James Walter Lowrie was an American clergyman. He served as a missionary under the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church from 1883 to 1930.
Background
James Walter Lowrie was born on September 16, 1856 in Shanghai, China. Missionary interests surrounded his boyhood. His grandfather, Walter Lowrie, who had emigrated from Scotland about 1792, was the first secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. One uncle, John Cameron Lowrie, had been a missionary to India; and another uncle, Walter Mason Lowrie, a missionary to China, had been killed in 1847 by pirates near Ningpo. His father, Reuben Post Lowrie, was a missionary stationed in Shanghai when the boy was born, and died there in 1860 when James Walter was less than four years old. After the father's death, his mother, Amelia Palmer (Tuttle) Lowrie, returned to the United States with her daughter and son.
Education
Lowrie studied at the Lawrenceville, New Jersey, high school and at Princeton University, receiving the degree of Bachelor of Arts there in 1876 and that of Master of Arts in 1879. Then he entered Princeton Theological Seminary. The impulse towards missionary life had been his by inheritance; but quietly and characteristically he waited until he was convinced of his "call. " On June 3, 1883, the year of his graduation from the Seminary, he was ordained by the Presbytery of New York.
Career
For three years (1877 - 1880), Lowrie taught at Madison, New Jersey. In 1883 he was appointed a missionary of the Presbyterian Board to China. For eight years he was stationed at Peking, laying the foundations for his unusual command of the Chinese language and taking an increasingly active part in mission work. A short interval (1892 - 1893) in the United States ensued, during which he served as stated supply for a church in Longmont, Colorado. Returning to China, he helped establish the mission station at Paotingfu. The next six years were an active and happy period. His evangelistic efforts were fruitful; and, always an intense home lover, he had his mother with him at Paotingfu, and his sister and her husband, Dr. B. C. Atterbury, were also members of the mission.
While he was absent from the station in 1900 for the purpose of escorting to the coast his mother, who was returning for a time to America, the Boxer massacres occurred at Paotingfu. In after years his thankfulness for their escape was obviously tinged with regret that he had not been with his fellow Christians during those days. He at once plunged into the work nearest at hand. Joining the Allies at Tientsin, he accompanied them to Peking immediately after the relief of the beleaguered legations; and from Peking he was sent, as guide and interpreter, with the allied detachment which was dispatched to Paotingfu. The first intention of the allied officers was to raze that city as punishment for the massacres, and it was only Lowrie's courageous and incessant pleas that prevented its destruction. This unexpected example of Christian magnanimity profoundly impressed the Chinese, and their gratitude became a factor in the subsequent success of mission work in that place of the martyrs. Honors began to come to him. In 1910 he was chosen as the first chairman of the China Council, the executive body on the field of the seven China missions of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. His headquarters were in Shanghai, but his duties led him far afield. His work was modestly and quietly done, but was effective in constructive and unifying results.
During his later years ill health and failing eyesight limited his activities; and he was deeply troubled by those whom he feared to be destroying the true foundations of Christianity. In 1925 he became honorary chairman of the China Council, and four years later he left Shanghai to spend his last days in Paotingfu.
Personality
Lowrie was a man of social graces and warm sympathies. He was always the favorite guest in a multitude of homes.