india – Page 2

Henry Martyn the Translator

February 18, 2009 by Chris Field Leave a Comment

Henry Martyn was born on February 18, in Cornwall, England in 1781.

In 1791 he started at St John’s College, Cambridge. He was saved in 1800. In 1801 he was the top Mathematics student in his year (called Senior Wrangler) and he also won a Latin prize. He was gifted in languages, as was later revealed in his successful translation work.

When Martyn tackled his translation work on the mission field he mentioned in a letter that he was drawing from grammar books in Latin, Greek, French, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Hebrew, Rabbinical Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, Ethiopic, Samaritan, Arabic, Persian, Sanscrit, Bengalee and Hindoostanee and wanted a Celtic grammar as well.

Yet at the end of his studies, all of Martyn’s academic achievements left him wanting. He noted, “I obtained my highest wishes but was surprised to find I had grasped a shadow”. This recognition of the emptiness of human achievement, despite his own excellence, must have undergirded his willingness to serve the Lord sacrificially. He not only gave up his homeland and career opportunities for mission service, he also left behind the one love of his life.

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After theological studies at Cambridge, Martyn was appointed curate at Holy Trinity to the godly Charles Simeon who was thus his spiritual father or mentor. And from thence he sailed forth to India as chaplain to the East India Company (1805).

He left his heart with Lydia Grenfell in his native Cornwall. She did not follow him to India and he never made it home to see her again.

Henry Martyn made several major contributions through his life of missionary service. His translation work gave the scriptures to the Indian and Persian people. Also his life of personal sacrifice for missions has shone as an example to many. He also promoted ideas about missions which helped to formulate the vision and activities of future mission endeavours.

Within five years in India he had completed his translation of the New Testament in Urdu (known then as Hindoostani). His journal tells of the joy he found in this work – “What a source of perpetual delight have I in the precious Book of God! Oh, that my heart were more spiritual, to keep pace with my understanding…” (Memoirs of H. Martin, compiled by J. Sargent, 1848, page 241).

One of the challenges of these early translators is that many Bible concepts are not readily translatable into cultures where the concepts are not known. Such Bible truths as grace, redemption and hope are not readily known in other tongues and cultures.

CF Note: I once heard a Christian minister tell of a Moslem woman who asked him to help her convert to Christianity. When he asked why she wanted to make this change she told him that the Christian concept of ‘forgiveness’ was not part of Islam. Similarly I learned that some Australian Aboriginal tribes do not have a mechanism to restore people back into their community once they have been banished for bad behaviour. Cultural challenges such as these confronted Henry Martyn’s translation work.

Martyn’s diary notes also make reference to his “beloved Lydia”… although historian Sargent actually suppressed her name in the first edition of his best-seller biography of Henry Martyn, cited earlier. The call of God upon his life meant that he must say “Farewell” to the one he had hoped to wed.

Martyn’s diary also refers to the fellowship he enjoyed with William Carey and Anglican clergyman David Brown (of Jamieson, Fawcett and Brown Commentary fame … and with whom Carey did not enjoy sweet fellowship!) (Carey, by S. Pearce Carey, page 145).

Martyn was an intelligent and sensitive man, who respected the cultures to which he went. Rather than adopting the cultural arrogance which some other missionaries displayed, Martyn wrote, “I learnt that the power of gentleness is irresistible and also that these men are not fools. Clearness of reasoning is not confined to Europe”.

After a decade of evangelical ministry in various parts of India, Henry Martyn proceeded to Persia and there took up the task of translation anew. He also supervised translation of the New Testament into Arabic. By 1812 his Persian New Testament was ready for the printers. But our missionary did not live to see his work in print. On October 16, 1812, in Tokat, Armenia, Asia Minor, on his way home with high hopes of meeting again his Lydia, Henry Martyn died, at the age of 31.

It is interesting to note that Martyn’s Urdu and Arabic translations were not only a help to the Christian missionaries but were well read by the Moslem leaders.

On his return journey toward England, Martyn chose to travel through Persia, Damascus and Arabia, hoping to improve his tuberculosis and find scriptural manuscripts. His friends in Calcutta tried to dissuade him but he set out in 1811. On his way to Constantinople he died, whether from his own sickness or the plague which was raging at the time we do not know.

Thus closed the book on a man who put all else aside, in order to make an investment in the Kingdom of God.

Find hundreds of succinct Church History posts at: http://chrisfieldblog.com/topics/ministry/church-history

This post is based on notes by my late friend Donald Prout. I have updated these historical posts with information gleaned from other sources. I am indebted to Don for awakening in me an interest in Church History. Don’s notes can be found at: www.donaldprout.com

James Alexander Haldane Establishes Congregationalism in Scotland

February 8, 2009 by Chris Field Leave a Comment

James Alexander Haldane died on February 8, 1851. James, along with his older brother Robert, left an indelible mark upon Christianity in Scotland.

Born in Dundee on July 14, 1768, orphaned at the age of 6, and educated at Edinburgh University, young James joined the navy at the age of seventeen, as a midshipman aboard the East India Company’s “Duke of Montrose”.

After four voyages to India and China, he was appointed Captain of “The Melville Castle”, in 1793. The ship’s sailing was delayed, however, leaving James time for more reflective pursuits.

It was during this period that “he commenced to read the Scriptures from a sense of propriety rather than any concern about his soul” (Cyclopaedia of Modern Religious Biographies, page 241).

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He sought out a Dr David Bogue, a pastor in the vicinity of Portsmouth, and requested that he might partake of the Lord’s Supper. Dr Bogue was one of the founders of the London Missionary Society and he pressed upon Haldane the claims of Christ upon his life.

Haldane quit the navy before The Melville Castle sailed, choosing to take up a religious life instead of his captaincy. That was 1794.

Sometime in the next two or three years he found the salvation for which so long he had sought. He left the established Church of Scotland when the General Assembly of 1796 refused to promote aggressive evangelisation.

At that time he became acquainted with Charles Simeon of Cambridge. In his company Haldane toured Scotland 1797, distributing tracts and trying to awaken spiritual interest. In May 1797 he preached his first sermon, at Gilmerton near Edinburgh, with encouraging success.

That same year he and brother Robert founded The Society for Propagating the Gospel at Home, which gave the impetus for the development of the Congregational Churches. James was ordained as a Congregational minister in Edinburgh.

James Haldane married twice in Edinburgh, in 1793 and, his first wife having died, again in 1822.

In 1799 James was ordained pastor of a large independent congregation in Edinburgh. That group was the first to be known as a Congregational Church in Scotland.

After his brother inherited the family wealth, he built a church or Tabernacle, for James’ Congregational church in Edinburgh in 1801. From 1801 until his death James Haldane preached prodigiously and “counted it his privilege for nearly 50 years to preach the Gospel …” in the Tabernacle, Edinburgh’s largest church. In 1808 James and his famous brother Robert “embraced Baptist principles” (Dictionary of the Christian Church, page 447).

James Haldane contributed to current theological discussions with articles on church order, refutations of heresy and exploration of various Bible books and doctrines.

Find hundreds of succinct Church History posts at: http://chrisfieldblog.com/topics/ministry/church-history

This post is based on notes by my late friend Donald Prout. I have updated these historical posts with information gleaned from other sources. I am indebted to Don for awakening in me an interest in Church History. Don’s notes can be found at: www.donaldprout.com

Anthony Norris Groves Renounces Materialism

February 1, 2009 by Chris Field Leave a Comment

Anthony Norris Groves was born at Newton Valence, in Hampshire, England, on February 1, 1795.

He studied dentistry and surgery, building a successful dentistry business in Exeter. In 1816, at the age of 21 he professed faith in Christ, but he is described as “a typical middleclass convert to evangelical High Church Anglicanism”. That same year he married his cousin, Mary Berthia Thompson.

Groves had a heart after God which was displayed in both his philanthropic interests and a growing desire to serve God on the mission field. In the ensuing years he came under the influence of Calvinistic teaching and came to a much stronger personal experience of faith.

Groves was impressed by the Bible’s teaching on possessions. He dedicated the whole of his property and the biggest part of his income to the Lord’s work.

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Groves communicated his convictions about possessions in a small booklet called ‘Christian Devotedness’, based on the Christ’s instruction in the Sermon on the Mount, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth”. Groves lived that message and argued that others need to take Christ’s words seriously.

That book had a profound impact on a young Prussian pastor who had settled in Britain, named George Mueller, who applied Groves’ insights to his own life of faith and in the establishing of his faith based orphanages. Mueller is remembered for his astounding confidence in God’s supply, rather than reliance on human sources of wealth. At least part of his amazing confidence came from the inspiration of A.N. Groves.

Groves had to delay fulfilling his call to missionary service, principally because of his wife. Mary was unsaved when he married her and she opposed Anthony’s desire to go to the mission field. It was thirteen years before the couple reached the mission field of modern Iraq.

Mary was eventually converted by the same influences which strengthened Grove’s faith – around the time of the birth of her third child – and she consented to being a missionary also. In 1825 Groves gave up his profession and business to pursue theological studies at Trinity College, Dublin. At that time he met and associated with John Nelson Darby, founder of the Plymouth Brethren. Groves’ new appreciation for the simple New Testament model of Christianity led him to give up his theological studies, stating that “ordination of any kind to preach the gospel is no requirement of Scripture”.

In 1827, when Groves withdrew from Trinity College, he expressed the ideas which define the early Brethren movement. “…we should come together in all simplicity as disciples, not waiting on any pulpit or minister, but trusting that the Lord would edify us together, by ministering as he pleased and saw good from the midst of ourselves.”

Groves and his wife, Mary, finally set out for Baghdad, with their two young sons and three Christian friends. The six month overland journey was perilous and took them through Russia and Persia. By December 6, 1829 they had arrived in Baghdad, which was at that time part of the old Turkish Islamic Ottoman Empire. Groves was the first Christian missionary to take to gospel to Baghdad since it fell to Islam centuries earlier. They had no financial backers and expected the Lord to meet their daily needs.

Groves’ sister married George Mueller. Both Groves and Mueller opposed Darby’s “tendency of domination” in the newborn Plymouth Brethren movement. Groves chose to emphasise “the love of Jesus … instead of oneness of judgement in minor things” (Dictionary of the Christian Church, page 440).

With George Mueller, Groves became “a founding father of the Open Brethren” (Who’s Who in Christian History, page 294).

During the three years in Baghdad plague ravaged the city. Civil war had broken out, bringing siege and warfare. The city was also devastated by flood, typhoid and cholera. 60,000 of Baghdad’s 85,000 inhabitants died of the plague, including Mrs Groves, and their baby girl. Two thirds of the houses were swept away in floods.

Back in England in 1835 Groves re-married, to Harriet Baynes, and prepared for years of missionary service in India. “He sailed for Madras, and thenceforth in many places he ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ” (Twelve Mighty Missionaries, by E. Enoch, page 37).

In India Groves returned to his dentistry profession, supporting himself as the Apostle Paul had done. Thus Groves is regarded by some (such as Robert Bernard Dann) as the Father of Faith Missions, as opposed to those who go to the field with the backing of a mission organisation.

After Groves’ first tour of the Indian missions he came to his own ideas about improving cross-cultural mission activity. Groves encouraged his Indian converts not to adopt western culture, but to apply the Bible directly to their culture, being Biblical and not cultural converts.

In 1842 Mr and Mrs Groves adopted a child of eight as daughter, “an orphan who was commended to their care by her father on his deathbed”. They undertook this charge as for the Lord. The girl came to faith in Christ at a young age, was very effective in her assistance to their ministry and was “in every way, as a beloved daughter”.

In 1852 illness forced Groves to return to England, where he died at the age of 58, in the home of George Mueller on 20 May, 1853. Groves had given up his own earthly possessions, and so he had no home of his own to return to.

Groves did get to see his most promising Indian disciple, John Christian Arulappan, successfully build a network of churches based on Groves’ principles of missionary outreach. Grove’s innovations continued to be picked up and developed by others after his death.

It is to be noted that Groves’ conviction that we should not hoard possessions but trust the Lord to provide significantly impressed Mueller, who was then taken as an inspiration to Hudson Taylor, whose faith principles inspired many interdenominational faith missions.

Find hundreds of succinct Church History posts at: http://chrisfieldblog.com/topics/ministry/church-history

This post is based on notes by my late friend Donald Prout. I have updated these historical posts with information gleaned from other sources. I am indebted to Don for awakening in me an interest in Church History. Don’s notes can be found at: www.donaldprout.com

Clara Swain is the World’s First Woman Missionary Doctor

January 3, 2009 by Chris Field 2 Comments

Clara Swain arrived in Bombay, India on January 3 1870, and went on to set up the first Women’s hospital in Asia. Her travels had been overwhelmingly difficult and gruelling, including a sea voyage that caused her to note, “I cannot bear to think of the sea, it treated me so badly”.

She had graduated from the Women’s Medical College of Philadelphia the previous year, at the age of 35.

Rev D W Thomas, working in Bareilly, in northwest India, identified the need for a lady physician to attend the many women who needed medical attention. Male doctors were not allowed to attend women and high caste women were kept in seclusion, mostly attended by unskilled girls who could hardly meet their medical needs.

In Clara’s day women doctors were rare. The first woman to qualify in medicine was Elizabeth Blackwell, who graduated from medical school when Clara was 14. Clara did not even consider a calling to medicine until a dying woman physician put out a call for women to go into medicine. Clara prayed long about the calling and did not graduate until she was 35.

Clara Swain responded to the need in Indian and thus became “the first woman missionary doctor in the world.”

On her first day at her base in northwest India she treated fourteen patients, and soon found herself deluged with patients – 100 in the first six weeks. Within three months she had opened a dispensary and begun a medical class with fourteen native girls and three married women, who graduated in 1873. Single-handed, she lectured on anatomy, physiology, materia medica, and diseases of women and children. Training the girls proved so demanding that she did not attempt a second school, but the call had gone out for more women doctors to follow Clara’s example, and in time many women doctors came to her aid.

A need for a women’s hospital soon became obvious. Nearby a Moslem prince had 42 acres containing wells and gardens and a large house. This Nawab of Rampore had declared that he would never allow a Christian missionary into his city. Dr Swain travelled to Rampore and spent much time in prayer before meeting the prince. When she made her timid appeal that his land might be purchased, the prince replied, “Take it! Take it! I give it to you with much pleasure.”

On 4 January, 1874, the first women’s hospital in the Orient was opened. Three thousand patients passed through the doors during the first twelve months.

In 1885, whilst treating the wife of the Rajah of Rajputana, Clara Swain accepted a royal invitation to become court physician. This position she occupied for ten years.

During all her 25 years in India she treated thousands of patients and “considered herself primarily an evangelist”. She was there to bear witness to the One who was able to heal the sin-sick soul.

She wrote extensive letters sharing about the poor spiritual state of the women in India. One woman wanted to worship Clara’s sewing machine. The women had all been warned of dire consequences if they learned to read. Superstition trapped them. And baby girls were killed without any sense of remorse from the parents.

She also endured many hardships and dangers, starting with her voyage to India and including a life-threatening flood and mudslide, spending the night outdoors due to horses that would not move, and a close call while riding an elephant.
In 1896, due to continued poor health, Clara returned to the USA, but was able to visit India again in 1906. Clara’s letters were published in book forming 1909, titled, A Glimpse of India.

Clara Swain died on Christmas Day 1910, back in her hometown of Castile, New York, in 1910, where she had been born 76 years previously.

(Reference: Guardians of the Great Commission, by Ruth Tucker)

This post is based on notes by my late friend Donald Prout. I have updated these historical posts with information gleaned from other sources. I am indebted to Don for awakening in me an interest in Church History. Don’s notes can be found at: www.donaldprout.com

John Hyde becomes Praying Hyde

November 9, 2008 by Chris Field Leave a Comment

John Hyde was born in Illinois, USA, on November 9, 1865.

His father, Dr Smith Hyde, was a Presbyterian minister, and in that manse the power of prayer became a reality to young John. In later years John would be known to his fellow missionaries as “Praying” Hyde. Smith and his godly wife prayed fervently that God would send labourers into the harvest field and, in time, three of their six children heeded that call.

In his senior year at McCormack Theological Seminary John heard the call to be a missionary and he became a mission enthusiast, pleading with fellow students to also commit to missions.

On 15 October, 1892, he and five other Presbyterian missionaries sailed for India. John found in his cabin a letter from a dear minister friend of his father who loved John dearly. It said, “I shall not cease praying for you, dear John, until you are filled with the Spirit.” This greatly insulted John and he went up on deck in a rage. However, as he reflected on the saintliness of the man who wrote the letter he softened, returned to his room, found the letter which he had crumpled and re-read it many times.

Being filled with the Spirit became his passion and before arriving in India he had concluded that he would not seek to succeed by prowess in language, as he had previously planned, but by the power of the Spirit.

Once in India he came under conviction concerning a besetting sin. He determined to press in to God for complete freedom and it came to him through revelation of 1John 1:9. Deciding that God was faithful he committed himself to God and immediately sensed God’s assurance of freedom.

This transformed him and his friends noticed a glow about him as he told of his experience. This glow was to become a hallmark of his life.

The early years in India were not remarkable as John journeyed from place to place, often sleeping in a tent which he took with him. Unmarried he had no place to call home and later recommended that provision be made for single missionaries to have a home of their own.

He was slow of speech and slow to learn the languages, and was thus threatened with being sent back to the US. He preferred Bible study over his language lessons and protested that he should be a man of the Word. The local people also came to his aid saying, “If he never speaks the language of our lips, he speaks the language of our hearts.”

In his third year in India he received a prayer burden for revival and he interceded continuously for ten years to see it fully come to pass. He saw himself as a Jacob wrestling with God for the blessing.

He loved the Indian people and lived among them. Despite opposition for assisting the low caste people he reached out to them and enjoyed ministry to them. When converts backslid or fell into troubles he would call them to pray with him, then spend up to three hours on his knees with them.

In 1899 John pushed past his physical weakness to spend whole nights in prayer. He would work through the day and pray through the night, confident that revival would come.

During the 1908 Convention God led him to claim one soul per day. By the end of the year he had seen four hundred won to Christ. At the 1909 Convention John challenged the people to not have their own broken hearts but to carry God’s broken heart revealed in them. He pressed for death of the old man, so the new creature could live in Christ. He agonised in prayer for days until he felt God’s assurance that he would win two souls per day to Christ. That year more than eight hundred were won to Christ and baptised.

By the 1910 Convention Hyde was assured that he would lead four people each day to faith. If ever that number was not met on a given John realised that he had fallen behind in praising the Lord. He would step up his praises and the results would come.

“I remember John telling me if on any day four souls were not brought into the fold … at night he could not sleep … (Praying Hyde, by F. McGaw, Moody Press, page 49).

India’s most ardent personal soul winner John was always active in seeking to win people to Christ and baptise them. Often on a train journey he would not get off at his destination if he was engaged in winning a soul. He would then catch a return train after he had baptised his convert. On one occasion he missed his own stop four times, completely missing the event he was intending to attend, but having won four souls through those journeys.

In 1911 John became seriously ill and a Calcutta doctor found his heart had completely moved from the left to the right side of his body. On March 11 he sailed for England and then home to America. While in Wales, staying with a missionary friend on furlough, he prayed with evangelist Dr J Wilbur Chapman, former Moody co-worker, who had preached for fifty years but now found little response. Hyde prayed for a blessing on Chapman’s ministry and that night the hall was packed and fifty men made decisions for Christ.

Back in America he was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour. An operation was attempted by could not be completed. Cancer spread through his body. Then on 17 February, 1912, his face lit up as it had often done before and he cried – in the Indian dialect with which he was so familiar – “Bol, Yisu Nasih, Ki Jai!” which means, “Shout the victory of Jesus Christ!” They were his dying words.

This post is based on the work of my late friend Donald Prout whose love for books and Christian history led him to collate a daily Christian calendar. I continue to work with Don’s wife, Barbara, to share his life work with the world. I have updated some of these historical posts and will hopefully draw from Don’s huge files of clippings to continue this series beyond Don’s original work. More of Don’s work can be found at www.donaldprout.com. I am indebted to Don for awakening in me an interest in Church History, which I previously considered to be a little stuffy and of little practical value. I find in the process of updating Don’s Christian Diary that I am being constantly refreshed, illuminated or challenged by the lives of those who have gone before.

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