USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Roxbury > Eliot memorial : sketches historical and biographical of the Eliot Church and Society > Part 16
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His later church relation was at Hyde Park, and his pastor, Rev. Dr. P. B. Davis, bears hearty testimony to
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his superior acquaintance with Scripture, his regularity and earnestness in religious observances, and the general value of his influence. His family life was peculiarly happy, and the golden wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Hurter was an occasion of special enjoyment. He prepared, what it would be well if more men did, a manuscript autobiography of about four hundred pages.
His departure (January, 1895) was very sudden, and owing to pulmonary apoplexy. Returning home from business in Boston one day, he appeared to be in usual health, but before midnight of the same day his life on earth had come to an end, at the age of eighty-one, the same age as that of his father."
2. MRS. ELIZABETH GROZER HURTER.
Was born in Truro, Massachusetts, July 28, 1814. In early childhood she came to Boston to live; taught school at the West for a time, and afterwards assisted her aunt in a Roxbury school. October 2, 1839, she became the wife of Mr. George C. Hurter, and early in 1841, having been appointed to the Syrian Mission, they sailed for Beirût. Modest and self-distrustful, she yet became very useful. The Arabic language she mastered sufficiently for all the ordinary requirements of reading and speech. A large ministry among the sick fell to her lot. When the cholera prevailed patients were brought, some-
I Norfolk County Gazette, January 5, 1895.
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times to the number of twenty or thirty a day, to her door. Individuals might be seen, too sick to walk, crawling to the house, where she administered medicine.
Seasons of great alarm occurred, as during the war between the Druses and the Christians of Mount Lebanon, and the massacres of 1860. One night all the mission families at Beirut had to fly to the consulate for protection. That was one of the occasions when Mrs. Hurter was called upon to do much for the homeless, the sick, and the wounded. The next year (1861) she returned to this country ; and her death occurred at Hyde Park.
3. REV. DANIEL CROSBY GREENE, D.D.
The Rev. David Greene, who was for sixteen years a Corresponding Secretary of the American Board, and his wife, Mary Evarts Greene, were members of the Eliot Church from 1837 to 1849. Midway in that period their son, Daniel Crosby, was born, February 1I, 1843. Rev. Daniel Crosby, the first pastor of the Winthrop Church, Charlestown, a man warmly interested in foreign missions, was a college acquaintance at Yale, and later an intimate friend of Secretary Greene. Mr. Crosby's death occurred in 1842, and his name was worthily borne by the Board's first missionary to Japan. Neither of the parents, however, lived to rejoice over the destination of their son. In the meantime he spent one year at Middlebury College, but graduated at Dartmouth in 1864. For two years he was
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engaged in teaching at the West, and then entered the Chicago Theological Seminary; but after a single year removed to the Seminary at Andover and graduated there in 1869.
He was the first son of any official at the Rooms of the American Board to be commissioned as a missionary. After his ordination and marriage Mr. and Mrs. Greene sailed from San Francisco, and landed at Yokohama November 30, 1869. In the spring of the year following they removed to Kobe. Two years later Dr. Greene was assigned with J. C. Hepburne, M.D., and the Rev. S. R. Brown, D.D., to the work of translating the Scriptures, which work was carried on at Yokohama. Their Japanese version of the New Testament was published in 1880. After a furlough in the United States, Dr. Greene became one of the Faculty in the Doshisha College (1881) as instructor in Old Testament literature; but after ten years he removed to Tokyo.
The governmental and other changes which have taken place within a period so recent as the introduction of Protestant Christianity into that empire are among the marvels of this last half century. To the writer it seems somewhat like a dream to look back as far as May 21, 1843, when the name Daniel Crosby was publicly pro- nounced and sacramental water was applied to an infant forehead ; then calling to mind July 28, 1869, when the right hand, with others, was placed on the same head in an ordaining service; and now to contemplate still
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the same head as what Solomon pronounced "A crown of glory."
4. MRS. MARY CARPENTER PARIS.
Mary Carpenter was a cousin of Mrs. Dr. Rufus An- derson, and was for a time a member of that family and of the Eliot congregation in the early years of my pas- torate. She was born in New York City, January 21, 1815, and in 1851 married Rev. John D. Paris, a missionary of the American Board in the Hawaiian Islands. He died at Kaawaloa, 1893; and Mrs. Paris died four years later.
5.
MRS. LOUISA BRADBURY BUNKER.
The daughter of Hon. Samuel Adams Bradbury, a descendant from the Bradburys of Alluset, England, was born in Boston, June 27, 1844. In the chancel of St. Margaret's Church, Wilken Bonent, are fifteen memorials of the family (1637-1744), and a suggestive inscription may be read : " Through ye mercies of Christ my Saviour I trust for sins forgiven." There have been many minis- ters of the Gospel in the line. The earliest ancestor in this country was Thomas Bradbury, agent of Fer- nando Gorges, 1620. His wife was one of those who were condemned for witchcraft at Salem (1692); but she escaped through the intercession of a friend.
Mrs. Bunker had been in the habit of prayer from infancy, but dates her conversion and the beginning of
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genuine spiritual life in the year 1857, and speaks of in- debtedness to the pastor of this church and to her Sunday School teacher. Owing to a change of views regarding one of the ordinances, she removed her relation seven years afterwards to the Baptist Church in Hyde Park. But tender memories are ever awakened upon the thought of the Eliot Church, " somewhat as when she sings Jeru- salem the golden."
Her marriage to Rev. Alonzo Bunker, D. D., took place September 5, 1865 ; and two months later they arrived at Toungoo, British Burmah. She was the first of her family to enter upon foreign mission work, but since then several of them have gone to Africa, India and Japan. The efforts of Dr. and Mrs. Bunker have been in behalf of the "Hill Tribes," or Karens, who are demon- worshippers. Various dialects are spoken by them. At that time there was a sad division among them, owing to the influence of a missionary woman who seemed to be mentally unbalanced. After the toil of a decade har- mony came at last, and the nine churches of their field had multiplied to thirty-nine at the close of the twelfth year, and their schools were largely self-supporting. There are now eighty-five churches.
Mrs. Bunker's labors were incessant and efficient. In her husband's absence for months while touring, she would take charge of the home station Training School. A large amount of medical work also came to her hands, amounting often to twenty cases a day. Native pastors
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were in the habit of coming to her in their difficulties about doctrinal and other matters; and no small amount of patience and tact were required. She, too, made tours with Dr. Bunker, over mountains and through forests, for the sake of Christian work among women in the jungles. It is not strange that health should be completely broken down, and that a prolonged furlough at home should be required for recovery sufficient to authorize a renewed campaign in Burmah.
6. MRS. MARIA CHAMBERLAIN FORBES.
Was a daughter of Mr. Lewis Chamberlain. Her birth dates at Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands, April 25, 1832. In early youth she attended Punahau School; and after- wards coming to this country she entered Mount Holyoke Seminary, where her hopeful conversion took place. In 1852 she joined the Eliot Church on confession of her faith, at the same time with Mary Ballantine. December 21, 1858, she was married to Rev. Anderson O. Forbes, and went with her husband to the island of Molokai, where he was pastor of the old mission church founded by Mr. Hitchcock. After a few years of service there they removed to Honolulu, and Mr. Forbes was called to the second native church. Thence they went to the Lahainaluna Seminary on the island of Maui, where Mr. Forbes was engaged in teaching for several years, till called to the pastorate of the foreign church in Hilo. His next removal was to Honolulu as Secretary of the
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Hawaiian Board of Missions, which office he held till his death in 1888.
Mrs. Forbes speaks with liveliest interest of the kind- ness of Dr. and Mrs. Anderson in furnishing a home for her in Roxbury. Now for many years she has been the manager of the Lunalino Home, which was founded by one of the last Hawaiian kings for the benefit of aged and homeless natives. The institution has about fifty inmates. Mrs. Forbes is a very energetic, useful, and much respected woman.
7. MRS. MARY BALLANTINE FAIRBANK.
Among the nine individuals who joined this church in September, 1852, was a group of young ladies, nearly the same in age and stature. A special interest attached to each of the three. One of them was Marcia Evelina Atkins, modest and lovely, but pallid, and already awaken- ing the fear of friends lest she might become the victim of pulmonary disease. Two years later came her funeral. Another, Maria Chamberlain, the daughter of a mission- ary, was born in Hawaii, and is mentioned in the preced- ing sketch. Beside her, on the occasion referred to, stood Mary Ballantine, who claimed Bombay as her birthplace, though her parents removed during her infancy to Ahmed- nagar in Western India. She was a daughter of Dr. Henry Ballantine, one of the best known men who have gone from this country, in connection with the American
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Board, to that land where spiritual darkness reigns, but where the sun shineth in his strength. She was born September 10, 1836, and came to this country for better educational advantages. The family of Dr. Rufus Ander- son welcomed her much as they would a daughter of their own.
This beloved Mary was noticeably blameless in de- portment ; was amiable and cheerful much beyond the average of young women. Her bright countenance re- vealed a captivating ingenuousness. She had been in the habit of daily prayer for a long time; but after two years spent here she became convinced that her devotions were far from what they should be; that she had never appre- hended her sinfulness and the consequent divine condem- nation ; that all which is threatened in the Word of God to those dying impenitent was deserved; and that there was no salvation for her except by Jesus Christ. New tastes, hopes and joys followed. Pleasing as her countenance and manner had always been, there was now an added charm. Although forty-eight years have elapsed since she presented herself to assent publicly to the arti- cles of faith and covenant of the Eliot Church, I call to mind distinctly the expression on her face at that time. Her countenance, always bright, was now radiant as if a gleam from the Mount of Transfiguration had fallen on that precious young disciple. No cloud afterwards seemed ever to gather over her. When asked for a written opinion with reference to Miss Ballantine's appointment
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as an assistant missionary (1856), Mrs. Anderson wrote as follows :
" She has good health with uniform cheerfulness and buoyancy of spirit. She has a good mind, well balanced, and was considered one of their first scholars at the Seminary at South Hadley. She has uncommon industry and tact in all practical matters relating to household duties. Her piety is of a high order. I have never known a young person of more spirituality of mind, or who lived habitually with such nearness to the Saviour. Her love for the missionary work is the ruling motive in all her plans and acquirements, and this has been the case ever since I have been acquainted with her. She has been in our family for months at a time, and I have felt daily impressed that she had in every respect a peculiar fitness for the missionary work. I have never seen a young person who seemed to promise greater usefulness in that work."
Standing in the same aisle above referred to - the church filled with spectators - she was joined in marriage, July, 1856, with Rev. Dr. S. B. Fairbank of the Mahratta Mission. Scores upon scores of friends gave a hearty God- speed to the " beloved Persis who labored much in the Lord." Her children, one of whom is the wife of a mis- sionary at Ahmednagar, two other unmarried daughters and two sons in the same mission "arise up and call her blessed." In 1878 Mrs. Fairbank entered into rest, enter- ing at the same time yet more fully "into the joy of the Lord."
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8. MRS. HARRIET S. CASWELL.
As Miss Harriet S. Clark she was for a time in the infant class of our Sunday School (1839). We are un- willing to allow that even so slight a connection is not sufficient to authorize some mention here of one so long and so useful in the Master's service. At the twenty-fifth anniversary of our school a letter, addressed to the children, came from her hand, speaking of the sweet hymns she there learned and the singing which she so much enjoyed. The letter, very sprightly and pleasing, was written at the Cattaraugus Reservation for the Seneca Indians, where she labored successfully seventeen years as a teacher, and in connection with the Orphan Asylum which had been opened in behalf of that tribe. It was my pleasure to be one of the party when her father, Rev. Joseph S. Clark, D.D., accompanied her to that mission in the south- west corner of New York. It was the autumn of 1853, and I had the gratification of preaching to the Indians, Deacon Silver-Heels serving as interpreter. A more attentive or better behaved congregation I never wit- nessed.
Miss Clark was adopted into the Seneca nation, an honor more full of meaning and more fruitful than the freedom of a city, which is sometimes tendered to strangers by a white-man's municipality. They gave her an Iroquois name, Go-wah-dah-dyah-seh, "She pushes us ahead." This was happily significant of her success in endeavors to elevate the people. Her book entitled Our Life Among
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the Iroquois Indians, by Mrs. Harriet S. Caswell, is as graphic and entertaining as any story-book, with the ad- vantage of being strictly true. It is a work of over three hundred pages, issued by the Congregational Sunday School and Publishing Society.
After her return East Mrs. Caswell was active in the Boston North End Charities for Working Women. She was at one time editor of the Home Missionary, and is now Secretary of the Woman's Department of the Congregational Home Missionary Society.
9. MRS. JANE HERRING LOOMIS.
The youngest daughter of the Rev. David Greene, and was born in Roxbury, June 14, 1845; graduated from the Young Ladies' Seminary, Auburn, N. Y., and for over ten years a teacher in the same. In 1863 she united with the Congregational Church at Westborough, Mass., and was later transferred to the Fourth Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York City.
She married (1872) Rev. Henry Loomis, who was then under appointment to the Japan Mission of the American Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions. Mr. Loomis had served in the 146th Regiment of Volunteers. Enlisting as a private he was promoted to the captaincy of a company, and fought in twenty-seven engagements. He was present at Lee's surrender; and when peace was restored, resumed study at Hamilton College, graduating in 1866, and from Auburn Theological Seminary three
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years later. In May, 1872, they reached Yokohama, a little before the first Protestant Church in Japan, now known as the Kaigan (Seaside) Church of Yokohama, was organized ; and in connection with that they entered upon their work with great earnestness. Hardly four years, however, had gone by, when Mrs. Loomis' health gave way, and they were obliged to return home.
In the Spring of 1881 Mr. Loomis was appointed agent of the American Bible Society for Japan, and in the Autumn following, Mrs. Loomis joined him at Yokohama once more. Besides the work of Bible distribution, which, during his superintendence, has probably reached two mil- lion portions of Scripture, they have done a good deal for Chinese residents in Yokohama, for foreign sailors in that port, and for prisoners in the consular jails. Their home has been a rallying place for Christians, both native and foreign. Mrs. Loomis is a deaconess in the Union Church of Yokohama.
IO. REV. DAVID COIT SCUDDER.
At the quarter-century celebration of the Eliot Sun- day School (1859), Mr. Scudder, in closing an excellent address said: "One day about eight years ago-I re- member it well- I was playing at my home here in Rox- bury. I happened to look up and saw our pastor coming toward the house. It was the annual day of prayer for colleges, and I at once thought that he had come to talk to me about my soul. I did not want to see him, and
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ran and hid myself. I was soon called in, however. He took me by his side, talked with me kindly but seriously, and as he was leaving asked me to mark in my Bible the eighth verse of the twenty-seventh Psalm. I did so. Time passed on, and my thoughtlessness continued. But about a year afterwards, when that moment came to me, as it always does once at least to every man-the moment when I saw that I had been seeking the world and its pleasures, and felt that they were tasteless - I remember taking my Bible and often looking at that verse: 'When Thou saidst, Seek ye my face, my heart said unto Thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek.' It was not long before I sought his face and found peace."
The family had for some time resided in Roxbury and worshiped at the Eliot Church. David was born in Boston, October 27, 1835. His father, Deacon Charles Scudder, was well known in the business world as a man of inflexible integrity, and in the religious world as a wise counsellor and a devout Christian, carrying a countenance and possessing a character full of sunshine.
In boyhood this son was noticeably energetic, frolic- some, and impetuous, qualities that were afterwards modi- fied, but always remained characteristics. An impulse to run and to shout was inborn. Preparation for college was at the Latin Schools of Boston and Roxbury, and he graduated from Williams in the class of 1855. The home was a center of missionary influence, and a home for mis- sionaries. Among them it is natural to name Dr. John
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Scudder, though his relationship was at a remove of six generations. In David's mind, to be a Christian and to be a missionary had always seemed one and the same. Accordingly when converted, during his college course his mercurial spirit led at once to thoughts of foreign
service, which always presented attractions.
Parental
wishes were also thus met; and his consecration was hearty and complete. Native exuberance might be grad- ually curbed, but would still overflow. Bishop Hannington, whose tragic end came later (1886) in Central Africa, had a temperament and traits similar to those of David Scudder. The adoption of a high and holy purpose by our young friend transformed him in a measure, making a man out of the boy. Aims and methods of study, and the direction of an earnestness that never flagged, took on a new type. Cheeriness and frankness were unabated; conventionality never mastered him. During the remainder of his course at Williamstown, and afterwards at Andover, he gave him- self unremittingly to preparation for evangelistic work, especially in India, grappling with the Tamil language, studying the history, religion, and philosophy of the people, and at the same time endeavoring to enlist fellow students in a personal devotion to the foreign service. His pen was employed in contributions to the press. A package of his tracts for children, Tales about the Heathen, was issued by the Tract Society in Boston. He delivered ad- dresses to Sunday Schools and juvenile societies; at the same time engaging in something besides talk. He under-
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took a Bible agency in New Jersey and tract distribution in Boston. Having graduated at Andover (1859), he re- ceived ordination in Boston, February 25, 1861. It has. never been the lot of the writer to take part in such a service with feelings of deeper interest than at that time. The next evening he was married to the daughter of another deacon of the Essex Street Church. Dr. N. Adams baptized both bride and bridegroom in infancy, and received both of them into the visible Christian fold.
Before graduating from college, India had become David's first thought in the morning, and was uniformly present in his mind. Catching sight of the coast south of Madras (June 25, 1861), he entered in his journal: "My home is at hand. My work is before me. India is to be the Lord's. How soon?" The next year he was put in charge of the mission district of Periakulam, about fifty miles northwest from Madura. He had just entered his twenty-eighth year, and was to be on missionary ground only a year and a half. November nineteenth he had occa- sion, in touring, to cross a river, which was suddenly swollen by recent rains. He was a good swimmer; but when halfway across, there came down the stream a vast volume of water from a great tank which had given way. No human strength was equal to the emergency, and our friend was drowned. In a churchyard on a little hillside at Kodi Kanal may be seen a memorial stone with the inscription :
DAVID COIT SCUDDER.
" He leadeth me beside the still waters."
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II. MISS ELLEN MARIA STONE.
The daughter of Mr. Benjamin F. Stone, one of the original members of this church. The ancestors in each direct parental line back to the earliest arrival in New England were church members. June 4, 1848, the father and mother presented for baptism two children, one of whom, then two years old, was named Ellen Maria, for a missionary who had been the mother's Sunday School teacher. At that time the mother consecrated this child to missionary service, a circumstance not made known to the daughter till she was weighing the subject with reference to offering herself to the American Board. In her written offer of service occurs the following : -
" Though often thoughtful upon the subject of my personal relations and duty to God, from the days when Dr. Thompson used to ask me, 'My little girl, do you love God?' yet it was not till March, 1866, during a revival of marked power, that I gave my life to God's service. In July following, with about a hundred others, I was received to the church." It was the First Church in Chelsea, Dr. A. H. Plumb, Pastor, the family having removed to that city. Miss Stone speaks of the Maternal Association, of which Mrs. Dr. Anderson was largely the life, and of the influence of Quarterly meetings, and of books and cards then given to children.
Her immediate call to missionary service was by a sermon of Dr. E. K. Alden, 1878. She had had for years an agreeable and useful position on the editorial staff
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of the Congregationalist ; she was in charge of the Sunday School Primary Department-a very large one-of the First Church in Chelsea; but the Macedonian cry seemed imperative; and going to Samokov, Bulgaria, she became connected with the Girls' Boarding School of that city. Contributions from her graphic pen relating to that insti- tution, and to other departments of the good work, have appeared in News from Bulgaria, in the Missionary Herald, and Life and Light, as well as Mission Dayspring. Among those contributions will be found many and inter- esting incidents and narratives. Since 1882 Miss Stone has had charge of the field work, or touring among the Bible women and teachers of schools connected with the evangelical communities. On her late needed vacation, after many years of work, she addressed numerous gather- ings of ladies, and of young people in the Endeavor meetings or in Sunday Schools. These addresses were instructive, and wisely suited to the object and the occasion. Her visits to the Eliot Church were peculiarly welcome and stimulating. Missionary work in Bulgaria, that land of a newly-born nation, is increasingly her delight.
12. MISS ANNA WELLS BUMSTEAD.
The Rev. Robert W. Hume and Mrs. Hume, mis- sionaries of the American Board in India, on their way hence (1854), stopped at Cape Town, where Mr. Hume died. Through Mrs. Hume a copy of the life of Mary Lyon came into the hands of Dr. Murray, pastor of the
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Dutch Reformed Church at Wellington, a well-known author of devotional books. That led to the founding (1874) of the "Huguenot Seminary " at Wellington, forty miles northeast from Cape Town. It was designed for daughters of European settlers in South Africa. A mis- sionary element entered into the thought of its founder, as was the case with its prototype, the Mount Holyoke Seminary. The institution took its name from Huguenot refugees, who, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, settled in that neighborhood. It has been signally blessed. Many pupils have been converted. Stimulated by the Report of the Woman's Board of Missions in Boston, a society was started among them in 1878. More than forty Alumnæ are now scattered over South and Central Africa, engaged in Christian work at the diamond mines and the gold fields; also in Mashonaland as well as on the Zambezi, and as far north as Lake Nyassa. Through their instrumentality not a few of the heathen have been Christianized. Young women of the seminary have availed themselves of the Cape University examinations ; and thus more than five hundred Christian teachers have been fill- ing positions of influence in mission, farm, and government schools.
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