were not confined to
the school ; and looking over the broad field she
found the harvest ripe, but reapers few; so, tak-
ing some of her native girls as interpreters, she
commenced a system of house-to-house visita-
tion— reading the word and interesting the
women in the story of the Gospel. Then notic-
ine that on these visits the men would often
stand outside and listen, her heart was stirred to
consider what might be done for them.
Here was an unoccupied field, for two mis-
sionary societies had abandoned the work among
the Chinese. She commenced to teach two men
in her schoolroom, both of them walking twelve
107
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB "
miles every Sunday. The number was soon in-
creased. A chapel was built on her own com-
pound, and a goodly congregation very soon
gathered. A simple service was held, but the
interpreter was required to prepare his notes in
English, that Miss Cooke might know what kind
of spiritual food he administered to his fellow-
countrymen. After a few years this work was
given over to the English Church. This was,
however, only one of the side issues, for all this
time her school was progressing and becoming
a power. The children received into the school
were all of poor parents, and the chief source of
income for their support was from the sale of
clothing and needlework sent from England.
Many a little waif, brought to the sheltering
care of the school by the police, found a home,
where she was tenderly cared for and devel-
oped into an earnest Christian worker.
A number of young girls were brought to her
from China, some of them having been captured
there by Malay sailors. Not a few of these
were led out into a broad Christian experience,
and are to-day centers of Christian homes,
exerting in other lands an influence for the up-
lifting of womanhood. Five are now married
and living in Foo-Chow, two in Korea, and oth-
ers in the interior of China; one is the wife of
a Chinese missionary in Melbourne, Australia,
io8
MISS SOPHIA COOKE
while another is settled in Batavia, Java. Such
have been some of the wonderful influences
exerted by a school where the constant aim of
the devoted leader was to bring all her pupils to
a saving knowledge of Christ.
Miss Cooke had a marvelous influence in the
army and the navy. For years she conducted
a soldiers' Bible class at her home on Saturday
evenings, and she was the originator of the
' ' Sailors' Rest." All vessels sweeping round the
Malay Peninsula, on their way to China, stop at
this port, and every steamer which goes through
the Suez Canal en route to China must also pass
here; so that sailors from all lands stopped at
vSingapore, and great numbers of them came
under her personal influence. She made no
pretensions to great learning. She was only a
plain woman, quick to see and to seize the op-
portunities. The inspiration of her life work
was her entire devotion and consecration to the
Master she loved. In all the years of her toils
she only twice visited the home land.
But her great activities came to a close, and
while her sufferings for a few weeks were great,
yet her room was a veritable gate of heaven.
The girls she had loved and taught were about
her, singing her favorite hymns and ministering
to her bodily wants. Just before her home-go-
ing she said, ** Chinese girls' school all for
109
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
Jesus," and again was this repeated. The last
sounds intelligible to her were the voices of her
pupils singing :
" Heaven's morning breaks and earth's vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me."
She died September 14, 1895. Her funeral
was said to be the most representative ever seen
in Singapore, and with almost regal honors this
devoted woman was laid to rest. The girls of
the school, with mothers and grandmothers from
among her old girls, with their husbands and
sons, and Chinese Christians of the various mis-
sions, followed the bier, while nearly every mem-
ber of the missionary community was pres-
ent. Chinese preachers carried her body down
stairs, and European policemen bore it to the
grave, while sailors from an English steamer
were present to represent the many thousands to
whom Miss Cooke's name is a household word.
Thus passed away another whose life was a link
connecting us with the past. Her influence will
live and her name be lovingly remembered.
MISS CHARLOTTE MARIA TUCKER
MISS CHARLOTTE MARIA TUCKER
(A^ L. O, E.)
A'' PRINCESS IN ISRAEL" was Charlotte
Maria Tucker, who died in the city of
Amritsir, Northern India, December 2, 1893.
Some souls are developed by watching and
waiting, and abiding God's time. Miss Tucker
demonstrated what great things God will do for
a woman and with a woman who is wholly
given up to his service.
She was born in England, in the year 1821,
and came of the best English blood. Her
father was Mr. Henry St. George Tucker, who
for a period of more than fifty years filled im-
portant positions under the English government,
and was at one time a director of the East India
Company. Her early life was spent in the quiet
and retirement of her home, which was one of
elegance and refinement, surrounded by all that
wealth and social position could give. From
childhood she breathed a religious and mission-
ary atmosphere.
Her spirit was vivacious, buoyant, sympa-
thetic; her features fine, her face attractive in
its winning smile, her intellect brilliant. As
years advanced she developed a life of ceaseless
Christian activity. To study such a life, to
9 HI
•'THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
catch some of its music, to understand its heart-
throbs, and to comprehend its record of love,
patience, and hope, is to get great inspiration.
Miss Tucker's life covered three distinct peri-
ods— her home life, her literary life, and her
missionary life — while her spiritual life en-
veloped the whole. She early developed lit-
erary powers, and .speedily won distinction as a
writer for young people. Her books are found
in Sunday school libraries and on drawing-room
tables, not only in England, but over the whole
English-speaking world, and so helpful were
her stories, so charming her style, that the novi
de plume of A. L. O. E. (A Lady of England)
became as familiar in the households of this
country as in her native land. It seems mar-
velous that she could write so much and write it
all so well. I have before me a list of one hun-
dred of her books, with quaint and suggestive
titles, all issued by one firm in London. She
wrote because she loved to write and had an
intense desire to do good, while sweet and holy
lessons filled every page. In addition to her
books Miss Tucker edited TJie CJiristiaii Juvenile
Instructor for many years, and contributed to
many magazines. She delighted in metaphor
and parable, and her writings in these particular
characteristics are unique, while her allegories
are perhaps unequaled.
112
MISS CHARLOTTE MARIA TUCKER
In the year 1857 she met with a great sorrow
in the death of a beloved brother, Robert Tudor
Tucker, who was murdered in the dreadful In-
dian mutiny that brought sorrow and desolation
to so many English homes. She took to her
home and heart the children of this brother.
Then came the death of her beloved mother,
the breaking up of the dear old home, so full of
blessed associations, the lingering illness of a
sister, and a combination of trials which put to
test her Christian confidence.
Notwithstanding the pressure thus put upon
her, she continued to write for the press with
unabated vigor, and every year several new
volumes w^ere added to the list of publications.
But she never was too much engrossed with
her own duties to attend to any who needed
help, and w^as ever ready to lay down her pen
and turn her thoughts from her manuscript to
amuse or profit others and give loving counsel
and sympathy.
Miss Tucker from a child had been interested
in missionary work in India, and possibly be-
cause of the official relations several members
of the family held to the government she had
longed for the opportunity to engage in it her-
self; but wshe accepted with true loyalty the
duties pressed upon her at home. In 1875,
when she was fifty-four years old, an age when
113
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
most persons are thinking of retiring from
work altogether, she was permitted to carry out
the cherished plans of a lifetime and become a
missionary to the heathen.
She went out as an honorary missionary of
the Church of England Zenana Missionary So-
ciety at her own expense, and gave her fortune
to carry on the work. So bravely and persist-
ently did she fill out the days and years that
she never had time to return home ; during the
eighteen years no inducements of relatives or
friends sufficed to take her back to England
even for a short visit. She had a realizing
sense that her time was short and she must
crowd into it all that was possible.
AVhen England gave Miss Tucker to India it
gave the very best it had. Her field of labor
at first was Amritsir, in the Punjab, where she
lived for nearly two years, when a new station
was opened at Batala, twenty-four miles distant.
There she settled down and remained during
the rest of her life. When she first arrived
one who welcomed her wrote: "She came to
us early one bright morning, and instantly our
hearts went out to her. Her soft gray hair
drawn smoothly away from a fine brow, her
clear eyes, so full of intelligence, and the frank,
sweet smile playing over her features made hers
a very attractive face. How thoughtful she was
114
MISS CHARLOTTE MARIA TUCKER
for the comfort of others ; how keenly she ap-
preciated what was beautiful and good around
her. On the day after her arrival she took her
place among the native Christians in the mis-
sion chapel." Thus commenced her missionary
life of ceaseless activity and usefulness. Even
before going to India she studied the language
of the Punjab. It was no easy task at her
age to learn and become familiar with a foreign
tongue ; but this effort was small in comparison
with that of going into the homes, among big-
oted and ignorant women, which took her not
only into the zenanas of Batala, but to the
women of the surrounding towns and villages.
She was identified with the high school for
boys at Batala, but preeminently her gifts of
mind, her strength, her means, and her love
were consecrated to the service of India's women.
She had marvelous tact in winning her way,
and was fertile in expedients for getting the
attention of the women to her story. She
would seat herself on the floor with true ori-
ental ease and grace and gather the women
around her, who were curious for any variety
in their monotonous lives. But the welcome
extended her was not always of the warmest
character. Often her heart was saddened by
the stupidity and indifference of those whom
she longed to help, and she was in heaviness
115
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
often through manifold disappointments. While
pursuing her Christlike work this devoted
woman was frequently turned away from the
houses by insolent men, spat upon, pelted with
broken crockery, and received much discour-
teous treatment. '* It was a pathetic sight,"
says one, " to see this cultured woman, no
longer young, standing in some lane or street
singing some Christian song in sweetest tones,
that some word might be heard or some echo
awakened in the hearts of those to whom she
was refused admittance." It was her custom,
after returning from her morning visits among
the women, to make a record in her diary (a
large book of foolscap) of her success or her dis-
couragements. Upon one occasion she wrote:
'' Thrice this week I, an aged servant of Christ,
have been turned away from zenanas to which
I went in all gentleness and kindness." Her
courage never failed, for, meeting a rebuff
at one house, she would go to another, where
possibly she would find an entrance. She spoke
of her work as an ice-bound vessel laboring to
cut a passage through hard, cold ice, with the
chilly bergs of Mohammedanism and Hinduism
towering on either side, but she added: ''The
crew are by no means downhearted. We have
cheering signs of the warm breath of heaven,
and the ice is melting in some of the zenanas."
ii6
MISS CHARLOTTE MARIA TUCKER
Notwithstanding her abundant missionary la-
bors, she found time to write. On winter morn-
ings it was her habit to rise long before light,
make her cup of cocoa, and devote that time to
her literary work and personal correspondence.
She sent home each year a new volume to add
to her list of stories. But the greatest and
crowning work of her life was to prepare a pop-
ular Christian literature for the women of India.
She was probably the first Christian writer to
issue religious story books in the languages of
India. With wonderful ease she adopted the
native modes of thought and language. Her
books, tracts, and leaflets — of which she wrote
over one hundred while in the country — were
translated and circulated, and have become
very popular — sought after by native women
and by young girls in mission schools. These
books were for native Christians and for those
not Christians, for she made a study of the na-
tive character.
At the special request of the Christian Ver-
nacular Education Society for India she wrote
a beautiful volume of explanations of the para-
bles of our Lord, called Pearls of Wisdom, which
for variety of subjects and depth of thought sur-
passes all her other writings. It was published
also in separate tracts, to enable even the very
poorest native to purchase them. These have
" THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
had an enormous circulation, as have had the
English version of them also.
While millions of pages of the writings of this
wonderfully-gifted woman have been issued, the
demand for them has only begun. India is with-
out a Christian literature for women, and any-
one who in an attractive form breathes forth
the truth on printed page and scatters it abroad
in the homes of India is doing missionary work
indeed. The Christian literature of this woman
was the greatest legacy she could leave to India's
daughters, and many will rise up and call her
*' blessed."
Of her work Bishop French wrote : ' ' She is
an example of an apostolic woman — one who,
besides translations of her own works into the
vernacular, for a whole year, in the absence of
the missionary in charge, presided over a Chris-
tian native boarding school of forty boys, and
with incessant visits and hard and patient in-
structions ministered to the women of many In-
dian homes."
But the sunset of this beautiful life came. In
October, 1893, while attending the opening of a
church, she contracted a severe cold, from which
she never recovered. Just at this time one of
her associates fell ill, and, not feeling well her-
self, Miss Tucker ministered to her, read aloud
to her, watched her with tender solicitude, then
118
MISS CHARLOTTE MARIA TUCKER
passed from the warm sick room out into the
night air to her own "sunset" chamber. Worn
and exhausted, she too fell ill, and then was
conveyed to Amritsir, where she was lovingly
nursed and cared for by friends. But her
work was done. So delighted was she at the
prospect of '' going home " that, when told she
could not recover, the physician said, '' It raised
her spirits and lowered her temperature."
" I long to go," and, " Come quickly!" were
the last words that fell from her lips. Thus
she passed away as she wished, among the peo-
ple she loved so well.
They carried her back to Batala and laid her
to rest December 5. The little village ceme-
tery was nearly two miles from her home, and
thither she was conveyed. She had made the
request to be buried in native style, without
coffin. Wrapped in a sheet and laid upon a
cliarpai (native bed), she was borne by the boys
from the high school, to whom she had been
such a friend. The day was beautiful, the road
had been watered, and a great procession, con-
sisting of missionaries, teachers, pupils, a large
number of prominent natives, and last of all the
women also followed with mournful step. The
bier was literally covered with flowers. Hymns
were sung — hymns of her own composition — in
which the whole procession joined.
119
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
And how touching the scene ! After the vis-
itors had left the cemetery the women from the
city — heathen women, women she had visited
and helped, women who would miss her visits
and kind words, and into whose life some joy
had come through Miss Tucker's ministrations
— came to wail and weep in true oriental man-
ner. India's women never lost a truer friend,
and in all its history we fail to find such a
record. This beautiful woman of high birth,
this cultivated Christian scholar, this celebrated
English authoress, was carried to her last rest-
ing place in Christian triumph.
A movement is agitated on the part of the
Church of England Zenana Missionary Society
to perpetuate her memory by some suitable me-
morial at the scene of her labors in India. Miss
Tucker was greatly interested in a new dispen-
sary, in Batala, for women, and it is proposed to
add a nursing ward, to be called the A. L. O. E.
Ward, and to provide an annual endowment
for the beds, for which about ten thousand dol-
lars will be appropriated. The Christian Liter-
ature Society for India has also determined to
raise a special fund to republish her eighty-
seven books, and to translate them into a much
larger number of languages of India, with illus-
trations. A. L. O. E. will live in her books.
Her Christian literature is her best memorial.
MISS MARY REED
MISS MARY REED
THE little town of Crooked Tree, Noble
County, O., was the birthplace and child-
hood home of a young girl who at sixteen years
of asfe was brouo-ht to feel her need of the Sav-
iour. By the light of the Holy Spirit her sinful
and lost condition out of Christ was revealed to
her, and she was enabled to Qrive him her heart.
With this new-found joy and peace which
thrilled her soul there came a longing to bring
others into the same experience, and earnestly
and zealously did this young Christian throw
herself into the various departments of church
work. Two years later she took up public
teaching in her own State, and for ten years
followed this profession, meeting with more
than ordinary success. Nor did she lose an op-
portunity to point to Christ the young who came
under her care.
1 There often came to her heart a desire to de-
vote her entire time and strength to foreign
mission work. There has never been a worker
in the Master's vineyard who has felt herself
more weak, unworthy, or inefficient than this
dear young woman, and not until the conviction
was brought home to her heart by the Holy
Spirit with clear, unmistakable, irresistible force
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
could she believe the Master really meant her to
become a missionary. But the call finally came
with no uncertain sound. There was no longer
a doubt of the Master's will ; and while she
could not understand how it was that he could
use her, the least of his children, yet she obeyed
his voice, obtaining the consent of her parents. 7
With broken, bleeding hearts they put th-gir"
will concerning her, with hers, upon the altar,
and bade her Godspeed. Resigning her posi-
tion as a teacher, she offered herself to the
Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, was accepted, and
appointed to India by the Cincinnati Branch.
She was one of eight children, all living, the
eldest of four daughters, with three brothers
older and one younger. The tender good-bye
was said to each of these and to the dear fa-
ther and mother, and she started out on her
long journey with glad anticipations, reaching
the country in November, 1884. At the annual
session of the North India Conference, in Janu-
ary following, she was appointed by the bishop
to the zenana work in Cawnpore. Just at this
time she was taken very ill, and as soon as able
to travel was hurried off to Pithoragarh, in the
Himalaya Mountains, where she was obliged to
remain for weeks before taking up her work.
But they were not idle days. She engaged ear-
122
MISS MARY REED
nestly in the study of the language, studied the
great opportunity for extending the Master's
kingdom in this mountain region, and looked
into our mission work there under the able su-
pervision of Miss Budden. Three miles from
Miss Budden's school and '* Home for Homeless
Women " she saw the asylum into which were
gathered numbers of those who in olden times
were to '' dwell alone," for " without the camp
shall his habitation be," and he shall cry, ''Un-
clean, unclean," and learned that in this district,
which is less than twenty miles square, there
were five hundred of these poor afflicted ones in
all stages of the dreadful malady — leprosy.
She hailed with joy the day when she was
permitted to return to the plains and take up
the duties to which she had been appointed.
These she performed with great success, throw-
ing her whole heart, soul, and strength into the
work, and toiling many a long day when
scarcely able to leave her room. These were
good days and years for her soul. In them she
learned very precious lessons, and was being
wonderfully prepared spiritually for the greater
work the Father was planning for her in the
future, when she would be led to retrace her
steps up into that magnificent mountain region
and take up her abode at that asylum, her own
body bearing upon it the marks of the leper !
123
" THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB "
After four years of successful labor in Cawn-
pore she was sent to the girls' boarding school
in Gonda, remaining one year. In January of
1890 she returned to the home land completely
broken down in health.
She thought in a few months to be able to go
back to her work ; yet time passed on with but
little improvement in her health. She spent
some time in the Methodist Episcopal Hospital
connected with the Deaconess Home in Cincin-
nati, passing through a serious surgical opera-
tion in order to be able to return to her beloved
India. F'or months there had been constant
pain and a peculiar tingling sensation in the
forefinger of her right hand, and while conva-
lescing in this hospital a peculiar spot appeared
on her cheek, low down, near the ear.
"One day the heavenly Father Jiiniself re-
vealed to her, as in a flash, the nature of her
disease, and also his purpose concerning her."
To her stricken heart came the remembrance of
that spot in the Himalaya Mountains where,
amid surpassing loveliness of surroundings,
that company of suffering men and women pass
their sorrowful days, and she heard the Father's
voice whispering that he designed her to glorify
him in the fires by being their minister and
comforter in his name. She called for a medi-
cal book, and, without telling her nurse why she
124
MISS MARY REED
wished it, read up her case, and then told her
physician her fears. The physician asked for a
consultation, and was convinced she was right ;
but, as they had book knowledge only, as soon
as she was able to take the journey he sent her
to New York to consult a physician who had
spent some time in the Sandwich Islands, mak-
ing a specialty of leprosy, and he confirmed the
verdict. This was in April, 1891.
She confided in one sister, who, with her
physician, nurse, and one special friend, to-
gether held her secret. She said, " My mother
must not know why I go back to India." She
said to her friends, ' ' If you will let me go with-
out a special good-bye, as though I was to re-
turn to-morrow, it will be so much easier for
me;" and thus, without a good-bye kiss from
any, she went out from her home and hastened
on to the place of her exile. Her mother
wrote, " I knew nothing of the sad affliction
until she reached India. I am glad I did not
know." Poor mother! One says, '* The Lord
knew he could trust the parents with this trial
as well as Mary."
In London she consulted two eminent physi-
cians, to whom she had letters of introduction.
One was Sir Joseph Fayrer, the most eminent
authority in the world on Indian disea.ses. The
great physician admired the heroism she exhib-
125
" THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB "
ited, but was compelled to add to the testimony
of her American physician regarding the nature
of her malady.
On her return trip Miss Reed crossed the At-
lantic in the steamer which carried the Epworth
League pilgrims to England. While in London
she met a young lady school-teacher from New
England, whose companionship she greatly en-
joyed, and with whom she traveled in Europe.
This friend says :
** Late in the afternoon we arrived in London
and drove directly to a desirable house under
the shadow of the British Museum. With
much interest I looked into the faces of the
strangers and listened to the table-talk that
is always so lively when traveling Americans
dine. One face alone had any power over me —
that of a woman who sat on the opposite side of
the table, and who smiled in a friendly way
through the ferns and blossoming plants. Her
abundant brown hair was brushed smoothly
back from her placid brow, and her gentle eyes
revealed the true soul of the owner. I won-
dered instinctively at the ivory pallor of that
sweet face and at the cruel spot that disfigured
it, so different from anything I had ever seen.
I wondered, too, as the days went by, why the
forefinger, always covered with a white cot,
refused to yield to healing remedies.
126
MISS MARY REED
" T was not surprised when she asked permis-
sion to accompany us on our journey southward,
which, for the Master's sake, was readily
granted, although we did not think she was
able to travel rapidly from place to place.
Tears were in her eyes when she came to my
room for her answer, and she said, ' I think
God has sent you here in answer to my prayers.'
Then she told me how, with unwavering faith,
she prayed and waited many days for some one
to come with whom she could travel a part of
her long overland journey to Brindisi, where
she was to meet the steamer for India. Sym-
pathy grew between us, and though the signs
of some dread disease were ever present to my
eyes, my lips were silent.
**Here and there we held sweet hours of
communion, and I, who had been accustomed
to see missionaries seeking America in her
feeble condition, could not refrain from asking
if it was right for her to return to India at an
unfavorable season, before her health was es-
tablished. Her lips quivered, but her gentle,
pleading voice grew steady as she replied, ' My
Father knows the way I go, and I am sure it is
the right way ;' and at another time she said,
* I am returning to India under conditions in
which no other missionary ever returned.'
'' It was in Paris that she sang to me the
10 127
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB "
hymns she loved so well, those song-prayers that
must have ascended like incense to the ear of
her Father. It was in Paris that she said one
evening, ' If I thought it was right, and you
would promise never to speak of it until you
heard it in some other way, I should tell you
my story.' I told her if aught in me in-
spired her confidence, that was the surest safe-
guard of her secret.
'' On memory's walls there will hang, while
time lasts for me, the picture of that scene. A
wax taper burned dimly on the table beside her
open Bible, that book of all books from whose
pages she received daily consolation, and while
without, Paris was turning night to day with light
and music and wine, within, Mary Reed's gentle
voice, faltering only at her mother's name and
coming sorrow, told the secret of her affliction.
" 1 come with sorrow to my last evening with
Miss Reed. I sat in the shadow, and she where
the full moon, rising over the snowy moun-
tains, just touched, with a glory that loved to
linger, her pale, sweet face. Again I hear her
voice in song :
"' Straight to my home above
I travel calmly on,
And sing, in life or death,
My Lord, thy will be done.'
** On the shores of lovely Lake Lucerne hand
clasped hand for the last time on earth, and,
128
MISS MARY REED
with eyes blinded by gathering tears, our fare-
well was whispered, ' God be with you till we
meet again/ "
In Bombay she was examined by experts, all
of whom confirmed the decision of the physi-
cians in America, and she realized as she had
not before that her dear ones, whom she hoped
to shield and spare the pain which this news
must bring, must surely learn it sooner or later,
and that it would much better be told them by
herself. So she wrote before leaving Bombay :
" After prayerful consideration I find it wisest
and kindest to tell you, or allow dear, brave-
hearted sister Rena, with whom I intrusted this
mystery of God's providence, to tell you what
she pledged to keep from you. She will tell you
how our lovinof heavenly Father, who is ' too
wise to err,' has in his infinite love and wisdom
chosen, called, and prepared your daughter to
teach lessons of patience, endurance, and sub-
mission, while I shall have the joy of minister-
ing to a class of people who but for the prepa-
ration which has been mine for this special
work would have no helper at all ; and while I
am called apart among these needy creatures,
who hunger and thirst for salvation and for
comfort and cheer, He who has called and pre-
pared me promises that he himself will be to
me as a little sanctuary where I am to abide,
I2g
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
and abiding in him I shall have a supply of all
my need."
Although assured by the physician that at
this stage of the disease there was no possible
danger of contagion, yet she did not know what
day there might be; and so hastened on as rap-
idly as her strength would permit to Pithora-
garh, never to retrace her steps unless she
should go a healed woman — healed of God
direct, for leprosy has baffled the skill of the
most eminent specialist. A Scottish society,
called '' Mission to Lepers in India and the
East," carries on work among lepers in thirty-
four centers, in India, Burma, Ceylon, and
China, establishing and maintaining leper asy-
lums. One of these asylums is at Chandag,
Pithoragarh, Kumaon District, where there are
said to be more lepers than in any other section
of India. Arrangements were made to give
Miss Reed supervision there, while she should
receive her support from the Woman's Foreign
Missionary Society of her Church. In the re-
port of the Scottish society the following para-
graph appeared :
" Most deeply pathetic is the story of how
our staff of workers among the lepers has been
so strangely reinforced by the addition of a lady
missionary of one of the American societies
who has contracted the disease in the course of
130
MISS MARY REED
her work in India. The committee has ap-
pointed her as an agent in one of our asykims, as
it is her earnest wish to spend her remaining
strength in this special work to which she has
been so mysteriously consecrated. . . . No clew
as to how she became thus afflicted has sug-
gested itself, for she was not even working
among lepers."
There, while receiving treatment herself, she
ministers both to the temporal and spiritual
wants of her fellow-sufferers. Her work is not
confined exclusively to the inmates of the asy-
lum. Among the mountain fastnesses there
are many cases of the dread disease, and noth-
ing gives the sufferer more pleasure than to re-
ceive a visit from Miss Reed, whom they all
regard as the leper's friend. The beautiful life
she lives among them emphasizes the sweet
Gospel she teaches.
Note. — Since writing the above, word has been received that the
disease from which Miss Reed has been suffering seems to have
been entirely arrested.
131
" THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB "
MISS FANNY JANE BUTLER, M.D.
First Medical Woman to Kashmir
DR. FANNY BUTLER had the distinction
of being the first fully-equipped medical
missionary woman sent to India from England.
She entered upon her work in 1880, and her
first destination was Jabalpur, in the Central
Provinces ; but owing to a series of complica-
tions she remained only a short time, then re-
moved to Bhagalpur. Here she spent four
and a half years, throwing her whole heart into
the work. She had charge of two dispen-
saries, and attended to several thousand patients
annually. In 1887 she returned home for a
short furlough, when she accepted the appoint-
ment to Kashmir, opening the way to specific
work among the women of that beautiful val-
ley.
" Beautiful valley ! garden of God !
Thy wealth is the grain beneath the sod ;
A corn of wheat, 'tis fallen and dead ;
The sheaves will come, as the Master said."
It is interesting to note the leadings in this
direction. Dr. William Elmslie entered the
valley as the first medical missionary. It was
his appeal for women missionaries that deter-
mined Miss Butler's missionary longings in the
direction of a thorough medical equipment.
132
MISS FANNY JANE BUTLER.
MISS FANNY JANE BUTLER, M.D.
They were both in an eminent degree fitted to
be pioneers, gifted v/ith the cool judgment, the
clear decision, the pertinacious insistence, the
indomitable energy of true leaders. Better
still, they were both of them little children in
the simplicity of their faith and in the reality
of their spiritual life.
We turn now from the field of labor that we
may sketch something of her early life and her
preparation for work. Miss Butler was born
October 5, 1850, in Chelsea, England. She
was one of a large home circle in which mutual
affection was peculiarly developed. With the
exception of a year, when she was six, and a
few months a little later, Fanny Butler had to
be content with the instructions of her elder
sisters till she was fourteen and a half years
old. Then she had one good year at the West
London College, and at its close was first in
every one of the eight subjects for which marks
were given. The stoppage of her school life at
this period was the heaviest trouble she had
known. An intense thirst for knowledge was
always upon her. Religious subjects always
interested her, though little was known of her
personal feelings till she was just thirteen. A
sermon at this time, " Son, go work in my
vineyard," came home with power. Her re-
serve broke down, and those who loved her
135
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB "
best and watched her most closely had no doubt
that at this period she had intelligently received
Christ and given herself to his service.
At fourteen she became a Sunday school
teacher, and the following year she was con-
firmed. The time seems to have been one of
much blessing, and all doubts as to her relations
with God were removed.
Her attention was early directed to missions
through the influence of her pastor, whose en-
thusiasm was infectious. In 1872 Miss Butler
went to live with a married sister. At her home
she met with missionaries from China, who rec-
ognized in her the true missionary spirit, and
urged on her the claims of that country. Then
it was that for the first time she broke the
silence and wrote to her parents, about becoming
a missionary. Their answer was a disapproval
of the proposed particular step, accompanied by
an expression of their willingness that at some
future time her missionary desire should be ful-
filled. Shortly afterward Dr. Elmslie's appeal
for women's medical missions came into the
hands of her sister, who passed it to Miss Butler
with the remark, " This is the work for you."
She looked it over and said : " I could not do it.
I do not care for the medical women's move-
ment." Soon, however, she came back to the
bedside and said, in a very different tone,
136
MISS FANNY JANE BUTLER, M.D.
"This may be the work that is meant for me.
I will send the paper to A., and see what she
says." Characteristically enough, she did this
without a word from herself. Promptly the
answer came, "This seems the very work for
you ; the training for it would develop the
abilities God has given you and would enable
you to become the very best kind of mission-
ary." A second application to her parents, this
time for permission to take up medical mission-
ary work, was met with an unqualified " Yes."
She was accepted by the Indian Female Nor-
mal Society, and at once went to work and
passed second, in an examination, out of one
hundred and twenty-three candidates, one hun-
dred and nineteen of whom were men, and was
entered at the opening of the Women's School
of Medicine in October, 1874, as the first en-
rolled student of the school.
She was a student of the first order, and she
received from her examiners very flattering tes-
timonials of the high character of her work.
She went to Dublin for her final examination,
and was told by one of the professors that her
paper was the best he had ever had from any
candidate.
Thus equipped she started for India, as we
have noted, and remained seven years. Then
accepting the appointment to Kashmir, and
137
" THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB "
returning in August, 1888, from her furlough,
she rented a little house in the center of Srina-
gar, the chief city of the valley, and opened a
dispensary. The work pressed upon her from
every direction. The first year five thousand
attended and at least two thousand heard the
Gospel. Then another house was taken for a
hospital. The missionaries might visit the city,
but residence was forbidden, and she was four
miles from her work. Finally, through Miss
Butler's efforts, the resistance of the native
government was overcome and as much ground
in an excellent position was obtained as was
necessary for dispensary, hospital, and mission
house. About the samo time, also, a lady
warmly interested in all medical mission work,
Mrs. Isabella Bird Bishop, was visiting Kash-
mir, and gave a sum of money to be used for
the purpose of building a woman's hospital.
Miss Butler was missionary and physician. She
dressed wounds, dispensed medicine, performed
surgical operations, read, pra3^ed, talked to the
suffering, pointed all to the great Healer of
souls. She finally took her patients one by one
into an upper room. One of the helpers writes :
*' I make my way with difficulty up stairs to re-
ceive my instructions from the brave presiding
genius of the place, the doctor. Miss Sahib.
Here she is, sitting at her table, with a little
138
MISS FANNY JANE BUTLER, M.D.
collection of poor sufferers at her feet. They
will look up in her face, with clasped hands,
and say, ' We heard your fame, and have come
far, far; ' and again the words come back, * I
have compassion on the multitudes, . . . for di-
vers of them came from far.' "
The strain, however, was too great, and Miss
Butler's health began to give way. In the
summer she was ill, and unable to do her work,
and as soon as she recovered she took an itiner-
ating trip, but not for rest. She writes, ** When
we encamped crowds of wretched women and
children collected, begging for medicine, and I
do not think anyone could imagine the dirt and
disease which we found everywhere." When
the fall came she was suffering, and was pre-
vented from being present when the foundation
stone of the new hospital building was laid.
She continued to grow worse, and it became
evident she must relinquish the work so dear to
her. Mrs. Bishop, who visited her in her iso-
lated home, wrote: ''Just before the death of
Dr. Fanny Butler it was a terrible sight to see
the way in which the women pressed upon her at
the dispensary door, which was kept by two men
outside and another inside. The crush was so
great as sometimes to overpower the men and
precipitate the women bodily into the consulting
room. The evil odors, the heat, the unsanitary
139
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
conditions in which Miss Butler did her noble
work of healing and telling of the Healer of
souls were, I believe, the cause of the sacrifice
of her life."
Her mind remained clear, and her cheerful
interest in everything never ceased. Her last
thought was for the work she loved, and her
dying wish was that her post might be speedily
filled. It was October 26, 1889, when the end
came. One associated with her wrote: ''We
laid her dear remains to rest in the little ceme-
tery on Monday morning, in a quiet corner
under the shade of a large chenar tree. The
same little boat and boatmen which had so
often carried her to work in her hospital bore
her quietly down the river to her resting place.
Our native servants begged the honor of bear-
ing her from the boat to the grave. ' They had
eaten her salt, and no other arms must bear
her.' Every resident and visitor was present
to show true and heartfelt respect."
" She rests from her labors; and her works
do follow her."
140
MRS. EMMA V. DAY
MRS. EMMA V. DAY
Twenty-one Years a Missionary to Africa
WHILE Mrs. Day's name may not be
widely known, it is worthy to be enrolled
among the best and truest of the women who
have sacrificed their lives for the sake of Africa.
She was one of the noblest and best of the
good and useful women the Church has sent into
the foreign field, thoroughly consecrated to that'
work, so that she had no thought of anything
else than giving her whole life to it.
Mrs. Day was born June lo, 1853, in Phila-
delphia, and died August 10, 1894, near Lewis-
bure. Pa. Her mother died when she was an
infant, and she was adopted by an aunt. When
quite young she became a consistent Christian
and an earnest, active member of the Methodist
Episcopal Church. Those who knew her in her
girlhood say that her disposition was of that
bright, sunny type which carried with it a halo
of holy light and a fervor of sacred joy, and
there was a magnetism about her which none
could resist. Her thorough consecration, her
entire devotion, left their impress upon all who
came in contact with her, and while quite young
she felt that God had called her to the mission
field.
141
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
In the spring of 1874 she was married to the
Rev. D. A. Day, of the Lutheran Mission to
Africa, and then transferred her membership to
the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Immediately
after their marriage they sailed from New York
for the Dark Continent on the bark Liberia,
and her life thenceforth was associated with the
development of the Muhlenberg Mission con-
nected with the Lutheran Church. Mrs. Day
had not a specially rugged constitution, but she
shared in all the arduous work of her husband
and the dangers of the climate, having a
woman's and mother's part in caring for the
children at the mission, and so training the girls
that, after a few years, the naked children of
the bush were transformed into young women
wearing neat dresses of their own making and
able to do the duties of the civilized and refined
Christian home. So fully did she at once identify
herself with the African people, and so wholly
did she give herself to their elevation and salva-
tion, that she habitually spoke of them as her
people, expecting to give her life to their wel-
fare. This devotion distinguished her entire
life in Africa, and enabled her to wield an in-
fluence which has been felt alike in heathen and
Christian lands.
Mrs. Day was cheerful and bright in the
midst of depressing influences surrounding her
142
MRS. EMMA V. DAY
in her missionary work, for she felt that a
cheerful and hopeful spirit was even more im-
portant than a robust body in the contest to be
waged against the ignorance and superstition of
the people as well as with the climate of that
country. For twenty-one years she worked by
the side of her husband, pouring the energies
of her life into the work which had been com-
mitted to her hands, transforming, as it were, a
very wilderness of mission life into a garden
of beauty, and the sacrifices, the sorrows, and
trials of this noble woman will never be fully
known because borne so uncomplainingly.
Three children were born to Mrs. Day. Two
of tbem were born at the mission, died, and were
buried there. The third was born in America
while Mrs. Day was on a vacation, but at eight
years of age accompanied her on a return trip
to Africa, and within a year succumbed to the
rigors of the African climate, died, and was
buried beside the other two children. During
her missionary career she crossed the ocean five
times.
In 1894 Mrs. Day returned to America alone
to recuperate her health. Dr. Day remained at
his post. He accompanied his wife to the shore,
and as the steamer departed each had the con-
viction at heart that they would never meet again
on earth. Still, the brave and hopeful woman
11 143
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB "
would not give up without a struggle, and noth-
ing was left undone by her or her devoted friends
here that might effect a restoration to health.
Her self-sacrifice and devotion were manifest in
her last sickness. Her thought was still of her
dear people in Africa, so much needing the light
and help of Christianity. Her last letter to her
husband, shortly before her death, expressed a
fear that he might desire to come home on her
account. In the completeness of her devotion
and clear view of the needs of the mission she
wrote to him, saying, " Do not come home; stay
where you are ; Africa needs you more than I
do." These were brave and heroic words, and
show a royal spirit, a spirit that had sounded
the depths of self-sacrifice and heroic devotion
to the Master's cause. But consecration was the
keynote of her life of Christian love and loyalty,
and she did not lack this element when she came
face to face with death. The cause of her death
was consumption, brought on by African fever.
On the 14th of August, in the presence of a
large assembly of Lutherans, her body was lov-
ingly borne to the cemetery at Mifflinburg, Pa.,
but later was exhtmied, and on the 25th of
November, 1896, a beautiful fall day, she was
taken to Selin's Grove, Pa., and her remains
were tenderly consigned to their final resting
place.
144
MRS. EMMA V. DAY
Of Mrs. Day it may be said that in girlhood
she was consecrated and in womanhood dedi-
cated her all to the service of her Lord, for from
a sense of duty she offered her own and the lives
of her children upon the altar of self-sacrifice in
order that she might by carrying the Gospel into
heathendom save souls for the Master.
145
THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
MADAME COILLARD
ON January lo, 1887, unusual excitement
reigned in the rich and beautiful valley of
the Sefoula, near the Zambezi River. Men
wrapped in long strips of calico tied round the
waist by belts of serpent-skins, and with white
and downy rabbit-tails in their hair ; women in
still larger numbers, with their short petticoats
of antelope hides, and copper or ivory bracelets
dangling on their wrists and knees, all were
hastening to see that extraordinary phenomenon
— a white lady. The air resounded with the
clapping of hands and shouts of *' Hail, hail,
lord; good day, O, our mother."
The *' lord " thus loudly cheered was no other
than Monsieur Coillard, the dauntless French
missionary, and the *' mother" was his wife,
Christina Coillard, a sweet middle-aged lady.
Christina Mackintosh, or Madame Coillard,
was born at Greenock, Scotland, November 29,
1829. She lived one of those harmonious lives
whose mature age is the realization of their
youthful dreams. She already loved missions
when a little girl in her quiet Scotch parson-
age. She had subscribed out of her own
pocket money to a missionary paper for chil-
dren, and her heart had beaten with indigna-
146
MADAME COILLARD
tion at the sight of little Sarah Roby, a poor
child who had been buried alive by her heathen
parents, but fortunately rescued by a missionary,
and who was taken all over England and Scot-
land as a living proof of the horrors of pagan-
ism. But when Christina's interest in evangeli-
zation developed into a decided missionary
vocation it caused great surprise among her
friends ; for missions were far from being pop-
ular forty years ago.
In 1855 Miss Mackintosh gave French lessons
in Paris with her sister, becoming acquainted
with a rich and pious lady, Madame Andre Wal-
ther, whose drawing room was the rendezvous
of all Protestants of note. There it was Miss
Mackintosh made the acquaintance of a young
theological student, Fran9oisCoillard.
Monsieur Coillard had already been for three
years in Basuto Land when his betrothed joined
him at the Cape. They were married there
November 23, 1861. ''Never," said Madame
Coillard to her husband on her wedding day,
** never will you find me between you and
your duty; wherever you have to go, be it to the
end of the world, I shall follow you." This
was more than a beautiful saying, it was the
ruling principle of all her life.
Immediately after the wedding the young
couple settled at Leribe, a secluded spot of Ba-
147
" THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB "
suto Land, where French Protestants have a large
mission. In spite of many difficulties, and even
of a cruel war, which obliged them to leave the
country for a while, they spent there a few
happy and comparatively peaceful years. They
built a cottage and had a beautiful garden with
flowers. Madame Coillard hoped never to leave
it, but the churches of Basuto Land had decided
to found a mission field where native evangel-
ists might find some scope for their activity, and
for that purpose Monsieur Coillard was requested
to explore the land of the Banays. When the
Coillards heard of the proposal they were just
about to start on a long-wished-for journey to
Europe, which they had not seen for sixteen
years; but after ten days' thought and prayer
they accepted, unhesitatingly sacrificing all
their cherished plans.
Now began for Madame Coillard a life of ad-
ventures, perils, and sufferings of all kinds. No
reward crowned her endeavors but that which
she found in her growing power of making
ever greater sacrifices. After an unsuccessful
expedition to the land of the Banays Monsieur
and Madame Coillard visited the regions of the
Zambezi, where the language of the Basutos was
still spoken. This fact would greatly facilitate
work in that country, many missionaries being
already acquainted with that language. After
148
MADAME COILLARD
a trip to Europe Monsieur Coillard returned with
his wife to the Zambezi, this time to settle
there.
We will not follow Madame Coillard in all
those wearisome journeys, but rather would
show the important part the lady missionary has
to play, for, as Monsieur Coillard says, *'The
missionary is only a missionary in so far as his
wife is one and helps him." She is not merely
a housewife, but a lady, a nurse, a teacher, a
mother, and often, alas! a martyr.
The strange scenery in which Madame Coil-
lard now found herself might seem at first most
fascinating. Untrodden forests ; vast plains as
white as snow; mighty rivers like that beautiful
blue Zambezi flowing slowly between tall and
prickly rushes, or darting suddenly into an abyss,
roaring and sending up clouds of smoke into the
air. But this fair picture has a dark, a very
dark, side to it. Famine may at every turn
knock at your door ; in the most intense heat
you may have to walk forty miles to get a cup of
water ; troops of armed savages may attack your
peaceful wagon, foaming with rage and yelling
menaces. ''We cannot but congratulate our-
selves," writes M. Coillard, "upon having my
wife and niece with us. The complications
which their presence involves are nothing com-
pared to the comfort they are to us. My wife
149
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
has taken her place as mother and sister of
mercy. She is often a providence to us."
The missionary's life, far from being a con-
templative one, is too often made up of very
humble duties which consume all his time and
patience. Fortunately Madame Coillard was a
superior house wife. She knew how to cut out
dresses, knead bread, and could even make her
own soap and candles. Besides the ability
shown in such little details, which can hardly
be called little when we remember that the lady
missionary is the chief agent of civilization
among women, she had remarkable aptitudes for
superintending.
Madame Coillard's favorite work was teach-
ing. She had unconsciously prepared herself for
it, as a girl, when giving French lessons in
Paris, and she taught to the very last. A few
days before her death she was sitting among the
prattling wives of the king, cutting out dresses
for them and telling them in her own sweet
way the parable of the prodigal son. But the
education of those coarse women proved a most
arduous task, and Madame Coillard far pre-
ferred the children's school — that captivating
school, as she called it — which was founded as
soon as they had definitely settled at Sefoula.
They hoped it might be a means of drawing the
natives to the Gospel through their children.
150
MADAME COILLARD
The school room was formed by the shadows of
the trees, and instead of using slates and copy-
books the children wrote upon the sand. Chil-
dren came in large numbers. King Lewanika
held instruction in high reverence, and he had
little huts built for his sons near the mission
station so that they should lose no opportunity
in learning. What seems more wonderful still,
the girls themselves would join their brothers.
Fond of her home as she was, Madame Coillard
decided to sacrifice it, in some measure, in or-
der to admit the daughters of the king and the
little slaves into her family.
''This numerous household," writes she,
'' has been a cause of much occupation to me,
but also of deep interest. I cannot but thank
God with a grateful heart for the privilege of
having all those dear boys and girls under our
roof. Our four little princesses are very obedi-
ent, clever, and industrious. The two daugh-
ters of the king read quite fluently now, and the
two other girls, already engaged, though so
young, to the king's son and to his nephew,
are also improving. This is a wide field open
to us, and if we had more help and means, the
number of children who would come to be taught
would be almost unlimited."
Intellect is more easily developed than con-
science, and the little Barotsis were soon learned
151
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
enough to pass a public examination in reading,
singing, and reciting. That school festival
must have been no common spectacle, honored,
as it was, by the presence of the black king him-
self, who alternately encouraged or blamed the
candidates, following the reading with a book
in his hand. But, alas! she who had given to
her black daughters all this motherly love was
repaid by ingratitude. Moral corruption is
something dreadful in the regions of the Zam-
bezi. Two of those girls scaled the palisades
at nigfht and fled into the forest for most shame-
ful purposes, and had to be sent away at once.
This was a terrible blow for Madame Coillard.
She tried to master her sorrow, and adopted
other little girls, but she had lost the mainspring
of energy — faith in her work. Surely this bit-
ter grief was one of the causes w4iich hastened
her end. Madame Coillard had been sickly for
years, and she and her husband often allude to
fatigues, to fever, ophthalmia, or other illnesses
from which she suffered ; but a vigorous mind
dwelt in the frail body and ruled it unmercifully,
as a strong-willed pilot governs a disabled ship.
The ship was bound for the port ; she might be
wrecked, but she must not wander from her
route. Christina Coillard had consecrated her
life to African missions, and nothing could have
deterred her from her vocation.
152
MADAME COILLARD
Once Monsieur Coillard proposed to her to
travel for her health. " No," she replied; ''life
is too short and our work here too extensive.
Let us remain faithfully at our post. The Mas-
ter knows that I want my health ; and should it
be his wish, he might give it to me here, with-
out my going to find it elsewhere."
One day, when returning from a missionary
journey with her husband and a devoted young
Swiss lady whom she considered as her daugh-
ter, fever laid her low. After a day of great
mental agony she became calm and serene,
'' talking of invisible things as one who is al-
ready on the threshold of heaven." The day
before her death she said to her husband, '* Dy-
ing is not so difficult as I feared. It is not
painful ; and then the passage is so very short !
Underneath are the everlasting arms." A few
hours later she went quietly to sleep, in the
peace of the Lord, at Sefoula, Zambezi, October
28, 1891.
153
T
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
MRS. HANNAH MARSHMAN
First Woman Missionary to India
HE first missionary to the women of India,
and, indeed, the first of all women mis-
sionaries in modern times, was Hannah Marsh-
man. Born in England in 1767, a hundred and
thirty years ago, she spent forty-seven years of
a happy married life and a short widowhood in
the Baptist brotherhood formed by her husband,
Joshua Marshman, D.D., with Carey and Ward,
at Serampore, Bengal. There she died, at the
ripe age of eighty years, on March i, 1847.
Though the mother of twelve children, Mrs.
Marshman trained the six who survived for the
positions of usefulness and dignity which most
of them filled. She spent almost every day of
her long life after she landed in India in edu-
cating the girls and the women of Bengal to
know and to serve Jesus Christ. She supplied
to the brotherhood all the domestic comfort and
much of the loving harmony without which her
husband and Carey and their associates could
not have accomplished half of what the Holy
Spirit enabled them to do. We follow the Mis-
sionary Reviezv of the World in our sketch.
Hannah Shepherd was married in the year
1 79 1 to Joshua Marshman, then twenty- three
154
MRS. HANNAH MARSHMAN
years of age, and soon after he resolved to join
the mission in Bengal. His young wife's pru-
dence and care for their two young children
made her hesitate for a little, but soon she too
'* cordially" surrendered herself to the divine
call. On October 13, 1799, the missionary party
landed at the Danish settlement of Serampore.
Falling on their knees, Mr. Marshman led them
in blessing God for the safe voyage and the be-
ginning of their mission to the millions of India.
In the division of labor among that remark-
able trio of missionaries Carey had the transla-
tion of the Scriptures, Ward had the press, and
the schools fell to Marshman ; to his wife far
more than to him, as events proved. The pe-
cuniary result of this splendid organization, as
it extended during the next forty years, was
unique in the history not only of all Christian
missions, but of all philanthropy. The one
woman and the three men, with the children
and assistants, were the means of earning
nearly half a million dollars for the work of
God from the Persian Gulf to the Pacific Ocean.
Of this enormous contribution, besides the self-
support of the workers, Carey gave half, and
the woman, Hannah Marshman, gave at least
one fourth, or more than one hundred thousand
dollars.
How was this done? All under the direct
155
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
guidance and help of the good providence of
God. An advertisement made it known all over
North India that girls and boys would be re-
ceived, as boarders, to be educated as Christians
with the Serampore missionaries' children.
The girls' school especially became so famous
that we find the three missionaries reporting to
the Baptist society in England at the end of the
year 1801 : " Last year Mrs. Marshman opened
a school for young ladies, which much increases,
so that we have been under the further neces-
sity of enlarging our habitation." It may easily
be imagined how her own household affairs af-
fected her amid the threefold toil of her own
school, her work among the native women, and
her domestic care of all the brotherhood for a
time.
Four years later, in January, 1805, Hannah
Marshman reviews her five years' experience in
a letter to a friend in England. Never was
there such a Martha and Mary in one as these
documents prove her to have been, always lis-
tening to the voice of the Master, yet always
doing the many things he intrusted to her with-
out feeling cumbered or irritable or envious.
To this friend she recounts instances of God's
goodness only, noticeably when tho roof of an
addition to the school fell in without harming
the girls. She adds this unconscious picture of
156
MRS. HANNAH MARSHMAN
the happy life of the brotherhood, of which she,
in truth, formed the pervasive bond:
" On Friday evenings, after worship, we gen-
erally meet to sup and chat and hear the Cal-
cutta news — this being the evening that Brother
Carey comes home. As I was returning across
to our own house I trod on a serpent, which
twisted round my leg and gave my heel a hard
smack. I shook it off and felt no harm. I had
hold of Mr. Marshman's arm, or probably I
might have fallen down. Having a lantern, I
saw it make its way into the grass and went
home a little terrified, but much more surprised.
" ' Unhurt, on serpents you shall tread,
When found in duty's way.'
Will any one say the Lord is not among us? . . .
We are enlarging our coast on every side by re-
pairing and building, in expectation of more
boarders and of visitors from America. We are
nearly sixty in number, yet we scarcely ever sit
more than twenty minutes at breakfast or tea.
A chest of tea at eighty rupees [forty-five dol-
lars] lasts three months and a fortnight. We
use nine quarts of milk in a day; we have
twenty quarts for a rupee. ... At seven o'clock
school begins; at nine at night the children are
in bed, after which time is my holiday to read,
write, or work. But I am often so overcome
with fatigue and the scorching heat of the day
157
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB "
that I feel neither will nor power to do any-
thing- at all, and when I sit down to converse with
you it is with a weary body, a stupid soul, and
dim eyes ; but I am sure of having all my faults
lightly passed over and all covered with love."
Hannah Marshman's "ladies' school" was
an evangelizing agency of the most direct kind
apart from the large sum which it contributed
to the extension of native missions. Its pupils
were chiefly Eurasians, or East Indians of the
then fast-increasing and utterly-neglected com-
munity who had sprung originally from white
fathers and native mothers. She was the first
to care for the daughters, so far as these were
not the orphans of military oflicers or soldiers.
From her famous school in a generation there
passed out relays of truly Christian young
women trained and ready to become missiona-
ries to their native sisters. Until such agents
were educated and converted, and until the in-
struction of native youths had made headway
in the boys' schools and in the Serampore Col-
lege, female education among the Hindus and
Mohammedans was impossible.
In the famous periodical, the Friend of India,
which flourished from 1817 to 1875, the Seram-
pore Brotherhood essays were of such value that
the earlier series were reprinted in London.
One of these, which appeared in 1882, on *' Fe-
158
MRS. HANNAH MARSHMAN
male Education in India," gave an impulse to
the movement in which Hannah Marshman was
the first to toil, and for which she had provided
the cultured teachers.
All through her later life Hannah Marshman
was working for the women of the lower classes,
who could at once be reached. In 1824 her
Serampore Native Female Education Society,
formed to make the movement permanent and
continuous when she should be removed, con-
ducted fourteen native girls' schools with two
hundred and sixty pupils. Since the adminis-
trative reforms and the queen's proclamation of
toleration, and personal encouragement of na-
tive female education and medical aid, which
followed the mutiny, Hannah Marshman's pio-
neering self-sacrifice and wisdom have borne
richer and more plentiful fruit than even her
faith dared to hope. Since 1847 her dust has
lain in the sacred inclosure of the mission ceme-
tery at vSerampore beside that of her husband
and Carey and Ward and a child of the Jud-
sons. But the India she knew is being changed,
and will be transformed, by the principles she
was the first to set in motion for the redemption
of its daughters, without whose evangelization
the East can be neither civilized nor Christian.
As she was the first, was not Hannah Marshman
also one of the greatest of women missionaries?
13 159
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
MISS HARRIET G. BRITTAN
Fifty Years a Missionary
SEVENTY-FIVE years of life, fifty of them
devoted to foreign missions! What a rec-
ord of devotion, self-abnegation, and heroism!
These years were spent in Africa, India, and
Japan.
It falls to few women to have such an experi-
ence as had Miss Brittan. She was a pioneer,
and as such stands out prominently in connec-
tion with the modern movement for the eleva-
tion of heathen women.
Miss Brittan was born in England, June,
1822, and died at the Occidental Hotel, San
Francisco, Cal., April 30, 1897. Miss Brittan
in her early years removed with her parents to
this country and settled in Brooklyn, where she
obtained a good education. A terrible fall in
childhood, from the third to the first floor, so
injured her spine that, until she was eighteen,
she could not leave her bed, except as she was
carried. From that time she gradually regained
her health, but was never able to walk well.
The strength of conviction that enabled her to
go to Africa forty-four years ago, in spite of
physical weakness and the fact that she might
have lived in luxury at home, as she had a
160
MISS HARRIET G. I3RITTAN.
MISS HARRIET G. BRITTAN
comfortable fortune in her own right, must
have been irresistible. She was sent out by
the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society
of the Protestant Episcopal Church to Africa,
but she could not live there, being constantly
attacked by fever, which compelled her return.
It w^as a terrible trial to her to leave, the more
so because she had promised to become the wife
of a missionary there. He could live in Africa,
she could not. To his proposal to leave that
field for one in which she could live her high
ideal of duty would not allow her to listen for a
moment. No ; she would not take him from
his work. She endured the climate as long
as she could, and was finally carried on board a
sailing ship, with little expectation that she
would live to reach home. The fact that the
voyage proved to be just the thing needed to re-
store her is, probably, one reason for her eager-
ness to undertake the last voyage of her life.
During the year or two of convalescence, it must
have been, that she wrote her very interesting
little book on Africa, which she gave to the
society that sent her out.
The Woman's Union Missionary Society, or-
ganized in i860, selected Miss Brittan as one
of its first missionaries to India. She went to
Calcutta, and was one of the first American
missionaries to enter the secluded homes of the
163
" THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB "
women. Well does the writer remember, upon
arriving in Calcutta in 1861, visiting Miss Brittan
in her home, just established, and visiting with
her several of the zenanas. She inaugurated
and carried on most successfully this branch of
work for twenty years.
While in India her feelings of sorrow for the
Indian women found expression in a work called
Kardoo, and a second called SJiusJwne, which
revealed how badly women were treated, and
aroused the religious world to great efforts
to send missionaries to their assistance.
She was an accomplished needlewoman, and
by teaching her art she obtained entrance to
many places not before accessible to foreigners.
We may not be able to properly characterize
Miss Brittan's work or its influence. She went
to India at a time when prejudices against
woman's education and elevation were mvinof
way. Her tact, spiritual insight, and judgment
were all taxed to meet the new conditions, but
she did it, and established a work that has
grown to great proportions. She was one of the
first to perceive the enormous advantage pos-
sessed by women with a good medical training,
and was a strong advocate of the education of
female missionaries in the leading training
schools for nurses or in the women's medi-
cal schools of the country.
164
MISS HARRIET G. BRITTAN
After her service in India she returned for a
year to America, and for a time was at the
head of a ward in St. Luke's Hospital , in the
city of New York. She was an indefatigable
worker, and was the promoter of many concerts
in New York and vicinity, by means of which
thousands of dollars were gathered for mission-
ary work.
After her resignation from the Union Mis-
sionary Society Japan was the scene of her
efforts — her last as a missionary. Under the
auspices of the Protestant Methodist Missionary
Society she went to Yokohama in 1880 and took
charge of a large mission established for the
benefit of Eurasian children, who were often
left in destitute circumstances. Until 1893 she
was identified wdth this mission, and more re-
cently established, and had charge of a home for
missionaries, by w^hom she was greatly beloved.
At the age of sixty-three she gave up regular
mission work. In the meantime business re-
verses had swept away her fortune and, having
been very liberal, she found herself at this age
with very limited means.
Miss Brittan in the early spring of 1897 dis-
posed of her property in Yokohama and started
for America. She had been in poor health for
several months, but hoped the sea air would
build her up so that she could make the over-
165
" THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB "
land journey. She sailed from Japan April 13,
but gradually grew weaker. When carried from
the steamer to the carriage she fainted. Upon
arriving at the hotel everything was done for
her comfort, but she passed away the next day.
She had hoped to reach New York to see an
adopted daughter, who was ill at St. Luke's
Hospital, but this was denied her. Knowing
this would be impossible, she said, " Just as He
wills; just as He wills." The funeral services
were held at an Episcopal church in San Fran-
cisco, as she was a member of that body, and
she was laid to rest in a cemetery there over-
looking the Pacific Ocean.
166
MRS. JOHN GEDDIE AND MRS. JOHN INGLIS
MRS. JOHN GEDDIE and MRS. JOHN
INGLlS
WOMEN, in their devotion to God's cause
over the world, have never been deterred
by any form of heathenism. With cultured
intellects, womanly tenderness, and spiritual
devotion they have gone into unhealthy cli-
mates, suffered privations, isolation, and even
death at the hands of those for whom they
labored.
The history of woman's work in the New
Hebrides islands has been one of singular devo-
tion and sacrifice, and no missionary field has
had more heroic women. To Mrs. Dr. Geddie
was given the herculean task of laying the
foundations of Christian education among the
debased women of these far-away islands in the
southern seas. In the year 1848 she and her
husband reached the New Hebrides, where they
had a trying experience in dealing with a low
and savage people. Hurricane, disease, and
death were traced to the missionary; the na-
tives stole their property and threatened to
burn their houses and to take their lives. This
she endured for twenty-five years. ^Irs. Geddie
came in contact with polygamy, with all its
167
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
accompanying cruelties, the horrors of infanti-
cide, the sacrifice of human lives, and every
form of evil and degrading superstition. Again
and again was her life threatened, but quietly
she labored on, establishing schools for women
and children, and teaching them the very first
rudiments of civilized life. Apart from her
own distinctive work she aided her husband in
literary work, especially in the translation of
the Scriptures. Her use of the language was
so extraordinary that the natives said she spoke
it ''just like a native, and her words were all
the same as theirs," which was the very highest
encomium they could pronounce. For four years
she was without the sympathy or presence or
support of a sister missionary, until the arrival
of Dr. and Mrs. Inglis in 1852.
Mrs. John Inglis was a Scotch woman of rare
natural ability, and her life is interwoven with
the history of this mission. She received her
education in one of the best schools in Scot-
land and she became an expert in domestic
training in a large family ; which experience
fitted her for the position she was to fill as a
missionary's wife. Her first work after arriving
on the islands was to gather the girls in a school,
and while she taught them she acquired the lan-
guage. Then followed the industrial school, so
essential in all missions. Then she selected
16S
MRS. JOHN GEDDIE AND MRS. JOHN INGLIS
seven young and promising women and cared
for them on her own premises, instructing them
in every phase of household work. Every
young woman on the side of the island occupied
by Dr. and Mrs. Inglis was thus trained, and
the results were most remarkable.
These women excelled in committing the
Scriptures to memory. On one occasion a lady
in Scotland sent out a piece of cloth for a dress
to the one who should lead in this department.
The task for competition was the first six
chapters of Acts. Instead of one, there were
six who repeated every chapter without missing
a word, and as a consequence six dresses, in-
stead of one, had to be provided.
Mrs. Inglis never waited for some great op-
portunity, she cheerfully accepted the day of
small things, and toiled patiently and unobtru-
sively with the w^ork that lay nearest her hand.
During all the long and weary years she lived
on the islands, often not seeing a white face for
five or six months, except her husband's, she
never repined and never gave way to any feel-
ing of homesickness. Her influence over the
women was wonderful. They came to her with
all their ailments, and told her all their griefs
and sorrows. At the end of eight years' work
eighteen hundred people had renounced hea-
thenism and accepted Christianity. Every one
169
" THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB "
of them was clothed in garments that Mrs. Ingis
had cut and had assisted in making.
She aided her husband in translating and re-
vising the Scriptures, and was an accurate
critic. Dr. Inglis said; "I read her every
chapter I translated. She listened attentively
to the last revision, and made suggestions which
I always heeded. Every final proof she attested
twice at least. After I had corrected the proofs
till I thought them perfect she took the author-
ized English Bible and read it over slowly word
by word, naming also every stop, while I watched
the translation to see that no word was omitted,
no word added. Owing to the different idioms
of the two languages the points are not always
inserted in the same places in sentences, and
one can scarcely comprehend the labor re-
quired." In twenty-nine years the entire Bible,
Pilgrim s Progress abridged, a hymnal, grammar,
dictionary, and some other books were printed.
Again her husband says: "I never wrote
anything for publication which I did not submit
to her for criticism. Many a line she made
me score out, and many a one she made me
alter. 'I think,' she said, 'you would better
leave that out ; it is very good, and I suppose
all true, but there is rather too much about
yourself in it.' "
Mrs. Inglis introduced the making of arrow-
170
MRS. JOHN GEDDIE AND MRS. JOHN INGLIS
root on the ivsland. The root grew there, but
the natives did not understand preparing it for
use. A woman from Raratonga understood the
method, and taught Mrs. Inglis, who then of-
fered to buy all that the natives would bring
to her. Three hundred pounds was the result
of her first effort ; this was taken to New Zea-
land and sold, and orders were received for
half a ton the following year. In this way the
natives paid the expense incident to publishing
the entire Aneityunese Bible, and in this way
was the industry established by a woman's per-
severance; not originally as an article of com-
merce, but as a contribution to the mission.
Mrs. Inglis possessed wonderful executive
and administrative power. She was never hur-
ried, and everything in her house and in her
schools moved with the regularity of clock-
work. Frequently they entertained, in their
isolated home, officers from the ships in harbor,
and the captain of one, who had shared her hos-
pitality, said, "She could have conducted the
commissariat department of a man-of-war."
So punctual was she in all matters that a
gentleman from Australia visiting there said of
her, " I have lived on board a man-of-war, and
in many places where order reigned, but I
never saw punctuality like hers."
Her intense individuality and power were
171
" THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB "
felt in every direction. On one occasion a
woman near the mission house gave birth to a
daughter, the third born to her in succession.
She was greatly disappointed that it was not a
son, and cried out to the nurse, " O, kill it, kill
it!" The request was refused, but the utter-
ance showed how little value was placed upon
the life of a girl. Mrs. Inglis, hearing of this,
said she must save the girls. She did not de-
nounce the mothers, for they knew nothing
better, but with consummate tact she drew
them into her plan. She told them of her love
for girls, and promised to give a nice dress to
every little girl whose mother would bring it to
her as soon as she was able. She prepared gar-
ments, and when the mother brought a newly-
born girl she dressed it and caressed it, and
spoke kindly and lovingly to the mother. The
desired effect was produced, and since then not
a girl has been killed or vSeriously injured on
the island. By her knowledge of medicine she
gained great influence. A man and his young
wife brought their sick and apparently dying
child to the mission house. Mrs. Inglis took
the child, bathed it carefully, wrapped it in a
soft blanket, gave it a little simple remedy, and
the child eventually recovered. The father, a
most forbidding-looking savage, was greatly
touched, abandoned heathenism, and became
172
MRS. JOHN GEDDIE AND MRS. JOHN INGLIS
an earnest Christian. On another occasion a
man and his wife went to the mission house to
borrow a spade, but were questioned as to what
they wanted it for. The father replied he was
going to dig a grave for his child. " When
did the child die ?" asked Mrs. Inglis. "O, it
is not dead, but dying," said the man. '' Bring
it at once to me," said Mrs. Inglis. She cared
for this as she had for others, and it soon re-
vived. The father was in an ecstasy of delight,
and seemed to foro^et about the o^rave and the
spade. By such acts repeated daily, not only
saving lives, but alleviating suffering, she ex-
erted an amazing influence over the people.
She had no children of her own, but her heart
went out for others, and her spiritual children
were numerous. She had a remarkable con-
stitution, which enabled her to endure. " For
more than half a century," said Dr. Inglis, " or
from her fourteenth to her sixty-fifth year,
every day she had done a full woman's work,
and yet with all her varied duties and responsi-
bilities she never thought of herself but as an
ordinary woman, doing an ordinary woman's
work ; doing nothing but what some other
woman might do."
After thirty-three years of service in the for-
eign field she returned to her Scotland home,
and for four years assisted her husband in car-
173
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
rying the Old Testament through the press, and
in various ways promoting the interests of the
mission which she loved and to v/hich she had
given her life. Suddenly the messenger sum-
moned her home — so suddenly that it seemed
more a translation than dying. *' She was not,
for God took her."
174
MISS LOUISA H. ANSTEY
MISS LOUISA H. ANSTEY
THE name of Miss Anstey will ever be iden-
tified with the organization of the Kolar
Mission, southern India.
Kolar is a town in the province of Mysore,
with a population of about twenty thousand.
To that village some time in the " sixties " came
Miss Anstey. She had formerly belonged to
the London Missionary Society, but was com-
pelled to leave India on account of her health.
After her restoration, having her own means,
she decided to return to India as an independ-
ent missionary, and select some spot where the
need was great. This spot Avas Kolar. No
other Christians lived within forty miles of her
— a sea of heathenism forty miles deep rolled
around this lonel}^ missionary outpost.
She hired a native house, and making this
her headquarters, went from house to house in
the village, endeavoring to reach the hearts of
the women and the girls in such homes as would
admit her. Her progress was very slow. Kolar
was a high -caste Brahman village. The preju-
dices of the people against foreigners and Chris-
tians were intense. While she was making but
small headway, in spite of diligent attention to
her work, there swept over southern India a
13 175
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
terrible famine. For three long years there
was no rain. The poverty of India is such that
one season's rain failure means starvation to a
majority of the inhabitants. Two seasons' fail-
ure means abject poverty, and in many cases
death. A third season's failure meant the most
dreadful famine with which southern India had
been afflicted in recent times. Miss Anstey
visited from home to home, and was deeply
touched by the pathetic scenes around her.
Unwilling to witness the destitution and bitter
sufferings of the people without doing what she
could to help them, she purchased such stores of
grain as her means would allow, and cooking
portions of food, carried them in baskets from
house to house, ministering to the bodies as
well as to the souls of the perishing.
When the villagers learned of her practical
kindness they began to put in her way scores of
little children whom their parents had aban-
doned. Miss Anstey did not question long
what her duty might be. She took the little
waifs into her home as fast as she could carry
them. Presently there were sixty-four tiny
emaciated mortals demanding her care. She
did the best she could with them. They were
washed, fed with rice gruel, clothed in calico,
and laid in rows on extemporized beds. But
scarcely was the first batch cared for when Asi-
176
MISS LOUISA H. ANSTEY
atic cholera, that dreadful disease which follows
in the wake of famine, broke out among the
babies, and the ministering lady went from one
to the other, using such simple remedies as
were at hand. Notwithstanding all her efforts
a great many children died, but the natives
around her would not allow her to suffer for
lack of babies. It literally rained babies around
the mission house. Little bundles of dirty rags
with emaciated babies in the midst of them
were found on her doorsteps, in her yard, on
the street, everywhere in her vicinity. As fast
as they came she did what she could to care for
them. They were to her God's charge. So
long as he sent them she would care for them.
If her means gave out, he would send more. It
was his work ; she was his servant. Her repu-
tation spread far and wide. '' What makes you
care for these deserted children ? " said the peo-
ple. '' Why should you, a woman of another
race, educated, cultivated, care for these pov-
erty-stricken little ones ? What makes you so
interested in them ? "
This was her opportunity to talk to them and
tell them of God's loving interest in mankind.
Her orphanage grew ; help flowed in from all
quarters ; friends in India, Europe, and even
in America sent her relief. Although disease
spread among the children and one half of them
177
" THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
were taken away by death, a year and a half
after the famine Miss Anstey found herself with
over six hundred little boys and girls looking to
her for protection and loving care. For twenty
years Miss Anstey heroically carried these re-
sponsibilities, throwing her whole life into the
enterprise.
In the neighborhood of her vSchool stood a
Christian village. There was a Christian com-
munity, with a Christian pastor and evangelists,
who went out through the neighborhood preach-
ing Christ.
In 1890 Miss Anstey made the entire work
over to the Methodist Episcopal Church, and its
village, its ophanage, its mission farms, its pas-
tors and evangelists are now a great mission
center among the Canarese of southern India.
178
MISS ELIZA AGNEW
MISS ELIZA AGNEW
TO go half way round the world is now the
voyage of a holiday. It was very different
when, in 1839, Miss Eliza Agnew sailed from
Boston to Ceylon. She went never intending
to come back. For forty- three years she la-
bored, but she never returned to America. '' I
gave it all up when I left America," she said.
Her decision was no sentimental idea of duty.
She was not a sentimentalist. It was no stern
conception of missionary denial. With her
hearty concurrence others took needed home
furloughs, but as for herself, she stayed; and
somehow she did not seem to miss the inspira-
tion or the bodily health which others received
from the journeys home. Born in New York
city, Miss Agnew did not enter foreign mission-
ary work until she was over thirty years of age.
She was sent by the board to Ceylon to work in
the Oodooville Boarding School. No single
lady had been sent before to Ceylon, and the
people could not at first understand that a woman
actually unmarried should come so far. Miss
Agnew was fond of relating how, the day she
arrived, while busy in her room, two bright
black eyes peered up at her through a conven-
ient hole in the hedge, and a small voice anx-
iously asked, " Please, where is Mr. Agnew ? "
179
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
The present Oodooville School is in a large
structure built of the white coral stone of the
country, with wide verandas gracefully arched,
and tiled floors and roofs — a building whose
beauty is a feature that is properly emphasized
by all who love the school. The school in Miss
Agnew's day was not so housed. It was in a
long, low stucco building, whitewashed without
and within, its floors of country cement and its
roof thatched with palm leaves, in which the
little squirrels nested and from which a snake
now and then dropped. One of the rooms, long
and low, was the bedroom. Here each girl
spread her mat at night and slept wrapped in
her cloth. Another was the dining room, where
the girls sat around on the long palm-leaf mat
at meal time and ate rice and curry with their
fingers.
Much of the growth had already taken place
when Miss Agnew came. She died an old lady
in 1883, but the first stages of the mission had
already passed before she came to the field.
That belongs to the story of a still earlier gen-
eration. The education of girls had been going
on for twenty years. The idea had lost its as-
sociation of degradation, and girls were often
brought by heathen parents who were strangers
to the missionaries to be placed in the school.
Miss Agnew found ninety-five girls at Oodoo-
180
MISS ELIZA AGNEW
ville, and every year more were brought than
could be accommodated.
For forty years she was the efficient principal
of the school. She was an excellent example
of what we do not think enough of in America
— the power of long-continued missionary serv-
ice. The oriental honors age and appreciates
combined labor, while things there move so
slowly that a short period of work accomplishes
less than here. Miss Agnew saw three and
four generations of pupils. All the province
came to know and love her. To thirteen hun-
dred women she was the one embodiment really
known of education and Christianity. Her
power was in geomietrical ratio to her length of
service. Wherein lay her power? First, in her
justice. One must live in an Eastern country,
and see how universally the people distrust each
other, to realize what a power this quality may
be. The girls learned that she was to be trusted
to do what was right. Coupled with that was
her personal sympathy and care. Nothing
shows her whole character better than the way
in which the vacations of her later life were
spent. One vacation she reserved for rest for
herself, at a little thatched bungalow on the
north coast of Ceylon, where the coral rocks dip
down into the warm Eastern sea ; the other va-
cation she gave to her girls of former years.
i8i
" THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB "
She visited each station in the mission, and it
was understood by all that she had come to see
the former Oodooville scholars. '* CJiennanuna
[little lady] writes that she is coming this
week," a missionary lady would say to the
Christian women at her station. Their bright
black eyes would light up, and then they would
look at each other shyly and laugh, and one
more bold than the others would say : ' ' We are
glad. Now we must go home and see that the
children's clothes are mended, and the yard
swept, and everything made neat." During
the week she would go to see some woman mar-
ried and settled years before. She would praise
the yard, the fruit trees, the neatness of the
cooking utensils, and the clean faces of the chil-
dren. But perhaps the cloth of one little one
had an unsightly rent. "O, my Anarche!" she
would say, " is this the way you learned to take
care of clothes? You have not lost your needles
and thread down the well, have you? Now, the
next time I come you must have the clothes all
as nice and neat as are the pretty little ones that
wear them." So, with loving praise and kindly
reproof, all the little matters of the household
were noted. The women grew old and their
grandchildren took the place of their children,
but they were still her girls to Miss Agnew, and
she still kept the same loving watch over them
182
MISS ELIZA AGNEW
as in the first years Avhen they went from the
school to their own homes. Do you w^onder
that her name is, in the most literal sense, a
household word in all that part of Ceylon ?
It seems almost like intruding to enter Miss
Agnew's private religious life, but here lay the
strength of her long, useful career. Her reli-
gious life was the — shall I say old-fashioned,
outspoken kind? If anything went very wrong
and was very exasperating, a little sigh, and '' I'll
tell the Master " was all she said. Her pupils
used to say that no morning bell was needed to
rouse them, for at the same time each morning,
before daylight, they heard her, in her adjoin-
ing room, rise and pray for the school and for
them individually. There was no doubt about
the guiding power of her life. It was Christ.
But she did not ''hold down the Gospel" in
selfishness. Methods changed and new things
came up after she left America, and later mis-
sionaries brought out *' newfangled notions,"
but she took an interest in them all.
In 1879 i\Iiss Agnew resigned her position as
principal of Oodooville vSchool. At this time it
was suggested by the mission that she might
like to return to America to visit her friends in
her native land. Her characteristic reply was:
*' My work for the women of Jaffna is not yet
finished. 'Guide me, O thou great Jehovah!'
1S3
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
is my daily prayer. In that hope will I rest."
After a brief visit to the Pulney Hills she moved
to Manepy, expressing a desire to spend her
declining years among the native Christians.
Her days were spent in making calls upon old
graduates and seeing women in her room. The
old pupils who had yielded to temptation and
strayed from the fold were not forgotten, but
visited and revisited, prayed with, and earnestly
exhorted to return to the Lord.
In June, 1883, Miss Agnew received a partial
paralytic shock, and after that was, more or less,
confined to her room until the end came. The
native women considered it a privilege to care
for her, but in her half-unconscious state she
longed for her own countrywomen, and the mis-
sionary ladies were glad to be with her who had
been so much to them. On the 14th of June,
1883, she peacefully passed away. The funeral
was held the next day, and many Christian
families attended. She was buried at Oodoo-
ville, in the " Campo Sancto " of Jaffna, where
many of the missionaries lie, and only a few
steps from her home of so many years.
More than one thousand girls studied under
her, and wshe taught the children and grandchil-
dren of her first pupils. They called her " The
mother of a thousand daughters."
More than six hundred girls came out of the
184
MISS ELIZA AGNEW
school Christians. No girl having taken the
whole course ever graduated as a heathen.
When she was dying the house, every room of
it, was filled with native Christian women who
had been her pupils, engaged in prayer for her.
When she was buried in her island home native
pastors, catechists, lawyers, teachers, govern-
ment officials, leading men of the Jaffna Penin-
sula, who had married her pupils, attended her
funeral, and the influence of this American
woman has been felt all over that island.—
Katharine Hastings Wood, in Life and Light for
Woman,
185
THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
GERTRUDE EGEDE
GERTRUDE RAST, wife of Hans Egede,
was the first missionary to Greenland ;
for, though many are familiar with the story
of Egede's life, one is apt to remember of his
wife only, that, like Christiana, she opposed her
husband at the outset with tears and entreaties,
and to forget that for fifteen years she shared
his labors and trials in Greenland, and that she
never lost faith, even when her husband was
tempted to give up the mission in despair.
The story of the Greenland Mission, like the
story of the Reformation, begins with a book.
In the library of a young minister settled at
Vaagen, on the coast of Norway, was an old
chronicle which told how a Christian church
and colonies had been founded in Greenland as
early as the tenth century ; how three hundred
villages had sprung up in the land, and fourteen
bishops in succession had ruled over the church,
when the heathen of the north beset the colony
by land and sea, and such of the Christians as
remained were driven back from the coast.
The church had been lost and forgotten, till
now for long centuries they had been left as
sheep without a shepherd.
The minister of Vaagen had been so happy
!86
GERTRUDE EGEDE
GERTRUDE EGEDE
in his home and in the love and respect of his
people that when he proposed to leave all and
go on a mission to the lost church of Greenland
his friends looked upon him as one demented.
His wife " resolutely opposed the idea," and her
mother " added her voice to the general outcry."
" The elders of his church came in solemn order
as a deputation to the parsonage " to tell what
trouble the pastor's new ideas were bringing
among the people. At the end of the conference
an old white-headed man stepped up and said :
' ' Wait and see what the will of the Lord is. If it
is his will for you to go, he will give you a sign
that none of us shall be able to gainsay." So they
waited and prayed, and the answer came — but
not such as they had either expected or desired.
Many divisions and troubles arose in the con-
gregation, and the minister and his wife, so
much loved hitherto, were made on all sides the
objects of slanders and misrepresentations.
Gertrude Egede saw in this the rebuke of God
for her unbelief, and, confessing her fault to her
husband, solemnly gave herself to be his helper
in the mission field.
Having given themselves to the work, Mr. and
Mrs. Egede thought that the way was now clear,
but delay after delay was sent seemingly to try
their faith.
In May, 1721, three ships with colonists and
189
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB "
stores left Bergen for Greenland, Mr. and Mrs.
Egede and their four children standing on the
deck of one, waving farewells to their friends
on shore, "she with a cheerful countenance,"
says an old chronicler. After a month's voyage
they came in sight of land, but found the coast
of Greenland so much blocked with ice that for
three weeks they sailed round it without finding
an opening. In endeavoring to land they were
almost shipwrecked, but at last, in July, effected
a landing at a place which they called (not in
irony, but in faith) Hope Island.
Alas ! they found no green land and no rem-
nant of a Christian church left. The country
was bare and desolate ; not a tree or shrub, not
even a blade of grass, though it was the middle
of the northern summer. The people of Green-
land were diminutive savages, clothed in skins
and smeared with seal oil, whose minds and bod-
ies had alike been dwarfed by an ages-long battle
for life against cold and hunger, and whose
dwellings were more like enormous ant-hills
than the homes of human beings. At first they
seemed friendly, but when they found that the
strangers meant to remain they refused them
all help. Indeed, as time passed, they seemed
to harden their hearts more and more against
the intruders ; scoffing at the men who came to
teach other people and did not themselves know
iqo
GERTRUDE EGEDE
how to catch a seal, and bringing their wizards
to kill off the colony by magic.
But what the wizards could not do by magic
seemed only too likely to come to pass by natural
means. The ship which carried their fishing
tackle had been lost on the voyage. When
they thawed the .soil by fire and planted grain
the corn perished in the ear ; sickness broke out
among the colonists ; hunger stared them in
the face ; they were ready to stone the Moses
who had brought them into this wilderness,
and at last Egede himself, losing hope, con-
sented to embark for home in the ship which
had remained with them f&r the winter. The
history of the mission would have ended then
but that Mrs. Egede stood firm. She turned to
her husband and said: *' Wait a little. It may
be that, while we are giving way to doubt and
fear, God's providence is working out some good
for us." For three weeks they waited, Mrs.
Egede comforting her children by promises
of help at hand. Then a ship arrived bringing
ample stores, with letters of encouragement
from the merchants and the king, and colonists
and missionaries took heart once more.
Then Mrs. Egede did wondrously ; she cheer-
fully consented that her husband and her two
boys should spend the winter in the huts of the
Greenlanders, that they might learn their lan-
14 191
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
guage and, if possible, find a way to win their
friendship. When we remember that the hut
of a Greenlander is like a great beehive, with-
out ventilation, heated by seal oil, shared in
common by two or more families with their
dogs, and altogether inferior to a pigsty, we
may imagine what it cost her to let them go on
such an errand.
In the summer, when the natives were scat-
tered over their hunting and fishing grounds,
Egede from time to time organized exploring
parties, and Mrs. Egede was left alone with
her children in sole charge of the colony. We
cannot but think that it was owing to her care-
ful husbanding of their uncertain supplies that
the colony did not perish in that region of ice
and snow, where so many brave men have per-
ished since.
It was not till 1723 that Egede came across
any relics of the lost church of which he had
read in the old chronicle. Sailing up Amerag-
lik Bay he found in a beautiful valley the ruins
of an ancient church with the graves of the
worshipers about it ; but no living representa-
tives of that church remained in Greenland.
As the years passed they brought to the mis-
sion household many sore straits, but also many
wonderful providences, which came warm to
the hearts of these poor people, who, forgotten
192
GERTRUDE EGEDE
often by the merchants of Bergen and the King
of Denmark, were yet held in remembrance by
the King of heaven. In 1726, when Egede
and his companions were like to perish with
hunger, the natives, who had refused to trade
with them or help them before, came, like
Elijah's ravens, and brought them sufficient
food to keep them alive till the pinch had
passed. Again, when the ship which carried
their supplies was lost on the voyage, and for a
time " eight men had to live on the portion of
bread that would have sufficed for one," though
Egede had to take a voyage of two hundred
miles to procure food from the Dutch whaling
vessels, and Mrs. Egede and her children were
at the mercy of the natives and starving people,
"not one had power to lift a finger against her."
In 1730 the new King of Denmark, Christian
VI, being advised that the trading colony in
Greenland was a failure, sent ships with orders
for the colonists to return to Denmark forthwith,
and warned Egede that if he remained, he would
be left for the future without supplies. Provi-
dentially there was not room in the ships for all,
so a few (let us hope the best) remained for a
time, and for three years Egede and his wife
worked in Greenland almost unsupported, till his
health failed and it seemed as if he were doomed
to lay his bones in that barren land.
193
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
Then, all tmexpectedly, a vessel arrived
bringing stores and money and, best of all,
three Moravian missionaries, who, knowing
nothing of Egede or his work, had followed
the call of God and come to his help in Green-
land. This was in 1733.
It warms one's heart to read how these stran-
gers were received by Egede and his brave
wife. They helped the unlearned men to
master the language, they shared their stores
with them, and they joined with them in
prayer that God would soften the hard hearts of
the Greenlanders ; for, far above all their own
trials and disappointments, the missionaries
had mourned that but one soul had been given
them in all these years. As at first, so at last,
the answers came in a way which they had not
expected nor desired.
A few months after the arrival of the Mora-
vians smallpox broke out among the natives,
and as they would take no precautions, it spread
with frightful rapidity. Soon the houses of the
missionaries w^ere filled with orphans and small-
pox patients, and the missionaries themselves
went from hut to hut to nurse the sick and bury
the dead. What it was to do this in the stench
of a Greenland hut we can hardly imagine.
For a year the scourge lasted. When it had
passed the country was left almost depopulated.
194
GERTRUDE EGEDE
Then the faithful wife, who had shared her
husband's labors and trials for fifteen years,
sickened and died. She did not live to see the
dawn of Gospel light in Greenland.
Two or three years after her death, and after
Hans Egede had left the country, his health
quite broken down, a famine broke out through
the failure of the seal fishing. The starving
people came begging food of the Moravian mis-
sionaries. Among these came one who asked
permission to live with the missionaries, and in
payment offered to give them all the fish he
caught. This man, Mangek, proved an earnest
inquirer. God's work of grace was wrought in
his heart, and the missionaries with joy and
gratitude heard him speak of the love of Jesus
until the tears rolled down his cheeks. Much
faithful teaching and many earnest prayers on
the part of the missionaries were followed by
other conversions. The work went forward.
Christian settlements sprang up here and there
through the country, and at the present day, a
century and a half after the death of Hans
Egede and his faithful wife, *' Christianity is
everywhere in evidence, the old barbarities of
heathenism abolished, and in their place the
sweeter manners and happier spirit of the
kingdom of God are seen."
195
THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB "
MRS. MURILLA BAKER INGALLS
MRS. INGALLS met her husband for the
first time at a missionary meeting at Ra-
cine, and was married at her home in Eastport,
Wis., in December, 1850, and sailed with him
for Burma July 10, 185 i.
She was at that time a young, vivacious, and
enthusiastic woman, whose hair still hung in
long dark curls all around her head. Some peo-
ple were surprised that Mr. Ingalls should select
such a lively and brilliant girl to return with
him to his mission field, in Arakan, as his
wife.
But this buoyant disposition which paints
everything in the brightest colors, this heart all
full of hope and joy, has been of incalculable
service in the arduous life of the missionary.
She herself says : ' ' This cheerfulness has been
the only thing which has made me of use in the
missionary service. The truth is, I cannot be
discouraged. I never knew what it was to be
disappointed in my missionary life. There have
often been varying delays, but no real disap-
pointment."
In this spirit she began to assist her husband
at Akyab in 1852; from there they went to
Rangoon in 1854, and in less than two years
196
MRS. MURILLA BAKER INGALLS
she stood beside the grave of the husband, who
with his dying breath intreated her not to give
up missionary work, but to do what she could
for " the poor Burmans."
She came to America in 1857 to bring her
husband's daughter home to be educated, and
returned to Burma in 1859 i^ ^^e same ship
which carried Dr. and Mrs. Tolman to Assam,
and commenced work at the Thongzai Station.
Since that time she has made her home in
Thongzai. She at once took charge of the mis-
sion. The little church and its native pastor
depended upon her for everything except
preaching. She visited districts where no white
woman had ever been seen, and with her native
assistants made long evangelizing tours into the
jungle. She superintended the building of the
little church, and later saw that the pastor had a
comfortable pansonage. This church Mrs. In-
galls has used as seed from which to plant the
Gospel in all the surrounding country. Through
her labors other churches were formed in neigh-
boring villages, colporteurs were sent out into
the jungle, Sunday schools were formed, and
modest chapels were built in the jungle hamlets.
At one time she wrote : ' ' I have ten preachers
under my care. All send or bring me a monthly
report of their work. I have a meeting each
Saturday morning for workers in the vicinity.
197
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
I have four colporteurs, whom I send on trips
or to work among the heathen. They attend
funerals, give books, and discuss doctrine, but
are not able to perform pulpit duties. The lay-
men and their families do much colportage
work. Each man and woman free from disease
and care of infants is expected to make some
trips for special teaching among the heathen.
There are also Bible women and school-teachers
who come to the ' ' mamma " for direction. This
Thongzai church has a home mission which has
sent at least one of its members to the regions
beyond."
The superintending of all these operations of
the church is but the beginning of Mrs. Ingalls's
labors. The needs of the heathen around de-
mand all her powers. Her field lies among the
Burmans, who are much more difficult of access
than the Karens. She attempts to draw them
to hear the Gospel. At the very outset she
erected a shed in the market-place, hung it round
with Bible pictures, and, with her native help-
ers, talked to all whose curiosity led them to
visit her. In her house the most prominent
room is called " The Burman Room." Its
doors are open from dawn to bedtime to all re-
spectable people. The walls are hung with
maps and pictures ; books and all kinds of use-
ful curiosities abound. Her little study opens
J98
MRS. MURILLA BAKER INGALLS
into this room, so she can step in at any time
to help her assistants, to explain, argue, or in-
struct. Here come the Bible women and
preachers to teach new converts in Bible doc-
trine. Hither all day long come people to ask
questions or to listen. In fact, the Burman
Room is the center of far-reaching influence.
Mrs. Ingalls has had a wonderful power in
convincing Buddhist priests of the truth of
Christianity. Her article in the Baptist Mission-
ary Magazine ior November, 1893, and also one
in May, 1894, will tell the story of this work in
her owm words. She says that she has been
permitted to see nearly a hundred priests come
out on the side of Christianity, of whom many
have become earnest Christian men, some of
them faithful preachers.
In 1877 the railroad from Rangoon reached
Thongzai. It ruined for a time the beauty of
the umbrageous village, cut up the gardens,
and established Hindus and Chinese in the
Burman houses. But it had its compensations.
Mrs. Ingalls saw here an opportunity to begin
a new line of work in giving books and tracts
at the depots and in the railway carriages. Her
preacher gave out sixty to eighty tracts each
morning. The Bible Society sent English Bi-
bles, and she distributed tracts in their own
language to the English, French, Burmans,
199
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
Shans, Hindus, and Karens. Soon she had a
library of one hundred and twenty volumes and
a reading room in the depot at Thongzai. These
were for the use of the employees of the rail-
road. In the depots at other places on the line
she has established ''branch libraries," and
placed tract distributors. On her occasional
visits of inspection to these libraries she takes
with her a staff of native workers, and makes
her stay the occasion of missionary work among
the heathen. At times she has had socials and
lectures in the libraries for the railway men.
In reading the published letters from her
graphic pen one is amazed to see how everyone
w4th whom she comes in contact contributes to-
ward her work. Now a Buddhist priest gives
her a garden in which to hold schools. Again,
she wants a " zayat," just outside the mis-
sion grounds, for a preaching place, and its
owner promptly turns it over to her. From
America friends send money to support her
preachers and Bible women, besides books, and
even spectacles, that her aged Christians may
still read the word of God. The English gov-
ernment and the railway officials help on her
libraries, and even the heathen contribute to-
ward her tract distribution. She seems irresist-
ible w^hen she needs anything to further her
Master's work.
MRS. MURILLA BAKER INGALLS
This is but an imperfect sketch of the work
of one woman who in a thousand ways has
proved herself worthy of the great responsibili-
ties that have been laid upon her. Her enthu-
siasm, her faith, her active zeal, have been
daunted by no difficulties ; and now, after more
than forty years of work in Burma, she is still
unwearied in labors for the heathen and the
stay and the counselor of the band of believers,
who regard her as their mother in Christ. —
Life and Light.
Dr. J. N. Murdock said of her: *' Yet so deli-
cate is this woman's sense of the proprieties of
her sex that you could scarcely induce her to
stand on a public platform and face a mixed
audience, even though she might not be called
upon to speak. A real overseer and leader of a
numerous Christian flocks she does her work
mostly in private, satisfied if she can only see
her teachings reproduced in the public sermons
and lectures of her native helpers, and bearing
fruit in the lives of her people."
20I
THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB
MISS BEULAH WOOLSTON
MISS BEULAH WOOLSTON was born
near Vincentown, N. J., August 3, 1828,
and died at Mt. Holly, N. J., October 24, 1886.
She was nurtured in a Christian home, and was
converted and tniited with the church when
about fifteen years old. After receiving pre-
liminary education in her native place she went
with Miss Sarali H. Woolston, her sister and
her life associate in home and work, to the
Wesleyan Female College, at Wilmington, Del.,
where she was graduated with honor from both
English and classical departments. She after-
ward taught for some years in the college, and
while thus engaged responded to the call for
missionary teachers in our China Mission. The
sisters sailed for China, with other missionaries,
October 4, 1858. After a voyage of one hun-
dred and forty-seven days around the Cape of
Good Hope they landed at Shanghai February
27, 1859, ^'^'^^ reached Foo-Chow March 19.
Their special work was to organize and super-
intend a boarding school for Chinese girls under
the auspices of the China Female Missionary
Society of Baltimore. The sisters were sent
out by the parent board of our Church, but
their school was supported by the Baltimore
MISS BEULAH WOOLSTON
Society. After the organization of our Woman's
Foreign Missionary Society their work was con-
nected with it. During their twenty-five years'
faithful service they returned to this country
twice for rest and to recruit. In December,
1883, much broken in health, both returned
for the last time. At times Miss Beulah seemed
to improve, but she proved to be in a very pre-
carious state, though no immediate fatal result
was anticipated. On Monday evening, October
24, she grew much w^orse, and ere her loving
and devoted sister had time to realize the dan-
ger, she had, with scarcely a struggle, fallen
asleep in Jesus.
And now wdiat can I say of Miss Beulah
Woolston's work for humanity and Christ?
Those who have entered into the labors of their
sister workers can never know all it cost, in those
early days of '59, to overcome the natural prej-
udices of the people, emphasized by the wrongs
done them by foreign traders, and the lack of
books, maps, charts — even a home — for the now
well-established school. But ^liss Beulah's
faith never wavered ; patiently, quietly, and
determinedly one obstacle after another was
overcome, until these sisters could rejoice in a
well-organized, thoroughly-conducted Christian
school as the result of their labors. When
Bishop Burdon, of the Church of England, vis-
203
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
ited the school some years ago he only echoed
the words of others when he declared it to be
the best-conducted girls' school in China. And
well we know its effect upon the lives of those
trained in it. It was literally true, as one said,
'' Wherever in our work we find one of the
Misses Woolston's scholars, either as teacher or
wife and mother, she is a marked character for
good in the place." Hii King Eng is a gradu-
ate of that school, and in her beautiful character
is exemplifying the teachings she received for
years from these sisters.
Their great aim was to fi.ll the few years the
girls could remain with them with just such in-
struction as would make them useful Christian
women in their own homes and in the spheres
they must occupy in life, feeling that they
could not conscientiously give time to teach
anything that could be of no possible use to
them in the future, and that might be an occa-
sion of temptation and sin. In addition to the
care of tiiis school, hundreds of women visited
them at their home and were always received
with Christian courtesy and teaching; every
effort being made to utilize their visits to sow
seeds of divine truth in dark souls. The care
of the school was not only that which is usually
demanded at home, but also the providing of
many of the girls with clothing ; teaching them
204
MISS BEULAH WOOLSTON
to make their own, to cook, wash, and all the
details for the -education of good housewives.
Even vacation days were not free from care,
as they had to provide homes for many of the
girls during the time. They also established a
number of day schools at different and often
distant points in our work, which they visited
regularly, and often at great inconvenience and
exposure to themselves. With all of this work
they found time for literary work — preparation
and translation of schoolbooks and the editing
of the CJiihVs Illustrated Paper in Chinese — and
also to observe the apostle's injunction, not
failing in hospitality, their delightful home
being opened to all ; and those of us to wdiom
sickness and death came can truly testify to
their loving ministrations and helpful sympathy
in our times of need. Only loving hearts, will-
ing hands, and consecrated lives could have
accomplished the work of these dear sisters,
and in writing of this work I am utterly unable
to vSeparate them. It was such a united work,
pursued in such perfect love and harmony, that
it was as if one mind, one heart, one pair of
hands were doing it. That there were marked
traits of character in ^liss Beulah Woolston all
will concede who knew her : A steady faith in
God and the final success of his work, love for
humanity, pity for the needy, sympathy for the
205
"THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB"
suffering, an ever-ready bounty for those in
want; no hut too mean for her to enter, no
soul too degraded for her to attempt to save ;
charity for all, criticism for none ; always cred-
iting her associates in the work with conscien-
tious endeavor to do their best, feeling that
each had his or her work with which she had
no right to interfere — traits especially valuable
in a missionary ; fidelity to all good, a shrinking
from all evil, and through all her life that quiet
dignity that seemed to be the outcome of an
abiding peace within.
A dear friend of the American Board, at
Foo-Chow, a missionary of thirty years' service,
an able, clear-headed, devoted woman, said to
me years ago, *'I have known Miss Beulah
Woolston eleven years and I have never known
her to speak a word or perform an act that was
not just right." I have known her for over
twenty years, and my testimony must be the
same. Her charity was unbounded; in all my
long acquaintance with her I never heard her
speak an uncharitable or detracting word of
another. She did blessed work for the suffer-
ing poor, but we only knew of it as we might
follow her and hear it incidentally. I shall
never forget a scene that occurred in our Tieng
ang Tong (Heavenly Rest Church) at Foo-Chow
one Sunday morning. The services had com-
206
MISS BEULAH WOOLSTON
menced, when an aged woman, walking with
bound two-inch feet and leaning on a cane, ad-
vanced slowly up the aisle, looking eagerly for
some one. Miss Beulah was on a front side
seat. The moment the woman caught sight of
her the worn, aged face grew glad and bright,
and stooping hastily forward, she dropped on
her knees before Miss Beulah as if in worship.
Miss Woolston, greatly embarrassed, hastened
to assist her to rise and take a seat beside her.
Some of us knew the reason of this love and
devotion. And so I might multiply but not
exhaust the record of Christian devotion and
kindness to the needy, as well as wise and loving
instruction of the young. Who can measure
the results of such a life? Its influence goes
on and on in multiplying powers through time
and into eternity.
Neither our parent board nor our Woman's
Missionary Society ever had a more faithful,
devoted, or successful worker than Miss Beu-
lah Woolston. Leading the van of Methodist
women in the East, her work was well done,
and the call to her heavenly home found her
ready. Some of us mourn for her as a be-
loved friend, and those of us who were inti-
mately associated with her in the early days of
work and trial feel her departure with special
sorrow. Others of our early workers have pre-
15 207
" THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB "
ceded her, and ere long the rest will follow, and
there will be a glad reunion of the workers
abroad and at home ; methinks that then it
will indeed be an exceeding joy to have had
even the smallest part in the blessed work of
giving the Gospel to the neediest of earth.
This imperfect but sincere tribute of love I
offer to the memory of one who, to me, was as
near perfection in life and in beauty of char-
acter as is possible to humanity. — Mrs. Dr. S. L.
Baldwin^ in Woinaii s Missionary Friend.
208
MISS CLARA A. SWAIN. M.D.
CLARA A. SWAIN, M.D.
CLARA A. SWAIN, M.D.
First Medical Woman in Asia — An Epoch
DR. CLARA A. SWAIN enjoys the honor-
able distinction of being not only the
pioneer woman physician in India, but the first
fully accredited woman physician ever sent out
by any missionary society into any part of the
n on -Christian world.
Miss Swain was born in the city of Elmira,
N. Y., in 1834, but at an early age her parents
removed to the pretty village of Castile, Wyo-
ming County, N. Y., which has ever since been
her home. She was self-educated, and devoted
several years to the work of teaching in the town
of Canandaigua, N. Y. It was during her resi-
dence here that she decided to be a physician.
This was at a time when the medical profession
for women was not considered very desirable.
Her preparatory study was with Dr. Cornelia
Green, of the well-known sanitarium in Castile.
From there she went to Philadelphia and com-
pleted her course at the Woman's Medical College
in that city in the spring of 1869. From early
childhood she had a desire to become a mission-
ary, and speedily after her graduation this de-
sire was fulfilled.
Mrs. D. W. Thomas, who had for some time
" THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB "
been at the head of the girls' orphanage in
Bareilly, North India, in connection with the
Methodist Episcopal Church, saw and felt the
great need of a woman physician, and made an
urgent plea that if such a person could be found,
she be sent out for the orphanage. This plea
was presented to the Woman's Union Mission-
ary Society by the writer, who opened a cor-
respondence with Miss Swain concerning this
new and important opening.
The Woman's Missionary Society of the
Methodist Episcopal Church in the meantime
had been organized, and Miss Swain preferred
going out under the auspices of this society.
She fully considered the proposition, and after
three months of thought and prayer she decided
on going to India. She made her preparations
and sailed November 3, 1869, arriving in Ba-
reilly January 20, 1870. She received from
the missionaries a very warm welcome, and
every possible facility was afforded her for
opening and developing her new and respon-
sible work. Those who were watching the
movement at home wondered if the doors so
long barred would open to the touch of a
stranger, and the prejudice of ages give way to
the ministrations of a woman of another na-
tionality. She commenced her work by estab-
lishing a dispensary and forming a medical
212
CLARA A. SWAIN, M.D.
class of fourteen girls, and she was called at
once to visit women and children of all classes
of society, treating in her first six weeks one
hundred and eight patients.
Next came the necessity for a hospital, which
was met by the gift from a native Mohammed-
an prince of a property worth some fifteen
thousand dollars. Repairs were made on the
house, and on January i, 1874, the first hospital
for the women of the Orient was open and ready
to receive patients. Auspicious day ! Like
*' doves to their windows " flocked the women to
hospital and dispensary — Hindus, Mohammed-
ans, and Christians. Cards were printed in
three different languages, each bearing a verse
of the blessed Bible, so that every patient re-
ceived with her prescription some word about
the great Healer of souls. The women were
captured. ''May I not come here and stay
a while every year, even if I am not sick? " said
one of the patients. " Let me stay," said an-
other, ''for I would like to walk out in this
beautiful garden. I cannot walk out at home,
for if I do, my friends say I am very bad." The
work so auspiciously inaugurated commanded
the attention of other missionary societies, and
the trained woman physician has become a
necessity in every fully-equipped mission in
India.
213
THESE ARE THEY WHICH FOLLOW THE LAMB "
In addition to her great medical work Miss
Swain held meetings on the Sabbath with the
women, and embraced every opportunity to be
a bearer of good tidings. But this great pres-
sure told upon her health. The work had
passed the experimental stage, and in 1875,
after six years of increasing toil, she returned
home ~ for a much-needed rest. After more
than tliree years in the homeland she returned
to her chosen field and took up again the work
she had reluctantly laid down. vShe soon had
all she could do, and in 1883 over eight thousand
patients were treated. After fifteen years of lov-
ing and devoted service in the society Miss Swain
received a call from a native prince, the Rajah
of Khetri, which after careful consideration she
accepted. Taking with her a Christian teacher,
she remained for some time professionally treat-
ingthe wife of the Mohammedan prince, and then
was invited to become physician to the women
of the palace and to open a dispensary for
women and children of the city and surrounding
country. She was permitted to open a school
for girls, and the friend who accompanied her
was allowed to teach the prince's wife and some
of the coui't women. Of her experiences at this
time Miss Swain wrote: '* We brought a quan-
tity of religious books, parts of the Bible, and
our hymn books, all in the Hindustani lan-
214
CLARA A. SWAIN, M.D.
guage, and as we have opportunity we distribute
them. I suppose there are more than thirty
persons singing our hymns here already, for
we have taught them to every one who would
learn. Some of them take wonderfully, and
the singing women in the palace sing them to
her highness every evening.
*'The rajah and his wife have only one
child, a little girl two years and a half old, and
she has learned to sing parts of several hymns,
and sings them sweetly. Her highness says
our songs are much purer than theirs and she
likes them better. What an opportunity for
good this is ! for some of their songs are very
vulgar, and we would not think of listening to
them. Our hymns reach every woman in the
palace, and they are sometimes sung to his
highness. We often find that we can sing
Christianity to these people when we cannot
preach it. This is an opportunity such as no
one of our missionaries has had before, of car-
rying the Gospel into the very heart of native
royalty."
In 1896 Miss Swain was compelled to aban-
don the work she loved so well, and at this
writing (1898) is quietly settled in a home of her
own in the town of Castile, N. Y.
215
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