History and Ecclesiastical Relations of the Churches of the Presbyterial Order at Amoy; China
(This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)
This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. This text refers to the Bibliobazaar edition.
John Van Nest Talmage, was a Protestant Christian missionary to Amoy, Fujian, China.
Background
He was born on a farm in Somerville, N. J. , in 1819, the son of David and Catharine (Van Nest) Talmage, and a descendant of Thomas Talmadge who emigrated from England to Massachusetts some time after 1630 and settled at Southampton, Long Island, about 1642. John's father was a man of sterling character; he served several terms in the state legislature and for a time was high sheriff of Somerset County. His home was a deeply religious one, but its religion was of a happy and cheerful type; of the seven sons four entered the ministry, one of them being Thomas De Witt Talmage. John spent most of his boyhood at Gatesville, N. J. , where his father kept a tollgate.
Education
He attended a private school at Boundbrook. He was active physically and something of a leader among his mates. Having prepared for college in the home of an elder brother, a pastor at Blawenburgh, N. J. , he entered Rutgers as a sophomore, was graduated in 1842, and then went to the New Brunswick Theological Seminary, where he was graduated in 1845.
As a lad he had read the biographies of missionaries and while in college had continued to keep in touch with missionary literature. It was not surprising, therefore, that an address by a missionary, the Rev. Elihu Doty, which Talmage heard while a student, should have led him to decide to give his life to that calling.
Career
On leaving the seminary he offered himself to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, with which his denomination, the Dutch Reformed, then cooperated. The Board's financial condition precluded sending him immediately, and for two years he served as assistant pastor in the Central Reformed Church of Brooklyn, being ordained at Millstone, N. J. , on August 26, 1846.
In 1847 he sailed for Amoy, China, and arrived only a few years after the first Chinese treaties with Western powers had opened it to foreign residence. There he spent the major part of the remainder of his life, most of the time making his home on the island of Kulangsu, on the opposite side of the harbor from the city.
The first of his infrequent trips to America was in 1849, barely two years after his arrival in China, to escort a member of his mission who was being invalided home. Before returning he married. His second voyage home was in 1862, when, after the death of his wife, he felt that he must take his four children to the United States.
While in America he pleaded with the General Synod of his church to permit the cooperation of its missionaries with those of the English Presbyterians in the formation of an independent Chinese church in Amoy and the adjoining territory, and published in 1863 History and Ecclesiastical Relations of the Churches of the Presbyterian Order at Amoy, China. At first defeated, he later won his point.
In November 1864 he married for the second time and soon afterward returned to Amoy. Here he continued to contribute to the building of a growing Chinese church.
He shared both in preaching and in teaching. He was noted, too, for his literary achievements. In his student days he had shown himself so proficient in Hebrew and Greek that on graduating from the theological seminary he was urged to allow his name to be considered for a professorship of languages in that institution. In Amoy he gave much attention to developing a romanized form of writing the vernacular, to enable illiterate Christians quickly to read the Bible and other religious literature, and prepared a good deal of printed material in that medium. Included in this material are a primer (1852), a reader (1853), a version of Pilgrim's Progress, the Book of Ruth, and portions of the New Testament.
In the closing years of his life he finished a dictionary of the Amoy dialect.
He returned to America in 1889 and spent his remaining years at Boundbrook, near his boyhood home.
Achievements
In the course of nearly half a century in Amoy he made a profound impression upon the missionaries and the rising churches of that region.
He is memorialized in the classic work Forty Years in China, which was written by Rev. John Gerardus Fagg in 1894, a biography genre.
