SB ETS TbS 
 
 OLDHAM 
 
 - 
 

 
 

 \~lxM a^t 3>i&^&es/ r i0&& 
 
 /< 
 
 
THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 
ISABELLA THOBURN. 
 
Isabella Thoburn 
 
 William F. Oldham 
 
 The women that publish the tidings are a great host 
 
 Jennings & Pye 
 Chicago 
 
 **A\^-VTl/ 
 
Copyrighted, 1902, by 
 
 The Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions 
 
 and Reprinted by Permission. 
 
By 32 
 
 T4<? 
 
 b 
 
 A BROTHER'S TRIBUTE 
 
 BISHOP J. M. THOBURN 
 
 My sister was an exceptional woman, one among 
 ten thousand. Her strong character was notable for its 
 simplicity. Her splendid courage was in striking con- 
 trast with her quietness of spirit. She was conservative 
 by instinct and progressive from conviction. She was 
 perfectly calm in times of storm and always confident in 
 the face of disaster. Her faith was like a clear evidence, 
 her hope like an assurance of things not seen. Her 
 absolute devotion to the welfare of those who seemed to 
 be thrown in her way was simply Christ-like. Would 
 to God that a thousand young women of like spirit 
 might be raised up for the splendid opportunities which 
 are now opening up before the Church! 
 
 M312244 
 
Isabella Thoburn 
 
 Christian — Teacher — Missionary 
 1840-1901 
 
 Scotch-Irish Ancestry. — 1. The Thoburns in 
 Ireland. — The Scotch-Irish are held in high esteem 
 in America. So marked is this esteem that the aver- 
 age Protestant Irish family, when it begins to pros- 
 per, makes minute search for the dash of Scotch 
 blood that is supposed to greatly enrich it and se- 
 cure the family in popular esteem. The Thoburns 
 were originally Scotch, probably sprung from 
 Scandinavian ancestors. In the seventeenth cen- 
 tury a portion of the family moved to the neighbor- 
 hood of Belfast, Ireland. Here early in the last 
 century one of the Thorburns, whose name by Irish 
 attrition had come to be Thoburn, married Miss 
 Crawford, and together they emigrated to the 
 United States, — that "Beulah Land" toward which 
 Irish eyes have looked longingly for a hundred 
 years and never more eagerly than now. 
 
6 Isabella Thoburn 
 
 2. On reaching America in 1825 the Thoburns 
 were attracted to Eastern Ohio, where they settled 
 on a farm near St. Clairsville. Ohio is one of the 
 remarkable States of the Union, for here the severer 
 culture of the older East meets the expansive and 
 virile energy of the younger West. From this 
 State there has come a larger proportion of the 
 commanding men and women of the Republic than 
 its mere numbers would lead one to expect. The 
 Ohio man is prominent in State and Church, and 
 the Ohio woman is in evidence everywhere. 
 
 Ohio Homes and Schools. — 1. The Thoburn 
 Family. — It was in the stimulating religious atmos- 
 phere of this great state that the Thoburn children 
 were born and reared. There were ten of them, 
 for this was one of those healthy, old-fashioned 
 families that did not tend to disappearance in a 
 generation or two. Five boys and five girls made 
 the Thoburn home a bustling, busy place. Isabella 
 was the ninth child and the youngest daughter but 
 one. She was born March 9, 1840. All of the 
 children have given a good account of themselves 
 in life. Of the sisters, two have been much in the 
 eye of the Methodist Episcopal Church, because of 
 their wide public service in the woman's missionary 
 activities of that denomination. Mrs. J. R. Mills 
 is now the Conference Secretary of the Woman's 
 Foreign Missionary Society of the East Ohio Con- 
 
Isabella Thoburn 7 
 
 ference, and Mrs. Ellen Cowen of Cincinnati 
 is the efficient corresponding secretary of the Cin- 
 cinnati Branch of the same society, which includes 
 the States of Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia. 
 Her youngest brother is James Mills Thoburn, Mis- 
 sionary Bishop of India, a man as well known and 
 influential for good as any man that America ever 
 sent to Southern Asia. 
 
 2. The parents of these children were, it may 
 easily be believed, people of sterling worth and 
 deep religious fervor. The father was a class- 
 leader in the Methodist Church. The mother, a 
 woman of extraordinary force of character, pro- 
 foundly affected her children's early religious life. 
 As with Augustine and John Wesley, so with the 
 Thoburns ; when one inquires into the life and out- 
 comes of the child, he must take note of the mother 
 who, more than any other on earth, shapes infancy 
 and adolescence into worthy manhood. 
 
 3. Isabella's Education. — Isabella, in common 
 with the other children of the family, received her 
 early education in the country public school. Here 
 she proved herself a faithful student, not brilliant, 
 but purposeful and thorough. She never would 
 assent to a proposition, whether in letters or num- 
 bers, until she understood it. Mental thoroughness 
 early characterized her. She might seem a trifle 
 slow in reaching a position, but when she arrived 
 
8 Isabella Thoburn 
 
 she knew the ground which she had been over 
 thoroughly, and was competent to intelligently di- 
 rect the next adventurer. It was unusual at that 
 time for young women to go any farther with their 
 education than the public school, but Miss Tho- 
 burn and her mother were agreed that the largest 
 possible preparation for the work of life is the best 
 investment of money and time that youth can make. 
 So the public school course was followed by the 
 training afforded by the Wheeling Female Semi- 
 nary and that by a year in the Art School of Cin- 
 cinnati. It was well that such sound educational 
 foundations were laid in her girlhood by one who 
 was afterwards to open the pathway to the higher 
 learning for the coming leaders of a far away peo- 
 ple. For Miss Thoburn to have been content with 
 less than the best preparation which the times and 
 her circumstances afforded wotild have barred her 
 from the wider usefulness of later years. 
 
 4. Early Teaching Experiences. — Forty iyears 
 ago the number of educated women was small every- 
 where. It was larger in Ohio than in most States, 
 but not so large but that one might safely say of any 
 well prepared woman that she would probably be- 
 come a teacher. This Miss Thoburn became at the 
 early age of eighteen. But though young in years, 
 she was remarkably mature in judgment and had 
 that admirable admixture of frank kindliness with 
 
Isabella Thoburn 9 
 
 native leadership which enables its happy possessor 
 to become at once the friend and guide of others. 
 She, who was afterwards to open the way to col- 
 lege education for Christian young women in India, 
 began her experience as a humble country school 
 teacher in Ohio. And, indeed, it is no mean pre- 
 paration for any place of usefulness in life to meet 
 at life's threshold the severe test of a "country 
 school marm's" experiences. What tact and 
 shrewdness and native force that experience calls for 
 in any successful issue of it, only those know who 
 have tried and either failed or succeeded. If we 
 were advising a missionary candidate with suitable 
 preparation, who, for any reason, is detained in the 
 home land for a while, we would recommend a 
 year's experience in a country school room as likely 
 to exercise and develop all those qualities most 
 needed in a foreign missionary. 
 
 5. Further Teaching Experience. — From the 
 country school she was advanced to higher grades 
 of teaching, serving in influential positions for one 
 year in a Young Ladies' Seminary in New Castle, 
 Pa., and later in a similar school at West Farming- 
 ton, Ohio. During these years she was always the 
 earnest, helpful Christian worker, who came to 
 richer, fuller development year by year. She gave 
 much thought and attention to the pupils under her 
 care. She did not, however, refrain from the wider 
 
io Isabella Thoburn 
 
 work of the day. The Civil War was making! great 
 demands upon the women, as well as upon the men 
 of the nation. In all work looking to the alleviation 
 of suffering among the sick and wounded soldiers 
 she showed the same energetic but tender spirit that 
 in after years made her so successful, and which 
 won to her the hearts of all whom she touched. 
 Her interest in the affairs of the nation never 
 waned. When domiciled in India she followed all 
 the larger politics of her adopted country with the 
 keen, sympathetic interest of one who recognized 
 that no lover of his kind can be satisfied until all 
 organized society is so purified as to enlarge the 
 chance for virtue in the individual; that men are 
 "men" and not merely "souls," and that the true 
 winner of souls is that "wise" one who recognizes 
 that, whatever power there may be in the individual 
 to live his own life, there is yet a solidarity in the 
 human family which makes the ills of one the bur- 
 den of all. 
 
 The Call from India. — i. Her Brother's Mes- 
 sage. — While Miss Thoburn was pursuingi her use- 
 ful work in America with no particular thought in 
 her mind of service in any foreign land, events 
 were shaping in India which were destined to en- 
 tirely alter the course of her life. It may always 
 be assumed that the people, who are most likely to 
 benefit the heathen when they reach them, are those 
 
Isabella Thoburn 1 1 
 
 who are faithful to duty and seize opportunity 
 wherever they may be. The student volunteer who 
 is slipshod in the work at hand and careless of the 
 advancement of those around him here, can scarce- 
 ly be expected to do notable things when he reaches 
 some other land. After all, life anywhere only gives 
 one an opportunity to work out what is within. In 
 the absence of a devout, helpful personality mere 
 change of locality means little. The even tenor of 
 Miss Thoburn's way in Ohio was broken by the re- 
 ceipt of a letter from her missionary brother, James, 
 who had been for several years in North India. He 
 was a young widower and had constantly met with 
 difficult situations created by the peculiar place as- 
 signed to woman in Hindu society. With him to 
 clearly see a difficulty has ever been preliminary to 
 a decisive attempt to meet it. As he found his 
 work constantly hindered with complications which 
 no man's hand could unravel, he promptly wrote his 
 sister Isabella to take steps to join him as a mis- 
 sionary in North India. That fateful letter was 
 fraught with weighty consequences. 
 
 2. Woman in India. — What James M. Thoburn 
 felt in his work was the common experience of all 
 missionaries in that land of strange contradictions, 
 where excessive humaneness towards animals exists 
 side by side with harshest and most unsympathetic 
 treatment of women. The Indian woman has suf- 
 
12 Isabella Thoburn 
 
 fered, beyond her sisters of any other heathen land, 
 the disabilities that later Hinduism has put upon 
 her sex. As early as the fifth century before Christ, 
 Manu, the famous lawgiver, in his code defines the 
 place of woman and her relation to her husband as 
 that of a slave to her lord, a creature to her master. 
 He is to exercise the severest discipline in her treat- 
 ment and in her standing in this world, and any 
 glimmering hope that she may have of a life to 
 come depends upon her servile obedience to lordly 
 man. The sad history of Indian womanhood, as 
 seen by those brought up in the free air of Christly 
 teachings, has been pathetically summed up in 
 three brief sentences, which, though, like all apo- 
 thegms, not wholly true, still contain so much truth 
 as to afford a severe arraignment of Brahmanism. 
 This terse history is, "Unwelcomed at birth, un- 
 honored in life, unwept in death." No heavier bur- 
 den lies upon life in India than the inhuman and de- 
 basing treatment of womanhood by the religious 
 prescription of the ruling faith. India can make 
 but little advance in any true progress or civiliza- 
 tion, except as the wrongs of child marriage, en- 
 forced widowhood, and the social suspicion and dis- 
 respect and religious discrimination against her, are 
 lifted off the heart and mind of the Indian woman. 
 No blacker cloud darkens anv national sky than 
 
Isabella Thoburn i } 
 
 the cloud of unhonored womanhood which over- 
 hangs India. 
 
 Amongi the most futile of the defenses that arc 
 offered is that the Indian woman desires the condi- 
 tions under which she lives and most earnestly re- 
 sists any alteration of social conditions. This has 
 always been the lame apology of the wrong-doer. 
 The slaveholder has always held his slaves for their 
 good and has always pleaded their belief in his 
 statement of the case ; anything to the contrary has 
 always been the mischievous work of meddlesome 
 friends of the slave. And so with Indian women, 
 there are not a few Western men who are tempted 
 to believe the Hindu putting of the case. But what 
 if the woman, deprived for centuries of the ordinary 
 rights and privileges of a human being, should be 
 sunk through the generations into passivity and 
 even ignorant welcoming of her servile place. Alas, 
 for the captive bird that never knew freedom ! 
 
 But let any faintest understanding of the true 
 state of the case, any feeblest knowledge of how 
 other women live and are trusted and honored reach 
 her, and at once the woman's heart in India pines 
 for what she immediately recognizes as her natural 
 right. Listen to the prayer of one of these as re- 
 corded by her fellow countrywoman, the Pundita 
 Ramabai : "O Lord, hear my prayer. For ages 
 
14 Isabella Thoburn 
 
 dark ignorance has brooded over our minds and 
 spirits; like a cloud of dust it rises and wraps us 
 round; and we are like prisoners in an old and 
 moldering house, choked and buried in the dust of 
 custom ; and we have no strength to get out. Bruised 
 and beaten, we are like the dry husks of the sugar- 
 cane when the sweet juice has been extracted. 
 Criminals confined in jails are happier than we, for 
 they know something of the world. They were not 
 born in prison ; but we have not for one day, no, not 
 even in our dreams, seen Thy world, and what we 
 have not seen we cannot imagine. To us it is noth- 
 ing but a name; and not having seen Thy world, 
 we cannot know Thee, its Maker. We have been 
 in this jail; we have died here, and are dying. O 
 God of mercies, our prayer to Thee is this, that the 
 curse may be removed from the women of India." 
 
 3. Unmarried Lady Missionaries. — And these 
 isolated women are cut off from any chance of male 
 ministration. No male missionary may preach the 
 gospel to any but the lowest caste of women of In- 
 dia, and even these listen with timidity and are ill at 
 ease in the presence of a strange white man. The 
 missionaries' wives work among them; but the af- 
 fairs of the missionary households, the claims of 
 missionary children and the necessary and legitimate 
 sharing of the wives in the plans and burdens of 
 their husbands prevent them from being able to 
 
Isabella Thoburn 15 
 
 adequately meet the great demand for a female 
 evangelistic and teaching agency. If the women of 
 India, the home makers and mothers of Hinduism, 
 are to be evangelized and taught the gospel of Jesus 
 Christ and saved to honored and worthy woman- 
 hood, this must be done by unmarried women from 
 Christian lands preparing a band of native women 
 workers to carry the gospel into secluded zenanas in 
 the cities and to the mohullas in the villages of that 
 populous land. This James Thoburn saw and wrote 
 inviting Isabella to join him. But there was a prac- 
 tical difficulty in the way. 
 
 4. Missionary Boards and Women Workers. — 
 When Miss Thoburn, in response to her brother's in- 
 vitation, sought to find her way to India, she learned 
 that there was no existing organization of the 
 Church which would authorize her going or her 
 proposed work. The General Society had not 
 thought of any but a male, agency. All those who 
 had the direction of the Society were men, and 
 Christendom has ever been slow to recognize the 
 possibilities of women and the value of their service 
 in the extension oi the Redeemer's Kingdom. It 
 was true that many young women seemed to be 
 eager for missionary service, but this seemed only 
 to add to the perplexity of the officials. Dr. Dur- 
 bin, one of the strong men of the Church and the 
 secretary of the Society, wails : "If I wanted fifty 
 
1 6 Isabella Thoburn 
 
 young ladies, I could find them in a week ; but when 
 I want five young men, I must search for them a 
 year or more." That it might be possible that God 
 was moving the hearts of the young women, and 
 that they might be exceedingly serviceable in the 
 evangelization of the darkened peoples of the earth, 
 seems not to have entered the male mind. And yet 
 Miss Thoburn was so earnest and devoted a woman 
 and so loyal a Methodist, that when she applied to 
 the Society to be sent to India, they felt that they 
 could not send her and yet scarcely dared to refuse 
 to do so. There was the alternative that she could 
 go under the auspices of the Woman's Union Mis- 
 sionary Society of Xew York, which was already 
 in successful operation, but Miss Thoburn preferred 
 to exhaust the possibilities of appointment by the 
 agencies of her own Church before she would seek 
 any other way of reaching what she sincerely and 
 strongly held to be the work which God called her 
 to do. This hour of man's perplexity was, how- 
 ever, the hour of God's opportunity, and there was 
 about to arise a new agency which should solve the 
 difficulty and become an added force of marked 
 power for preaching the gospel to the ends of the 
 earth. 
 
 5. The Woman's Foreign Missionary Society 
 Organized. — While Miss Thoburn and the mission- 
 ary secretaries were in this dilemma, the great Lord 
 
Isabella Thoburn 17 
 
 of the harvest field was moving upon the hearts of 
 Methodist women in a city far removed from Ohio. 
 In Boston, prolific mother of great reforms and 
 philanthropic movements, there met early in 1869 
 Dr. and Mrs. William Butler, the founders of Meth- 
 odist Episcopal missions in India and afterwards in 
 Mexico, and Mrs. Lois Parker, the wife of Dr. 
 Edwin W. Parker of India. All three of these bore 
 the burden of the depressed women of India upon 
 their hearts, and as they described the condition of 
 these women to their Boston friends, the idea sprang 
 up of a female agency to meet this special need. A 
 meeting was appointed to consider the subject and 
 to take steps to form a society. The day came, 
 Tuesday, March 23, 1869, and with it came a pelt- 
 ing storm. Six women were present beside the two 
 missionary ladies. Nothing daunted the meeting 
 was held. The speakers made powerful addresses, 
 and the six hearers, greatly moved, proceeded to 
 immediately organize the Woman's Foreign Mis- 
 sionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
 With splendid zeal the society was recruited from 
 East and West till it soon numbered hundreds of 
 members. 
 
 6. First Public Meeting. — At the first public 
 meeting it was announced that a missionary candi- 
 date from Ohio had been referred by the general 
 society to the Woman's Society. She was in every 
 
1 8 Isabella Thoburn 
 
 way qualified and was eminently fitted to succeed. 
 The Society was of tender age, ^and there was but 
 little money as yet in the treasury. What was to 
 be done? A vote had already been taken that the 
 first missionary should be sent. Here was the lady 
 already at their doors, ready to go! Mrs. E. F. 
 Porter of Boston sprang to her feet and said: 
 "Shall we lose Miss Thoburn because we have not 
 the needed money in our hands to send her? No, 
 rather let us walk the streets of Boston in our calico 
 dresses and save the expense of more costly ap- 
 parel. I move, then, the appointment of Miss Tho- 
 burn as our missionary to India." This speech met 
 with ready response: "We will send her," they all 
 cried. Amid scenes like these were the beginnings 
 of that great Society, whose agents are now found 
 in all heathen lands and in the unevangelized por- 
 tions of Europe and Mexico and South America; 
 whose income is rapidly approaching half a million 
 dollars yearly; which has never known anything 
 but an onward movement and has steadily gone for- 
 ward from strength to strength; which, take it all 
 in all, is the most splendidly successful Methodist 
 society in existence. A few months later a medical 
 missionary, Miss Clara Swain, M.D., was also ap- 
 pointed, and together the two unmarried lady mis- 
 sionaries, the first of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church, sailed for India after several farewell meet- 
 
Isabella Thoburn 19 
 
 ings. The sight of two young women leaving home 
 and kindred for the unknown dangers of a far 
 heathen land greatly impressed the imagination and 
 stirred the heart of the Church. The Woman's 
 Foreign Missionary Society has been greatly blessed 
 of God in the quality of its workers. Bishop David 
 Moore, after examining the Methodist Missions of 
 Japan, China and Korea, writes in February, 1902: 
 
 "To the Secretaries of the Woman's Foreign 
 Missionary Society: 
 
 "I have now seen all your work in these three 
 Empires [China, Korea and Japan] and am pre- 
 pared to speak with authority. I am proud of the 
 Woman's Foreign Missionary Society and grateful 
 for the w r ork it is doing and the results it has al- 
 ready achieved. You have a remarkable body of 
 workers. Were the selection to be made anew, I 
 could not recommend a woman to be omitted from 
 the list. The reinforcements seem to be hand- 
 picked." 
 
 This testimony has been paralleled by competent 
 observers in all other fields ; but it may safely be 
 said that the first missionaries of the Society have 
 never been excelled. By general consent of her 
 fellow workers Miss Thoburn was for many years 
 of her later life held to be ''first among her equals." 
 Beloved and trusted by all, she was by common 
 consent and without the matter ever being put into 
 
io Isabella Thoburn 
 
 words the guide and adviser of the whole body of 
 women at home and abroad who work with her. 
 
 Early Years in India. — i. Work Defined. On 
 their arrival in India the two missionaries were 
 very kindly received by all, but there might have 
 been much difficulty in the place to be assigned 
 them in the field in their relation to their fellow 
 workers, were it not for the quality and clearhead- 
 edness of the ladies themselves. The initial victory 
 to be won for all time for women workers was first 
 within the mission itself. What is meant will be 
 more clearly seen by reading this extract from the 
 pen of Bishop Thoburn, writing about his early 
 experience with his sister: "I was not quick, how- 
 ever, to learn that the ladies sent out to the work 
 were missionaries, and that their work was quite as 
 important as my own. A few days after my sister 
 had commenced work, I found myself pressed for 
 time and asked her to copy a few letters for me. 
 She did so cheerfully, and very soon I had occasion 
 to repeat the request. The copying was again done 
 for me, but this time I was quietly reminded that 
 a copyist would be a great assistance to her as well 
 as to myself. The remark made me think, and I 
 discovered that I had been putting a comparatively 
 low estimate on all the work which the missionaries 
 were not doing. Woman's work was at a discount, 
 and I had to reconsider the situation and once for 
 
Isabella Thoburn 21 
 
 all accept the fact that a Christian woman sent out 
 into the field was a Christian missionary, and that 
 her time was as precious, her work as important 
 and her rights as sacred as those of the more con- 
 ventional missionaries of the other sex. The old- 
 time notion that a woman in her best estate is only 
 a helper and should only be recognized as an as- 
 sistant is based on a very shallow fallacy. She is 
 a helper in the married relation, but in God's wide 
 vineyard there are many departments of labor in 
 which she can successfully maintain the position of 
 an independent worker." 
 
 2. True Romance of Missions. — The precon- 
 ceived ideas of almost every missionary are likely 
 to receive a rude shock on reaching the mission 
 field. The usual thought is that the heathen world 
 is full of amiable people eager to welcome the mis- 
 sionary and to lend themselves immediately to the 
 carrying out of all the teaching with which the mis- 
 sionary is charged. A very brief experience easily 
 upsets all this. The "heathen" are found to be as 
 tenacious of their beliefs and modes of thought and 
 habits as others; nor are they always ready to ad- 
 mit the value of the strange missionary's message, 
 nor to see why they should change their ways, de- 
 rived from generations of revered ancestors. The 
 missionary early learns that the taking of the 
 heathen world for Christ is not a romantic gospel 
 
22 Isabella Thoburn 
 
 promenade, but a very serious piece of business 
 which taxes the utmost resources of the best en- 
 dowed and most fitly prepared men and women 
 through successive generations. Happy is that mis- 
 sionary who, when the mere romance of the foreign 
 aspect of his work is staled by experience, falters no 
 whit because the higher and perennial romance of 
 helping sluggish immortals and indurated civiliza- 
 tions by the quickening presence of the life-giving 
 God remains as the calling for life's most strenuous 
 endeavor. Even thoughtful and well-poised Miss 
 Thoburn, who had been in close correspondence 
 with her missionary brother James, did not find In- 
 dia the eager and waiting land that she had pic- 
 tured. But she soon adjusted herself to the facts 
 of the life around her and from the first saw with 
 keen, unerring insight that if India's women were 
 to be won and India's womanhood to be brought to 
 worthy place, it must be. under the leadership of 
 Indian women and through their devoted service. 
 It was clearly seeing this that made her so< eager an 
 advocate of the best training that could be given 
 her Indian girls, and it was this which made her 
 eager to thrust them, when fitted, into every place 
 of responsibility that opened. And, again, it was 
 this readiness to afford them every possible ad- 
 vantage and to give them every widening opportuni- 
 ties for service and responsible position, that so en- 
 
Isabella Thoburn 23 
 
 cleared Miss Thoburn to her scholars and fellow 
 workers as to make their devotion to her some- 
 thing extraordinary and touching to behold. 
 
 3. Her First School. — As soon as she perceived 
 that the first requisite was to train leaders, she de- 
 termined to open a school that should develop into 
 a high school for girls in the city of Lucknow. This 
 city was the most suitable for the purpose, for it was 
 the capital of Oudh and the center of Methodist 
 activities at the time. It had been besieged during 
 the Indian Mutiny twelve years before; but already 
 swift moving events had made the Mutiny but a 
 memory, and Lucknow was fast forgetting its bit- 
 terness in the changes and the new ways being in- 
 troduced by the English. But whatever progress 
 Lucknow might be making toward new ways of 
 thought and life, the idea of a high school for native 
 girls was entirely too advanced, not only for that 
 city, but for all interior India. Not only was this 
 too radical for Hindus, but even the English and 
 Americans, who spoke dark parables about "spoil- 
 ing the native women" and educating them beyond 
 their sphere, were opposed to the scheme. 
 
 Miss Thoburn, nothing daunted, launched out, 
 hiring a small court in the Aminabad Bazaar, and 
 the older missionaries tell to this day with great 
 glee how "Yunas Singh's boy, armed with a club, 
 kept watch over the entrance to the school lest any 
 
24 Isabella Thoburn 
 
 rowdy might visit the displeasure of the public upon 
 the seven timid girls who were gathered inside with 
 the adventurous lady teacher who had coaxed them 
 to come." The school was soon moved into the 
 private house of one of the missionaries and rapidly 
 grew into the famous Girls' Boarding and High 
 School, out of which ultimately came the Luck- 
 now Woman's College. 
 
 Higher Education for Women in India. — i. 
 While the troublesome questions of location and 
 pupils were early solved, not so the question of 
 what their training should be. Indeed, there is 
 still an occasional controversy among the mission- 
 aries and their supporters as to whether missionary 
 funds are rightly spent in providing any but a plain 
 education for the children of Christian converts. 
 The necessity for providing an educated leadership 
 seems even now, strangely enough, to meet with 
 question. It is true that the questions are growing 
 fewer all the time, but that there should be any at 
 all is a matter for surprise. What Miss Thoburn' s 
 ideas on the subject were may be learned from this 
 utterance made at the Ecumenical Conference in 
 New York in April, 1900 : "The power of educated 
 womanhood is simply the power of skilled service. 
 We are not in the world to be ministered unto, but 
 to minister. The world is full of need, and every 
 opportunity toi help is a duty. Preparation for 
 
Isabella Thoburn 25 
 
 these duties is education, whatever form it may 
 take or whatever service may result. The trained, 
 which means the educated in mind and hand, win 
 influence and power simply because they know how. 
 Few missionaries have found the expected in the 
 work awaiting" them on the field. We want to tell 
 women and children of Christ, their Savior and 
 Deliverer, and to teach them to read the story for 
 themselves. But instead of willing and waiting 
 pupils, we have found the indifferent, or even the 
 hostile, to win whom requires every grace and art 
 we know. We have found sickness and poverty to 
 relieve, widows to protect, advice to be given in 
 every possible difficulty or emergency, teachers and 
 Bible women to be trained, houses to be built, horses 
 and cattle to be bought, gardens to be planted and 
 accounts to be kept and rendered. We have found 
 use for every faculty, natural and acquired, that 
 we possessed, and have coveted all that we lacked. 
 But it is not only our power over those we go to 
 save that we must consider. When saved they 
 must have power over the communities in which 
 they live. We do poor work if we do not inspire 
 others to go and do likewise. Intemperance, di- 
 vorce, degrading amusements, injurious, impure or 
 false literature, are all serious hindrances in the 
 mission field. Women must know how to meet 
 them." 
 
26 Isabella Thoburn 
 
 2. Lilavati Singh's Plea, — With Miss Thoburn at 
 the New York meeting was Miss Lilavati Singh, one 
 of her pupils who, with Phoebe Rowe and a host 
 of others, had been trained into lofty Christian wo- 
 manhood by Miss Thoburn and who loved her with 
 a strength and devotion rarely seen. It was of Miss 
 Singh that ex-President Harrison said, that if 
 Qiristian missions had done nothing more than 
 make a Miss Singh out of a Hindu girl, they had 
 repaid all the money put into them. Said Miss 
 Singh, speaking also on the higher education of In- 
 dian women : "It has been said that because the 
 gospel is to be preached, therefore energy and 
 money and time should not be expended on higher 
 education. With all that you have done for us in 
 the past, you will never have enough workers for 
 us. The only way to get enough workers to meet 
 the demands of the field is to train us to do the 
 work that your missionaries have done. I have been 
 told that when the officers of our Church have the 
 names of candidates presented to them, one of the 
 first questions they ask is, What education has she 
 had? Now I could not help thinking that if, with 
 your heredity and environment, you require good 
 education in your laborers, how can we poor heathen 
 do efficient work without the same advantages? I 
 have been with missionaries for a number of years, 
 and I have seen them when their hearts have been 
 
LILAVATI SINGH. 
 
Isabella Thoburn 27 
 
 breaking. It is not the climate that breaks their 
 hearts; it is not the difference of food and the 
 strange surroundings ; but what is breaking the 
 hearts of a great many missionaries has been the 
 failure of character in their converts. From my 
 own experience, I want to tell you that failure of 
 character comes oftentimes from ignorance; be- 
 cause we do not know any better we disappoint 
 your missionaries. If you want us to be what you 
 are and to be what Christ intends us to be, give us 
 the education that you have had, and in time and 
 with God's help and grace we will not disappoint 
 you." 
 
 3. Lai Bagh, the Ruby Garden. — From the 
 bazaar to a private room and then to a private rented 
 house marked the outer movement of the girls' 
 school, which was meanwhile growing in favor so 
 greatly that the seven had become more than a hun- 
 dred. Then came one of those marked days in the 
 history of all missionary enterprises which bring in 
 new eras. Pressed for room and not satisfied with 
 the location of her school, Miss Thoburn heard of 
 the possibility of securing a great house, built by 
 a Moslem in a beautiful tract of seven acres studded 
 with trees and fragrant with flowers. The estate was 
 called Lai Bagh, the "Ruby Garden," and no loca- 
 tion in the whole city was so desirable. She secured 
 this property for about $7,000, and with praises to 
 
28 Isabella Thoburn 
 
 God and heartfelt gratitude the school was trans- 
 ferred to the new home. In all beautiful India it 
 would be difficult to find a more lovely spot. Amid 
 all her earnest, practical work how deep and tender 
 a love of beauty held Miss Thoburn may be learned 
 from her own description of her school home. "All 
 about the compound are trees and shrubs, some of 
 which are always blooming. When the hot winds of 
 April are scorching the. annuals in the flower beds, 
 the amaltas trees, which the English call the Indian 
 laburnum, hang out their golden pendants, making 
 a glory about us brighter than the morning sunlight, 
 while deeper than the noon heats blaze the red 
 pomegranate flowers all thro' May and June. The 
 rains bring out the dainty tassels on the babool 
 trees and lower down the oleanders, which scarcely 
 find breathing room amid the odors of tuberoses 
 and jessamine. In October and November the pride 
 of India, a tall tree of delicate foliage, puts forth 
 branches of wax-like white flowers. All through 
 the cold season convolvulus, begonia and other 
 creepers are blooming everywhere, clinging to the 
 portico, up old trees, over gate-ways and trellis 
 work. A passion flower covers one whole side 
 of the portico. February is the month of roses, 
 though some are blooming all the year round ; and 
 as the days grow warmer and March comes in the 
 whole garden overflows with color and sweetness. 
 
Isabella Thoburn 29 
 
 Then there is the sacred pepul tree, a banyan and 
 a palm; also seven wells, four of which are stone 
 built, each of which is a treasure house." This 
 beautiful house she called her home for thirty-one 
 years. Here she added one department to another, 
 until in course of time it came to be easily the 
 foremost Christian school for Indian women. At 
 the close of the first year it was determined to 
 change the day school into a boarding school. 
 
 4. Boarding Schools in Mission Lands. — From 
 the missionary standpoint a boarding school is of 
 more value than five day schools, for the simple 
 reason that in the former the children are cut off 
 from the demoralization of heathenism and are 
 steadily played upon by the forces that make for 
 Christian culture. No better investment is made 
 by the Christian Church than in the boarding, 
 schools placed in heathen lands. In 1887 the curri- 
 culum was widened and the school became the Girls' 
 High School, and a collegiate department was add- 
 ed. Through all these years the battle for the higher 
 education of Indian women was being pressed 
 within the missionary ranks as well as foundations 
 laid for it among the young women. Nor was the 
 school anything like the conventional girls' board- 
 ing school. It was a real home for its inmates and 
 the center of much sympathetic Christian activity, 
 which touched the whole city around it and stretched 
 
30 Isabella Thoburn 
 
 away to the farthest shores of India. Nor were the 
 ministrations of Lai Bagh and its unbounded hos- 
 pitality exercised toward Methodists alone. People 
 of all the denominations and of none; Christians, 
 Hindus, Mohammedans, the rich, the poor and 
 chiefly the troubled and the sorrowful ever found 
 there a ready welcome, hearty cheer and always the 
 discriminating helpful word, more precious than 
 gold. How Miss Thoburn stood the strain of her 
 multifarious duties and how she contrived to use 
 herself and her household in such varied and labor- 
 ious ministry without any appearance of bustle and 
 haste, that revealing mark of smaller souls, was al- 
 ways a mystery to her friends. She always found 
 time for people who needed her, and yet she was 
 punctual and the soul of order. Thus she became 
 the adviser and helper of many. The whole mission 
 sought her advice, and it was an open secret that her 
 Bishop brother always felt more comfortable when 
 she approved his constantly enlarging plans. While 
 her school claimed her chief attention, she was 
 never one of those unduly narrow ones who see 
 nothing but the portion they are working at. She 
 helped all through the city to create Sunday-schools, 
 and with her pupils both taught these and visited 
 the Hindu women in the zenanas. In 1874 she lent 
 herself for awhile to Cawnpore, a neighboring city, 
 and opened a boarding school there. 
 
PHOEBE ROWE. 
 
Isabella Thoburn 3 1 
 
 5. IV omen Evangelists. — Miss Thoburn was al- 
 ways intensely interested in the evangelization of the 
 women and greatly favored the training of women 
 evangelists for service in the villages and at the 
 fairs and women's bathing places. It gave her great 
 satisfaction when Phcebe Rowe, one of her trusted 
 and deeply loved teachers, turned aside from teach- 
 ing to do the work of an itinerating evangelist 
 among the lowly, ignorant people of the villages. 
 It will readily be seen that for the teachers and 
 older pupils the wide round of activities and the 
 practical interest in all manner of Christian work- 
 that made Lai Bagh a living center could not but 
 broaden and quicken their religious life. No won- 
 der that so many of Miss Thoburn's girls are teach- 
 ers and missionaries and devoted Christian women ! 
 Such outcomes are natural and spontaneous under 
 such leadership. 
 
 6. Lucknow Woman's College. — In 1886 came 
 the critical day in the life of the school. One of her 
 girls, desiring to study medicine, wished first to se- 
 cure a college training. A woman's college had 
 been opened in Calcutta, secular, and it may not be 
 unfair to say, at least non-Christian, if not agnostic, 
 in its religious positions. It was the only college in 
 all India for women. Mrs. Chuckerbutty, the girl's 
 mother, a Christian convert, would not hear of her 
 daughter's going to the Calcutta School. "I wish 
 
32 Isabella Thoburn 
 
 my daughter to finish her literary education, but I 
 would rather she should know nothing more, than 
 have her taught to doubt the truth of Christianity," 
 said this godly Indian mother. Miss Thoburn keen- 
 ly felt the situation and boldly proposed to still fur- 
 ther widen the curriculum and lift the school to the 
 college grade. The first contribution to the added 
 expense was 500 rupees from the widow, Mrs. 
 Chuckerbutty ; and thus by a steady evolution, from ' 
 the little day school in the bazaar in 1870 came in 
 1887 the Lucknow Woman's College, the first of its 
 kind in all Asia. 
 
 The patient, earnest worker had won her battle 
 against misunderstandings and questions on the one 
 hand, and on the other against the stolid apathetic 
 indifference to woman's training that characterizes 
 Indian society. Not the least contribution which 
 her work has made to the progress of that great 
 people to whom she gave thirty-one years of her 
 fruitful life, is the keen desire of the male workers 
 to find educated wives and the equally earnest re- 
 solve of the native Indian pastors and leaders to 
 give their daughters the best possible training. To 
 have borne conspicuous part in transforming any 
 portion of Indian society, so that those who a gen- 
 eration or two ago looked upon women as little 
 above the clods of the earth should now begin to 
 covet college training for them, is surely to have 
 
Isabella Thoburn 23 
 
 secured very large returns from a life's investment. 
 She found an infant Christian Church, gathered 
 mainly from the poor and unprivileged ; she found 
 the women of this Church illiterate, burdened, in- 
 capable of much progress ; she took the girls and 
 made from them a new type of Indian women such 
 as were never dreamed of ; and when she had demon- 
 strated in the actual product what Christ could do 
 for Indian womanhood, her task was done and "she 
 was not, for God took her." 
 
 Home Furloughs. — i. While the thirty-one 
 years her home was in Lai Bagh and, present or 
 absent, she was its directing head, she was obliged 
 twice to return to America for health and once to 
 seek larger means for the work. In 1880, after ten 
 years' service, she returned home via Palestine. 
 Her visit to the Holy Land she greatly enjoyed, and 
 she profited by it much as a Christian and a teacher. 
 In 1886 her health failed, so that on her return to 
 America she was obliged to remain no less than 
 five years before sufficiently restored for service in 
 the tropics. Again she came in 1898, bringing with 
 her Miss Lilavati Singh, as fragrant a flower of 
 womanhood as ever bloomed in that garden of In- 
 dian roses, to plead for $20,000 to extend her College 
 and its buildings. The money was gladly given 
 her. 
 
 2. Deaconess Work. — During her five years of 
 
34 Isabella Thoburn 
 
 enforced stay in America, from 1886 on, she was 
 by no means idle nor spent her time in mere re- 
 cuperation. She came to Chicago and there met 
 Mr. and Mrs. Meyer, who had already launched 
 their now widespread deaconess homes and train- 
 ing 1 schools. Space fails to adequately describe this 
 Christlike order of woman's ministry of the Protest- 
 ant Church, which has in it all the devotion and 
 single-heartedness of the Roman Catholic sister- 
 hoods without the renunciation of personal liberty. 
 Miss Thoburn was quick to see the value of this 
 new arm of power, the value of trained women who 
 do for love of God and man what cannot ordinarily 
 be done for money. She determined to introduce 
 the deaconess movement into India; but she was 
 never one to ask others to go where she did not 
 herself lead the way. She therefore became a 
 deaconess herself and took the regular nurse deacon- 
 ess training. She then went to Cincinnati, Ohio, 
 and there proved invaluable in helping found the 
 "Elizabeth Gamble Deaconess Home and Training 
 School" and a little later the "Christ's Hospital," un- 
 der deaconess management. When she returned to 
 India, it was as a deaconess, and this order of ser- 
 vice is being very widely employed all through In- 
 dia, where the deaconess ranks are being recruited 
 from the daughters of the soil in increasing num- 
 bers. Wherever she might be, at home or abroad, 
 she ever carried the seeing eye, the understanding 
 
Isabella Thoburn 3$ 
 
 mind, the heart at leisure from itself and eager in 
 all ways to minister to the unprivileged. 
 
 Fatal Sickness and Death. — 1. The End. — 
 On her return to India in 1900, she resumed her 
 place at Lai Bagh and all the accustomed activities 
 were renewed. But, alas ! it was not for long. The 
 sudden coming of that awful plague, Asiatic cholera, 
 the patient suffering, the unexpected physical col- 
 lapse, the triumphant death, the dismay and pas- 
 sionate grief of the bereaved circle and the mourn- 
 ing of the whole Christian body in North India and 
 throughout the English-speaking world form the 
 triumphant close of a victorious life. 
 
 2. Miss Singh's Letter. — Details as to these may 
 in part be learned from the following letter which is 
 published in full, not only to convey an adequate 
 idea of the value of Miss Thoburn' s service in In- 
 dia, but indirectly to show the quality of an Indian 
 woman molded under Miss Thoburn's hand. While 
 Miss Singh and such as she live and teach others, 
 the great and noble woman who founded what is 
 now known as the Isabella Thoburn Woman's Col- 
 lege cannot be said to have ceased living. 
 
 "Lucknow Woman's College, 
 
 "Sept. 12, 1901. 
 "My Dear Mrs. Crandon: 
 
 "I tried to write to you last week but could not. 
 It has all been so sudden ; I cannot believe it. I get 
 up each morning and go to her room expecting to 
 
36 Isabella Thoburn 
 
 find her there, thinking that the other is a horrible 
 dream; but she is not there, and if it were not for 
 the fact that I can throw myself beside her bed and 
 ask her God, who was so real to her, to help me, I 
 do not know how I could get through these days! 
 It is a little over twenty-three years since I came to 
 know her, and I have been with her ever since, and 
 she has become a mother to me, who* am mother- 
 less. I forgot she was an American woman and I 
 a Hindustani woman ; I was as free with her as if 
 she had been my own mother. 
 
 "Yesterday I went for a few moments to the ma- 
 tron's room which used to be her room in 1882. Sud- 
 denly I remembered the talks she had with me there, 
 the prayers she prayed with me as she tried to lead 
 me to the Savior. I felt I was on holy ground and 
 that I must bow in prayer. In fact each room, each 
 spot seems to be associated with something sacred ; 
 here she prayed with me, there she said that to me, 
 here I saw her help such an one, until my heart 
 cries, What shall we do without her to help and in- 
 spire? I remember saying to> her, when she decided 
 to give us a college education : 'Miss Thoburn, do 
 you know people say you are spoiling us?' She 
 said, 'Yes, but I want you to prove to' them that 
 love, confidence and education do not spoil people.' 
 And, dear Mrs. Crandon, again and again when I 
 have been tempted to be slack in duty or low in 
 motive, the thought, Miss Thoburn trusts you, has 
 
Isabella Thoburn 37 
 
 kept me good and true. What can I say about her ? 
 At present I am writing in her room. I have filled 
 her vases with favorite flowers ; I use her pen ; the 
 blotting paper she used lies under this paper ; I can 
 trace her writing on it. Everything is here just the 
 same, only our precious one is gone. I am glad for 
 her sake, because she worked hard and needed rest 
 which she would not take here. Again and again 
 I would say to her : 'Miss Thoburn, do not rise at 
 4 :30 A.M., like the rest of us ; you are not so strong 
 as we younger ones.' But she was the first to get up 
 and the last to retire. Sometimes she did look so 
 tired. Now she and Miss Rowe can rest together, 
 but what will we do? 
 
 "But I must tell you about that awful day. On 
 Thursday, the twenty-ninth, she went to Cawnpore 
 to see about the stone for Bishop Parker's grave. 
 We do not know whether she contracted the disease 
 there or how she got it. When she returned to us, 
 she looked well. Saturday morning she did a little 
 gardening, baked cookies for us and when I saw 
 her at breakfast she looked pale and tired. I fol- 
 lowed her to her room and insisted upon her lying 
 down and taking a little rest. I went to her room 
 again at 4 P.M., and I said : 'Miss Thoburn, you 
 look so pale ; does your head ache ?' She said, 'No, I 
 am a little tired.' So I ordered the phaeton and in- 
 sisted upon her going for a drive. While waiting for 
 the carriage I said : 'Miss Thoburn, I am a lonely 
 
38 Isabella Thoburn 
 
 woman, and I hope the Lord will take me home be- 
 fore He does you, for I cannot do without you ; I 
 want you to lay me to rest as you did Miss Rowe.' 
 She said : 'I do not know whether you will go first, or 
 I, for "the Son of Man cometh at an hour we know 
 not of"; but if I go, I want you to have Phoebe's 
 Bible.' When the carriage came she wanted me to 
 go with her, but I said : 'If I go, I will chatter the 
 whole time, and you will get no rest; I want you 
 to have a restful time.' I sent her off, and an hour 
 later I saw her arranging flowers in the dining room. 
 It was Mr. West's birthday, and all the missionaries 
 were invited for dinner. At dinner I noticed that she 
 only ate her soup, and I said, 'Miss Thoburn, you 
 are sick.' She declared emphatically she was only 
 tired. At 10 P.M. I bade her good night, and that 
 was all till 3 A.M., Sunday, when the night watch- 
 man came and called me and said she had sent for 
 me. I went down and sent the carriage for the doc- 
 tor and in the meantime applied the usual remedies. 
 She said, The doctor will think you very foolish 
 for troubling him for only an attack of indigestion.' 
 I said, T would feel more comfortable were he 
 around.' He came and looked grave and sent for 
 the best doctors in the town. They were with her 
 constantly. Till noon we had every hope, and I be- 
 lieve she herself expected to get well, and therefore 
 gave no message. After 12 o'clock she was too 
 weak to speak. When the cramps were very bad 
 
Isabella Thoburn 39 
 
 she said, 'Let me hold your hand for I do not wish 
 to groan.' That is the way our precious one had 
 lived ; no complaint about the hardest thing ! When 
 the pain was very bad, she said to me, 'Sing.' I 
 said, 'What ?' She said, 'Come Thou fount of every 
 blessing.' I got some one in the room to sing that 
 and others of her favorite hymns. In her pain and 
 agony she kept speaking in Hindustani. It nearly 
 broke my heart to hear her. She had lived for us, 
 and she was dying for us ; she was so one of us 
 that in her last moments she forgot her own tongue 
 and spoke in ours. There is no one like her, — our 
 dear, devoted friend. She lingered on till 8 P.M., 
 then left us. But for Christ's words, T will not leave 
 you comfortless, — orphans, the margin says, — I 
 will come to you,' I do not know how we could bear 
 this sorrow. But now the cry of my heart is, 'Make 
 me a little like her, that people when they see me may 
 say, 'The spirit of Miss Thoburn cloth rest upon 
 her.' In her Sunday-school book I found her pledge 
 in connection with the Twentieth Century Move- 
 ment, by which she had promised to bring ten new 
 souls to Christ. I had taken the same pledge, but 
 now I must work hard for hers and for my own ; 
 and as my beloved is so near Jesus she can ask Him 
 to help my weak efforts. 
 
 "I cannot tell you about the funeral, for I remem- 
 ber nothing. I will get some one else to write about 
 it by and by. Miss Nichols has not been very well 
 
40 Isabella Thoburn 
 
 this year and Miss Thoburn was troubled about her. 
 Again and again she said, T thought she was the 
 one for my place, but perhaps God has other plans.' 
 But the strange part of it is that Miss Nichols is 
 getting well in a miraculous way, and the doctors 
 say she can stay in India. I wonder if it is because 
 Miss Thoburn has seen Jesus face to face and asked 
 Him for this that she wanted so much. But I 
 must stop for it is time to send this to the postoffice. 
 I had intended to write for the Branch meeting, as 
 also for the General Executive, but now I cannot. 
 Give them all my best love, and if you think it best, 
 read them part of this letter. Tell them to be very 
 good to us for we are orphans and, dear Mrs. Cran- 
 don, do try to send some one to* take the teaching 
 oft" Miss Nichols' hands, for we must keep her well, 
 and she cannot teach and superintend both. The 
 plan is to have Mrs. Parker live with us for a sort 
 of adviser, but we will need another missionary to 
 teach in the College. Pray for us, love us even more 
 than you have done, for w r e seem so alone in the 
 world without our friend. 
 
 "Yours affectionately, 
 
 "Lilavati Singh/' 
 3. God's Acre. — Miss Thoburn's body lies in the 
 Lucknow cemetery, beside the grave of Dr. Badley, 
 the founder of the Reid Christian College. The 
 bodies of these two great missionaries there await 
 side by side the Resurrection morning. 
 
iv 
 
 RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT 
 
 TO O 198 Main Stacks 
 
 LOAN PERIOD 1 
 HOME USE 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 
 
 Renewals and Recharges may be made 4 days prior to the due date. 
 Books may be Renewed by calling 642-3405 
 
 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW 
 
 JAN n 3 2000 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 FORM NO. DD6 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY 
 BERKELEY, CA 94720-6000 
 
O0 
 
 M313J244 
 
(|«i itiiit? t$!