|
Emma
Young
Class of
1883
Missouri’s First
Southern Baptist Missionary to China
Southwest
Baptist University's First Foreign Missionary
Among the
four members of the second graduating class of Southwest
Baptist College was one young woman, Miss Emma Young. The
year was 1883. Just the year before the five members of the
first graduating class included William S. Ayers, who would
in 1889 become the husband of Miss Young.
In 1883
Emma Young, under appointment by the Foreign Mission Board,
as a missionary to China appeared before the Missouri
General Association to read a paper on “Woman’s Mission to
the Heathen.”
In a letter
dated November 24, 1883, she told of her trip from Missouri
to San Francisco, describing the scenery and telling of her
joy in meeting another young woman missionary, a Miss
Roberts. In San Francisco they visited Chinatown and talked
with Dr. Hartwell and others who were working among the
Chinese in America. Miss Young was deeply impressed by one
small Chinese girl in a mission who said, “I’ll grow to be a
woman and then go home to China to teach the gospel.”
The two
women sailed on the steamship Arabia on December 1.
Miss Young’s second letter written aboard ship reveals her
natural fears at leaving her home and her friends and it
also shows her sense of humor.
“I
hope to be remembered by those at home. It strengthens
my heart and my hands to know that the prayers of God’s
people rise to the throne from me. I have been sick
nearly all the time. Miss Roberts not at all and Miss
H. only slightly. I think the ills of this life very
unequally distributed…. Love to all, E. Young.”
The ship
arrived on January 8, 1884. Miss Young went to Canton. One
of the first people she met was a Christian named Mau Yu
(meaning ten thousand glories, she explained). But as she
wrote in April, “Everything was so strange, so entirely
different from anything I ever saw before, I was utterly
bewildered. I did not know what Canton was to be like.
Chinatown in America is so different.” By that time she was
studying Chinese six hours a day. “It is a language that
takes one a long time to acquire, but I like it very much
and am not discouraged,” she wrote. During this year of
study she organized a girls’ school.
On June 10,
1886 Miss Young wrote of the beginning of the work at Ho Yan.
She told of a rich rice merchant named Hun who heard the
gospel message, believed, went back to his home and told
others. He was surprised and baffled when they did not
respond, so he returned to Canton, studied a month, was
baptized and went home. Then several heard his testimony,
were converted, and soon a small church was organized.
Almost from
the beginning Miss Young saw the need for a school building
for Chinese girls, and she began to write about that need.
Every letter contains some pleas. “My letter will read like
an advertisement of patent medicine if I do no get that
training school soon,” she wrote on June 21, 1886.
Friends in
Missouri began to raise a fund for “Miss Emma Young’s
School.” In 1886 Mrs. G. L. Black, Treasurer of the W.M.U.
reported that Lee’s Summit had sent $5.64, Elm Grove $1.25,
DeWitt $1.00, and that Liberty had nearly raised $20.00 by
canvassing “the female membership.”
On May 12,
1997 Miss Young wrote of a brief furlough.
"I had never been up the country in the spring before and did
not know how beautiful it is. Nature is lavish with her
climbing roses and sweet white honeysuckle; they cover the
steep cliffs, and climb to the tree-tops, peeping out where
there is an opening and smiling upon the world in great
masses of pink and white blossoms."
Then on
June 282, 2887, two years and five months after her arrival
Miss Young’s victory was announced. The school was to be
built and thereafter the work progressed well; however in
1889 Miss Young returned to the U.S. and married William S.
Ayers. Miss Mollie McMinn, of Pierce City College, went to
Canton in Miss Young’s place.
Miss
Young’s work in China was not forgotten. In 1928 the
Missouri women placed in the Administration building of the
school a room called the Emma Young Memorial Room.
Notes
from SWBC publications:
Born: Williamson County, Illinois
Hometown: Greenfield, Missouri
Attended
SWBC: 1881-1883
Degree:
A.B.
December 7,
1883: Date she sailed from San Francisco for China
Married:
William S.
Ayers, 1889
Other Resources:
-
Minutes of the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention
Tuesday
June 19, 1883
Monday,
October 15, 1883
Monday,
Nov. 5
-
Thirty-Ninth Annual Report of the Board of Foreign Missions: Appendix B -
"New Missionaries." Foreign Mission Journal: "China Missions" ;
"Miss Young and Miss Whilden"
Foreign Mission Journal: "China Missions" ; "Canton
Missions" ; "Troubles" ;
"Christian Fidelity" ;
"Building, Association
Lough Fook" ;
-
Forty-First Annual Report of the Board of Foreign Missions: Appendix B -
"China Missions -Southern
China" ; "Canton Mission" - "War and Persecution" -
"Relief to the Flooded Districts" ; Brother Hickson and
Miss Stein" ; "Noble Conduct of Native Christians" ;
"Caring for Body and Soul" ; " Their Own Chapel" ; "More
Than Four Hundred Dollars on Hand" ; "Another Chapel
Owned" ; Another Four Hundred Dollars on Hand" ; "Hong
Kong and Cheung Chau" ; "Self-Supporting" ; "Many
Thousand Hear the Gospel" ; "Woman's Work" ; "Schools" ;
"Mrs. Graves's Work" ; "Dr. Graves's Class" ;
"Colportage".
-
Forty-Second Annual Report of the Board of Foreign Missions: Appendix A-
Foreign Mission Journal: "China Missions" - Southern China" -
Foreign Mission Journal:
"China Missions - Southern China" ; "Brother Simmons'
Report for Mission" - "Schools" - "Work Among
Women"
Foreign Mission Journal:
"China Missions - Southern China" ; "Southern China
Mission" - "Miss Young's School"
|
 |
| Copyright 2007-2008 Southwest Baptist
University Archives |
| |
 |
|
South West Baptist College Class of 1883,
including Emma Young seated on the front right. President
James Rogers Maupin is seated in the front center. Copyright 2007-2008 Southwest Baptist
University Archives. |
| . |
 |
|
This steamer, thought to be the steamship Arabia,
was built for the Cunard Line
and later sold to the West India Mail Company. It was the
method of transportation Miss Young and Miss Roberts used to get to China from San
Francisco.
|
|
|
 |
| An undated photograph of Miss Emma Young. Copyright 2007-2008 Southwest Baptist
University Archives. |
|
