This Day in Baptist History (One day late)

BJU Press | September 13, 2010 | Cummins & Thompson

[John Leland 1789]

Sept. 13, 1876 – Dr. James M. Haswell died after forty-one years of missionary service in Burma with his dear wife Jane Mason, who he had married on August 23, 1835, and sailed for their chosen field one month later. He was more fruit from the Hamilton Theological Institute in Bennington, Vermont. Dr.Haswell mastered the Burmese language and then turned to the Pegulan dialect to reach the 80,000 of that tribe. He only took two furloughs, one in 1849 and another in 1867, and those were used to spur interest in missions. He was most diligent that his son James should follow him which he did, but tragically died of cholera a year after him in 1877. But the Haswell vision lived on through their daughter Susan who founded the Maulmein Leper Colony in which she invested sixty years of her life. The government gave the land and the lepers themselves built the thatched roof buildings with, in some cases, stumps for hands and feet. It stood for years as a memorial to her and the faith of the lepers. Untold thousands were saved. [A.H. Burlingham, The Story of Baptist Missions in Foreign Lands (St. Louis: C.R. Barns Publishing Co., 1892), p. 944. This Day in Baptist History II: Cummins and Thompson, BJU Press: Greenville, S.C. 2000 A.D. pp. 501-02.]