MISSIONARY ANNALS.
(A SERIES.)
A STORY OF ONE SHORT LIFE, 1783 to 1818.
BY
ELISABETH G. STRYKER.
CHICAGO:
WOMAN'S PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE NORTHWEST,
Room 48, McCormick Block.
COPYRIGHT, 1888,
BY WOMAN'S PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF MISSIONS OF THE NORTHWEST.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
I. ANCESTRY--BIRTH--BOYHOOD--CONVERSION . . . . . . . . . . 7
II. COLLEGE--THE HAYSTACK--EFFORTS TO SPREAD THE INTEREST
IN FOREIGN MISSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
III. OBOOKIAH IN HAWAII--IN AMERICA . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
IV. THE SANDWICH ISLANDS WITH AND WITHOUT THE GOSPEL . . . . 20
V. MILLS AT ANDOVER--THE AMERICAN BOARD . . . . . . . . . . 22
VI. AN APOSTOLIC JOURNEY IN THE UNITED STATES . . . . . . . 25
VII. MILLS' SECOND TOUR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
VIII. THE AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY--THE UNITED FOREIGN
MISSIONARY SOCIETY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
IX. THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY--MILLS, AS ITS AGENT,
VISITS AFRICA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
X. THE LAST JOURNEY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
As I write, I have in my mind a row of intelligent boyish faces.
Manly souls look through bright eyes. My heart responds to the beats
of affection beneath jacket and cut-away.
I see also a row of girlish faces, in which Christian and womanly
graces are dawning. I feel the warmth of pure young hearts beginning
to swell with generous desires.
These are my real friends. Beyond them I see rows and rows of boys
and girls whose sympathies and interest I would gladly claim.
PREFACE.
Those among us interested in the young people, the boys and girls of
our Churches, somewhat realize the lack of material wherewith to
stimulate and nourish these young workers. The apiarist studies the
nature of the insect which must yield him its sweets, and discovers
that "the nature of the cell and the food affects the difference" in
the bees. We have long watched our boys and girls, and either we do
not care what they yield, or we are dull not to notice that what
surrounds them and enters into their minds, is surely deciding their
natures. White clover honey can only be made from white clover
blossoms. What they read and what they may be induced to read
concerns us as mission workers. Individual tastes make many by-paths
in the field of literature, but the girls all enjoy the windings of
romance, and the boys delight in the highway of adventure. "But,"
they say or think, "Missions, their history and progress are so
stupid, they have no decent heroes and heroines. We like Robinson
Crusoe, and Little Women, and the Arabian Nights!" But do we not know
that the stories of the lives of some of our missionaries, well told,
may stand side by side, upon the book-shelves and in the hearts of
our young people, with the pages of De Foe and Louise Alcott? Many a
boy and girl, charmed by the life and fortune of some unreal, and
oftentimes unworthy, hero, has attempted to make copy in his or her
own life. Missionary lives are not lacking in the spirit, adventure
and romance which are so fascinating. With these ideals in their
minds, may we not expect followers of the Judsons, the Moffats, the
Fiskes and the Rankins?
The writer, who has humbly undertaken to re-tell an old tale, is
neither a De Foe nor an Alcott. She finds she can borrow neither of
their pens. Her own, conscious of its inexperience, finds its only
relief in the fact that the story is its own strength.
SAMUEL J. MILLS.
CHAPTER I.
ANCESTRY--BIRTH--BOYHOOD--CONVERSION.
Our country is quietly enjoying the benefits of a great activity.
Foreign Missions are still feeling a noble impulse, and the origin of
this force was, under God, in the heart and brain of Samuel J. Mills.
It is a name known to us, but a history almost forgotten. Only upon
the shelves of some antiquarian, or in the undisturbed library of
some old homestead can a volume be found bearing the title "Mills'
Memoirs." Take it down, blow the dust from the leaves yellow with
sixty-seven years, and you will find the narrative related in the
stately, old-time style, and somewhat laudatory and expansive.
He had no son, as Adoniram Judson had, gladly to record the details
of his busy life. The writer was Dr. Gardiner Spring, who laments
having failed in the attempt to obtain what appeared to him to be
important information. We are thankful to him for gathering even
these rare fragments.
From a sketch of Salmon Giddings, the Damon Memorial, a letter from a
relative of Mills, and the life of Henry Obookiah have come a few
incidents and facts, but mainly in the record of Dr. Spring have we
found our Story of One Short Life. Such hid treasure should find the
light, even though quarried by unskillful hands.
Biographies are apt to seem discouraging, in the beginning; the
attention being riveted upon the supposed hero, meets with a shock in
finding it has been following the history of his great-grandfather.
The scattered energies are then directed upon the grandfather, only
to meet with a second delay. Again recovering, and following the
father's fortunes, the son, the subject of the work, is at last
introduced.
The great-grandfather of our hero must be brought in just long enough
to answer one question. He was once asked, "How did you educate four
sons at Yale College, and give each a profession?" His reply was,
"Almighty God did it, with the help of my wife." The grandfather (of
our hero) was drowned while some of his children were still young.
His widow, committing their babes to the God of the fatherless,
especially offered for His service, a son named Samuel John. He
became a minister, and for many years was settled in Torringford,
Connecticut. He was eminent for his ability and character. Mrs. Stowe
said of him--"He was one ingrain New Englander. Of all the marvels
that astonished my childhood, there is none I remember to this day
with so much interest as Father Mills." This was the name by which he
was extensively known. His wife was a woman exemplary and devout.
Being assured that the three preceding generations were
commandment-keeping, we shall see how the Lord showed mercy unto the
fourth. Almighty God and a true mother secure for many a man's sons,
not only education, but large efficiency and honor.
The seventh child, born April 21st, 1783, in this Torringford home,
was a son, named after his father, Samuel John. The child grew to be
a mighty instrument in God's hand, which He in His wisdom selected,
knowing the fineness of the material with which he dealt. That we too
may know something of the tempering of the steel, we are permitted a
reverent glance into that pious mother's bosom. Before the birthday
came she continually dedicated the little life beneath her heart to
the God who is pleased to accept such gifts. During all his childhood
he received the most careful Christian training. Nourished in such a
home-garden, and shined on by such mother-light, we cannot wonder
that the child grew toward the Sun, and that the roots of religious
character struck deep and spread wide.
When but a little child he showed an unusual concern of conscience.
At fifteen the town in which he lived was greatly aroused and
revived. His friends and acquaintances received the blessing, and he
was deeply interested, but the revival passed, leaving him with a
bitter, rebellious feeling in his heart.
About this time, one fine cold winter morning, a merry sleigh load
drove from his father's house. He, with his brothers, sisters and
cousins, about eighteen in all, went to spend a few days with his
uncle in West Hartford. Samuel had recently come into the possession
of a fine farm. He was gay and ambitious. His companions fearing his
good fortune might make him feel a "little too high minded," sought
to tease him. The evening before their return, after eating nuts and
apples, they agreed to have a little singing. They struck up "Hark,
from the Tombs a Doleful Sound," to the tune, Bangor. They sang it
slowly and solemnly, now and then casting at him glances from their
mischievous eyes. He sat a silent listener, while their song, sung in
fun, made an earnest impression of which he could not rid himself.
Soon after his farm was sold, and at eighteen he determined to go to
Litchfield and study in the Academy. As he was leaving home, his
mother's anxious heart could not let him go without enquiring for his
soul's health. Other mothers know the pain she suffered, when he told
her "for two years I have been sorry God ever made me." She replied
to him as her wise heart prompted her, and sent him on his way. She
went where all mothers of boys must so often go, to her knees, alone
with God.
He had not gone far on his journey when he met a Friend. It was the
Good Shepherd, whom that mother's urgent prayer had sent searching
for the wanderer. It was as if he had met Christ in his path. He
looked up at the great trees and down at the blossoms, and in
everything saw God. He became so impressed with the perfections of
the Holy One he had so long resisted, that he lost sight of himself.
He sat down in the woods to wonder and to pray. It was not until some
time after that he realized any change in himself, and not until he
returned from Litchfield did his father perceive it. His conversion
was thorough. Not only was he turned about,--his face God-ward
instead of self-ward,--but he was impelled toward "those sitting in
darkness." In his childhood, from his mother's lips, he often heard
stories from the lives of Brainerd, Eliot, and other missionaries. He
heard her prayers for them and their great undertakings. Once he
heard her say, "I have consecrated this child to the service of God
as a missionary." Now it was his joy to follow those noble examples,
and to fulfill his part in the plans of God and his mother for him.
His parents approved of his determination, though the thought of
separation tore their hearts. His mother said to him, "I cannot bear
to part from you, my son." When he reminded her of her vow, she burst
into tears, and never after made complaint. To his father he said
that he could "not conceive of any course of life in which to pass
the rest of his days, that would prove so pleasant, as to go and
communicate the gospel of salvation to the poor heathen."
This desire to spread the Gospel grew to be a sublime purpose, and
from it he never wavered. He set about his plannings, with this
supreme end in view. Thanking God for his own salvation, he laid his
life in God's hand, imploring Him to use it for those who had as yet
no knowledge of that mercy. The Lord took him from the plough, as he
did Elisha. He left the field for the college.