Lexicographer, Educator, and Missionary: Dr. Miron Winslow

DR. MIRON WINSLOW was an exceptional man, in his family stock, in his personal character and traits, in his accomplished work, and in his influence and reputation. He was a member of the family that furnished a governor for Plymouth Colony in the early years of New England’s settlement, and that has been prominent for men and women of superior worth in every succeeding generation, down to the present day. Miron Winslow was born in Vermont, in 1789. In his young manhood he was engaged in mercantile pursuits in Norwich, Connecticut. It was about this time that Adoniram Judson, and Samuel Nott, 2d, and Samuel J. Mills, and others, were starting out as missionaries to the foreign field. Samuel Nott’s home was in the neighborhood of Norwich, and, naturally, much was said there of the missionary cause.

Young Winslow was deeply impressed on the subject, and he determined to have a part in the good work. He entered Middlebury College, near his Vermont home, and later he pursued special studies in languages in Yale. Then he graduated from Andover Theological Seminary. Desiring to do something near home in behalf of the heathen, before he went out among them, he gave some time to preaching in behalf of the American Board, “raising large sums of money for its work and displaying that rare combination of intellectual, business, and religious gifts, which so distinguished his subsequent career.”

Miron Winslow, together with Pliny Fisk and two other missionaries, were ordained February 6, 18 19, in the Tabernacle Church, at Salem, Massachusetts, where on February 6, 181 2, there had been ordained young Judson, Nott, Hall, Newell, and Rice, the initial company of American foreign missionaries. Mr. VVinslow married Miss Harriet Lathrop of Norwich Town, Connecticut, who accompanied him on his mission; and she became almost as marked a woman, as a missionary’s wife and helper and co-worker, as he was as a missionary.

As showing the sort of woman that Harriet Lathrop was, it may be mentioned that she first came out from her family and home and confessed her childUke trust in her Saviour. Hearing of what was then new in America, the Sunday-school, she gathered a little Sunday-school in the galleries of her home church. The church authorities deemed this a desecration of the house and day, and they drove her and her charge out from the church. Then she gathered the little ones in a neighboring schoolhouse. But public sentiment would not tolerate this there, and again she and her charge were expelled. Nothing daunted, she taught the little ones on the church steps in the open air, until public sentiment was changed and the gallery was again open to her. In my young manhood I was told on the testimony of an eye-witness that when the old pastor, in his knee breeches and cocked hat, passed the schoolhouse where this young and devoted teacher had her Sunday-school for a season, he shook his ivory-headed cane towards the building, and said in honest indignation, “You imps of Satan doing the Devil’s work I” Yet that man was not one of the heathen, nor had he much interest in them. He simply represented the average American Christian of that day.

As showing the character and worth of that devoted and persistent Sunday-school teacher, who went out into the foreign missionary field as the wife of Miron Winslow, it can be said that when she as a girl confessed Christ, she was the only one of her family to be known as a Christian., But her father and her mother followed her into the church, and so did every other member of the now devoted family. When she became a foreign missionary three of her sisters followed her in that step. One of her brothers died just as he entered the ministry. Another brother, whom I knew and valued, went West as a home missionary. A daughter of hers labored as a missionary’s wife in India, — the wife of the Rev. Dr. John W. Dulles of Philadelphia. The little Sunday-school which she organized under such difficulties, in Norwich Town, has continued and prospered unto this day. At its fiftieth anniversary I heard its then pastor pay a glowing tribute to her memory, as he read aloud the names of twenty-six ministers and missionaries who had already gone out from that Sunday-school as a centre of Bible study and of Christian influence. And “the end is not yet.” “Behold, how much wood is kindled by how small a fire I” especially when the fire is kindled of God in the heart of a loving, trustful child.

Dr. Miron Winslow went in 18 19 as a missionary to Oodooville, Ceylon, and there he remained until 1833. He was in advance of most missionaries and Christian workers in perceiving that in God’s plan, and in the heeds of humanity, the true Christianizing of a heathen people requires the educating and training of that people from childhood, and not the mere sounding an alarm, and giving an invitation to old and hardened sinners with matured and confirmed convictions and habits. In this he was, by seven or eight years, in advance of good Dr. Alexander Duff, who, after his experience in Calcutta, endeavored to impress this view on the Christian world.

In 1826 a seminary was started, as has been mentioned, at Batticotta. Its plan, according to the views of the missionary founders, was that “of giving the pupils a good knowledge of English and Western science, in connection with their own vernaculars, instead of Sanskrit.” This institution was eminently successful. As Dr. Winslow afterwards wrote of it, “The institution had great influence in raising the standard of education in North Ceylon, and affected even the continent.” The old seminary buildings at Batticotta were afterwards occupied by Jaffna College, begun in 1872, with an English curriculum. This is financially independent of the American Board, being supported by fees and two funds, one in America and one in Ceylon. Other educational institutions in Ceylon are prosperous. From Ceylon Dr. Winslow went to Madras, in 1836, and established there the mission of the American Board, that has since been so influential. And here he began the work that was the most important of his life doings, and for which scholars the world over know and honor him.

This was, in addition to the translation of the Bible into Tamil, the completion of a Tamil and English dictionary, or as its title reads, “A Comprehensive Tamil and English Dictionary of High and Low Tamil.” Some idea of the magnitude and importance of this work can be gained, when we learn that “it contains 67,452 words with their definitions, of which 30,551 for the first time take their place in Tamil lexicography.” An American reviewer said of this work: “It thus appears that nearly half of all the words in the Tamil language own their English lexicographical birth and position to our American Orientalist. The work... includes both the common and poetic dialects, and the astronomical, astrological, mythological, botanical, scientific and official terms, together with the names of authors, heroes, and gods.” Its fullness and thoroughness, the result of so much work and of so high scholarship, made this the first and only complete Tamil and English dictionary ever published. The relation of Tamil to Sanskrit, and the relation of that to the English language, give this dictionary an important place in the study of languages. It was welcomed, not only by missionaries, but by the government officials of India.

On the reception pf this Tamil and English lexicon in America, Harvard University gave the author the honorary degree of D. D. A little later Middlebury College, his Alma Mater, gave him the degree of LL. D. In 1856 Dr. Winslow visited the United States again, and for the last time. He was welcomed joyously and gratefully wherever he spoke or went. It was good to see him and to hear him. He was a man of God, in his looks and his bearing, in his words and his spirit. His face was indeed a benediction, and his snowy locks were a crown of glory. It was evident that his chief interest was in bringing men to God, and in bringing a knowledge of God to man. He cared more for the language of Zion, than for Tamil or Sanskrit or Singalese. While in the United States, in that brief visit, he wrote a little work, of practical worth, “Hints on Missions.” This was not to evidence his high scholarship, but it was an evidence of his great love for souls, and for the Saviour of souls.

As an illustration of the extent of his labors in varied departments of the great mission field, it is said that during the period of his service there, there was issued from the missionary press under his supervision an aggregate of 535,000,000 pages. Yet this was in addition to his work of evangelizing and of educating and of translating, and of work done in other ways. How many that one man influenced for good!

After forty-five years of devoted and fruitful missionary service in India and Ceylon, Dr. Winslow, in rapidly failing health, turned his face towards America, accompanied by Mrs. Winslow, August 27,

1864. But he lived only to reach Cape Town, Africa, where, on October 22, 1864, he entered into rest. His body lies in the Cape Town Cemetery, by the grave of the devoted Scudder, with whom he had labored lovingly in the mission field.