Pioneering for Jesus: The Story of Henrietta Hall Shuck

p. 7When some of our denominational leaders first suggested that I write a biography of Mrs. Shuck, the obstacles seemed too great to one “cribbed, cabined, and confined” in a hospital. However, my friends spared no pains in aiding me to secure the necessary source material, and otherwise enabled me to overcome the difficulties that at first seemed so great.

Mrs. Shuck wrote only four letters to the Board, but she wrote many to her friends and relatives in the homeland. In 1846, Dr. J. B. Jeter gathered these letters together, and published them in a volume entitled “A Memoir of Mrs. Shuck.” This must forever remain the chief source of material for any book about her. In addition, I have secured original letters and a part of her Journal, through her niece, Mrs. Henrietta Hall Mal-lory. The files of the Religious Herald and of the Baptist Missionary Magazine have yielded further material. Mrs. Florence R. Chowning, from a treasured memory, gave some trustworthy tradition about the Halls’ home at Merry Point. Mrs. W. M. Pinckard did the necessary research work among the old court records in the Lancaster County Clerk’s office. Mrs. John B. Grimes, Mrs. R. E. Booker, Dr. T. B. Ray and others aided in securing the illustrations. My dear friend, Dr. J. H. Franklin, foreign secretary of the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society, who has kindly furnished the Introduction, also generously consented to place at the disposal of anyone I might designate the original correspondence between the Shucks and the Board. He p. 8furnished, also, several of the illustrations. Dr. Garnett Ryland aided me in many ways. Mrs. Douglass Scar-borough McDaniel, Mrs. Julian P. Thomas and Dr. R. H. Pitt were good enough to read over the manuscript and offer most valuable suggestions.

Miss Blanche Sydnor White helped me in innumerable ways, from the beginning clear through to the end. She, it was, who went to New York for me and secured data from the original documents there. Moreover, she read each successive draft of the manuscript; and we conferred all the way along as to matter and arrangement. Furthermore, through her influence the Board of the W.M.U. graciously agreed to do the necessary initial financing, and to provide stenographers as I might require.

p. 8To one and all of these kind friends, I am deeply grateful. Like Uzziah of old, I have been “marvelously helped.” My friends and I have written this book. We send it forth with the prayer that it may in some way help forward the Kingdom of God.

T. S. Dunaway.

Memorial Hospital, Richmond, Virginia, June 3, 1930.

p. 12ity rata Wy, i frie , ul i Mi 1

Toll hi | My y i eh ital 1 vom Mi b Filey te ri A 2

here Peor iy ‘5 | ao t ol et id ‘

Ars a run ih veal i" jee p. 13There is a tradition to the effect that after Plutarch had visited all the countries known to him, he declared he had found cities without walls, cities without money, and cities without a written language, but he was sure there never would be found a city without a place of worship of some description. Today we live in a world far larger than the one which Plutarch knew, whose inhabitants are greatly advanced in their knowledge of the universe about them, but the deepest yearning of mankind continues to be its quest for the Invisible. ‘Oh, that I knew where I might find him” still represents humanity’s highest aspiration. Idols in Africa, temples in India, ancient shrines in Asia, chapels and cathedrals in western lands, with their countless worshipers, all testify to a world-wide heart-hunger.

This ageless search for the Unseen is far more than an intellectual desire. In one of his war-time novels Mr. H. G. Wells makes one of his characters say: “Life begins nowhere and ends nowhere except in God”—therefore we must tell all men about him. Historians in plenty testify that in his inner soul man becomes like the god he worships; that inevitably one’s character is made or marred by that conception of the Highest to which one surrenders life itself in-adoration. If that be true, everyone is under a sacred obligation to share with others every experience, discovery or revelation that has satisfied his own soul in its search for God.

It must be confessed, however, that for a good many centuries Christians in general were apathetic with p. 14reference to the obligation and privilege of sharing Christ with others. Here and there on the Continent of Europe there were individuals in recent centuries who desired to witness for Christ to the uttermost parts of the earth. In England there were a few souls in the last decade of the eighteenth century who desired “to go far hence to the Gentiles.” In America several students at Williams College in 1807 held the famous haystack meeting and confessed their desire to make Christ known to all the world. Several years later Adoniram Judson and Ann Hasseltine Judson and Luther Rice sailed for India. The story of the Judsons spread over the land and slowly their spirit gripped others. A modest little woman in the Northern Neck of Virginia felt compelled to offer her life to God to be used in spreading the knowledge of Christ. She saw no likelihood of her dream being realized, for it appeared to be impossible for her, an unmarried young woman, to secure appointment. At the same time, however, a young man in another section of Virginia was being stirred by a desire to go abroad with the story of Christ. In the providence of God the two young people, reared in rural sections of the Old Dominion, were thrown together and became man and wife. They secured missionary appointment, and were the first married missionaries ever sent from America for service among the Chinese people. Mrs. Shuck was the first American woman to go as a missionary to China.

p. 14My dear friend, Dr. Thomas S. Dunaway, confined to his bed continuously for the last nine years and more, had learned that Mrs. J. L. Shuck, who was reared in our beloved Virginia, was not only the first American woman commissioned for missionary service in China, but that she started the first Christian school ever. conducted for p. 15Chinese children in China, and organized the first Protestant church in that land. Dr. Dunaway felt that the story of such American pioneers in mission work in China should be given to the world, and despite all difficulties he has procured original documents or sent loving friends here and there to secure information, and although himself an invalid, he has made a distinctive contribution to the literature of Christian missions.