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 Sir Launfal of Korea 
 
 NATHAN LOUNSBURY ROCKWELL 
 
 Korea Quarter-Centennial Movement 
 Board of Foreign Missions of the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church 
 150 Fifth Avenue 
 New York 
 
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SIR LAUNFAL OF KOREA 
 
 “Not wliat we give, but what we share, 
 
 For the gift without the giver is bare; 
 
 Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, 
 Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me.” 
 
 The laymen who have been told so much in 
 recent years about their duty to give their 
 money for the extension of the gospel have 
 heard very little about a New England manu¬ 
 facturer who recently gave not only his means 
 but himself to Korea. 
 
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Natliaa Lounsbury Rockwell was a well¬ 
 born Connecticut boy who, after passing the 
 entrance examinations for Yale, turned aside 
 to a successful business career as a shoe manu¬ 
 facturer. He was an earnest church and Sun¬ 
 day school worker and it was the joy of him¬ 
 self and Mrs. Rockwell to give their eldest son 
 to home missionary work. The reports of the 
 progress of the gospel in Korea stirred their 
 hearts to go and see for themselves four years 
 ago, taking with them their youngest son and 
 only daughter. What they saw convinced him 
 that Korea needed him more than Connecticut. 
 
 Dr. Rosetta Sherwood Hall, who was sta¬ 
 tioned at Pyeng Yang when these observant 
 tourists came there as the guests of the Rev. 
 and Mrs. W. A. Noble, has told of his interest 
 in the Christmas exercises in our native mis¬ 
 sion church. The class of eight blind girls 
 touched his heart and the next morning he was 
 in Dr. Hall’s study, putting searching in¬ 
 quiries concerning the origin and object of this 
 special work. 1 When he found that the work 
 was limited because the Woman’s Foreign 
 Missionary Society had but $100 a year to 
 spend on it, he said he would be responsible 
 for enlarging the class to at least thirty girls 
 and would try to enlist other helpers. He lis¬ 
 tened eagerly to her plans for initiating a 
 similar school for deaf mutes, and as soon 
 as he had settled his family in California he 
 returned to Korea as a self-supporting mis¬ 
 sionary, taking passage “second class,” in 
 order to save enough money to send a Korean 
 couple to Chefoo to be trained as instructors 
 in the school for the deaf where he was al¬ 
 ready educating the ten-year-old deaf-mute 
 son of a Korean pastor. 
 
 > The condition of blind girls in Korea is 
 pitiable in the extreme, for under heathen 
 customs they are left in ignorance and abject 
 
 'See Korea Field, May, 1908, and Woman’s Friend, 
 Boston, September, 1908. 
 
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slavery or sometimes trained as sorceresses or 
 fortune-tellers. Deaf mutes are looked upon 
 as imbeciles. As there is no Korean hand 
 language, they have no name, are not taught 
 to read or write and know nothing except what 
 they can acquire by other senses than hearing. 
 To the blind our missionaries have brought the 
 blessing of light in the form of the “New 
 York point” alphabet, and deaf mutes have 
 been taught lip reading and vocalization. 
 Verily the blind received their sight and the 
 deaf heard ! 
 
 And the poor had the gospel preached to 
 them ! for in the dearth of workers, Dr. Hall 
 returning on furlough, the Yankee shoe manu¬ 
 facturer had not only the care of the work for 
 the twenty-six blind girls and the deaf, but he 
 had charge of eight colporteurs for the Bible 
 Society and was thrust out into the active 
 evangelistic work in the country around Hai 
 Ju, aided by his faithful interpreter, Mr. 
 Yoon. 
 
 Though delicately brought up and accus¬ 
 tomed to every home comfort, Mr. Rockwell 
 lived in a mission house inferior to his barn 
 at home. On his preaching circuit and in his 
 country classes he slept in mud-walled huts, 
 not high enough to stand upright in except 
 under the ridge-poles, and with leaky thatch 
 and paper windows. He had counted the cost 
 beforehand and spared not himself in his 
 Master’s service. 
 
 Only ten days before his sudden death of 
 pneumonia, last December, he wrote to his 
 only daughter from Hai Ju: 
 
 “I am in my room, with a severe catarrhal 
 cold. * * * A man came in with a 
 
 pheasant and a chicken for me and said that 
 some time before he had been persecuted till 
 quite discouraged, but he often came to me 
 and I prayed and helped and encouraged him, 
 so th,at his faith sprang up again and he had 
 been happy ever since.” 
 
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Also he wrote of having received that morn¬ 
 ing a letter from a Christian Korean woman, 
 who had been helped by a sermon of his: 
 
 “So these two this morning have cheered 
 me. * * * I had a letter today from 
 
 Brother Noble, saying he will be here January 
 4, to hold classes, and he asked me to give 
 one hour each to two classes .every day, teach¬ 
 ing scriptural holiness for eight days. This 
 is an opportunity I want to prepare for, and 
 in the meantime I must go to Pyeng Yang and 
 return (to attend to the work for the blind and 
 deaf). * * * When you get this I will have 
 finished teaching the class. I expect to be 
 well before that time. * * * I am so glad, 
 
 my little girl, that you know Jesus. Some 
 will not understand you. ¥ * * Don't be 
 
 influenced by those who do not know the 
 Lord. Trust in Jesus always —rest in Him 
 without any unrest.” 
 
 A month earlier he had written his last 
 letter to Dr. Hall in America, urging her to 
 obtain improved machinery for printing books 
 for the blind. The letter was full of details, 
 showing his thoughtful care for the blind 
 girls, as if they were his own children. He 
 was even trying to bring a Japanese’dentist 
 from Seoul to attend to the teeth of his sight¬ 
 less charges. “I think she will be reasonable,” 
 he says. “We owe this to the girls.” He goes 
 on to write of them individually. “Susanna is 
 a very strong woman spiritually, a great help 
 to the school. She is to be a Bible woman.” 
 Another, An-Su-Ni, “is happy, prays much in 
 secret and gives a beautiful testimony in 
 prayer meeting.” He rejoices in the great re¬ 
 vival that was sweeping through the native 
 churches. And in closing he said: “I thank 
 you for remembering me in prayer. I need 
 help from the Lord continually. We all do 
 out here.” 
 
 Burdened with the sense of opportunities of 
 service far beyond his resources of means or 
 
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physical strength; working day and night for 
 
 BLIND SUSANNA 
 
 She holds copies of Mark’s Gospel, which she dls- 
 N tributes in her calls from house to house 
 
 others and sending written and printed ap¬ 
 peals to his friends at home for the twenty or 
 twenty-five dollars which will keep a blind 
 boy or girl in school a whole year, he did need 
 the help of the Lord continually and it was 
 vouchsafed him. 
 
 His going brought tears to eyes that had 
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never looked upon his face. Prudence O., the 
 first blind pupil, now a teacher, wrote to Dr. 
 Hall when she heard the news of his death : 
 
 “Because Mr. Rocawell has died all our 
 blind and deaf girls are very sad. We all 
 feel like we are orphans, for he was more 
 than a father to us. We all say that the like 
 of Mr. Rockwell will not be found. When Mr. 
 Rockwell was here in Pyeng Yang he prayed 
 with us every morning and evening and gave 
 most interesting talks. The last time he Avent 
 away Ruth (the matron) and I Avent to the 
 train to bid him good-by and he told me to 
 pray with the girls every night and morning 
 and he told Ruth to take good care of us all. 
 He told ns at the train he would come again 
 at Christmas time, but on Christmas morning 
 Ave heard that Mr. Rockwell was very ill in 
 the country, and though Ave prayed very 
 earnestly that he might get well, God took 
 him.” 
 
 His companion and interpreter, Mr. Yoon, 
 declared: “He fed my soul. If ever a man 
 lived close to God, Mr. RockAvell did. lie 
 wanted so much to go home and see all his 
 family once more.” 
 
 Dr. Hall, whose progressive philanthropy 
 and deep spirituality so powerfully influenced 
 him, and who was more intimately acquainted 
 with the extent and character of his ministry 
 than almost anyone else, speaks of his inde¬ 
 scribable charm and the chivalrous instinct 
 which marked his manner and bearing: “It 
 was a privilege and an inspiration to know 
 - him. His wisdom was kind and his kindness 
 wise. 
 
 “ ‘Nor knowest thou what argument 
 
 Thy life to thy neighbor’s creed has lent.’ ” 
 
 Bishop M. C. Harris has remarked upon the 
 esteem in which the Koreans held him. The 
 Christliness of his service was not lost upon 
 the non-Christians. 
 
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The work is left in sore straits by Mr. 
 Rockwell’s departure. In his last printed re¬ 
 port he said: “Future enlargements and in¬ 
 creased usefulness may depend somewhat upon 
 the assistance it receives from appreciative 
 friends.” And the friend who most appre¬ 
 ciated it and did most to maintain it is gone. 
 
 Dr Alice F. Moffatt writes from Pyeng 
 Yang: “Surely the life he gave for Korea 
 calls earnestly for others to take up the work 
 he laid down.” Dr. Hall, who is in New 
 York doing post-graduate medical work, says : 
 “We cannot attempt to explain the calling 
 home of one so sorely needed. It indeed seems 
 a strange providence to us who remain and 
 upon whom the work rests the heavier for his 
 going, but it certainly is a call to us all to 
 increased faithfulness and activity. And may 
 it not also be a call for more workers who 
 are independent of financial considerations, 
 who, like the missionary Paul, forego theii 
 right to live of the gospel they proclaim? 
 May the consecrated life and work of this 
 layman inspire many more of private means 
 to definite service, and may the work be con¬ 
 tinued of this faithful man of God, who, like 
 his Master, emptied himself and counted not 
 his life dear unto himself, but poured it forth 
 to the uttermost in loving ministry to others.” 
 
 If ever knighthood was in flower it was 
 when Nathan Rockwell, seeing the great need, 
 gave himself for its relief. There must be 
 other men who are living near enough to 
 Christ to be able to respond to the same call 
 and to carry on his unfinished work. 
 
 Reprinted from The Christian Advocate 
 For further information and literature, address 
 Korea Quarter-Centennial Movement 
 150 Fifth Avenue, New York City 
 
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