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On June 23, 1833, as Princeton Seminary graduate James R. Eckard prepared to leave for a mission trip to Ceylon (Sri Lanka), he was handed a letter written by ten-year-old Archibald Alexander Hodge and his sister Mary Elizabeth to take to his destination. This letter has recently been added to Log College Press. It is important for 21st century readers to grasp the meaning of the word “heathen” as used in this letter. Easton’s Bible Dictionary says it well: “strangers to revealed religion.”
Dear Heathen: The Lord Jesus Christ hath promised that the time shall come when all the ends of the earth shall be His Kingdom. And God is not a man that He should lie nor the son of man that He should repent. And if this was promised by a Being who cannot lie, why do you not help it to come sooner by reading the Bible, and attending to the words of your teachers, and loving God, and, renouncing your idols, take Christianity into your temples? And soon there will not be a Nation, no, not a space of ground as large as a footstep, that will want a missionary. My sister and myself have, by small self-denials, procured two dollars which are enclosed in this letter to buy tracts and Bibles to teach you.
Archibald Alexander Hodge
Mary Eliz. Hodge,
Friends of the Heathen
The same boy who wrote this letter would go on to serve in Allahabad, India from 1847-1850 before illness forced him to return to the States, where A.A. Hodge served as pastor, professor and author, always seeking in his various capacities to serve the kingdom of God.
For more on the subject of raising children who love and support missions, see Thomas Smyth’s The Mission of Parenting: Raising Children Who Love the Mission of God at the link below.
