A Godly Mother's Gift to Missions: S. Wells Williams; W. Frederic Williams
In the first quarter of the nineteenth century, when foreign missionary work by American Christians was a new thing in the United States, this country was itself very different from now. The term “The West” was then commonly applied to Ohio and portions of New York State. Pioneer life was in portions of our country now known as the older and more thickly settled regions.
A family of the best New England stock had moved from Connecticut to Northern New York and found a home where is now the prosperous and influential city of Utica. One Sunday there appeared in the village church a clergyman to appeal for the new missionary work among the distant heathen. As he repeated the call of God to this service, and told of what was being attempted, and what might and should be done, the heart of that godly Connecticut mother was touched and she longed to respond to God’s call. Not being possessed of means to make a fitting contribution in money, she was ready to pledge herself to a still more precious offering.
Having no slip of paper with her on which to write, she tore out a blank fly-leaf from the church hymn-book, and wrote on it with the willing offering of a devoted mother’s heart, “I promise to give my two sons to be missionaries;” and that offering she dropped into the contribution box, as it was passed to her. Years after this when the result of this offering was manifest to the world, a clergyman telling of it added the telling comment: “Ordinarily I don’t like to see church hymn-books torn, but in my heart I wish that every hymn-book in our churches could lose its fly-leaves in order to have such a pledge written on them.”
That good mother had two sons when she made this promise. Soon after one of these sons was taken by death. Had she looked to the letter of her promise, she might have felt that only one son was now pledged to the missionary work; but when God gave her another son she felt that he also must be in the Lord’s work; and the two sons grew up feeling that they were to be God’s missionaries in foreign lands; and the world rejoices that this was so. One of those two sons was Dr. S. Wells Williams, the eminent missionary to China and author of the standard history of China, “The Middle Kingdom.” The other son was Dr. W. Frederic Williams, the distinguished missionary at Mosul, to whom Layard the great explorer was so deeply indebted for aid in his invaluable discoveries at the site of ancient Nineveh.
As we look back on the story of the appeal for the missionary cause on that Sunday in the then struggling church at Utica, and on the varied gifts which were made in response, we realize anew how much depends roi Old Time Student Volunteers
on the spirit of the giver and the giving. Some gave silver, and some perhaps gave gold; but this devoted mother gave neither. She gave out of a loving heart a simple promise to train two sons for the foreign missionary cause and field. Can we not believe that He who sat over against the treasury noting the offerings will say that that godly mother “gave more than they all” and has the richest blessing of such giving?
Dr. S. Wells Williams did a great work for the Chinese as a missionary. He had an important part in Bible translation, and he was the means of winning many souls in the great Chinese Empire to Christ. Moreover like many another successful missionary he did invaluable service to the world at large in his varied writings, and by his ability and address in international diplomacy. His contributions to The Chinese Repository, which practically he founded and of which he was editor for a score of years, make that publication an invaluable thesaurus of needed information for scholars. “A Syllabic Dictionary of the Chinese Language”; “A Tonic Dictionary of the Canton Dialect”; “An English and Chinese Vocabulary in the Court Dialect,” as results of his work, are assets of the world’s wealth which humanity would not wish to live without. He is even named in some of our biographical dictionaries as an eminent philologist, rather than as a distinguished missionary; but that is the case with many missionaries; their incidental work is great.
He was for years secretary of the United States Legation in Pekin, and in that position rendered valuable service to humanity. He was official interpreter to Commodore Perry, on his expedition to Japan, which was the means of opening up that country and people to the world. Later he was secretary of the United States Legation in Japan. After more than forty years’ service in China and Japan he returned to the United States and passed the last eight years of his life as Professor of Chinese in Yale University while also serving as president of the American Bible Society, and while endeavoring in many ways to keep up the best standard and practices of American Christians.
He went on several explorations in the interest of missions primarily and of science and civilization secondarily. And in consequence our good relations with nations are the better for him to-day. Mr. Williams went out to China while quite young as superintendent of a printing press, he being an expert in that line in his father’s publishing house. He became an explorer, a diplomat, a translator, an editor, a historian, and in all and above all, a missionary. As President Porter of Yale said of him as a man and as a missionary, “He was by himself and in his words a living and speaking witness of the dignity and inspiration of the missionary calling.”
It was not until I was in full manhood that I met Dr. S. Wells Williams; but I was perhaps then the better qualified by my varied experiences in life to appreciate the indications that showed themselves, in his face and figure and bearing, of his splendid service as a soldier and servant of Christ and as a herald of Christ’s salvation. It is a privilege to have known and to have met Dr. S. Wells Williams in view of what he accomplished for the world. Wherever he was to be seen, on the platform at a Yale commencement, in a circle of Oriental scholars, among Bible students and teachers; or among relatives and friends, he was a man of mark giving testimony, in his clear-cut intellectual features, in his winsome, saintly expression of face, and in his venerable, almost patriarchal, bearing, to his work and his worth as a man of God among men. I came to value highly his published works for what they gave to me that I could get from no other source; and I was glad to be associated with his son who has taken his godly father’s place as an instructor in Chinese in Yale University.
Although I never personally met Dr. W. Frederic Williams, I have personally been the gainer by instruction from the great slabs from the palace of Assurbanipal that he sent to Amherst College, his Alma Mater, and to other institutions of learning in this country. And I have been glad to have a prized acquaintance with, and varied help from his son. Dr. Talcott Williams. And every lover of God and every lover of Christian missions has reason to honor the memory of these missionary brothers in the far East, and of their devoted mother who so early consecrated them to this blessed work and so faithfully trained them to its doing.