At a Haven of Ships: David Trumbull
There is more ocean and sea than solid land in the world; and whoever would do God’s work in ministering to those whom God loves will see to it that “they that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters,” are cared for in Christ’s name. This has been so in former ages; it is so to-day; and so it ever must be until there is “a new heaven and a new earth” and “the sea is no more.” Yet there have been such changes by the work of men’s hands, in the last centiury, by ribbing the continents with iron rails and cutting through isthmuses from sea to sea, that the extent and kind of travel and traffic around continents by ocean in great ships is very different now from what it was fifty years ago; and in consequence the needs for ministry are different in kind and place from the days of my boyhood.
In the days when ships from New England went to the northwest coast of America, for whales and seals in order to secure oil and furs for all the United States and for other countries, and to obtain hides from California and Mexico, the skirting of the entire coast of South America on the east and on the west, and the doubling of Cape Horn, was a constant necessity. The introduction of gas and electricity for lighting made much of a change in this; and the building of railroads to the Pacific made more. And other changes have been constantly taking place, as young people of to-day can hardly realize.
As the first twenty-one years of my life were passed at Stonington, Connecticut, then one of the prominent whaling and sealing ports of the country, I was familiar with the methods and needs of ships and sailors. Many of my friends and companions were on the sea, and I heard much about that life. A whaling cruise was commonly three years long, and in the interval of the actual whaling season, the ships would come back to the Sandwich Islands, or to Valparaiso the principal port of Chile, to refit and be ready for the next season’s fishing. In view of this and other causes I had a personal interest in the missionaries and sailors’ chaplains on the Pacific coast; and the American Seamen’s Friend Society, of which my father made me a life member, was a society that appealed with pecuUar force to my sympathy and regard.
This was intensified in the case of missionaries and chaplains of whom I had personal knowledge. The Rev. David Trumbull of Colchester, Connecticut, was such a man. He was a kinsman of mine in whom I naturally felt an interest. He was a classmate at Yale of my older brother in the class of 1842, in which was also James Hadley, the eminent Greek scholar and philologist, whose son is now President of Yale. David Trumbull studied for the ministry at Princeton Theological Seminary, and in 1845 he was ordained and went to Valparaiso, under a commission from the Foreign Evangelical Society, of which Dr. Robert Baird was then Secretary. This society was afterwards merged in the American and Foreign Christian Union. On Christmas Day of that year he raised the “Bethel” flag on the United States vessel Mississippi as the beginning of his work. Dr. Trumbull remained at Valparaiso for more than forty years, having his chief ministry to seamen, and in this work representing at different times the Foreign Evangelical Society, the American Seamen’s Friend Society, and the Presbyterian Foreign Missionary Board, and much of the time he was pastor of an independent church of English and American residents.
Valparaiso was not only the port at which came ships from all parts of the world, but it was “the gateway to the capital of the most thickly settled country of South America, the mart of a growing trade.... The ‘Bethel ’ here was a spiritual lighthouse to the mariner, throwing its light out upon a dark sea and along a darker coast.” After the discovery of gold in California the number of vessels and persons stopping at Valparaiso on the way going and coming was greatly increased. In 1850, by the record kept, there stopped there nearly fifteen hundred commercial vessels with about fifteen thousand persons on them. These were from nearly thirty different nations. Yet the British and Americans had more than all the others put together. Vessels of war were in addition to these commercial vessels. So it will be seen that the field of labor was important for a missionary and chaplain. Besides those actually on the vessels there were always more or less sick in the hospital from the countries represented by the vessels. And there were others of them in the city prison. Dr. Trumbull had those sick and in prison to minister to. Of course there were difficulties to be met and overcome. The government of Chile was intensely Roman Catholic, and in those days the idea of religious liberty hardly existed in South American countries. When Dr. Trumbull first reached Valparaiso the government would not consent that anything like a church building or a chapel should be built there for him. When he asked permission to have persons come to his dwelling and receive instruction there, he was told that he could not have any indication by sign or flag on the building that it was a house for religious worship. And for a time he had to have a high fence or barrier before the house, so that persons could come in only through a modest gateway. But his labors on the vessels, in the hospital, and in the prison, were so quiet and so efifective for good, and his spirit so commended itself in the community even among his opponents, that he and his work won such favor from all that it was not a great while before the authorities gave consent to his opening a “Bethel,” with a flag above it, so long as it was understood that his charge and the religious exercises in the “Bethel” were for those on or off the vessels in the port.
His work gained and grew. He had more and more influence in the community; and it was not long before it was felt by all that to be without his labors of love would be a loss to the community and to the country. And he was not long alone in his work for good. Officers and men readied by him on the vessels were not only won to or quickened in the religious life, but they became evangelists along the shore and on the sea. As Dr. Trumbull had books and tracts in various languages for distribution, he was able not only to supply those who needed them for their personal use, but those who wished to win outside souls. Thus he mentioned that a Christian mate on an English vessel gave away sixty dollars’ worth of Bibles and other books in different languages as he went among the vessels which he met. And this was but one incident of many.
Sailors like soldiers are generous and hearty. To win one of them to Christ is to win a good worker with others. As I have often said, talking to an audience of college students at Northfield is not like sowing broadcast, but it is giving out packages of seed to planters. And so it was with the sailor field at Valparaiso. Dr. Trumbull’s wife, who was a daughter of Professor Dr. E. T. Fitch of Yale, was a helper in all his work during his entire missionary life. A brother of his came out as a physician, and was his useful coworker. His sons were worthy helpers and successors in the general field.
A Bethel ship, called the Hopeful, was secured for service in the harbor and on the sea. It was an attractive and commodious vessel, like a steam yacht in appearance. It was the means of winning and aiding many souls. In public preaching services on land and on sea, in teaching in Sunday-school and in Bible classes, and above all in face-to-face work with individuals wherever he might meet one, Dr. Trum-David Trumbull 16i
bull’s work was persistent and devoted, and with ever-growing results of good.
As showing the growth of his personal influence in the city and country of his missionary work, it may be said that when Dr. Trumbull made a brief visit to America his absence was felt, and his return was so desired that when it was announced that he was to return the entire community was ready to give him greeting, and welcome his return. A foreign prince, or a home commander or official, could not have had gladder or heartier assurances of honor and affection. Yet this was the man who could not have, when he first came to the city, even consent to gather a few fellow-countrymen in his own home for social worship. And when a new constitution was framed for the regenerated nation of Chile, the influence and views of Dr. Trumbull and the younger members of his family were sought and secured for its shaping and improving. And his influence over residents there, temporary or permanent, from various countries, was marked and abiding.
When he came to my home in Philadelphia on one occasion a few years before his death, a near neighbor of mine was William G. Moorhead, a brother-in-law and former partner of Jay Cooke. He was for some time United States Consul at Valparaiso, and there he had been intimate with and had come to value highly Dr. David Trumbull. He called at my house to greet him, and he afterwards said to me that he had the highest regard for the character of and the good done by that missionary in Valparaiso. And this is the opinion expressed of him by many whom I have met as they told of him and his labors. Almost the last time I walked the streets of Philadelphia, I was stopped by a man on Broad Street who asked if I was not “Dr. H. Clay Trumbull.” When I said I was, he added that he had wondered whether I were a relative of Dr. David Trumbull of Valparaiso. He had known him there, and like every one else who knew him, he had admired him for his spirit and work.
When, in February, 1889, he entered into rest, the Valparaiso Record said of him editorially, as showing the estimate of him in the city and among the people where he had done his chief life work: “Dr. Trumbull gave his life, without losing sight of the sailor, to the upbuilding of an evangelical church which he lived to see strong and prosperous. Against much opposition and prejudice he carried on the church and the school, he edited various publications, he established the Valparaiso Bible Society, which has put in circulation nearly sixty thousand copies of the Bible in Chile, and more than twice as many religious books, and he gained by his wisdom, weight of character, and preaching power, the respect, confidence, and affection of the whole community, and the friendship of distinguished men in Chile, Great Britain, and the United States. In his personal character there were marked traits, such as persistent fidelity to duty, boundless benevolence, warm personal piety, fondness for pleasantry, and great delight in studying God’s word. He was greatly loved and admired, and his death has called forth alike from the foreign and native residents of Chile strong expressions of the common appreciation of him as a man and minister.”
It is good to have done such a work for Christ, and to leave such a memory with those who have known one and one’s work. Such a life is worth living, for one’s own joy in service, and for the good of others, and more than all for the cause of one’s Saviour.