A Cedar of Lebanon: Simeon H. Calhoun
“The righteous shall flourish like the palm-tree; He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.”
PALMS flourish in the south of Palestine. Cedars are abundant in the north. God’s children are at home in the South and in the North. They have a place in Judea and in Lebanon, at Bethlehem and on Mount Harmon. But the cedars that grow on the cold and rough mountains of Lebanon have ever been valued for their strength and durability. There were no such timbers, and no such choice boards for ornamental work to be obtained elsewhere, as those taken from Lebanon cedars. These were shipped from Tyre to every portion of the then known world. They were used in Lower and in Upper Egypt in the days of the Pharaohs. Solomon secured them for the Temple at Jerusalem through an agreement with Hiram, King of Tyre. Prophet and psalmist and historian refer to the strength and beauty of the cedars of Lebanon, and they are still refened to as a standard of durability and beauty.
A missionary of the cross who stood for years like a goodly cedar of Lebanon was the Rev. Dr. Simeon Howard Calhoun, of a well-known and influential ISO family in New England. A brother of his, the Rev. Dr. George A. Calhoun, was for many years pastor of the church in Coventry, Connecticut, of which young Harlan Page, a well-known worker for Christ and for souls, was a member. Another brother, Hon. William B. Calhoun, was for years Secretary of State in Massachusetts. All three brothers I knew well and honored highly. Simeon H. Calhoun was educated at Williams College under Presidents Edward Dorr Griffin and Mark Hopkins. When he entered college he was a skeptic and a scoffer. But as a result of his mother’s prayers he was won to Christ in 1831. After his ordination in 1836 he went out to the Levant as a representative of the American Bible Society. He joined the Syrian Mission of the American Board in 1844, and had his home at Abieh on Mount Lebanon. His influence and activities extended to all the regions about, and he was indeed a power for good wherever he was known or was known of. Dr. Calhoun had charge of a seminary for the training of missionary preachers and teachers in Syria and beyond. He was at the same time pastor of a church on Mount Lebanon. He was a fine scholar in Arabic and Turkish. He aided Dr. Goodell in his first translation of the Bible into Armeno-Turkish. He also pubUshed books on astronomy, philosophy, and theology. Missionary workers trained by him did excellent service in Syria, Palestine, and Egypt.
Dr. Calhoun wrote books in Arabic that were instrumental of great good among the natives of Syria, and that were attractive and popular because of their style and substance as adapted to the needs and comprehension of such people. Most of these books were aids to Bible understanding. Young converts were delighted with them. Some of these books continue to do good since he has passed to his rest.
But Dr. Calhoun’s greatest power was in his winsome and impressive personality. He won and delighted all who knew him. I hardly ever met a Syrian, whether one who had been taught by him or one who had simply met or heard him, whose face did not light up as he spoke of him and who was not ready to say, “Dr. Calhoun is a very good man.” This was the same with Maronites, with Druses, with Muhammadans, and with Greek and Roman Catholic and Syrian Christians. A Syrian Christian woman who was born on Mount Lebanon, and who was orphaned in one of the massacres growing out of the bitter contests between Maronites and Druses and Syrians, said to me out of her grateful memories of more than forty years before: “Dr. Calhoun was a dear, good man. Whenever he met me he would put his hand on my head and say, ‘May God’s blessing be on you, my dear child.’” And then she told of how in the time of fearful massacre Greek and Maronite and Druse and Syrian all would respect and honor Dr. Calhoun. “That is the American missionary. Dr. Calhoun; don’t harm him.” And at those words he was sure of protection.
This was itself a proof of his work and his worth. His saintly personality was under God his safeguard and his power. It was said of him, by one who knew him, his work, and his field: “Dr. Calhoun’s influence in Syria was very great among all classes.
Not only American missionaries, but English and German residents and natives of whatever religion, revered him and frequently resorted to him for counsel.” Said another, “While engaged as a tutor in college, he was noted for the peculiar simplicity and odor of his piety, and for the great influence which in this respect he exerted on all the students.”
Like most good missionaries, Dr. Calhoun did good service to Christians at home by his careful and skilled observations and his recorded knowledge gained as he worked, while he was doing a full believer’s work in his ministry to the unevangelized who had need of him. Thus he published a fresh and full and accurate description of the cedars of Lebanon, which have had such prominence in the world’s history and in the Bible story. Moreover, he supplied to the world an account of Mount Lebanon, its geology, its zoology, its antiquities, its climate, its productions, its scenery, its rivers, its roads, its geographical connections, as few special explorers or ordinary observers could have done. And this was but a single item of the good missionary’s outside service to the world.
Dr. Calhoun’s career illustrated the truth that the Christian missionary by his character and course inspires confidence in himself even in the minds and hearts of those to whom he goes, and who are not yet ready to accept fully his teachings for their personal life guidance. When there was war between Druses and Maronites in the vicinity of the good missionary the Maronites came to Dr. Calhoun and left silver ornaments and other precious things in his house, to preserve them from the Druses. They asked no re.
celpt or promise of return, for they deemed them safer than we should in an American bank or trust company. Yet they were left with him for months. When again the interference of the French was feared, the Druse women came with their valuables to the same sure place of safety. Neither Druse nor Maronite could trust each other or a brother native of the region, but the Christian missionary all could trust without a doubt.
“For their rock is not as our Rock,
Even our enemies themselves being judges.”
It was at the College Commencement in Williamstown in 1866 that I first saw and heard Dr. Calhoun, during a brief visit that he then made to this country. That was a gathering to be remembered. There were present there Generals Garfield, Briggs, Eldridge, and Armstrong; Governors Bullock of Massachusetts and Bross of Illinois, President Morgan of Oberlin College, Bishop Clark of Rhode Island, David Dudley Field and E. P. Whipple, and other distinguished Americans to attract attention. But none commanded more attention in view of what they were and of what they had done than two noble missionaries and leaders in Christ’s host in the great world-field. These veterans in the Lord’s army were Dr. Jonas King of Greece and Dr. Simeon H. Calhoun of Mount Lebanon, both graduates of Williams, the mother of Student Volunteer missionaries. All eyes centred on them, and all ears were open to their words in view of that which they stood for, and of that which they had wrought.
But that was not Dr. Calhoun’s last visit to America.
He was here again in 1875. Although he had hoped to be laid to rest in his mission field, he was here seized with illness, and he closed his earthly life at Buffalo, New York, in 1875. Almost his last words were in Arabic, “I am coming. I am coming.” And then as if to his loved Saviour he said in English, his childhood tongue, “I am weary, very weary. Come quickly; come quickly.” And he was at rest. The memory of Dr. Calhoun’s spirit-lighted face in his later life is a benediction to me.
“A sweet, attractive kind of grace,
A full assurance given by looks;
Continual comfort in a face,
The lineaments of gospel books.”