LOWRIE, Walter Macon

[s. 431] : Born at Butler, Pa., 18, 1819; graduated at Jefferson College 1837, with the first honor; decided while in college to be a mi ionary to the heathen; graduated at Princeton Theological Seminary 1840; ordained November 9, 1841; sailed January, In 1842, for China as a mi ionary of the PN. August, 1846, he published several e ays in the February Chinese Repository on the proper Chinese words name of God into His, views agreed with those of Drs. Chinese. Brtdgman, but differed from those of and Boone Medhurst and others. He commenced also the preparation of a dictionary of the Four Books, and decided to include also the Five Cla ics. to be used in translating the These books contain the body of the Chinese This work, he thought, would require language. two or three years without interfering with more His direct and important mi ionary labors. plan would include biographical and historical notices of China from b. c. 2100 to B. c. 300, in a But he did not live to large quarto volume. complete the work. In 1847 he was appointed one of the delegation for the revision of the While attend Chinese translations of the Bible. ing the meeting of the revision committee at Shanghai he received a me age requesting his immediate return to Ningpo. On the 19th of August while on this journey they were attacked by pirates armed with swords and spears. One of the boatmen who was near him states that while the pirates were maiming the sailors and ransacking the boat, Lowrie sat at the bow reading his pocket Bible, and as they were in the act of seizing him, he turned himself partly round and threw his Bible on the deck. Three men The seized him and threw him into the sea. Bible was a copy of Bagster’s 12mo. edition in Hebrew, Greek and English, the same copy he had preserved with great difficulty in the shipwreck of the “Harmony.” The death of Mr. Lowrie was a great lo to the mi ionary cause, since his natural and acquired preparation for important literary work in the Chinese language was of the first order. 431