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 Wells, John D. 1815-1903 
 
 Hon. Walter Lowrie 
 
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 Hon. Walter Lowrie : 
 
 BY THE 
 
 KEV. JOHN D. WELLS, D.D., 
 
 Minister of the South Third Street Presbyterian Church, Williamsburgh, L. I, 
 
 PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 
 
 NEW YORK, 23 CENTRE STREET. 
 
 1869. 
 
J 
 
HON. WALTER LOWRIE. 
 
 The beloved man whose name stands at the head of 
 this sketch, was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, December 
 10th, 1784. In the year 1792 his parents came to this 
 country, and after a short sojourn in Huntingdon county, 
 settled in Butler county, Pennsylvania. Bringing with 
 them their knowledge and love of the truth, their family 
 altar, instruction, and discipline, and their thorough Pres- 
 byterianism, they helped to give tone and character to 
 the civil and religious institutions of that part of their 
 adopted State. Western Pennsylvania remains to this 
 day a stronghold of Presbyterianism. 
 
 Walter felt the quiet and powerful influence of home 
 culture. Most of his early secular instruction was re- 
 ceived from the lips of his parents. By them, too, he 
 was made acquainted with the truths of God's Word and 
 the Standards of our Church. In return for this Chris- 
 tian nurture, he gave himself, till early manhood, to the 
 toil of a farmer under his father's direction, learning 
 some great practical lessons, which turned to excellent 
 account at later periods of his life. 
 
 After his conversion, which occurred when he was 
 eighteen years old, he entered upon a course of study, 
 with the ministry in view. Under the instruction of the 
 
Rev. John McPherriii, Le pursued the Latin, Greek, and 
 Hebrew languages with great diligence and success. 
 Inured to toil from boyhood, having good health, a strong 
 body, and a mind of fine texture and firm grasp, he made 
 light of difficulties that few comparatively would have 
 overcome. He was borne forward, too, by a fervent 
 desire to preach the gospel. It became clear, however, 
 after a while, that God was preparing him for a different 
 work. Barriers were thrown and kept in his way, until, 
 with no change in his high estimate of the sacred office to 
 which he had aspired, and hoping to resume his studies, 
 he laid them aside and entered upon the duties of secular 
 life. 
 
 In 1811 he was elected to the Senate of Pennsylvania, 
 and after serving the State seven years in this office, he 
 was sent to the Senate of the United States. 
 
 At the expiration of his term of service, in 1824, he 
 was made Secretary of the Senate, and lield the office 
 twelve years. • Owing to the peculiarly delicate nature of 
 this office, and the responsibility connected with it, it 
 did not change incumbents with successive administra- 
 tions. Mr. Lowrie's predecessors enjoyed its honours 
 and emoluments for life, and he might have done the 
 same. 
 
 Indeed he was earnestly solicited by members of the 
 Senate, without reference to party distinctions, to retain 
 the office. But his purpose was taken and nothing could 
 move him. A call louder than that of his peers in the 
 State had come to him — the call he believed of the Head 
 of the Church, to take charge of the Foreign Missionary 
 work, to which, as a denomination, we were then setting 
 our hand. 
 
 He was elected Corresponding Secretary of the Western 
 Foreign Missionary Society in 1836. This office he 
 
accepted, passing under the care of the General Assem- 
 bly, when the Board of Foreign Missions was consti- 
 tuted in 1837. He continued in the faithful discharge 
 of its varied duties, until, disabled by the infirmities of 
 old age, he laid it down in 1868. He had not drawn 
 his salary for several years before that date, and would 
 not retain even the office, after he felt himself no longer 
 able to discharge its duties. 
 
 Mr. Lowrie's public life as a statesman can be reviewed 
 only in an extended memoir, which I hope we shall have 
 in due season; still I cannot pass it without two or three 
 suggestive statements. 
 
 It covered a period of twenty-five years, from 1811 to 
 1836. He was twenty-seven years old when he entered 
 the Senate of Pennsylvania, and fifty-two when he left 
 the Senate of the United States. For a quarter of a 
 century, therefore, he was the associate of public men, 
 the peer of great men — and was recognized by them and 
 his constituents as himself a great man. Dr. Paxton, in 
 his Funeral Address, published in the Foreign Missionary 
 last month, tells us that "Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Ran- 
 dolph, Benton, and many others scarcely less illustrious, 
 were members of the Senate" at that time, and adds: 
 "Among these distinguished Senators, Walter Lowrie 
 occupied a position of honourable prominence. His great 
 integrity won their confidence, whilst his peculiar sagacity 
 and practical judgment led them to seek his advice, and 
 rely upon his opinions. I am informed by one who was 
 present at that time, that he was regarded by the Sena- 
 tors who knew him best, as an authority upon all ques- 
 tions of political history and constitutional law." 
 
 Mr. Lowrie's Christian character was tried, and at last 
 Durified and ennobled, while he remained in contact with 
 influences that prove fatal to so many public men pro- 
 
6 
 
 fessing godliness. He impressed himself strongly upon 
 other Christian men, and even upon those in high places 
 who were not religious. But he escaped the perils of his 
 position only through the constant and powerful influence 
 of his home, the communion of saints, and the grace of God 
 shed on him abundantly through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
 
 It should be stated, too, that during the eighteen years 
 of his connection with the Senate of the United States, he 
 was receiving a special providential training for the work 
 to which God was about to call him. One might as well 
 deny a plan of God in the case of Moses, as of Mr. 
 Lowrie. The Jewish lawgiver was forty years in the 
 family and court of Pharaoh, forty in the land of Midian, 
 and forty at the head of the tribes; the last third of his 
 life embracing the years and the work, for which the 
 other two-thirds were a constant preparation. A similar 
 division exists in the fewer years of Mr. Lowrie's life; 
 and I have no doubt that all the years prior to his con- 
 nection with the Senate of his own State, and all that he 
 spent in discharging the duties of a statesman, were in 
 fact, and were meant to be, preparatory, in many ways, 
 to his great work in connection with the cause of missions. 
 
 It is certain that our work among the Indian tribes, 
 encompassed with so many difficulties, and requiring 
 correspondence and personal influence with the Depart- 
 ment of Indian Affairs at Washington, could not have 
 been successfully carried forward, without a very intimate 
 knowledge of at least that Department of the Govern- 
 ment. It was not in vain, therefore, that Mr. Lowrie, 
 while in the Senate, was a member of the Committee on 
 Indian Affairs, and profoundly interested in the fate and 
 the evangelization of the tribes. 
 
 So, too, he co-operated with good men at Washington 
 in the management of the American Colonization Society, 
 
and let his large Christian sympathies flow out towards 
 the black man in this country, and on the continent of 
 Africa, 
 
 With India he was brought into living connection, 
 while still Secretary of the Senate, by the departure of 
 his eldest son, the Rev. John C. Lowrie, to the northern 
 provinces of that vast country. 
 
 And by a strange providence he was led to give his 
 heart to the Chinese people, before God called him to give 
 two of his sons, the Rev. Walter M. Lowrie and the Rev. 
 Reuben Lowrie, as missionaries to the same people ; the 
 first to meet the death of a martyr, and the second to 
 sink under the climate and his severe labours. Of these 
 two sons it may be said with perfect truth, that they 
 were among the ablest and most consecrated men ever 
 sent by the Church to the Foreign field. 
 
 For some time, I do not know how long, Mr. Lowrie 
 pursued the study of the Chinese language, rising two 
 hours earlier than usual, not to interfere with his duties 
 as Secretary of the Senate. In this way he prepared 
 himself in some measure, before he knew the plan of God 
 for his future life, for the work of founding and conduct- 
 ing missions, at the very heart of the pagan world. 
 
 It is but little that can be said in this sketch of Mr. 
 Lowrie's work, as Corresponding Secretary of the Board 
 of Foreign Missions. The acceptance of the office in- 
 volved great self-denial, and many sacrifices ; and this 
 was the charm by which the office secured its incumbent. 
 So he himself declared. For a lucrative office, he chose 
 one that never supported his family. He abandoned a 
 beautiful home with ample grounds, for a dwelling in the 
 city and the confinement of an office. At the age of 
 fifty-two he relinquished a post of honour, with the duties 
 of which he had become perfectly familiar, and which 
 
8 
 
 were comparatively easy, to put liis hand to a work 
 which no one understood, which one of the strongest men 
 in our Church, to whom its oversight was offered, decHned 
 to undertake, and in doing which, for more than thirty 
 years, Mr. Lowrie found no rest from toil and care and 
 responsibility. It was work in the office; in the market 
 place; at the seat of Government; in the Church; and 
 among our Indian tribes. He had valuable counsellors 
 and willing hands to help him, but it was his habit to 
 think of everything. He was immensely and minutely 
 practical, and even when office duties had become so 
 heavy that help was necessary, and his own natural 
 strength was somewhat abated, he held his mind in con- 
 tact with all questions of policy, and most of the plans 
 and estimates for prosecuting and enlarging the work. 
 
 Few persons, probably, can appreciate the delicacy, the 
 difficulty, and the importance of the work done in the 
 office by a Corresponding Secretary of the Board of For- 
 eign Missions. He is in contact with the missionaries 
 and the heathen, on the one hand ; and on the other, 
 with the kindred of the missionaries ; with many pastors 
 and churches; with the entire church for which he acts; 
 and with missionary societies of other branches of the 
 Christian church. He is cut off from the intimate and 
 endeared relationships to families and churches that pas- 
 tors enjoy. He is the servant of all men. He is liable 
 to frequent interruptions, and he has no prospect of 
 reward, till his work ceases, and he enters into rest. 
 
 Mr. Lowrie was pre-eminently qualified for hard work 
 at the table, and among the details of office work. His 
 mind was calm and judicial. It had possession of great 
 principles, discovered by broad inquiry, and the patient 
 study of particulars relating to his work, or found clearly 
 revealed in the Word of God. For this reason his letters 
 
to missionaries and missions, on matters of vital impor- 
 tance, were often so direct and simple, as to^ have the 
 appearance — at least to those not familiar with the full 
 details of the matters under consideration — of being com- 
 mon-place. Just as the ablest sermons, that treat of dif- 
 ficult subjects with seeming ease, are thought to be 
 wanting in depth and power, by those who do not know 
 at what a cost of labour such results are reached. 
 
 The same habits of mind revealed themselves in the 
 deliberations of the Executive Committee and the Board. 
 Quietly and earnestly, but in a few words, and with 
 great decision, Mr. Lowrie expressed his opinions. He 
 was not afraid to be in a minority and even alone, 
 because his convictions were so strong. And rarely did 
 he fail to fasten his own convictions upon other minds. 
 
 I have alluded to his work in the market place. For 
 a number of years supplies of food and clothing, with 
 household utensils and farming implements, were for- 
 warded from New York, and other cities, to our Indian 
 Missions in the West and Southwest. This imposed an 
 immense amount of labour on the office of our Board in 
 Centre street; and in this labour Mr. Lowrie bore his 
 part. He reckoned nothing little, or beneath his per- 
 sonal attention and toil, that could minister to the wel- 
 fare of the missionaries and those under their care, or in 
 any way help the cause of Christ. 
 
 His visits to AVashington, on business connected with 
 the missions among the Indians, if not frequent from 
 year to year, were in the aggregate very numerous. 
 They always taxed his strength severely, and often called 
 into requisition all the experience and influence he had 
 acquired during his long and intimate association with 
 the Government. 
 
 The labours of Mr. Lowrie, in the Church, for many 
 
10 
 
 years, were very arduous and effective. He called upon 
 people at their houses, to secure contributions for various 
 purposes connected with the work of missions. He 
 attended monthly concerts, visited Theological Semin- 
 aries, Presbyteries and Synods, and went to the General 
 Assembly, always bearing the great cause of Foreign 
 Missions on his heart. Many will remember his tender 
 and persuasive addresses. Perfectly familiar with all the 
 details of the work, the wants of the heathen, the feeble 
 responses of the Church to calls for men and money to 
 evangelize the world, and knowing well the ability of the 
 Church to do all that the providence of God required, and 
 the claims of Jesus upon his blood-bought people, he 
 made his statements and appeals, with such force and 
 melting tenderness, as to call forth many tears, and pro- 
 duce deep and lasting impressions. The saving of a little 
 child from heathenism ; the conversion of an Indian, 
 African, Hindoo, or Chinaman; the establishment of a new 
 mission, or the enlarging of an old one, was, in his view, 
 a matter of vast moment and sacred interest. He won- 
 dered that Christian men especially, and pastors of 
 churches, could disparage the missionary papers, that 
 were constantly reporting such things. With great sim- 
 plicity, and often in tears, he related incidents connected 
 with the progress of missions, and relied upon them to 
 impress others as they did himself. 
 
 The visits of Mr. Lowrie to the Indian tribes in our 
 country, were among the most arduous and important of 
 all his official labours. It was the writer's privilege to 
 accompany him in the spring of 1847 to Spencer Acad- 
 emy, then a flourishing school, under the care of our 
 Board, among the Choctaw Indians, about ten miles from 
 the Red River, and a hundred and twenty-five southwest 
 from Fort Smith in Arkansas. By day and night for 
 
11 
 
 two months, in all sorts of conveyances and apartments, 
 I held delightful fellowship with him as a son with a 
 father. He was then sixty-three years old. From 
 pretty full notes of travel taken at the time, it would be 
 easy to give a very definite idea of the hardships he en- 
 dured, the labour he performed, and the varied interests he 
 sought to promote. He never spared himself. From the 
 29th day of March, to the 21st of April, with few inter- 
 ruptions, we were making our way by rail, by stage, and 
 by steamer, to Fort Smith at the head of navigation on 
 the Arkansas Ptiver. 
 
 Under date of Saturday, April 3d, while we were at 
 Cincinnati, I find this record, which gives a hint, at least, 
 in regard to one object of his visit: "Accompanied Mr. 
 T and Mr. Lowrie, to various places, shops of arti- 
 sans of different kinds. Mr. Lowrie is looking- at errist 
 mills, corn shellers, steam engines, and a carding, spinning 
 and weaving machine, with the view of purchasing some 
 or all of them for use among the Indians." 
 
 On the 21st of April, we took horse at Fort Smith, 
 and, passing immediately into the Indian Territory, pur- 
 sued our solitary way towards Spencer Academy. The 
 path led us across beautiful rolling prairies, over rugged 
 hills, and through bridgeless streams. At night we slept 
 in Indian houses, and partook of their coarse but plentiful 
 fare. Our midday lunch, consisting generally of a little 
 bacon and some corn dodgers, was eaten beside a cool 
 spring, or clear brook, where we tethered our horses, and 
 rested a while, enjoying the perfect solitude, and holding 
 Christian communion never to be forgotten. Mr. Low- 
 rie's whole being was open to impressions from nature. 
 He was perfectly at home among the lilies of the field, 
 the trees of the forest, the running streams, and the ever- 
 lasting hills. He knew the names of most of the birds, 
 
12 
 
 and was delighted when once we came suddenly upon 
 some deer feeding in an oak grove. He noticed every 
 chano-e in soil and in geological formations, and would read- 
 ily dismount to secure a new fossil. He was quick to 
 perceive the points of beauty in a landscape, and the 
 glories of the sky. And often his heart was too full for 
 silence, and burst out in words of sacred song, or scrip- 
 ture, and in ascriptions of praise. But nothing stirred 
 him so deeply as living contact with the Indians them- 
 selves, many of whom we saw in making our horseback 
 journey through their country. His heart was melted to 
 tenderness for them. At Spencer Academy he was 
 employed almost without rest from Saturday, the day of 
 our arrival, until Thursday following, in arranging family 
 matters; projecting improvements on the buildings and 
 the farm; revising accounts; hearing the recitation of 
 the scholars; conducting and enjoying religious worship 
 on the Sabbath; and conferring with the chiefs and lead- 
 ing men of the Choctaw Nation. 
 
 I should be glad, if the space devoted to this sketch 
 v/ould allow me to give an account of the last two nights 
 of our return journey, for the purpose of showing to what 
 discomforts and perils Mr. Lowrie willingly submitted in 
 the prosecution of his great work. He endured hardness 
 as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. From thirty to fifty 
 miles in the saddle, several days in succession, will try 
 the strength of men who have not reached their sixty- 
 third birthday. 
 
 At Fort Smith, on Monday, May 3d, 1847, Mr. Low- 
 rie and myself parted company; he to pursue his lonely 
 way to the Creek, Iowa, and Omaha Missions, and I to 
 return home. I conclude this notice of the journey, by a 
 short extract from my journal. 
 
 "This morning Mr. Lowrie took an early start on his 
 
13 
 
 long and solitary horseback journey. The Rev. Mr. 
 Marshal (from Van Buren) and myself, accompanied him 
 to the flat boat, and saw him safely over the Arkansas 
 River, and mounted on his ' Charley.' He waved his 
 hat, and passed on to do his important work, cheerfully 
 sustaining many privations and hardships. He goes first 
 to the Creek Mission, thence across the country to Inde- 
 pendence on the Missouri River, and thence, by water, if 
 possible, (but if not, on horseback), to Council Bluff" and 
 the Iowa and Omaha Missions," 
 
 This was only one of several visits made b}'- Mr. Low- 
 rie to the Indian missions. The result of his personal 
 agency in behalf of the tribes under our care, and the 
 abundance of his labours, with the greatness of his perils 
 and hardships, can never be known till the Master him- 
 self reveals them, as fruits of his love and devotion. 
 
 I think of Mr. Lowrie habitually, as one to whom the 
 sacred description of St. Stephen, the first Christian 
 martyr, applies without any qualification or abatement — 
 " A man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost." It pleased 
 God to give him a large nature, and a peculiar provi- 
 dential training for the work he loved so well. But in 
 addition to this, by early revealing to him the plague of 
 his heart, and placing him in circumstances where his 
 own strength was felt to be perfect weakness, as a defence 
 against worldly influences. He led him to ask until he 
 obtained, in large measure, that most precious gift, "Faith, 
 the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things 
 not seen." The infinite objects of the Christian hope 
 were as real to him as the ground on which he walked. 
 The unseen things of the Kingdom of Heaven had a 
 demonstrated existence to his soul, that made them vastly 
 more precious and influential than all the objects of sense. 
 This was in part the secret of his superiority to the world, 
 
14 
 
 and the consecration of himself, his children, and his 
 possessions, to Christ and his cause. 
 
 But it is not without design that Stephen is described 
 as a man " full of the Holy Ghost," as well as of faith; 
 and this part of the description has its equal meaning in 
 reference to Mr. Lowrie. His thoughts, affections, and 
 purposes were controlled by Him. He was a living temple 
 of the living God, A Person of the Godhead occupied 
 his whole spirit and soul and body, and moved him by 
 the Holy Scriptures, by the precious ordinances of God's 
 house, by sacred providences, and by his own still small 
 voice, as clear sometimes to the consecrated soul as the 
 human voice to the ear, to keep back nothing from his 
 Redeemer and Master, to spend and be spent for him ; 
 to forsake all that he had, and not to count his life dear 
 unto him, that he might win and glorify Christ. He 
 called Him his Master. He delis-hted in his service. It 
 
 O 
 
 was perfect liberty to him to have every thought brought 
 into captivity to the obedience of Christ. No doubt he 
 had his faults, but I do not know what they were, unless 
 we must reckon it a fault to be blunt and outspoken against 
 evil, to denounce selfishness that sacrifices the precious 
 interests of Christ's cause to personal ease and emolu- 
 ment, and to hate falsehood and pretence. 
 
 It was Mr. Lowrie' s faith, wrought and maintained by 
 the Holy Ghost, that gave to the prophecies and promises 
 of scripture, relating to the spread and triumph of the 
 gospel in the whole world, so much power over his heart 
 and life. Really believing that as many as sin without 
 law, shall also perish without law, he believed that in the 
 last days the mountain of the Lord's house shall be estab- 
 lished in the top of the mountains, and exalted above the 
 hills, and all nations shall flow unto it: — that Jesus 
 Christ is a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of 
 
15 
 
 Israel; that there is no other name under heaven given 
 among men whereby we must be saved ; that for this 
 reason he must be preached among all nations, and the 
 presence and power of his Spirit invoked in behalf of all, 
 till the wilderness and solitary places of the earth rejoice 
 and blossom as the rose. 
 
 In this faith he lived and died, leaving to the Church a 
 legacy of toil and consecration and prayer, which she may 
 well prize. 
 
 Happy in his second marriage as in his first, blessed in 
 his children and children's children, and also in his work, 
 he came to the grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn 
 cometh in his season. Carlyle celebrates "The sumless 
 worth of a man," and Bayne in his " Christian Life,'' 
 with more Christian views, dwells upon the theme. 
 Surely none but God can make such a man, as we know 
 Mr. Lowrie was and is, and to him let all the glory be 
 given. His face was the index of his character, the 
 
 o 
 
 mirror of his soul; and as we recall it now, or gaze upon 
 its most faithful representation in Ritchie's engraving, we 
 can only be thankful that we knew and loved him — and 
 that now he rests from his labours, and his works do 
 follow him. 
 
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