ABMU KIN-CHAU-FU

[s. 390] : A town in Manchuria, China, situated about 75 miles W. N. W. of Niu-ohwang. Station of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (1891), with (1900) 2 mi ionaries and their wives, 2 mi ionary women, 27 native workers, men and women; 10 outstations, 11 places of worship, 7 day schools, 1 theological training 2 dispensaries, 2 hospitals fe ed Christians. cla , and 180 pro- KINCOLITH: A settlement in Alaslia on the Station of the CMS mi ionary and his wife, W. side of Portland Canal. (1866), with (1903) 1 2 native workers, 1 Sunday school, schools, 255 profe ed Christians, of are communicants. 2 village whom 75 KING, Jonas: Born July 29, 1792, at Hawley, His father was a farmer noted for his Ma . love of the Scriptures and rigid adherence to their teachings. Under his instruction Jonas read the Bible through once between the ages of four and six, and then once yearly until the age His conversion occurred at the age of of sixteen. Without funds or aid he determined on fifteen. an education, learned the English grammar while hoeing corn, read the twelve books of the iEneid of Virgil in fifty-eight days, and the New Testament in Greek in six weeks. He graduated at Williams College 1816, and And over Seminary While in And over his mind was strongly 1819. drawn toward foreign mi ion work, especially in the East, and he desired to go to Europe to study Arabic, and then enter whatever field of labor should be open perhaps among the Arabians or Persians. He decided to go to Paris to study with the celebrated De Sacy. On the eve of embarkation he was appointed profe or languages in Amherst College. of Oriental Advised to accept the appointment, and the trustees approving his plan to study abroad, he sailed for Paris August 18, 1821. While engaged in this study he received a pre ing invitation from Pliny Fisk Mr. Parsons having died — — him in mi ion work in the Holy Land. Having served during three years in Syria and Egypt, he left Beirut for America in 1827, going overland to Smyrna, where he spent several months in the study of modern Greek. After his return home he was invited by a ladies’ committee in New York to go to Greece to distribute aid to the people suffering from Turkish oppresto join He resigned his profe orship at Amherst, declined a similar appointment at Yale, and went to Greece, reaching Poros July 28, 1828. He visited many important places, everywhere preaching, establishing schools, and relieving want. In 1829 he married a Greek lady of in flus i on. ence, who proved an efficient helper in the mi ion work. In 1830 the mi ion was transferred to the American Board. Having previously visited Athens, and arranged to reside there after the Turks had vacated the place in 1831, it became his permanent home. Here he built a school house, in which he had service in Greek every Sabbath till 1860. The establishment of schools was a prominent object with Dr. King, and he made it a condition that in them the Scriptures should be studied. At the “Evangelical Gymnasium,” which he established, he gave religious instruction several times a week to about seventy pupils varying in age from ten to thirty-five years. He also formed a theological cla composed of Greeks and Italians, to whom he gave regular and frequent instruction. Some of these have occupied important positions as teachers or in the employment of government. But the hierarchy became alarmed at the influence of his preaching, his schools, and his persistent circulation of the Scriptures. At Greek Synod he was brought before the Areopagus, the highest court in Athens, charged with reviling the “mother of the Kl-chan 373 instigation of the KlnK William’s TOTrn God” and the “holy images.” He was not, however, tried. After many threats against his life, in 1852 he was again arrested, put on trial condemned to imprisonment and expulsion from the country. This sentence was quashed through the influence of the United States Government. Dr. King was never free from petty persecufor blasphemy and tion until he died, May 22, 1869, in his seventyseventli year. He was a thorough linguist, having studied eleven languages, and speaking fluently five. His original works in Arabic, Greek and French were ten in number, some of them being widely read, and translated into other tongues. He revised and carried through the pre eleven others. He distributed 400,000 copies of Scripture portions, religious tracts, and school books in Greece and Turkey, besides what he scattered during his travels in other parts of Europe and in Palestine, Syria and Egypt. He left his impre on the Greek nation. To him preeminently is it owing that the Scriptures since 1831 have been so extensively used the schools, and that in Greece the Word of God is m not bound. ch062.xhtml k 391