Physician, Missionary, and Diplomat: Dr. Peter Parker

The distinctive labor of Christian missionaries in evangelizing the unevangelized nations to which they are sent is, as has been said, in itself a sufficient work to occupy their whole time and abundantly to justify all that is required of money or of self-denying devotion for their outgoing and for their support. Yet even if this all-important labor were not attempted, the purely philanthropic and patriotic work which in the past century has been done by American foreign missionaries in the line of saving lives and of ameliorating human sufferings, and so frequently of averting wars and discords, and permanent misunderstandings between nations, would entitle these missionaries to a high place among the world’s benefactors.

The Rev. and Hon. and Dr. Peter Parker, of Massachusetts, and Connecticut, and Pennsylvania, and China, and Japan, and the District of Columbia, was an admirable illustration of this truth, whom it was my privilege to know well and to be not a little with, and to look up to with ever-increasing veneration and confidence. Peter Parker worked on his father’s farm in Eastern Massachusetts in his boyhood days. Bvit he longed to be in the Christian ministry, so he taught school in order to secure money for his college expenses. He was twenty-three years old when he entered Amherst College. Taking half of the course at Amherst, he completed it at Yale. Then he studied in Yale Divinity School, and took a full course of medical study.

He was appointed by the American Board a medical missionary to China, and was also ordained in Philadelphia, May 26, 1834. The next month he sailed for China, being one of the first medical missionaries as such sent out to the foreign field from America, or indeed from an English-speaking people. John Thomas, a fellow-missionary with William Carey, pioneer missionary from England, in the closing years of the eighteenth century, won the first high-caste convert to Christ, in Northern India, through his power of physical healing. Dr. John Scudder, of New York City, who went to Ceylon in 181 9, was indeed a prominent physician before he was a missionary, and did good service for years in both spheres in the foreign field, yet he was counted as a missionary like ordinary missionaries. Again, such was the case with Dr. Asahel Grant, who went out in 1830, as a missionary to the Nestorians, and who wrote an “Appeal to Pious Physicians” that emphasized the importance of this branch of missionary service. But Dr. Peter Parker seems to have been the first distinctive “medical missionary” sent to the foreign field in connection with modern missions. And his personal labors and his wide influence over others in this direction entitle him to preeminence.

In 1835 he opened a hospital in Canton for the gratuitous relief of the sick. This tended to disarm prejudice and to win favor; at the same time it furnished excellent opportunities for giving religious instruction and counsel and of winning individuals to Christ. It was said of Dr. Parker that “he opened China to the gospel at the point of his lancet “; also that he had up to his day done more to advance the cause of medical missions than any other man. In 1836 Dr. Parker’s Eye and Ear Infirmary treated nearly 2,000 Chinese patients at a cost of ;? 1,200; all of which was contributed by resident foreigners in Canton. Within the first twenty-five years more than a million cases had been treated in the missionary hospitals in China, and that was but the beginning. And this was only an incidental item of the missionary work. Two years later Dr. Parker had four students in medicine and surgery, one of whom became an expert operator. They were supported by the Medical Missionary Society, organized in China that same year.

In 1837 Dr. Parker, with Dr. S. Wells Williams, went on an exploring expedition to Japan, having for its first object the interest of missions, and the further purpose of learning the nature and possibilities of the then little known country visited. This expedition, in the vessel Morrison, put at the disposal of the missionaries by the good missionary ship-owner D. W. C. Oliphant, was far greater in its out-growing and ultimate results than in those immediately apparent.

In 1840 the breaking out of the Opium War with England made it necessary to close the dispensary at no Old Time Student Volunteers

Canton. Dr. Parker visited the United States about that time. On his way home from China Dr. Parker was in Edinburgh as the guest of the eminent Dr. Abercrombie. As he told him of the power of medical missions in China, Dr. Abercrombie became much interested, and with a few other medical men he determined on action in this line. A result was the formation of the Edinburgh Medical Mission. After a while medical missionaries were trained there and elsewhere, and now the world rejoices in the work of such workers, caring for the bodies and the spirits of those in non-Christian lands. Thus at the Fourth International Student Volunteer Convention in Toronto in 1902, it was reported that nearly five hundred of the student volunteer missionaries in the British Isles, or nearly one-fourth of the whole number in that field, were medical students. More than fifty medical colleges were represented at that convention. This certainly is progress.

In 1 841 Dr. Parker was married to Miss Harriet C. Webster of Washington, D. C. The next year he went back to China, his wife accompanying him, she being the first foreign lady to reside in Canton. In 1844 Dr. Parker was appointed secretary and interpreter to the United States Legation, and this gave him added prominence, enlarged acquaintance, and increased opportunities of representing Christ in endeavors to do good to his native country and to China. Although he dissolved his formal connection with the American Board, Dr. Parker continued his active missionary work and his services in the infirmary while he was secretary and interpreter to the American Legation, and again and again he was Charge d’ Affaires, ad interim.

In 1855, after twenty years of missionary service, Dr. Parker returned to America. But very soon the United States government appointed him United States Commissioner to China, with plenipotentiary powers for the revision of the treaty of 1844. These duties occupied him two years more, and in 1857 he returned to his Washington home with impaired health caused by a severe sun-stroke. He resided in Washington for the remainder of his life, until January 10, 1888. He was appointed a regent of the Smithsonian Institution, and he was ever active in good works in church and community.

As for years Washington was one of my homes, it was my privilege to see Dr. Parker often and to come to value him more and more. I attended the same church with him, and met him frequently in religious and social circles. An occasion that was of peculiar interest to Dr. Parker, which I was privileged to enjoy, was the arrival in Washington of the Japanese embassy, or delegation of Japanese brought by Commodore Perry, as the first step towards that opening of Japan to the Western world which has been fraught with such consequences to humanity in and out of Japan.

Wherever Dr. Peter Parker was he was sure to be recognized and looked up to as a man of nobility and of grace. He was of large frame and of imposing and impressive presence. Intellect and character and experience showed in his fine face and features, while there was a genial, kindly, and a spiritual expression, winning the confidence of all to whom he spoke. He was a good illustration of the superiority of the missionary above ordinary men. I am glad to have known him.