MISS CAROLINE ADRIANCE, 1861-'64.
(First single woman to serve directly under the RCA) (adapted from Pitcher Wilson Pitcher, "The Story of the Amoy Mission," 1893)
Two miles south of Auburn, N. Y., at the outlet of Owasco Lake, stands the Sand Beach Church (Owasco Outlet Church, Classis of Montgomery), Rev. Chas. Maar, pastor. Though perhaps unknown to many of the members of the Reformed churches, yet, on account of the number of missionaries, whose names are enrolled on her records, and who have gone out from her walls to publish the message of salvation unto the nations sitting in darkness, is worthy of better acquaintance and wider reputation.
It was in this church that Miss Adriance received both her spiritual and missionary education.
In 1851, Rev. S. R. Brown, D. D., who had been a foreign missionary at Canton, China, under the auspices of the Morrison Educational Society, and in charge of the Morrison Memorial School at Canton, became pastor of the Sand Beach Church.
It was under Dr. Brown's instruction, we may assume, that Miss Adriance received her missionary enthusiasm, and by whom was awakened the desire to go and tell the glad tidings off salvation to the souls perishing in the darkness of heathenism.
Dr. Brown's life was fired with the spirit, of missions, and the flame flowed with such brightness that it touched and fired the lives of members of his little flock at Owasco Outlet.
In 1852 a Ladies' Foreign Missionary Society was organized in this church, and Miss Adriance was one of the charter members—and a very active and consecrated one. It was in this school that she for seven years was, unconsciously, perchance, fitting herself both for the Macedonian call and for usefulness on the foreign field.
But a few years go by before that call comes to the pastor and to his child of faith alike. Japan had been opened and was ready for the Lord’s harvesters to enter and begin the seed-sowing in the fallow soil.
So when the call came in 1859 from the Board of Foreign Missions of the Reformed (Dutch} Church to Dr. Brown to go and represent that denomination in the "Land of the Rising Sun,''' he was ready to respond most heartily to the summons.
Others had at the same time received the summons, and with the same spirit of gladness obeyed the call. And thus it came to pass that it was that, instead of one or two, quite a company set out at that time from that church.
There were, besides Dr. and Mrs. Brown, Rev. Guido Verbeck, D. D., and wife, Miss Mary E. Kidder (now Mrs. E. R. Miller, of North Japan Mission), and Miss Adriance. Some of them were already, and others of them became, members of this church before their departure.
Dr. Verbeck was a graduate of the Auburn Theological Seminary, and while at Auburn became a member of this church.. Mrs. Verbeck was a member. Miss Kidder was teaching at Owasco Outlet in Dr. Brown's school, and she thus became attached to this church. Hence, it was that at that time when this little company set forth for the Orient on the ship Surprise, from New York, in the spring of 1859, they were all members of the Sand Beach Church, at Owasco Outlet, N. Y.
This little memoir has to do, however, with Miss Adriance.
Caroline Adriance, daughter of Jacob and Elizabeth Humphrey Adriance, was born in Scipio, N. Y., October 29th, 1824. When about four years old she met with the greatest loss which can come to a child in the death of her mother, so the care of her in childhood devolved upon others, who could not feel toward her as mother.
There was nothing remarkable about her childhood, and the only record of those early years is that she was obedient and affectionate, and grew up to be useful and helpful; yet, there is a beautiful history written in those lines that friends may well cherish.
At about the age of sixteen, during a revival that occurred in the neighborhood, she was one among others at that time to decide to accept Christ as her Saviour. Soon after she made a public profession of her faith by uniting with the sand Beach Church, where she remained a consistent member until she received the call to go unto the heathen.
Miss Adriance was a volunteer. The Board was not in the position to send her at that time, so she went out at her own expense. And not only that, but before she left New York she made her wiIl and bequeathed all her earthly possessions to the Board of Foreign Missions, which amounted, at the time of her decease, to $2,500 or more.
Miss Adriance's friends were very solicitous about her going alone, and on account thereof she received no small portion of discouragement from them to enter upon what seemed a most hazardous enterprise.
That she made no mistake, and that her life was full of joy in her work, we have ample testimony in a letter (April 8th, 1861,) of hers to a cousin now living in Poughkeepsie, N. Y. In the letter, she writes:
"I recollect well the anxiety you felt on my account because I was single and alone, with no protector, and I presume you have often wished to know how your poor lone cousin was getting along. Could you have been permitted to have looked into my home in Japan you would have seen me surrounded with blessings far more than you could have imagined. I will not attempt, nor do I wish to make you think that it was no trial to leave brothers, sisters and friends to whom I was strongly attached; the dear little church of which I was a member; my own native land, which none could love more than I. Can any one think that it was not a trial, and a severe one, too, to be separated from all these with little expectation of ever seeing them again? But, strong as are ties which are (for a season, at least,) severed, I do not regret the course I have taken, and I am not sorry I am in Japan. I trust I am where the Father would have me, and that He has something for me to do in this far off land."
Her chosen lot was with the laborers at Yokohama, Japan, but finding that she could not pursue the work she had set out to do among the women of Japan, withdrew from the field and joined the Mission at Amoy some time in 186l.
Here also she was only permitted to labor for three brief years, when death cut off her life of usefulness March 5th, 1864; yet, during that time, by her beautiful Christian character and unsparing devotion, she endeared herself to all with whom and for whom she had labored.
Loving hands laid her to rest in the little hallowed cemetery on Kolongsu, where others of the Amoy Mission lie sleeping their calm and peaceful slumbers.
Over her grave, in that far off land, stands a modest little monument, with best of inspirations that one might wish for at life’s close: "She hath done what she could."
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