Going Down into Egypt: Gulian Lansing

From Syria to Egypt has been the trend of travel and of conquest from the earliest historic days. It was so, according to the Assyrian and Egyptian monuments, when the Babylonians, the Chaldeans, the Assyrians, the Hittites, and the Egyptians were the great contending world-powers. It was so, according to the Bible story, in the days of Abraham and Jacob, and of the Jews and the house of Israel. Damascus is the oldest inhabited city of the world now remaining. Christian missions have moved from Damascus and Antioch towards Egypt and Ethiopia from the days of Philip to our day. And among the missionaries moving down that route, there have been men of God worthy of remembrance and of honor.

A mission in Syria was established by the Associate Reformed Synod of the West in 1844. It was called a “Mission to the Jews,” and it still bears that designation. The Rev. James Barnet and Dr. J. G. Paulding went out as the pioneer missionaries to that field. In 185 1 the Rev. Gulian Lansing and his wife, with several other missionaries, joined the first party. ‘Irish and Scotch missionaries worked with them. It was in connection with the mission to the Jews at

Damascus that Dr. William Wright of the Irish Presbyterian Church made his important discovery of the Hittite inscriptions that have opened up to the world such a field of fresh and important researches.

In the winter of 1851-52, Dr. Paulding was compelled to go to Egypt for his health. And to the illness that caused that move is due the establishing of the important American mission in Egypt, with all its good to precious souls. How often is it thus that our deprivation of health and strength, or of other valued personal possessions, is a means of rich blessing to us or to our fellows! He saw the needs of this whitening spiritual harvest field in Egypt, and when his health was restored, and he could return to Damascus, he pressed the importance of an Egyptian mission, and, on his representation to the Church in America, the mission was started.

Mr. Barnet and Mr. McCague were the first to go there. In 1857 Mr. Gulian Lansing followed. He went first to Alexandria, where he found Mr. John Hogg of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland. In 1857 Mr. Lansing was transferred from Damascus, where he had had some five years’ experience in missionary work, to Alexandria, and there with his former associate, Mr. Barnet, he took up heartily the work in his new field. He was genial and kindly, enjoying intercourse with men; and he was earnest and zealous, glad to do his utmost for souls and for his Saviour.

Soon after he began work at Alexandria, Mr. Lansing accompanied an American friend up the Nile, and he was interested in finding the most desirable and hopeful site for another mission station. Meantime he was perfecting himself in Arabic, so as to be able to preach to and talk with the natives. Assiut was finally decided on as their up-the-river station, and arrangements were made to make a fresh beginning there. In Alexandria schools were begun, religious services were held, religious literature was distributed, and much time was given to visiting the homes of the people, and to face-to-face talks with them. Confidence was won from some; suspicion was aroused in the minds of some, and hostility was the result of suspicion and fear of proselyting in the case of others. But through all the missionaries persevered and had faith, and they were prospered.

The population was mixed and varied. There were Muhammadans, Copts, Jews, Armenians, Greek Catholics, Roman Catholics, and others of several Protestant Christian denominations. The Copts were peculiarly an interesting class of people. Nominally Christian, and priding themselves on their ancient liturgy and early history, they were practically more ignorant of the simplest and most fundamental truths of Christianity than the children in the infant or primary class of an American Sunday-school. It was much the same with the young of many of the other religious bodies. So there was important missionary work to be done wherever the missionaries turned in Egypt.

By a division of the missionaries for a more systematic and efficient service, in 1861, Dr. Lansing went to Cairo and had charge of the station there, while

Mr. Watson was in charge in Alexandria, having other missionaries with him. It was in 1881 that I first visited Egypt, and at that time I first met Dr. Andrew Watson in Alexandria, and Dr. Gulian Lansing in Cairo. It was my first experience in the foreign missionary field, and it was then that I received my first personal impressions of the men and their work from such experience. And I am glad to retain those first impressions to this day. I could not have better, nor do I wish to have.

Of course there were trials and obstacles; there were privations and perils; there were opposers and persecutors to be met and endured; there are few mission fields in which there are not. But all these only made the missionaries more trustfully dependent on Him for whom they stood, and who was sufficient in and through all. Smallpox made its ravages; cholera prevailed widely at times; there were, again and again, fears of the plague, while it was carrying off many in the countries farther East. At times there were indications of uprisings in the community against civil or ecclesiastical rulers, with consequent interruptions to the mission schools, and efforts on the part of one or another of the various “Patriarchs” or “Metropolitans” to suppress the supposed endeavors of the missionaries to introduce a new religion, and to draw away supporters of this or that old order of things. At one time the Egyptian viceroy and the Coptic Patriarch combined to crush out the missionaries, but they failed. And the spirit of Christ on the part of those who stood for Christ and who sought to win others to Him, was the best antidote to all these troubles and opposings, as it has been from the beginning.

As I first saw the missions and the missionary work in Alexandria and in Cairo, I realized the inspiration and the stimulus that it must be, to those men of God and representatives of Christ to labor for souls in such suggestive surroundings. At Alexandria there were memories of Alexander, and of Ctesar, and of Pompey, and of Cleopatra; of the Jewish centre in the days of the rival worship of Jehovah, as over against Jerusalem; and of the Jewish scholars who there translated their Hebrew Scriptures into the language of the Greeks, and thus gave to the Gentile world God’s teachings to the Jews as a people, which was the first great help to true missionary labors. And in what Dr. Bushnell speaks of as this “tide swell of a great historic consciousness” the American mission was laying foundations anew and working again the first works of Christianity.

At Cairo Dr. Lansing was a power for good, at his mission station, and from that centre outward beyond. He was loved and honored as a man, and highly valued as a missionary by those whom he taught and by many others who knew of his good work. He seemed to appreciate his historic and inspiring surroundings, and yet to value them most as impelling him to a missionary work worthy of his field and of Him whom he represented. After visiting the mighty pyramids, and the impressive sphinx, and the tombs of the great of long-gone generations; after looking at the obelisk at the site of the temple of On, where Joseph married the daughter of the high-priest; after riding out to the traditional site of the resting-place of Joseph and Mary and the Holy Child; after looking into the mosques with their memories and their lessons, and attending sessions of the great Muhammadan college, or university, of Elazhar, where the Quran is taught to the youth, — it was good to return to the quiet and sacred mission ‘church, where under Dr. Lansing’s guidance, the Bible in its simplicity and preciousness was studied, and God was worshipped in the beauty of holiness. Tourists and health-seekers were sharers with the native congregation in the blessings of this centre of good.

Walking with Dr. Lansing through the streets of Cairo, it was good to see, by the greetings that were given to him by the more prominent and by the humbler classes in the community whom he met or passed on the way, that he was recognized and honored as a good man and a man of God, who was a friend to all and their helper in Christ’s name. Foreign residents as well as natives testified to his power for good. I came to honor Dr. Lansing as a man and as a missionary, for himself and for his work’s sake, both while I was in Cairo and afterwards through my correspondence with him, and through my learning from others still more about himself and his work.

Tourists and ordinary travellers from America and Europe to Palestine and India and beyond were visitors at Cairo, as they came or went by the Suez Canal; and Dr. Lansing had and improved opportunities for impressing and co-working with them. Thus he aided and was aided by Lord Aberdeen and

Lady Aberdeen in their Bible distributing and other evangelistic work. Hon. Bancroft Davis, our Ambassador at Berlin, in his diplomatic position, and Judge Batchellor, of the International Tribunal at Cairo, were glad to show their interest in the mission, and commended it most warmly. The Rev. Dr. Henry C. Potter, now Bishop Potter of New York, then rector of Grace Church, was led to congratulate heartily the missionaries on their good work, as he had occasion to see it. His Highness Maharajah Dhulup Singh, of India, in whom Queen Victoria had shown an interest, was an object of Dr. Lansing’s special interest and concern, and he married one of Dr. Lansing’s pupils to help the Prince in his new Christian life. The Prince was a son of the late King of the Punjab in Northern India, and heir to his throne. He had embraced Christianity in England. His marriage in Cairo had its influence on the mission. Dr. Grant Bey, the prominent British physician and archaeologist, a resident of Cairo, was a warm friend of and co-worker with Dr. Lansing. The new and commodious American Mission House in Cairo became in fact a light to the nations, at that important centre. The rebellion of Arabi Pasha with its far-reaching consequences, including the massacre of Christians at Alexandria and other points, and the death of General Gordon, and finally the decisive conflict under Lord Wolseley and the English occupation of Egypt, interrupted for a time Dr. Lansing’s work. But he persevered through all; and his work goes on now that he has entered into rest.

While Dr. Lansing’s centre was at Cairo, the circumference of his missionary sphere was far beyond. As in Micronesia the missionaries had a missionary vessel called the Morning Star to aid them in their gospel work, so in Egypt the missionaries had a Nile boat called the Morning Star to be at their Master’s service. Dr. Lansing’s missionary station at Assiut, up the Nile, was a means of much good to those on the river and along the banks. Moreover, his earlier labors in Damascus and Syria enabled him to select native helpers in that region to be under his direction in Egypt. Some of these were workers in Alexandria, some in Cairo, and others up the Nile. Such helpers were more easily obtainable and at much less expense than any brought from America j and they had the advantage of familiarity with the language, and with the ways and modes of thought, of the people whom they sought to win. Among these helpers were Mr. and Mrs. Elias Barakat of Damascus, who labored in the mission field up the Nile until they were driven out by the Muhammadan uprising under Arabi Pasha, at which time they came to America. Since then Madame Lajryah Barakat has been doing a good work arousing interest in missions and in her people. In various other ways the good work of good Dr. Lansing has been going on ever since he entered into rest; and I am only one among very many who are glad to have known him, and to have felt the stimulus of his example and words.