Faithfully too, in the midst of her missionary labors, did she discharge her duties as a mother. One of her sons rewarded her careful teaching by rising to eminence, and becoming President of Harvard College.
Prior to his marriage Mr. Kirkland made his home and pursued his missionary labors at the "Council House;" after a house had been prepared for Mrs. Kirkland, he still continued to preach and teach at the "Council House," addressing the Indians in their own language, which both he and his wife had acquired. Mrs. Kirkland visited the wigwams and instructed the squaws and children, who in turn flocked to her house where she ministered to their bodily and spiritual wants.
The women and children of the tribe were her chosen pupils. Seated in circles on the greensward beneath the spreading arches of giant oaks and maples, they listened to her teachings, and learned from her lips the wondrous story of Christ, who gave up his life on the cross that all tribes and races of mankind might live through Him. Then she prayed for them in the musical tongue of the Oneidas, and the "sounding aisles of the dim woods rang" with the psalms and hymns which she had taught those dusky children of the forest.
The change wrought by these ministrations of Mr. and Mrs. Kirkland was magical. A peaceful and well-ordered community, whose citizens were red men, rose in the wilderness, and many souls were gathered into the fold of Christ.
During the years of her residence and labors among the Oneidas, she won many hearts by her kind deeds as a nurse and medical benefactor to the red men and their wives and children. She was thus presented to them as a bright exemplar of the doctrines which she taught. Both she and her husband gained a wide influence among the Indians of the region, many of whom they were afterwards and during the Revolutionary contest, able to win over to the patriot cause.
The honor of having inaugurated Sunday schools on the frontier, must be awarded to woman. Truly this class of religious enterprises, in view of the circumstances by which they were surrounded, and the results produced, may be placed side by side with that missionary work which looks to the conversion of the pagan. The impressing of religious truth on the minds of the young, and preparing them to build up Christian communities in the wilderness, is in itself a great missionary work, the value of which is enhanced by the sacrifices and difficulties it involves. It was in Ohio that one of the first Sunday-schools in our country was kept, with which the name of Mrs. Lake must ever be identified.
In 1787, a year made memorable by the framing of the Constitution of the United States, the Ohio Company was organized in Boston, and soon after built a stockade fort at Marietta, Ohio, and named it Campus Martius. The year it was completed, the Rev. Daniel Storey, a preacher at Worcester, Massachusetts, was sent out as a chaplain. He acted as an evangelist till 1797, when he became the pastor of a Congregational church which he had been instrumental in collecting in Marietta and the adjoining towns, and which was organized the preceding year. He held that relation till the spring of 1804. Probably he was the first Protestant minister whose voice was heard in the vast wilderness lying to the northwest of the Ohio river.
In the garrison at Marietta, was witnessed the formation and successful operation of one of the first Sunday-schools in the United States. Its originator, superintendent, and sole teacher, was Mrs. Andrew Lake, an estimable lady from New York. Every Sabbath, after "Parson Storey had finished his public services," she collected as many of the children at her house as would attend, and heard them recite verses from the Scriptures, and taught them the Westminster catechism. Simple in her manner of teaching, and affable and kind in her disposition, she was able to interest her pupils—usually about twenty in number—and to win their affections to herself, to the school, and subsequently, in some instances, to the Saviour. A few, at least, of the little children that used to sit on rude benches, low stools, and the tops of meal bags, and listen to her sacred instructions and earnest admonitions, have doubtless ere this become pupils with her, in the "school of Christ" above.
Among the many names especially endeared to the friends of missions, there is another that we cannot forget—that of Sarah L. Smith. Like the Rev. Samuel Kirkland, she was a native of Norwich, Connecticut.
Her maiden name was Huntington. She was born in 1802; made a profession of religion in youth; became the wife of the Rev. Eli Smith in July, 1833; embarked with him for Palestine in the following September, and died at Boojah, near Smyrna, the last day of September, 1836.