Foreign Mission of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. 
 
 ONE OF OUR PIONEERS. 
 
 By Rev. ROBERT JEFFREY, Portadown. 
 
 3 N the year 1833 the Synod of Ulster 
 made the unanimous declaration 
 that it was its bounden duty, as a 
 Church, to enter directly and formally 
 upon the work of Foreign Missions. 
 This declaration was the result of the 
 quickening and stimulating influence of 
 Deputations from Scotland and Eng¬ 
 land, who came to Ireland to tell what 
 was being done in the Foreign field 
 by the Agents of the Societies which 
 they represented. Year by year, each 
 fresh Deputation excited fresh interest 
 in the work of Missions; and, in the 
 end, it came to be asked by the Pres¬ 
 byterian Church, Why should we not 
 have our own Missionary Society and 
 our own Agents like other Churches ? 
 The better spirits in the Church, in the 
 face of considerable opposition from 
 the moderate element, which had not 
 yet got leavened with anything like 
 Mission zeal, kept putting and putting 
 this question, and the answer to it was the resolution of the Synod of 1833, 
 referred to above. 
 
 But a resolution on the books of a Church Court is one thing, and the active 
 working out of that resolution is quite another thing. For a few years, five at 
 
 Occasional Paper. No. 2. 
 
2 
 
 One of Our Pioneers. 
 
 least, nothing was done. As Dr. Morgan put it, in a letter to the Editor of the 
 “ Church of Scotland Record,” in September, 1840, “limited resources, joined 
 with large and increasing demands for labour at home, hindered our progress.” 
 Still, the matter was not forgotten. The principle had been conceded, the leaven 
 of it worked, and about the latter end of 1838 the Mission Directors, in accord¬ 
 ance with instructions from the Synod of Ulster, took active steps for the Church 
 entering upon Foreign work of its own. 
 
 India was not so well known then to the Church as now, and the first 
 difficulty to be contended with was the selection of a field in which to plant 
 workers. This was met by careful consultation with the principal Missionary 
 Societies in England and Scotland, and especially with Dr. Wilson, of Bombay, 
 who, in 1839, practically solved it by commending the district north of Bombay, 
 and for long so familiar to us as Gujarat and Khatiawar, and which he had 
 explored, with a view to its subsequent occupation by some Society, as early as 1835. 
 
 But the next difficulty was men. There was the field fixed and waiting, 
 but where were the Missionaries ? This Foreign Missioning was a new thing 
 to the Ulsterman, and there do not seem to have been any volunteers from 
 among our ministers. And no wonder ! Determining to go to India in those 
 times was a different thing from determining to go nowadays. For the five 
 decades that intervene, the mind and heart and prayers of our Church have all 
 been setting towards the Orient. We and our children are full of it, and familiar 
 with its life and work. Then, it was an unknown land in the majority of Ulster 
 homes, and what little was known of it was of a vague, shadowy sort, in which the 
 terrible preponderated, in the form of dread notions of its fierce heat, vile fevers, 
 wearisome journeys in bullock carts, cholera that cut one off in a day, and long, 
 dangerous voyages in order to reach it. All this has been changed. Now, it is 
 not an unknown land; the advance of civilisation, and our knowledge of that 
 advance, has shorn it of its terrors; now, the Suez Canal has cut five months off 
 the old voyage by the Cape; now, there is the swift steamer instead of the slow 
 packet; now, there is the luxurious Indian railway instead of the old bumping 
 bullock cart; now, there is the well-built Mission-house, with its schools and 
 orphanage ready to be entered upon, instead of some wretched native bungalow ; 
 now, there is the weekly mail service, instead of the monthly or two-monthly 
 one; and so, we of these days, and as things are in India, can hardly, if at all, 
 realise the sacrifice that was made by our Pioneers when they unreservedly laid 
 themselves, at the call of the Church, on the altar of its Mission enterprise in 
 the old time, and took up the rough work that lay before them in their respective 
 spheres under such stern conditions of life as then environed them. 
 
 And it was, literally, by the “call” of the Church that this difficulty was 
 surmounted. The Mission Directors selected twenty men whom they considered 
 suitable for the work. Six out of the twenty placed themselves at the disposal of 
 the Board. Of these six, two were finally selected. One of these was the now 
 venerable and learned Dr. Glasgow, then minister of Castledawson, the only 
 
One of Our Pioneers . 
 
 3 
 
 survivor of the noble Pioneer band of 1840 and 1841. The other was Mr. 
 Joseph Fisher, of Galway. When the Synod met it approved the choice of Mr. 
 Glasgow, but reversed the decision of the Board in the case of Mr. Fisher, on the 
 ground that he should not be removed from the peculiar locality in which he was 
 then so zealously and successfully labouring. The Board were ordered to select 
 and call some other suitable minister, and this they were soon enabled to do. In 
 the providence of God they fixed upon Mr. Alex. Kerr, of Portadown, and called 
 him. The Synod heartily approved of their choice; and thus, early in 1840, the 
 Church had two Missionaries awaiting the solemn act of designation to take their 
 departure to India. 
 
 Along with the blessed movement in the direction of Mission enterprise, 
 there had also been running side by side with it the equally blessed movement 
 in the direction of the union of the two great branches of the Presbyterian Church 
 in Ireland. In the July of 1840 this union was completed. The two Churches, 
 hitherto independent ecclesiastically, met as one body in May Street Church 
 under the name of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland; 
 and the first public act of this first General Assembly was the setting apart 
 to work in India of Messrs. Glasgow and Kerr, their two premier Missionaries— 
 an auspicious occasion, and an event as memorable as the occasion was auspicious. 
 God was in both movements; both have been blessed, and made a blessing; 
 especially I believe that in the direction of Missions. 
 
 Set apart by the united Church in July, these two brethren, with their wives, 
 sailed from Liverpool for Bombay in the end of August, 1840. After a voyage 
 of six months they safely reached Bombay, and were hospitably received by Dr. 
 Wilson, who also helped to locate them at Rajkote, in Khatiawar. 
 
 This first step in the foundation-laying of our Foreign Mission reads at some 
 points like a romance of faith. “ Without faith it is impossible to please God;” 
 and that there was well pleasing faith in connection with the out-going of these 
 two brethren may best be illustrated, I think, by the fashion in which the good 
 Lord, who has all hearts in His hand, showed His good pleasure. Writing of this 
 event, Dr^ Morgan says :—“ On the day of the appointment of the Missionaries 
 there were no funds in readiness to send them forth. We had reckoned that if 
 God gave us the men He would soon give us the money, and our faith was not 
 exercised in vain. A subscription was set on foot in the Assembly, and the 
 members contributed about ^500. An appeal was made to the congregations in 
 Belfast, which produced about f 6 oo. Several congregations in the country sent 
 forward contributions of their own accord. Our Secession brethren had a little 
 stock of near ^200 which they cast into the common treasury, and thus in about 
 two months there were about ^1,500 to commence our Mission enterprise.” 
 With this sum the Directors were enabled, to do all they wished; and the manner 
 of its coming, as it was well calculated to do, strengthened faith and brightened 
 hope for the future. The more one looks into God’s ways in relation to the 
 great work of the conversion of the world, the more one is persuaded that the 
 
4 One of Our Pioneers. 
 
 work is His, and that the Church should trust Him more and more in respect of 
 the sinews of war. 
 
 In February, 1841, Dr. Morgan reported to the Directors that the funds 
 were in such a flourishing condition that a third Missionary might be sent out. 
 Twenty men were again selected and written to, with the result that only two— 
 Messrs. Oliver and Edmonds—expressed their willingness to enter upon Foreign 
 work. In July, 1841, Dr. Morgan was able further to report to the Directors 
 that the funds would enable them to send out a fourth man, and so it was 
 resolved to call and at once set apart Messrs. Oliver and Edmonds. 
 In the end, however, both refused to go—Oliver, who ultimately became blind, 
 on account of his eyes, and Edmonds, because of the advice of Sir Philip 
 Crampton. 
 
 Thus, the Directors were again without men, and again they had recourse to 
 their former method of selection. Seven esteemed suitable were this time 
 selected and written to as before. 
 
 Meantime, though the sun was shining brightly on the Mission in Ireland, 
 clouds were obscuring his face in India; and, on the 18th of October, 1841, the 
 Directors met under most saddening circumstances, and with heavy hearts. 
 Death had laid its hand upon good and noble Mr. Kerr. He had fallen a prey 
 to the influence of the climate, in the form of Gujarat fever in the house of 
 Colonel Jacob at Rajkote, on the 16th of August. There was a stricken widow 
 and a fatherless boy in Khatiawar: there was a vacant place in the Mission : and 
 Mr. Glasgow was alone, and weeping, as his letters testify, for the loss of a 
 brother beloved. 
 
 But to return to the seven to whom letters had been sent. Of these, three 
 were Messrs. Adam Glasgow, James M‘Kee, and J. H. Speers, and one was 
 Robert Montgomery, a licentiate, born of Covenanting parents at Newtownards, 
 and, at the time of his call by the Directors, tutor in the family of Mr. M‘Minn, 
 of Herdstown House, Donaghadee. Up till this time the habit of the Directors 
 had been to confine their call to mature and tried men. In the case of young 
 Montgomery they departed from their rule, for the reason, as I have been 
 informed by his contemporaries, that he had been an exceptional sort of student 
 —a bright, genial, loveable, clever fellow, of deep earnest piety, possessed of a 
 great stock of strong common sense, and with a very decided and markedly 
 manifested bent toward Mission work. 
 
 At the meeting of Directors in July of this year it had been determined to send 
 out only two additional men. In October, however, Dr. Morgan, taking advan¬ 
 tage of the strong deep feeling evoked by Mr. Kerr’s death, issued a most 
 touching and urgent appeal for more men and more money, and at its head 'he 
 placed the almost closing words of the fallen soldier’s last letter—“ I would say 
 to the Church that until six labourers are in this Province, the work can scarcely 
 be regarded as begun.” Mr. M‘Comb, the Laureate of the Church, and the 
 champion of every good cause, was also to the front:— 
 
One of Our Pioneers. 
 
 5 
 
 And shall the Church in doubting stand, 
 
 While warriors in the field are falling ; 
 
 Shall Rajkote’s little mourning band 
 For speedy help in vain be calling ? 
 
 Zion, awake ? go forth with speed, 
 
 And succour in the time of need. 
 
 The work is scarce begun so long, 
 
 As India for thy help is crying— 
 
 Go stand amidst the heathen throng, 
 
 Between the living and the dying. 
 
 The heart-stirring words of Morgan and M*'Comb so called forth the 
 sympathies and roused the enthusiasm of the Church that the second band of 
 Pioneers, instead of being composed of two , as was intended in July, was increased 
 to four , namely, Robert Montgomery, James M‘Kee, Adam Glasgow, and J. H. 
 Speers—a splendid result, and one that reflects the highest possible credit upon 
 the missionary zeal and liberality of that time. 
 
 And now, as this sketch concerns Mr. Montgomery only, I must drop the 
 other brethren—which I do unwillingly—and follow the course of the one man 
 alone. 
 
 The ambition and fervent desire of Mr. Montgomery’s life was to become a 
 Missionary. As has been already said, his bent was in that direction. But as 
 well as the bent, he clearly had the fitness. When asked by the Directors to 
 consider their call, he did not accept rashly, or give way hastily or blindly to his 
 desire that it might be fulfilled. This is abundantly shown by his reply to Dr. 
 Morgan, written from Donaghadee in November, 1841. That letter, a very long 
 one, is preserved in the correspondence book of the Mission, and, in every sense, 
 is a remarkable one to have been written by so young a man. It indicates 
 wonderful maturity of judgment, displays a striking sensitiveness of conscience in 
 relation to the heavy responsibilities which he was called to undertake, and 
 breathes a spirit of deep devotion and earnest and thorough consecration—in 
 fact, he lays open like a child his whole soul in it, and strikes like a man the 
 key-note of his whole devoted life. 
 
 Had he been left to the selection of his own field for work he would, he tells 
 Dr. Morgan, have chosen the Jewish, and not the Indian field. But, he says, 
 “ You ask me in the name of Christ if I am willing to go for Him and proclaim 
 His unsearchable riches to the perishing millions of India ? In the name of 
 Christ, I am willing to go ! I bless God that He has placed me in such circum¬ 
 stances that I can be so addressed. It was the prayer of my earliest days that 
 He would put me into the ministry. He has answered the petition of my child¬ 
 hood and my boyhood; and now that He is pointing out by His providence the 
 sphere in which He will be pleased to employ me, I feel that I have no choice 
 
 but to abandon myself to His sovereign disposal.I preferred, and would 
 
 still prefer were I allowed to choose for myself, the Jewish rather than the Indian 
 Mission, but I am satisfied to go wherever the Directors see fit to send me. I 
 
6 
 
 One of Our Pioneers . 
 
 may be permitted to state here, that it was only by the advice of friends, 
 combined with a sense of my own insufficiency, and a fear lest I should be 
 running unsent, which prevented me at the last meeting of Assembly from 
 offering myself as a Missionary to God’s ancient people. But, I desire to say, 
 not as I will, but as God will.” Such was the spirit of the man upon whom the 
 choice of the Church had fallen, and who was ready to respond to its call as the 
 call of God and of duty. 
 
 And now, events must be summed up briefly and rapidly, that we may with 
 as little delay as possible get our Missionary unto the land that became the 
 home of his heart, and the scene of his labours. On the 21st of December, 
 1841, he was married to Mary Macaulay, daughter of the Rev. John Macaulay, 
 of Donaghadee. On the 12th January, 1842, he, with Messrs. Glasgow, Speers, 
 and M‘Kee were set apart as Missionaries in May Street Church, Doctors Hanna, 
 Cooke, Edgar, Wilson, and Morgan officiating; and, on the 1st February, with 
 his wife, he sailed from Southampton for Bombay, via Egypt, the Directors of 
 the Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Company having given them free passages 
 to Alexandria, Herdman and Langtry of Belfast sending them free to Liverpool, 
 and the Directors of an English railway free from Birmingham to London. Mr. 
 and Mrs. Adam Glasgow travelled by the same route, and at the same time. 
 Messrs. Speers and M‘Kee delayed their departure for a little, and went by the 
 Cape. 
 
 Bombay was reached on the 14th of March, 1842. From the start to the finish 
 all had gone well with the Mission party. On their arrival they were met by Dr, 
 Glasgow, and Mr. and Mrs. Montgomery were taken by him to the house of Dr. 
 Stevenson, senior chaplain of the Church of Scotland in that city. From a letter 
 to Dr. Morgan—the first from India—it is evident how much pleased Mr. 
 Montgomery was with his reception in the land of his adoption. After recounting 
 
 4 
 
 the many instances of the goodness of God to him, he says : “ We have another 
 cause of gratitude to the God of grace, which I have much pleasure in acknow¬ 
 ledging. We have met with many pious and devoted servants of God in Bombay, 
 and have been received by them with much hospitality. . . . There is a delightful 
 Christian society in Bombay, which is chiefly composed of pious officers, who 
 have received us as brethren, and encouraged our hearts by their kindness.” 
 As it was then, so is in the present day. There is no land, I fancy, in the world 
 for hospitality like India—not a hospitality of parade, but a hospitality refined, 
 easy and quiet. To such hospitality no Missionary has ever been a stranger. 
 Christian hearts, homes, and purses are ever open to the servants of the Master, 
 and especially in times of sorrow and affliction. And no man in all wide 
 India, or woman either, was more acceptable or made more welcome in the best 
 European circles than Mr. and Mrs. Montgomery, and none left behind them 
 in it a sweeter Christian savour when they left it for good. They were not only 
 the gentleman and the lady, but the Christian gentleman and the Christian 
 lady. 
 
One oj Our Pioneers . 
 
 7 
 
 The journey from Bombay to Ghogo. and on to Rajkote, must be passed 
 over, so must the residence in Rajkote during the time the language was being 
 learned, so must a brief turn of sickness at that time which troubled Mr. 
 Montgomery a little; and the curtain must again be lifted at Porbandar, where 
 the true work of his life commenced, where he experienced his first troubles, and 
 where he put in his sickle and garnered his first sheaf to the exceeding joy of his 
 soul. 
 
 Porbandar is a town on the sea coast of Khatiawar, about half way or so 
 between the Gulf of Cambay and the Gulf of Kutch, and facing the Indian 
 Ocean. It is in a native State, where at that time there was not, as there is not 
 yet in any native State, the same freedom for the prosecution of Christian work. 
 From the report of the Presbytery of Khatiawar, a meeting of which was held at 
 Rajkote in May, 1843, it is evident that this town was Mr. Montgomery’s own 
 choice under the direction of the Spirit of God. His diary now lies before me, 
 and the first record in it, showing the sweet devoutness of his spirit, opens 
 thus :—“ February 23rd, 1843—This day I reached Porbandar, accompanied by 
 my dear wife and little daughter, four months and four days old, and by the 
 Rev. James Glasgow (who had gone to establish him), his wife, and little 
 daughter. Let me here record the goodness of the Lord which He hath shown to 
 me up to this day. He has answered the prayer of my earlier days. I asked to 
 be allowed to enter the service of the Lord Jesus, and He has called me to be a 
 missionary to the heathen. He has given me a good wife and a sweet little child, 
 and has preserved the health of both in seasons of imminent peril. Bless the 
 Lord, O my soul. What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits to me.” 
 
 The first business of the missionary when he goes to a native State is to 
 pay his respects to, and make friends of the “ powers that be.” This was done by 
 Mr. Montgomery. He had an audience of the Rana in company with Dr. 
 Glasgow, and in his diary he writes down quite a humorous description of the 
 narrow, nasty, jolty road that ran right up to the Royal abode, of the decidedly 
 unregal aspect of the palace when close to it, of the wretched perpendicular 
 ladder with rope attached that led to the “ Hall of Audience,” of the still more 
 unregal appearance of the narrow apartment in which the audience was granted; 
 of the still, if possible, more unregal appearance of the Royal Rana himself as he 
 squatted cross-legged, acccording to the habit of his race, on a patchwork 
 carpet, or lolled about, surrounded by his ministers, and supported by big flabby 
 pillows. Such is Royal life in India. But the Rana, Mr. Montgomery declares, 
 was civility itself—an Eastern is nothing, though he hates you like poison, if not 
 civil. There was the customary play of odours out of the spouts of silver vessels, 
 the bestowal of sweetmeats, the inevitable salaam, and then the descent by the 
 ladder with the rope into the vulgar world below stairs. 
 
 For so far there had not been any conversions in connection with the 
 Mission. True, the time was short, and the Missionaries had only got fitted for, 
 and settled to their work. Yet there was the natural longing at home, where the 
 
8 
 
 One of Our Pioneers . 
 
 conditions of work are but ill, if at all, understood, for fruit—or, to put it in 
 commercial phrase, for “ returns.” Even Dr. Morgan, one of the best and wisest 
 and most cautious of men, who, in an early letter to India, had urged prudence 
 upon the Missionaries as to the exciting of undue hopes of conversions, was 
 longing for a “ seal.” He wrote thus to Mr. Montgomery, in relation to this 
 “seal,” early in 1843—“Daily my prayers are for you and for your work. I 
 think I would be satisfied did I know of one case of decided conversion. This 
 would be the ‘ seal’ of God to our Mission.” 
 
 Thanks be to God, the good man to whom practically the Church owes her 
 splendid Indian Mission, with its now many, many “ seals,” had not long to wait. 
 Even as he wrote, one hard human heart was being softened and prepared for 
 the eternal sealing of the Divine Spirit through the agency of Mr. Montgomery. 
 
 There had come into his house as a Munshi, or teacher of the language —I 
 quote from his Diary, not from letters—a young Mohammedan named Abdur 
 Sulam, whose father was of the highest class of Mohammedan priests in the 
 country, and had religious jurisdiction over the greater part of the province. This 
 youth had a brother called Abdul Rahman, who came v/ith his brother to Mr. 
 Montgomery for the purpose of learning rather than of teaching. Abdul had 
 become satisfied that the Koran was not a Divine revelation. He was soon a 
 constant visitor at the Mission House, often spending as much as five hours a day 
 there in earnest religious conversation, with the result that he renounced the 
 errors of Mohammedanism, and was baptized, on the 8th October, 1843, publicly 
 in presence of the members of the Presbytery of Khatiawar, Mrs. Adam Glasgow, 
 Mrs. Montgomery, two of the Hon. East India Company’s officers, and a 
 co-religionist of his own. 
 
 Thus a “ seal ” was given, and the communication of the fact furnishes 
 material to Mr. Montgomery for one of the finest Missionary letters to Dr. Morgan 
 that has perhaps ever appeared in any language. At home the news was received 
 with great joy and thankfulness, as it had a right to be; and ever since Mr. 
 Montgomery has been regarded, and justly, as the first spiritual father of our 
 Mission, and Munshi Abdul Rahman as its first spiritual son. 
 
 It was my privilege to know in India this “first fruit” of our work there. He 
 and his wife still live, bright specimens of Christians even in their old age. One 
 of their daughters, Ashabai, remained unmarried, and has been throughout her 
 life an ornament of the mission. Another daughter became the wife of the 
 estimable Rev. Dhanjabhai Nouroji, Pastor of the Free Church of Scotland 
 Native Congregation, Bombay; and by them all both the name and memory of 
 Mr. and Mrs. Montgomery are held in the highest veneration. I have seen, time 
 after time, tears stream down the withered cheeks of the old man, and his face 
 light up with a bright smile as he spoke of the days and doings of Padre 
 Montgomery Sahib. 
 
 But there were to be trials as well as triumphs at Porbandar. The field was 
 a new one and a hard one. Missions and missionaries were not then so well 
 
One of Our Pioneers. 
 
 9 
 
 understood as they are now in Gujarat and Khatiawar; besides the State was a 
 native one, as I have said before. The people got afraid after the conversion of 
 the Munshi, and the Rana got suspicious and unfriendly. On the day of the 
 Munshi’s baptism the Mohammedans, who had proposed to seize him and cut off 
 his nose, and to place him on the back of an ass and drum him out of the city, 
 gathered in force at the mosque of which his father was the mullah, or priest, 
 and turned the entire family out of the attached dwelling-house. The English 
 officer commanding the detachment of military on the station interfered, and the 
 old man was permitted to return on signing a condition that he would never per¬ 
 mit his son the Munshi to enter his home again. Such things seem trifles to us 
 in a Christian land, but they were not trifles to Mr. Montgomery. They were the 
 roots of opposition all round. He wished to build a house, and ground was 
 refused by the Rana. Still he did not lose heart, and withal the work of preach¬ 
 ing in the bazaars went on. Villages outside Porbandar were visited by Mr. 
 Speers, who had now joined him, and by himself. Inquirers continued to turn in 
 upon him, and he held on his way in faith until, on the 27th of October, 1844, 
 two more “ seals ” were given of God to work in Porbandar in the baptism of a 
 Hindoo called Bhagwanji, with his son Devraj. Other “ seals " were also in 
 time added, but it is impossible for me in the space at my disposal to follow up 
 the details in connection with their conversion and baptism. Suffice it to say 
 that this pioneering process went on in Porbandar amid bitter opposition to 
 school work and preaching work for some years, until the station was left in 
 charge of another “ seal,” Munshi Abdur Sulam, an Evangelist. 
 
 In the meantime the Mission had been gaining in strength and importance 
 in the parts of Gujarat and Khatiawar under the direction of the two Glas¬ 
 gows, M‘Kee and the others, and the London Missionary Society, which occu¬ 
 pied some stations in Gujarat, came to the determination to hand over these stations 
 to the Irish Presbyterian Church if they would arrange for them and man them. 
 One of these stations, and that which alone concerns Mr. Montgomery, was 
 Surat, once the capital of the Presidency. 
 
 In a letter dated Ghogo, June, 1845 ,1 find Mr. Montgomery recommending, 
 on the authority of the Presbytery, the purchase of the Surat premises to Dr. 
 Morgan at the price of ^750, as fixed by Mr. Fyvie, the London Society’s mis¬ 
 sionary agent on the spot. At Surat there was then, as there is now, very fine 
 and extensive old premises; there was then, as there is now, a splendid church 
 edifice; there was then, as there is now, a most efficient printing establishment; 
 and there were then also, as there is now, fine schools. These considerations are 
 urged strongly by Mr. Montgomery as reasons for purchase; and, in addition, he 
 says : “ By the great mercy of God in blessing our labours in Porbandar we would 
 be able to organise a church in Surat consisting of at least thirteen individuals. 
 They consist for the most part of young people ; and we are not without hope that 
 one or two new Christian families might be formed, so that our Church, having 
 a place in which to rest, might be edified.” The result was that the Surat estab- 
 
IO 
 
 One of Our Pioneers . 
 
 lishment was purchased and occupied by Mr. Montgomery and his colleague, 
 and from that time—1847—until he left India for good in 1877, Surat was his 
 home and the centre of his work. 
 
 After some time Borsad, another of the London Missionary Society’s stations, 
 was taken over by the Irish Presbyterian Church, and with it in i860 the Rev. 
 Joseph Van Someron Taylor, one of the choicest spirits and one of the finest 
 missionaries ever possessed by any Church. He was the warm and life-long friend 
 of Mr. Montgomery. They were as brothers, and I mention him here for the 
 reason that no sketch of the one would be in any sense perfect without the men¬ 
 tion of the other. 
 
 And now what remains to be said ? The life of Mr. Montgomery in Surat 
 for all the years he was there was, day in and day out, that of any other Mission¬ 
 ary—health and sickness, hard work at the press, hard work in the bazaars 
 preaching to the natives, hard work in the schools, hard work on the Sabbath, 
 conducting services in English and Gujarati; hard work at a standard dictionary 
 of the Gujarati language, which he compiled at the request of the Government 
 of Bombay, and which he saw through the Mission Press, all the profits both of 
 the literary work and the press-work going into the funds of the Mission. Such 
 was his life and work, and the results of those long years of self-devotion, prayer¬ 
 fulness, and faithful ministrations in the bonds of the Gospel of Christ, eternity 
 alone can reveal. This much, however, is clear in time—that he gained the 
 unbounded esteem of all who knew him, and more, all who knew him loved him. 
 From my own knowledge I can testify that in the city of Bombay, both in Native 
 Christian and in European circles, his name was as a “ household word,” and his 
 high Christian character brought credit and honour to the Presbyterian Church 
 of Ireland over all the land. He had not the commanding audacity in schemes 
 of work, or the overpowering persuasiveness in pleading for Missions on the 
 platform of Duff; nor had he the profound erudition and deftness in literature 
 of Wilson; but he had what in a Missionary should perhaps be esteemed some¬ 
 thing higher than the gifts of either, the faculty of steady quiet devotion to 
 preaching and conversion work within his sphere, without desire for applause of 
 men, or the wish for fame in the Church or the world. It would not serve the 
 highest interests of God or humanity if all the Missionaries in India were Duffs 
 and Wilsons, great and useful though they were. It is one thing to imprint one’s 
 name deeply on the memory of the talking world outside heathenism, but it is 
 quite another thing, by consecrated uprightness, tenderness and simple Christ- 
 likeness, such as Montgomery’s, and others of our men, to imprint one’s name 
 deeply in traces of spiritual life, and holy influence, on the hearts of those who 
 “know not God.” And this he did. In this connexion I cannot do better than quote 
 the generous opinion of him expressed by Bhiramji M. Malabari, a Parsee, Editor of 
 the Indian Spectator and Voice of India, in his book, “ Gujarat and the Gujaratis ” 
 —“ Much different from Mr. Wallace, but actuated by the same motive, was the 
 Rev. Robert Montgomery. Mr. Montgomery was, I believe, the oldest Presby- 
 
One of Our Pioneers . 
 
 n 
 
 terian Missionary in Gujarat, and spent the best of his life there. He died at 
 home, in the fulness of time, at the patriarchal age of three score and ten, leaving 
 behind the memory of a virtuous and well spent life to be cherished by three 
 (native) generations of men. The deceased was a most successful preacher of 
 the Gospel. He hated all underhand and dubious means; and rather than fire 
 up the imagination of his audience by false hopes and impossible promises, he 
 preferred to reach their conscience by making Christianity a necessity of man’s 
 fallen nature. His Christianity was of a peculiar character, like himself pleasant, 
 practical, and conciliatory. Wherever he could, he cheerfully fell in with the 
 views of his opponent; where he could not, he would not mind pulling Satan 
 himself by the beard, keeping himself and the adversary all the while in the best 
 humour. Anecdotes are current in Gujarat of how the good old man would sally 
 forth of a Sabbath morning, enter an unknown village, preach against the stone- 
 gods, be set upon by the mob, and be incarcerated for his audacity; how he 
 would hold forth from his prison—now in muscular Hindustani, reminding the 
 populace of their unlawful conduct and its consequences; now in suasive Gujar¬ 
 ati, laughing at their despicable tactics; and then, suddenly asking for a drink of 
 water, going off directly to take his forty winks, and on awaking falling to the recital 
 of some quaint but touching prayer; till, at last, he would win the hearts of 
 the people, issue forth all smiles and bows, snap his fingers at the heathen priest 
 who had instigated the rabble, and set out for home, escorted by the very men 
 who, a few hours ago, put him into the prison. Such was Mr. Montgomery the 
 Missionary.” It must, of course, be borne in mind that the writer of the fore¬ 
 going extract is not a Christian, but one of those Parsees who were early brought 
 into contact with him and the best spirits of our Mission in Surat. 
 
 And now little space remains for more, and much has to be left unsaid. 
 Mr. Montgomery’s first furlough covered, I find, the greatest part of the mutiny 
 time; his second furlough was in 1866 and 1867. During the latter year he was 
 unanimously elected to the dignity of Moderator of the General Assembly. He 
 returned to Surat, and remained there despite much physical exhaustion, being 
 unwilling to quit his post and the work of his love, till 1877, when he retired, as 
 it turned out, for good. At this time, during the Mission tour of the late 
 beloved and lamented Dr. Fleming Stevenson, he acted in his stead as Convener 
 of the Foreign Mission with great satisfaction to the entire Church. His inten¬ 
 tion, however, all along, was to go back to India, as he himself told me, to 
 complete a Gujarati Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans at which he 
 was working. God, however, ordered it otherwise, and on the 3rd of November, 
 1880, he was gathered to his fathers. 
 
 On his quitting Surat, the public bodies, native and European, bore strong 
 testimony to his high character as a Christian and a Missionary, and to the in¬ 
 estimable services which he had rendered throughout his long residence to the 
 cause of education and civilisation generally. 
 
 With his brethren he ever lived on the most fraternal and affectionate terms; 
 
12 
 
 One oj Our Pioneers, 
 
 and one regret in connexion with this sketch is that space forbade me, as I 
 went along, to call up one and all of them, both dead and living, in their relations 
 with him. 
 
 Now this Mission is one of the best in India—ably and nobly manned—and 
 may the good Lord ever continue His favour to it, and send it a long succession 
 of Montgomerys. 
 
 Foreign Mission of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. 
 
 This Mission works in India and China. 
 
 In INDIA, there are seven central stations in Gujarat and 
 Khatiawar, with a large number of subordinate stations. There is a 
 Christian community of 2,200 persons, of whom 1,470 are baptized, and 
 about 300 communicants. 
 
 There are eleven ordained Missionaries at work, two Superintendents 
 of High Schools, and about twenty-eight native Evangelists and 
 Colporteurs. Two of these Evangelists have been licensed to preach, 
 and will soon be ordained over native congregations. A Native Pastors’ 
 Sustentation Fund has been started in India to aid the native congre¬ 
 gations in supporting their pastors, while the Fleming Stevenson 
 Memorial Fund is to be devoted to the training of pastors for the native 
 Church. There are above 3,000 boys and girls in our Vernacular and 
 High Schools. 
 
 The Female Association has also eight ladies at work in India. 
 
 In CHINA, we have three ordained Missionaries in the Province of 
 Mantchuria, and five native helpers. There are twenty-four baptized 
 persons, and a Christian community of some sixty or seventy. The 
 Gospel is preached, and books sold over a wide area. It is only the 
 seed-time of our work as yet in China. 
 
 Donations, &c., for the Foreign Mission should be forwarded to 
 W. D. Eakin, Esq., 12, May Street, Belfast, or they may be sent 
 to the Convener, Rev. Wm. Park, Fortwilliam Park, Belfast.