"The men God gave the Church were just the men needed to awaken her missionary spirit and shape her mission work. So for laying the foundation and shaping the plan of the structure He would have us erect at Amoy He gave us three men, just the men needed for the work,-David Abeel, William J. Pohlman and Elihu Doty. The more I meditate on what they said and wrote and did and suffered in the early days of that work, and see whereunto it is growing, the more am I impressed with the fact that they were wonderful men, just the men for the time, place, and circumstances, and therefore evidently God's gift.
"Dr. Abeel was the pioneer of the Amoy Mission. During the greater part of the years of his manhood, he struggled with disease, and his whole life on earth was comparatively short, yet the Lord enabled him to accomplish more work than most men accomplish during a much longer life. His last field of labor was Amoy, entering it in January, 1842, when the port had just been thrown open and while the British army was still there, and leaving it in January, 1845. In that short time, notwithstanding interruptions from sickness and of voyages in search of health, or rather to stave off death till others were ready to take his place, he laid a good foundation, doing a work that told and was lasting. I met him only once. It was at his father's house in New Brunswick, after his work at Amoy-after all his public work was done and he was only waiting to be summoned home. When I afterwards went to Amoy, I found his name very fragrant, not only among Europeans and Americans, but also among the Chinese. He had baptized none, but a goodly number of those afterwards baptized had received their first impressions concerning Christianity and their first instructions therein from him."
"Messrs. Doty and Pohlman with their families came from Borneo to Amoy, arriving in June, 1844, about six months before Dr. Abeel was compelled to leave. We have heard of places so healthy, that it is said there was difficulty to find material wherewith to start cemeteries. Amoy, rather Kolongsu, where all the Europeans then resided, in those days was not such a place. It is said that of all the foreign residents only one escaped the prevailing fever. The mortality was very great. In a year and a half from the time of their arrival at Amoy, Mr. Doty was on his way to the United States with two of his own and two of Mr. Pohlman's little ones. The other members of their families—the mothers and the children, all that was mortal of them—were Iying in the Mission cemetery on Kolongsu; and to 'hold the fort,' so far as our Mission was concerned, Pohlman was left alone, and well he held it. He had a new dialect to acquire, yet when health allowed, he daily visited his little mission chapel, and twice on the Sabbath, to preach the Gospel of Christ. He was a man of work, of great activity. When I arrived at Amoy in 1847, he was suffering from ophthalmia. Much of his reading and writing had to be done for him by others. I was accustomed to read to him an hour in the morning from six to seven. Another read to him an hour at noon from twelve to one. He was still subject to occasional attacks of the old malarial fever. Besides all this he was now alone in the world, his whole family gone, two of his little ones in his native land, then very much farther away from China than now, and the others, mother and children, sleeping their last sleep.
"Yet he was the life of our little mission company. Do you ask why? He lived very close to God, and therefore was enabled to bow to the Divine will, to use his own language, 'with sweet submission.' Pohlman's term of service, too, was short. He was called away in his thirty-seventh year. His work at Amoy was less than five years. It, too, much of it, was foundation work, though he was permitted to see the walls just beginning to rise. Two of the first converts were baptized by him, and many others received from him their early Christian instruction. The first, and still by far the best church-building at Amoy, which is also the first church building erected in China expressly for Chinese Protestant Christian worship, may be called his monument. It was specially in answer to his appeal that the money, $3,000, was contributed. It was under his supervision that the building was erected. To it he gave very much toil and care. The house was nearly ready when he took his last voyage to Hongkong, and he was hastening back to dedicate it when God took him. His real monument, however is more precious and lasting than church-buildings, as precious and lasting as the souls he was instrumental in saving, and the spiritual temple whose foundation he helped to lay. There were many who remembered him with very warm affection long after he was gone. Among them I remember one, an old junk captain, who in his later years, speaking of heaven, was wont to say, 'I shall see Teacher Pohlman there; I shall see Teacher Pohlman there.'"
V. AT THE FOOT OF THE BAMBOOS
The sad and sudden departure of Mr. Pohlman so affected a maiden sister, Miss Pohlman, then at Amoy, as to unsettle her mind and necessitate an immediate return to the United States. No lady friend could accompany her. It was decided that Mr. Talmage take passage on the same ship and act as guardian and render what assistance he could. The ship arrived at New York August 23, 1849.
Mr. Talmage made an extensive tour on behalf of Missions in China among the
Reformed churches in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
"Jan. 15, 1850. Was married at twelve M. in First Presbyterian Church at Elizabeth, New Jersey, by Dr. N. Murray, to Miss Abby F. Woodruff. Started immediately with my wife on a trip to Seneca County, New York."
"March 16, 1850. In the forenoon accompanied by many dear friends we embarked on board the ship Tartar from New York bound for China."
"July 16th. Arrived safely at Amoy, for which our hearts are full of gratitude to Him who has watched over us on the deep and conducted us safely through every danger."