Working for Missions Among Christian Children: Dr. John Scudder
Talking familiarly to children, either in the pulpit or elsewhere, about religious matters, was never a common custom, either in our country or abroad, before the now finished century. It is not easy to realize how true is this truth. Only those who remember its beginnings can appreciate the gain of the children of nowadays, over those of former times, in this particular. As a boy, nearly sixty years ago, I had read with understanding and interest much about foreign missions, and I had even heard missionary addresses to the older people, before I ever thought of having a real living missionary make an address from the pulpit directly to me and the other boys and girls. It can hardly be understood what a surprise it was when such a thing came to pass. It seemed as if one of the angels had come down into the realm of the little folks to recognize them as worth noticing and speaking to.
It was when I was about fourteen or fifteen years old, that, in my Stonington home, where I heard Dr. Daniel Poor, the children and young people were invited to come to the village church and listen to an address to be made directly to them by the Rev. Dr. John Scudder, about his work as a missionary in India. What a day that was to us little folks! How we felt uplifted in importance! With what a new interest we now looked at the missionary from the far-off land, who had come to tell us of his field and work! What a fresh responsibility we had, to hear what he said, and to get our share of good out of it!
Dr. John Scudder was himself an object of interest. While an active practicing physician in New York City, he took up in the room of a lady patient a tract, or booklet, on “The Conversion of the World j Or, The Claims of Six Hundred Millions.” Its appeal entered his inner being. He earnestly sought from God direction as to his duty. In response, he had a call from God to go as a missionary. His wife expressed her willingness to accompany him, taking their little child. He accordingly determined to devote his life to the newly recognized field. He went out, in 1819, as a missionary of the American Board to Ceylon. He gave up a lucrative medical and surgical practice in order to be a missionary. But this made his going all the more a notable example. The first sheaf of his rich harvest was young James Brainerd Taylor, who was led to devote his life to Christ by this example of Dr. Scudder.
Twenty-three years later he was, with Dr. Miron Winslow, transferred to Madras to begin a fresh work there. Devoting himself to the care of both bodies and spirits in the foreign field. Dr. Scudder was there not only a personal power for his Master, but he became, as it were, the head of a valiant tribe of mis-Dr. John Scudder 43
sionary workers. Eight sons, two daughters, four grandchildren, and perhaps by this time more or less great-grandchildren, have followed him in this service, rising up to call him blessed, and to walk in his steps as he walked in those of his Master. And the starting point of this family procession in Christ’s service was when Dr. Scudder consecrated himself to Christ’s service.
In several ways Dr. Scudder followed as his Master had led. He cared for the bodies as well as for the spirits of those who were in need. He was none the less a good physician for being a preacher of the gospel. He was quite a pioneer as a modern medical missionary. He conducted an extensive hospital in Ceylon more than sixty years ago. He wrought cures that were deemed miraculous, and that won new hearers to the gospel message.
Dr. Scudder realized the importance and impressibility of children, and he sought to win them to Christ and Christ’s cause while they were children. In this also he followed his Master. He was one of the first to emphasize the value of educating the young as a means of missionary work, instead of spending most of his time on adult unbelievers. Moreover, he saw no reason why children in Christian lands were not entitled to as great privileges in this regard as young heathen. When he came back to this country in 1843 for a visit of two or three years, in order to regain his shattered health, he devoted much of his time and strength to public addresses to children. It was estimated that he then addressed more than one hundred thousand children — a great multitude for that day — on the subject of missions. I have always been glad that I was one of that hundred thousand.
Dr. Scudder wrote for children, as well as talked to them. A little volume by him, called “Letters to Children on Missionary Subjects,” and another called “Grandpapa and Little Mary,” were in the Sunday-school libraries, and in many of the homes of that day. Few now realize how much was done for the cause of missions, in that generation and in the following ones, through his work for and among the young.
I recall the missionary as a white-haired, sunnyfaced, pleasant speaker, making vivid and real out of his personal knowledge the facts of which I had read in print, and had seen pictured in illustrations, of the horrors of heathenism and the degradations of idolatry. Many of those, besides myself, who listened to his earnest words, have ever since had added interest in the cause for which he pleaded.