Walter Lowrie

Walter Lowrie served as a U.S. Senator and Senate Secretary from 1819 to 1836. His two sons left the comforts of their Pennsylvania home to become Christian missionaries: John Lowrie devoted a lifetime to missionary work in India while Walter M. Lowrie (1819-1847) spent six years in China. Walter’s life was cut short when pirates seized the boat in which he was traveling, and he was thrown into the sea. His father painstakingly collected Walter’s letters into a five-hundred-page book of memoirs. While I expected to breeze through this collection of letters, I read it for days. I traced his early matriculation to Jefferson College (now Washington and Jefferson College) at 14, his conversion to Christ at 16, and admission to Princeton Seminary at 18. When the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Mission accepted him as a missionary, he expressed a desire to serve in Africa yet let go of all desired outcomes, “I feel prepared with humility and cheerfulness to say, ‘Here I am, send me.'” After graduation, he set sail aboard the Huntress in 1842 on a four-month voyage to his new assignment in China. While he initially experienced sea sickness and a longing for home, he soon adjusted to life on the open sea. As he neared the end of his voyage, he wrote in his journal, “It is hard at times to express my unbelieving fears.” Who can blame this young 23-year-old solo missionary for starting a ministry from scratch? He wrote of his apprehensions, “How often I think it is a mistake for them to send me here.” He felt well suited to serve as a missionary to Africa but also reasoned, “Had I gone to Africa, I should be dependent on my qualifications too much and not on God. He blesses those who feel the need of his associations.” He closed with the words, “Yet when I think how remarkably Providence ordered my course in this matter, I am constrained to lay my hand on my mouth and wait to see what God is doing.” He wrote two brief prayers upon reaching his destination in China: