A Voice for Christ in India and America: John Newton
An interesting and important fact in connection with modern missions and missionaries is the extent to which they have influenced one another. The linkings of missionaries with missionaries have been a notable factor in the progress of missions. When a man has given himself to this work for Christ his spirit and example of service have been an appeal and an incitement to other men in the home field, in behalf of the cause which he loves. This has been the case whether he be privileged to perform good service in the foreign field or is cut off in God’s providence before carrying out his best intentions. “For none of us liveth to himself, and none dieth to himself.”
This truth as to missionaries is felicitously illustrated in the instance referred to by Dr. Leonard Woolsey Bacon:” You may go to the old burying-ground of Northampton, Massachusetts, and look upon the early grave of David Brainerd, side by side with that of the fair Jerusha Edwards, whom he loved, but did not live to wed. What hopes, what expectations for Christ’s cause, went down into the grave with the wasted form of that young missionary, of whose work now remained but the dear memory and a few score of swarthy Indian converts! But that majestic old Piuritan saint, Jonathan Edwards, who had hoped to call him his son, gathered up the memorials of his life in a little book.
“And the little book took wings and flew beyond the sea, and alighted on the table of a Cambridge student — Henry Martyn. Poor Martyn! Why would he throw himself away, with all his scholarship, his genius, his opportunities! Such a wasted life it seemed! What had he accomplished when he turned homeward from ‘India’s coral strand,’ broken in health, and dragged himself northward as far as that dreary khan at Tocat by the Black Sea, where he crouched under the piled-up saddles to cool his burning fever against the earth, and there died alone, among unbelievers, no Christian hand to tend his agony, no Christian voice to speak in his ear the promises of his Master, whom, as it seemed to men, he had so vainly served. To what purpose was this waste?
“But out of that early grave of Brainerd, and that lonely grave of Martyn far away by the plashing of the Euxine Sea, has sprung the noble army of modern missionaries.”
It was through reading the “Star in the East,” telling of Claude Buchanan’s missionary labors in Bengal, in the latter part of the eighteenth century, that Adoniram Judson became interested in the foreign missionary field, in the early part of the nineteenth century. What results followed that missionary linking 1
When I was a schoolboy of fourteen years old at
Williston Seminary, I visited that grave of David Brainerd in Northampton, and ever after had added interest in his pathetic story. The fact that Henry Martyn was led to the mission field by that story intensified my interest in it. In the days of my maturer manhood 1 came to be intimate with the Rev. Dr. John W. Dulles, a returned missionary from India, and he told me that his reading the story of Henry Martyn first directed his life purpose to be a foreign missionary. A further acquaintance with the story of Dr. Dulles showed me his Unkings with other foreign missionaries in the line of this truth of good men’s influencing others for good; therefore I am moved to speak of him.
John W. Dulles was a native of Philadelphia. He was prepared for college in the well-known academy of Samuel W. Crawford in that city. He was a graduate of Yale in the class of 1844, as his father had graduated before him in the class of 1814. While in college he united on confession with the College Church; and after graduation he connected himself by letter with the Chnton Street Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. He pursued his theological studies in Union Theological Seminary in New York. He also studied medicine, in order to be better fitted for the missionary work to which he had been drawn, as has been said, from his first reading of the life of Henry Martyn. His purpose of going as a missionary was intensified by his intimacy with a classmate, Allan Macy, who became a missionary to China, after whom Dr. Dulles named a son, who is now a clergyman in Watertown, New York.
Another linking of Dr. Dulles with the missionaries was his marrying a young daughter of the eminent missionary scholar, the Rev. Miron Winslow, of Ceylon and India. This daughter had been brought to this country to be educated, and was a member of the family of Pelatiah Perit of New York, whose wife was her aunt. Mr. Perit was a native of Norwich, Connecticut, as was her mother, the devoted young Sunday-school worker, Harriet Lathrop. Mr. Perit was President of the New York Chamber of Commerce, and was a well-known philanthropist. Even while young Dulles was a student in the Theological Seminary he was occupied during his vacations as a home missionary and colporteur of the American Tract Society. In 1848 he was ordained, and set sail for Southern India, as a missionary of the American Board. His wife was not only a devoted and consecrated missionary who Was heartily with her husband in his spirit and work, but as one born in the missionary field towards which they went she had exceptional fitness as a helper in his new endeavors.
Other young missionaries were with Dr. Dulles and his good wife in their outgoing voyage to the mission field, and in the true spirit of the faithful missionary they began work at once for Christ and for souls. Not only did they have social Bible study and daily worship among themselves on the long sea-voyage to the opposite side of the world, but they did useful and helpful individual work with individuals, and in this good work Dr. Dulles was active and efficient. Among others the commander of the vessel in which they went out was won to Christ, and the change in his character and conduct was most marked. Subsequent years evidenced that the change was thorough and permanent. As he came back to India on his vessel from time to time he showed his loving and grateful interest in the missionaries and their occupation. And this continued until he closed his life course in his death by cholera in Calcutta.
Dr. Dulles had a field of labor assigned to him in Madras, the station which Dr. Winslow, the father of Mrs. Dulles, had first occupied for the American Board when he removed from Ceylon. There the young missionaries found enough to do in every line of good. Dr. Dulles was impressed by the suggestive surroundings of his new field from the hour of his first landing. As their vessel drew nearer to the coast he had his first sight of “the Seven Pagodas of Malaveram — ancient temples standing upon the shore, and one of them on a rock washed by the sea.” These were indications of the ancient non-Christian religions of India, among peoples neither ignorant nor barbarous, as we sometimes think of the condition of heathen and pagans. They have a high culture of its kind, and they need to be dealt with wisely, like the Athenians of old, in the effort to win them to Christ.
Not far from the place of the “Seven Pagodas of Malaveram” there came in sight “Mount St. Thom6,” some eight mUes from Madras, “with its shining white Roman Catholic Church, the reputed burial place of the apostle Thomas.” This suggested how early attempts had been made to win India to Christ and how much of this work yet remains to be done. And this was the entrance of the young missionaries into their new field of Christian effort.
Different peoples with different languages are to be labored with and cared for in India by the Christian missionaries. Of course each missionary has to become familiar with the language of those to whom he is sent. Dr. Dulles had to know and use the Tamil language, and to its mastery his first endeavors in Madras were directed. As educating the young rather than addressing the mature-minded in continuous discourse (sometimes miscalled “preaching”) as the most hopeful form of missionary work in the East, Dr. Dulles found and valued schools for boys and girls in considerable numbers in Madras; and to do his part in making them a success he set himself, aided by his good missionary wife.
Individual work with individuals and publicly addressing them, as they were met or were gathered in the streets and bazaars and places of public resort in city and country, afforded opportunities of gaining influence and of impressing Christian truth. As to this kind of work. Dr. Dulles was accustomed to tell me, in his later years, of the lights and shadows and the differences on the part of different missionaries, in the measure of tact and wisdom shown by them, and in the relative degree of success attained in their endeavors. Those who sought to get the. best of their opponents in an argument had their reward in their own opinion of the contest. But those who showed the spirit of Christ in their endeavors to influence souls were able to win love, even though nothing was said about it on either side.
One method of work assigned to Dr. Dulles in the mission field was the making of tours about the country in a palankeen borne on the shoulders of native carriers. This was for the twofold purpose of evangelizing and of finding new and desirable stations for missionary occupancy. In this way and by other kinds of missionary service Dr. Dulles acquired a better knowledge of the native peoples and religions of India than is acquired by some missionaries who have longer service in cities and in educational institutions, without becoming acquainted with the more primitive life of the people in the country. Brahmanism, Booddhism, Parseeisra, Muhammadanism, and the composite religion known as Hindooism, are distinct and different systems of belief and practice, each one requiring its special and peculiar mode of treatment in order to win souls without unnecessarily offending prejudice or giving offense.
Dr. Dulles improved his time in becoming acquainted with his field and the various peoples in it, while being in active missionary service among them all. This is indicated by the contents of a little book written by him after his return, and published by the American Sunday-school Union, entitled “Life in India.” At the time of its publication, nearly half a century ago, the information it gives in a popular way was less familiar or accessible than it has since become through the issue of similar publications by later missionaries. This little book did important service to very many through its wide circulation in our Sunday-schools, extending to thousands upon thousands, and it still has value to those who are desirous of information on the various points of which it treats.
In the providence of God Dr. Dulles was called to return to his home field to do other work in other ways for the Master. His voice failed him so that he could no longer be as a voice crying God’s message in the non-Christian wilderness; but he was summoned to be in other ways than he had chosen as a voice speaking needed words to very many in a Christian land. On his rettnn to this country in 1852 he became Secretary of Missions of the American Sunday-school Union, of which his father had been one of the founders and was an influential manager to the day of his death. In that position ‘the returned missionary was enabled to reach those who needed to have help from missionaries on our unevangelized borders. In 1856 Dr. Dulles was called to be Secretary and Editor of the publications of the New School branch of the Presbyterian Church. When, in 1870, the two branches of that church were reunited he was chosen Editorial Secretary of the Board of Publication of the reunited church. Li such work as this he continued until his earthly life closed in 1887. Thus even after it was said that he had lost his voice his words continued for more than thirty years to reach more than even while his voice was strongest.
When I came to West Philadelphia in 1875 I connected myself with the Walnut Street Presbyterian Church and had a Bible class in the Sunday-school of which Dr. Dulles was and for years had been the superintendent. As I had known him and his honored father for years and he was my near neighbor I continued intimate with him until he departed this life. And for that intimacy I am grateful.
That Walnut Street Church was a church with an exceptional missionary atmosphere. A son of one of the former elders had gone from it as a missionary to Japan. The superintendent of its Sunday-school for years was a returned missionary from India. Two of his sons born in India were, at the time I came to Philadelphia, active in that church and Sunday-school. Another of his sons married the daughter of a missionary who had laid down his life in the mission field in Persia, and he was for years treasurer of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions.
A clergyman who was for years active and much valued in the Walnut Street Church was born in Ceylon, that battle-field for Christ, one of the strategic points for the world’s conquest. This was the Rev. Dr. D. W. Poor, son of the Rev. Dr. Daniel Poor, who did such efficient service in the mission field of the East and laid down his life there. A member of the Bible class of the Walnut Street Sunday-school, and for some time a teacher in the Sunday-school, married a member of that church, and the two went out as missionaries to Siam. He was a missionary physician, and he laid down his consecrated life in his chosen field. A young woman, a member of that church, who had been aided by other members of that church while studying at Northfield preparatory to going as a missionary, married, and with her husband went to Siam as her field.
Ipo Old Time Student Volunteers
Another member of that church and Sunday-school, after serving for a time as a pastor in New Jersey, went as a missionary to China. He was there at the time of the “Boxer” uprising. Escaping with his wife, who was a missionary before they were married, he came back for a time to his old church home in West Philadelphia, where he sought to arouse added interest in the missionary field and work. Yet another valued member of that church married and went to Nanking in the Central China Mission. There she was for years associated with Mrs. Leaman in the care of the influential girls’ school.
The widow and children of the Rev. Dr. Arthur Mitchell, long the efficient secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, having their home in that church, gave added interest to the meetings and work of the “Woman’s Missionary Society.” Moreover, as Mrs. Mitchell was a sister of Dr. George E. Post of the American Protestant College in Beyroot, Syria, prominent missionaries from the East came to her home and aided to increase the missionary zeal and atmosphere of that favored church. One of her daughters went out from that church as a missionary to India. Another young woman who went from that church as a missionary to India was of an exceptional family, of which three generations sat for years side by side in the Bible class there. And yet another young woman from that church went to India as a trained nurse missionary.
For years that Sunday-school had contributed to the support and training of a little Syrian girl, born at Mt. Lebanon, and in school at Beyroot. She married a Sjrrian from Damascus, whose parents were killed in one of the massacres at an uprising of the Druses. This young missionary couple went to a mission station up the Nile. At the Muhammadan uprising in Egypt under Arabi Pasha they fled for their lives to Malta, and thence came on a vessel to America. Thus Layyah Barakat became a missionary in and from that church. She labored for Syrians and for Italians in Philadelphia, and for years she did much, in this country, for the foreign missionary cause and work.
A fine Oriental scholar. Dr. T. H. Powers Sailer, of that church, an instructor in Hebrew and in the English Bible in the University of Pennsylvania, was a prominent representative of the International Student Volunteer movement. He had visited, in connection with that work, various mission fields of the East. He also had under his charge in this church, and in other churches, large classes engaged in the study of missions. Thus it is evident that those who were in that church had peculiar incitement to and influence in behalf of missionary zeal. If they failed to improve the opportunities which God put before them, the lack and fault were their own.
Moreover, in that church I had exceptional advantages and helpers in my personal Oriental studies and researches. A son of Dr. Dulles was my companion in Egypt and on the desert of Sinai and in my finding the site of Kadesh-barnea, in 1881. Again, in my Oriental studies I had help from Drs. Dulles and Poor in the line of Tamil and from Dr. Sailer in Hebrew. Meantime the great truth was renewedly impressed upon me that no slight or unimportant part of the good work done by foreign missionaries is that which is accomplished in behalf of needy Christians at home. And that is a lesson worth considering gratefully by all of us.