CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY ARCHIVE

Section III: Central Records

Part 13: CMS Collection of Lives of Missionaries held at the Church Mission Society Library
Part 14: CMS Collection of Lives of Missionaries held at the Church Mission Society Library

Introduction to Part 14

The lives of missionaries included in this part are from the Max Warren Library at the Church Mission Society Library, London. The books consist of biographical works on both male and female CMS missionaries. Part 14 covers missionaries L-Y whilst Part 13 addressed those missionaries with initials A-L.

The books are for the majority written for adults, some of them by wives or husbands of missionaries and some by professional authors. There are also some small books written by the CMS themselves. There are also a few books written for the younger audience.

The contents of the books are mixed, some being merely a story of the life and work of the missionary, but others with interesting extracts from the missionary’s letters and journals. A considerable number also contain photographs and maps.

The biographies give us a fascinating insight into the work of the missionaries and the lives of the people they worked among. There is much on itineration in the missions and the evangelical side of the work as well as details of local customs, traditions, homes, dress and religious practices.

Missionaries who worked in China, India, Hong Kong, Canada, New Zealand, Ceylon, Sudan, Uganda, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, British Guiana are all featured here.

Some of the missionaries included are:

 - Joseph Lofthouse, Canada
 - Alexander Muirhead Mackay, Uganda
 - Dr Duncan Main, Hangchow, Chekiang, China
 - Right Rev Robert Milman, Bishop of Calcutta, India
 - Right Rev George Evans Moule, Bishop in China
 - Dr Arthur Neve, Head of Kashmir Medical Mission, India
 - Rev William Oakley, Ceylon
 - Rev Edmund James Peck, Canada
 - Dr Theodore Leighton Pennell, Bannu Medical Mission, North West Frontier, India
 - Rev George Lawrence Pilkington, Uganda
 - John Piper, Hong Kong and Japan
 - Rev Josiah Pratt, Secretary of the CMS, 1846-1858
 - Rev Thomas Gajetan Ragland, Madras and North Tinnevelly, South India
 - Rev Edward Roper, Yoruba, Africa
 - Right Rev William Armstrong Russell, Bishop in North China
 - Rev William Haddow, Sudan
 - Rev James Frederick Schon, Nigeria
 - Rev A H Sheldon, Tinnevelly, South India
 - Rev George Smith, Foochow, China
 - Right Rev George Smith, Bishop of Victoria, Hong Kong
 - Right Rev John Taylor Smith, Bishop of Sierra Leone
 - Rev William Smith, Benares, North India
 - Vernon Harold Starr, Peshawar, India
 - Rev Robert Warren and Mrs Louisa Stewart, Foochow, China
 - Rev Henry Townsend, Sierra Leone and Abeokuta in Yoruba
 - Rev John Thomas Tucker, Tinnevelly, India
 - Alfred Tucker, Uganda
 - Mary Vaughan, Hangchow, China
 - Edith Warner, Nigeria
 - Rev John James Weitbrecht, Burdwan, Bengal, India
 - Rev Michael Wilkinson, India
 - Archdeacon Henry Williams, Waimate, New Zealand
 - Frederick Wybrow, Calcutta, India
 - Thomas Youd, British Guiana

EXTRACTS

REEL 179

Rev Joseph Lofthouse, Canada

A thousand miles from a post office. Or, twenty years life and travel in the Hudson’s Bay regions by Rev J Lofthouse

“….. One’s first attempt in living in a snow-house is an experience attended with no small degree of discomfort and repulsion. The house is round, made of large blocks of snow cut out of a snow-bank. Inside it is about twelve feet in diameter. About half of it is raised some two feet, forming a sort of dais; this is used as a living and sleeping place, being covered over with plaited willows or long dry grass. On this are laid the deerskin robes or sleeping-bags which form your bed.

The Eskimos when retiring for the night creep into these robes, slip off their garments, putting them outside to freeze, so that in the morning you can shake them and they are quite dry. The temperature is, of course, always below freezing point; there is no fire, but a small, smelly, blubber lamp gives a dim religious light. The  ventilation is nil or only such as you get from the small doorway, and at times the atmosphere becomes almost unbearable. I shall never forget the first night. I could hardly breathe. Being nearly suffocated, I at last arose and crept outside, but as it was blowing a regular blizzard, and the thermometer was nearly fifty below zero, I speedily came to the conclusion that it was better to suffocate than to freeze to death, so crept back into the iglo, and used the body of my Eskimo companion as a foot-warmer….”

REEL 181

Alexander M Mackay, Uganda

Mackay of Uganda published by the Church Missionary Society

“Wilson and Mackay, the clerical and the lay Missionary, reached the capital on November 6th, 1878; and, although Mutesa, the king, was too ill to see them that day, he sent presents to them. They were told on the 8th to go at once to the king’s baraza, or court. So they passed through a double row of guards into a large hall, and found the king, in an embroidered dress, sitting on a mat. He bowed politely, and seats were brought for them. An old woman, who sat behind the king, looked at them intently. For ten minutes they all kept silence, engaged in watching one another. Then the Missionaries produced their presents, one of which was a musical box, that began to play; but the baraza soon broke up, as Mutesa did not feel well….

….At other times he gave lectures in astronomy, with illustrations, or explained the circulation of the blood, and tried to make the king understand the wondrous nature of the human body, and took occasion to denounce the wretched slave-trade, which was a traffic in human flesh and blood. He constructed a magic-lantern, the chimney of which was made out of old biscuit-tins. There was not a wheel to be found in the country, and everything was done by brute force. Now the people saw revolving handmills, grindstone, screws etc etc; and they saw that the wonderful white man could make water flow for their use. He had also a printing machine; he prepared large type sheets in the native language, and he began to teach boys to read….”

REEL 181

Dr Duncan Main, Hangchow CMS Hospital, Chekiang, China

Dr D Duncan Main of Hangchow, who is known as Dr Apricot of Heaven Below by Kingston De Gruche

Dr Main worked at the hospital in Hangchow for forty six years!

In the following extract he describes the position in Hangchow at the beginning of the civil war in China in 1911.

“ Since the beginning of the Revolution in the north of China, there has been a feeling of unrest and great uncertainty regarding Hangchow because of its being a Manchu garrison city. It was thought there would be a struggle on the part of the Manchus, and that they would not quickly surrender. During the past few weeks thousands of people have been leaving the city, fleeing with their treasures. Last week, when people were panic stricken and coolies had to carry away everything and everybody, there was difficulty, and the situation became most serious. Fear spread like wild fire, and shopkeepers began to shut up their shops, and work and business practically ceased. Then there was a raid on the rice shops and rioters made a disturbance for two days. At night we could hear them wildly running through the streets shouting and calling out when their burdens became too heavy to carry, and then there was general looting among themselves. Even the women and children shared in the spoil and in the early hours of the morning could be seen with baskets and bags taking what they could….”

REEL 182

Dr Arthur Neve, Kashmir, India

A crusader in Kashmir. Being the life of Dr Arthur Neve, with an account of the medical missionary work of two brothers and its later developments down to the present day by Ernest Frederic Neve.

“…. But Arthur Neve was no mere idealist. He was intensely practical. This is evident in the following account of district work undertaken in those days:

‘Itineration has been a very interesting feature of this year’s work. Preaching and the healing art have, hand in hand, visited many of the small towns in the district. In the Wazier garden at Islamabad, under the Chenar groves at Bijbehara and Pampoor, by the broad, placid river at Sopur, in the visitors’ bungalow at Baramula, the busy portal of the Happy Valley, in the stately pleasure-gardens at Vernag and Atchibal, by the sacred tank at Bawan, below the great mosque at Eishmakam, among the walnut-trees and orchards of sequestered mountain villages, have the message of Divine love and the ministry of loving care been brought to the sick and to the ignorant….”

REEL 184

Rev Theodore Leighton Pennell, North West Frontier, India

Among the wild tribes of the Afghan Frontier. A record of sixteen years close intercourse with the natives of the Indian marches. With an introduction by Field-Marshal Earl Roberts by Rev Pennell

“ Most of the faqirs one meets with in Afghanistan are lazy fellows, who abhor hard work, and find they can make an easy living by begging, and acquire at the same time, what is so dear to many natures, the homage and respect of the credulous and superstitious….

When such a faqir dies he is buried in some prominent place, often at the crossing of roads, and his tomb has even greater efficacy than he himself had when living….

The fine, tall Sikh soldiery of the frontier regiments are some of the nicest men one could have to deal with; the native officers are such perfect gentlemen, and so gentle and docile when conversing about their Sikh religion or the Christian Scriptures, that it is difficult to realize what lions they are in fight, and how they are the heroes of so many a frontier epic. A Sikh soldier is always ready to talk on religious matters, and delights in singing the beautiful theistic hymns of Kabir and Nanak and others of his countrymen….”

REEL 186

Rev Thomas Gajetan Ragland, North Tinnevelly, South India

A memoir of the Rev. Thomas Gajetan Ragland, B D, Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge and itinerating missionary of the Church Missionary Society in North Tinnevelly, South India

Rev Ragland discusses the differences between the people in the north and south of Tinnevelly:

“The people in the north are a very different class from those in the south, with respect to their preparedness or openness for the gospel. In the south nearly all the villagers are of one cast, shanars, and a fair proportion of these are already Christians; and of those who are not, several have, at one time or another, been under instruction. All which, when we remember how much family ties influence in matters of religion, in India at least, and that many of the agents in the south are shanars, may satisfy us, or make us less dissatisfied, to leave the southern heathen, without at present any direct efforts being made for their conversion. We may reasonably hope, that if the missionary pastor keeps his eye upon them, and stirs up his agents and people from time to time to do what they can for them, many will continually be brought over without the missionary himself going much amongst them; though this of course, if he could find time, would be clearly advisable. But in the north the case is very different. There, there are very few shanars, and those mostly cultivators. There is scarcely a palmyra in the Paneivadali district. The people in the north are nearly all rettis, naiks, maravars, pallars, pariahs; of which castes very few indeed have yet come over….”

REEL 187

Rev James Frederick Schon, Niger

Journals of the Rev. James Frederick Schon and Mr Samuel Crowther, who with the sanction of her Majesty’s Government, accompanied the expedition up the Niger, in 1841, on behalf of the Church Missionary Society. With appendices and map by Rev Schon and Mr Crowther.

“…. This afternoon, I satisfied myself of the correctness of various particulars which I had previously obtained of the Ibo people, respecting some of their superstitious practices. It appears to be but too true, that human sacrifices are offered by them, and that in a most barbarous manner. The legs of the devoted victim are tied together, and he is dragged from place to place till he expires. The person who gave me this information told me that one man had been dragged about for nearly a whole day before his sufferings terminated in death: the body is afterward cast into the river. Internment is always denied them: they must become food for alligators or fishes. Sometimes people are fastened to trees, or to branches close to the river, until they are famished. While we were at anchor inside the Bar, the body of a young women was found on the sand-bank, having been dead, apparently, only a few hours; and as no external marks of injury were observed, except those produced by a rope fastened around her loins, she may have been sacrificed in this manner.

Infanticide of a peculiar nature likewise prevails among them: twins are never allowed to live. As soon as they are born, they are put into two earthen pots, and exposed to the beasts of the forest; and the unfortunate mother ever afterward endures great trouble and hardships. A small tent is built for her in the forest, in which she is obliged to dwell, and to undergo many ceremonies for her purification. She is separated from all society for a considerable time; her conjugal alliance with her husband is for ever dissolved; and she is never again permitted to sit down with other women in the same market or in the same house. To give birth to twins is, therefore, considered to be the greatest misfortune that can befall a woman of the Ibo nation….”

REEL 188

Rev Robert W Stewart and Mrs Louisa Stewart (Foochow, China)

Robert and Louisa Stewart in life and death. With a chapter by Mr Eugene Stock by Mary E Watson

The following extract is from a letter by Mrs Stewart dated 16 December 1894:

“…. You will, of course, have guessed that owing to the war between China and Japan, Chinese people are in a state of great unrest, and hardly know what to expect from day to day. In this part of the Fuh-kien Province a new source of danger has arisen. A secret society, which has been slowly growing for two years, has suddenly become very active, and is rapidly increasing in numbers; some hundreds have joined them within the last few weeks, and they are daily growing in numbers. The Mandarin has no power to check them; he made an attempt a few weeks ago, and his house was soon surrounded by an angry mob, who said they would pull it down if he did not agree to all their wishes….. The victory over the Mandarin has made them very bold, and they say quite openly they can now do as they like. They have many times threatened to burn down our houses, and either kill us or drive us away; but the Lord has kept us in perfect peace….”

The following written by Rev Robert Stewart in April 1895 describes the deterioration of conditions:

“….We have been having some rather exciting times here lately. Ten days ago I was called up at four o’clock in the morning by our native clergyman and other Christians, who had crossed the river to our house to bring the startling news that the Vegetarian rebels were expected at daylight to storm Kucheng and that the gateways of that city were being blocked with timber and stone as fast as possible…. At the time when the alarm was given, we had, with women, girls, and children, nearly one hundred sleeping in our compound…. At daylight we roused the schools , and, after a hasty meal, all left in a long, sad procession to make their way across the river in a small ferry-boat, which came backwards and forwards for them, until at last the whole party had reached the other side. It was a long business, all in the rain, and then the wall had to be climbed by a ladder, for by this time the blocking of the gateways was complete….”

REEL 189

Rev Henry Townsend, Abeokuta, West Africa

Memoir of the Rev. Henry Townsend, late C.M.S. missionary, Abeokuta, West Africa. Compiled from his journals by his brother. Also containing copies of letters and extracts from periodicals. With a preface by Eugene Stock. Written by George Townsend

“Jan 4th - Early this morning before I had time to dress and breakfast, Shodeki’s son and a party of soldiers came to escort me into Abeokuta. The son of the chief was dressed in a striped robe of red, white, and blue, of native cloth; he rode a horse with a high peaked saddle, covered with strange devices, formed by small pieces of various colours, cut into shapes and sewed on. The stirrups were formed of a strip of country-woven cloth, shortened or lengthened to suit the rider by twisting. The stirrup irons were of a peculiar shape to suit naked feet, or the thin boots upon which spurs were fixed to the rider. His soldiers wore no uniform, but dressed according to individual taste and means. Some rode horses, some walked on foot, some were armed with long swords, some with trade muskets, some with spears, and accompanied by a band of drummers….. My dress did not come up their notions of what became a white man in my position, but there was no help for it, I had nothing remarkable to put on, but they insisted on my using my umbrella, a cotton one, although it being a cloudy morning I did not need it. Sitting up in my long basket-litter, carried on the heads of two men, and thus escorted, I made my first entry into Abeokuta, the first white man they had ever received or seen….”

REEL 190

Rev John James Weitbrecht, Burdwan, Bengal, India

Memoir of the Rev. John James Weitbrecht, late missionary of the Church Missionary Society at Burdwan, in Bengal. Comprehending a history of the Burdwan mission. Compiled from his journal and letters, by his widow. With a recommendatory notice, by the Rev. Henry Venn and an introduction by the editor, Alfred M W Christopher

“…. In October, Mr Weitbrecht witnessed a ceremony entirely new to him, attendant on the young Rajah assuming his name, titles and official robes. It took place in the house of the Commissioner (a civil functionary of the East India Government, who presides over three judges in three distinct districts), who handed the mandate of his elevation to the lad in the name of the Supreme Government, and when he was attired in the prescribed garments the Commissioner hung a string of pearls around his neck. The procession from the Commissioner’s house to the palace was quite princely. Elephants, in pairs, splendidly caparisoned and ornamented with flowers, preceded. The Rajah’s horse followed, led by two servants; then a company of infantry, and the body-guard on horseback. Liveried servants, with gold and silver sticks, walked behind these; and lastly the Rajah himself, borne in a sedan chair, richly covered with gold, and surrounded by his suite. During the ceremony the troops fired a salute of twenty guns; and at the conclusion, before leaving the room, the Rajah gave his right hand to all the Government servants present. He behaved throughout with so much manly dignity as to astonish us….”

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