James William Lambuth was an American missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He served one year as a pastor in Mississippi area.
Background
His grandfather, William Lambuth, had been sent by Bishop Asbury from the Baltimore Conference to labor among the Indians "in the wilds of Tennessee, " and his father, John Russell Lambuth, a member of the Kentucky Conference, had volunteered for service among the Indians of Louisiana. In 1830, the latter was holding a camp meeting in Greene County, Alabama. Without any explanation he left the meeting but soon returned with this announcement, "I was called home by the birth of a baby boy. In heartfelt gratitude to God I dedicated the child to the Lord as a foreign missionary, and I now add a bale of cotton to send him with" (Pinson, post, p. 17). The family early moved to Mississippi.
Education
James graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1851.
Career
Lambuth became a preacher chiefly to the Negroes gathered in their cabins. In 1854 he joined the Mississippi Conference and was immediately appointed by Bishop Andrew to aid in founding the China Mission of his Church. After he had mastered the Chinese language he began preaching on the streets of Shanghai and in the villages along the canals and creeks of the Shanghai area. He made it his policy to spend two weeks of each month on a preaching tour, living in a houseboat and sharing his faith and life with the Chinese.
When the outbreak of the Civil War interfered with missionary enterprises, Lambuth returned to Mississippi, but went back to China in 1864 and resumed his former activities. As time went on, however, he came to look with uneasiness upon what he felt was a disproportionate amount of time, money, and effort spent on educational endeavors as compared with that given to evangelistic work.
Partly from this cause and partly for health reasons, after thirty-two years of pioneering service in China, he and his son accepted a commission to lay the foundation of Southern Methodist missions in Japan. They chose to occupy a territory which had a strategic place in the industrial growth and resources of Japan. While the work had its center in the great industrial cities of Kobe and Osaka, it spread to the surrounding country. The elder Lambuth's travels by boat around the Inland Sea earned for him the title "Father of the Inland Sea Mission. " After some sixteen years of service in Japan he died at Kobe with the appeal: "I die at my post; send more men. "
Achievements
Lambuth was known for his forty years missionary service in China and Japan. He was the founder of the Hiroshima Nagarekawa Church in Hiroshima in 1887 and later he organized three Japanese Christian schools.
Connections
James married Miss Mary Isabella McClellan on October 10, 1853. She volunteered to be missionary to China with her husband. She had not only the skill to care for her home but also the courage and wisdom to initiate a work for the women and children of China which continued to bear the imprint of her genius. Their son, Dr. Walter R. Lambuth, was appointed superintendent, while on the mission with his father in Japan.
