Judith G. Perkins: The Flower of Persia

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Although we have previously highlighted the letter of 10 year-old A.A. Hodge and his younger sister Mary Elizabeth to the “heathen” of India, both went on to live full lives on earth to the glory of God. Today we highlight a young lady who lived her full life on earth to the ripe age of twelve years old.

Judith Grant Perkins was the daughter of Justin and Charlotte Perkins, missionaries to Persia, the fourth of seven children in the family. Her biography was primarily authored by Joseph Gallup Cochran: The Persian Flower: A Memoir of Judith Grant Perkins of Oroomiah, Persia (1853). Judith was born on August 8, 1840 at Urmia, Persia (now Iran).

She visited America once as a child. The story of that journey is found in Justin Perkins, A Residence of Eight Years in Persia, Among the Nestorian Christians (1843). But otherwise, she lived in Persia the rest of her life.

Judith was a precocious girl, who learned to read and write very well (her biography includes a number of letters that she wrote, and Log College Press has one letter in her own hand — written at the age of eight — which shows her excellent penmanship). She was interested in music, an avid reader (one of the last books she read — out loud to her mother — was Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin), and she assisted her father in his translation labors. She had a heart for advancing the gospel in other parts of the world, even thinking of one day laboring in China as a missionary.

Judith's interest in the cause of missions, was of early growth. When quite a small child, she often spoke of becoming a missionary, and was then particularly interested in China, as a prospective field of labor. And to the last, she always seemed to assume, that she should be a missionary somewhere, if her life were spared. Reading the memoirs of female missionaries, as the memoir of Harriet Newell, and that of Mrs. Dwight and Mrs. Grant, and of Mrs. Van Lennep, and others, served to quicken that desire, and strengthen that impression; and her circumstances on missionary ground, naturally kept the subject fresh before her mind. She said to some of the older Nestorian girls of the seminary, the last time she ever saw them, and only four days before her death, "I hope, after I return from Erzroom, to study very hard, and afterward go to America, and attend school awhile there, and then return and be a missionary here; or, I would prefer to go and labor where there are no missionaries."

In an important sense, Judith had long been a missionary helper. She ever manifested a very deep interest in all the departments of the good work among the Nestorians, and sought to aid in its progress in every way in her power. She had sat patiently many an hour, and assisted her father in adjusting the verses of the translation of the Bible according to the English version; reading the latter verse by verse; and she seldom seemed happier than when aiding him in that great work, which she longed to see accomplished. During the last year of her life, she assisted her mother in teaching a few Nestorian females connected with the Sabbath school, and .eagerly engaged in the loved employment.

Perkins, Judith Grant photo 2 smaller.jpg

It was while traveling with her family that she was stricken with illness. While lingering like the fragile flower she was, her father later recounted a conversation with Judith that reveals her inner spirit.

Once when I asked her, 'Dear Judith, is Jesus precious to you?' ‘O yes,' she replied; 'I have just had a view of Him; O how lovely!' What a balm was that reply to our writhing hearts! At another time, I inquired, 'Dear Judith, have you a desire to get well?' She replied, 'O, yes, papa, if it be God's will.' 'Why, dear Judith?' I inquired. '‘That I may do good,' she answered. ‘And if it is His will to take you now to Himself, are you not satisfied?' I inquired. 'O yes, papa; His will be done,' was her reply.

Towards the end, her father records a prayer that she uttered:

About this time, her papa and mamma kneeled over her and prayed in succession. She remained silent a few moments after we closed; and then, without any suggestion from us, uttered the following short prayer, slowly and distinctly, and evidently from the depths of her soul — 'O Lord, accept me; if it be thy will, make me well again; if not, oh let me not murmur.' We responded an audible amen.

She died of cholera on September 4, 1852 at the age of twelve, and was buried at the American Mission Graveyard outside of Urmia, where it is reported of the 60 or so individuals interred there, around 40 are children.

Her witness to the grace of Jesus Christ, who worked in her and through her, touched the lives of those who knew her, and many others who have read her life story over the years. We remember her as a flower who grew in Persia, and was transplanted to a more a beautiful garden above.

A Father's Wish: Samuel Brown in The Captives of Abb's Valley

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There is a beautiful testimony by a son, who recorded the words of his father, found near the end of The Captives of Abb’s Valley (1854). The Rev. James Moore Brown overheard his father, Rev. Samuel Brown, once say to another:

I have no wish that my children should be wealthy, or rise to places of worldly distinction; but it is the ever anxious desire of my heart that they shall be pious, and consecrate themselves to God’s service, and I daily feel that I can trust him to provide for them.

These are the words of a godly father, and godliness was indeed a characteristic of the whole family, including the mother as well, Mrs. Mary Moore Brown, who plays a major role in this classic book. It is a book has been republished recently with annotations by Rev. Dennis E. Bills, which is available at our Secondary Sources page.

May these 19th century words by a Presbyterian minister echo today in new generations of Christian families.

Engles' Catechism of Scripture History for Children

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There is one catechism that Joseph P. Engles is especially known for: Catechism for Young Children: Being an Introduction to the Shorter Catechism (1840). It is an adaption of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, for younger readers, which we have highlighted before.

But Engles also produced another catechism more focused on church history: The Child’s Catechism of Scripture History. It was published in two volumes consisting of four parts (1841-1852) covering the period from Genesis through the death of King Saul in 1 Samuel.

Beginning with the creation of the world in six days, continuing on through the Flood, the Patriarchs, and going through the stories of Moses, Ruth, Samson, Samuel and many others, the work is very comprehensive and written with a view towards more than memorization of facts, but also incorporates lessons to be learned, and takes not of Christ’s work in the Old Testament period.

Each of the four parts includes between 400 and 500 questions. At the end of the whole there is a section which offers brief reflections on the lessons to be gleaned from sacred history.

Teachers, parents and children may benefit from this work today, which was also appreciated in the mid-1800s when first published. Visit Engles’ page to check out this remarkable catechism, as well as his enduring Catechism for Young Children. He had a heart for teaching children about God’s Word, and it shows in the labors he bestowed on his catechisms.

Elsie Dinsmore and More

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Best-known as the author of the Elsie Dinsmore series for young readers, Martha Farquharson Finley (1828-1909) was raised as a Presbyterian, and also wrote over 50 volumes for the Presbyterian Board of Publication and the Presbyterian Publishing Committee. She was related to both Samuel Finley, President of Princeton, and the Scottish Covenanter John Brown of Priesthill. Religious themes dominated her writing, and the amount of literature she produced — mostly written for children, but not always so — was prodigious. We are still adding her works to Log College Press, but we wanted to alert our readers to what’s available here:

  • All 28 volumes of the Elsie Dinsmore series (spanning her life starting when she became a Christian as a young girl);

  • All 7 volumes of the Mildred Keith series (Mildred was a second cousin of Elsie);

  • Historical fiction about the Scottish Covenanters (Annandale, A Story of the Times of the Covenanters) and the Waldensians (Casella, or, The Children of the Valleys); and

  • Novels such as Wanted — A Pedigree, Signing the Contract, and The Thorn in the Nest.

Elsie Dinsmore is still popular today among young Christian readers. All of her stories are here to read, but there is much more. Take a look at her page, and explore her writings for the young and old(er). She combined engaging stories with Christian principles, and readers will be edified as well as entertained.

The Value of Life: Testimony From Three Centuries

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If ever a culture needed to hear a message about the value of human life, our nihilistic 21st century America would be at the top of the list. Today’s post constitutes a witness from the past three centuries of American Presbyterian sermons and essays on the topic.

18th Century - Hugh Knox (1733-1790), “The Value and Importance of a Child,” Essay 58 in The Moral and Religious Miscellany; or, Sixty-One Aphoretical Essays, on Some of the Most Important Christian Doctrines and Virtues (1775):

The moment in which a rational, immortal spirit animates a human foetus, a spark is kindled which shall never be extinguished. The materiąl sun will grow old, wax dim with years, and be probably put out as a lamp that burneth; the stars shall fall from their orbits, and be covered with darkness; but this breath of the Almighty, this intellectual spark once kindled up in the moral world, ſhall burn on with undiminiſhed and ever increasing lustre, as long as God himself endures.

The birth of a child we deem to be but a trifling event, and look with indifference, perhaps with contempt, on the little helpless stranger. But if we viewed it with the penetrating eye of reason; if we considered it as emerging from eternal night into life immortal; — as an heir of worlds unknown, and a candidate for an everlasting state; — as a glimmering spark of being, just struck from nothing by the all-creating rock, which must burn and flame on to eternity, when suns and stars have returned to their native darkness or non-entity; — which must survive the funeral of nature, and live through the rounds of endless ages; which must either rise from glory to glory, ascending perfection’s scale by endless gradations, or sink deeper and deeper into the bottomless abyss of misery, and to which its immortality must either prove an unsufferable curse, — or a blessing inconceivable, according to the manner in which it shall have acquitted itself in its present probationary state — we shall clearly discern, that the value and importance of a human infant can scarcely be computed.

19th Century - Henry Augustus Boardman (1808-1880), The Low Value Set Upon Human Life in the United States: A Discourse Delivered on Thanksgiving-Day, November 24th, 1853 (1853):

It is impossible to frame any suitable conception of the value of life , or of the criminality of abridging its duration , without viewing man as an immortal being. The moment this idea is admitted into the inquiry, it overshadows everything else. The pains of dissolution, the pang of parting, the blighted hopes, the sorrows of widowhood and orphanage, the destruction of the vital spark , and whatever of grief and woe we may be accustomed to associate with the name of death considered simply as a temporal event — all becomes insignificant when we think of its future issues. It is the dismission of an individual from time into eternity. It is the sending him to the bar of his Maker. It is a terminating of all his opportunities for repentance and reformation . He is, thenceforth , done with the Bible and the throne of grace , with Sabbaths and sermons, with offers of pardon and tenders of reconciliation , with the Saviour's invitations and the Spirit's strivings, — all these are finished . He goes to appear before the “ great white throne,” and to receive his award of everlasting life , or of shame and everlasting contempt.
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There is nothing over which the Deity has reserved to himself a more implicit control than life and death. “The Lord killeth and maketh alive; he bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up.” “I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal.” As He alone can give life, so no creature may take it away without His permission. The wilful destruction of it, He has not only forbidden in the decalogue, but marked with His special abhorrence, by requiring every murderer to be put to death. And, as if to set forth in a yet more emphatic way, His estimate of the sacredness of life, and of the enormity of extinguishing it, he required even the involuntary homicide, among the Hebrews, to be tried; and if proved innocent, he was still treated as a quasi-prisoner, and prohibited, on pain of death, from quitting the city of refuge during the life of the high-priest. If further proof were wanting of the value He sets upon life, it offers itself to us on every side, in the various and inexhaustible provision He has made for its nurture and protection; in the antidotes He has prepared to the diseases sin has introduced; and above all, in the infinite love He has displayed towards our race in sending His be loved Son into the world to redeem us.

These are all His mercies. We are responsible to Him for the use we make of them. It is for Him to say how long, and under what circumstances, we shall enjoy them. Upon our conduct here, “everlasting things” are suspended. This is our probation; heaven and hell hang upon it. Nor is this all. We are so implicated with one another, that we are all helping to determine each other's characters and destiny. Our life or death may seriously affect, for good or ill, the welfare of a nation, or the prosperity of the church. Nay, we are even allowed to say, that the glory of God Himself, the ever-blessed and incomprehensible Jehovah, may have some connexion with our longer or shorter continuance here.

20th Century - Theodore Ledyard Cuyler (1822-1909), The Value of Life (1908):

Life is God’s gift; your trust and mine. We are the trustees of the Giver, unto whom at last we shall render account for every thought, word and deed in the body.

In the first place, life, in its origin, is infinitely important. The birth of a babe is a mighty event. From the frequency of births, as well as the frequency of deaths, we are prone to set a very low estimate on the ushering into existence of an animate child, unless the child be born in a palace or a presidential mansion, or some other lofty station. Unless there be something extraordinary in the circumstances, we do not attach the importance we ought to the event itself. It is only noble birth, distinguished birth, that is chronicled in the journals or announced with salvos of artillery. I admit that the relations of a prince, of a president and statesman, are more important to their fellow men and touch them at more points than those of an obscure pauper; but when the events are weighed in the scales of eternity, the difference is scarcely perceptible. In the darkest hovel in Brooklyn, in the dingiest attic or cellar, or in any place in which a human being sees the first glimpse of light, the eye of the Omniscient beholds an occurrence of prodigious moment. A life is begun, a life that shall never end. A heart begins to throb that shall beat to the keenest delight or the acutest anguish. More than this — a soul commences a career that shall outlast the earth on which it moves. The soul enters upon an existence that shall be untouched by time, when the sun is extinguished like a taper in the sky, the moon blotted out, and the heavens have been rolled together as a vesture and changed forever.
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What is the purpose of life? Is it advancement? Is it promotion? Is it merely the pursuit of happiness? Man was created to be happy, but to be more — to be holy. The wisdom of those Westminster fathers that gathered in the Jerusalem chamber, wrought it into the well-known phrase, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” That is the double aim of life: duty first, then happiness as the consequence; to bring in revenues of honor to God, to build up His kingdom, spread His truth; to bring this whole world of His and lay it subject at the feet of the Son of God. That is the highest end and aim of existence, and every one here that has risen up to that purpose of life lives.

The truth spoken by these voices is timeless, just as every being made in the image of God is of eternal worth. May today’s generation give heed to these witnesses to the value and dignity of human life from centuries past.

Ten-Year-Old A.A. Hodge's Letter to the Unsaved

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On June 23, 1833, as Princeton Seminary graduate James R. Eckard prepared to leave for a mission trip to Ceylon (Sri Lanka), he was handed a letter written by ten-year-old Archibald Alexander Hodge and his sister Mary Elizabeth to take to his destination. This letter has recently been added to Log College Press. It is important for 21st century readers to grasp the meaning of the word “heathen” as used in this letter. Easton’s Bible Dictionary says it well: “strangers to revealed religion.”

Dear Heathen: The Lord Jesus Christ hath promised that the time shall come when all the ends of the earth shall be His Kingdom. And God is not a man that He should lie nor the son of man that He should repent. And if this was promised by a Being who cannot lie, why do you not help it to come sooner by reading the Bible, and attending to the words of your teachers, and loving God, and, renouncing your idols, take Christianity into your temples? And soon there will not be a Nation, no, not a space of ground as large as a footstep, that will want a missionary. My sister and myself have, by small self-denials, procured two dollars which are enclosed in this letter to buy tracts and Bibles to teach you.

Archibald Alexander Hodge
Mary Eliz. Hodge,
Friends of the Heathen

The same boy who wrote this letter would go on to serve in Allahabad, India from 1847-1850 before illness forced him to return to the States, where A.A. Hodge served as pastor, professor and author, always seeking in his various capacities to serve the kingdom of God.

For more on the subject of raising children who love and support missions, see Thomas Smyth’s The Mission of Parenting: Raising Children Who Love the Mission of God at the link below.

Consecrate Our Children: G.B. Strickler

Among the addresses given to commemorate the 1888 centennial of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (which is available to read in its entirety on our Compilations page) is one by Givens Brown Strickler titled “The Children of the Covenant.” It is a brief address emphasizing the Presbyterian doctrine of covenant theology, based on the promises of God, and its outworking in the place of children within the Church. He concludes his address with an important point about the need for parents, as stewards of God’s good gift, to consecrate their children to the Lord.

Another reason for our interest in children is our belief that the Scriptures teach the duty of consecrating them to God in a covenant well ordered and sure. As we consecrate our time, and possessions, and ourselves to God, so should we consecrate our children. God never asks for the consecration of anything that He will not accept. As God accepts parents He accepts their children, and as He accepts the parents promising to be their God and Saviour, so He accepts the children as their God and Saviour. He is obliged to do so, unless we assume that God requires a consecration and then refuses to receive it. The seal of the covenant guarantees that the consecrated shall be accepted, as the rainbow that stretched across the heavens guaranteed that the world should not again be destroyed by water. So the sprinkling of the water of baptism assures parents that their consecration of their children shall not be in vain. By means like these the Presbyterian Church in every age of the world has shown its interest in its youth, and the result has been that Presbyterian children growing to manhood and womanhood have, as a rule, been characterized by clearer, stronger, and more settled views of truth than the children of any other people in the history of the world, and have been as useful, as earnest and as persevering propagators of the truth of God's Word as the world has ever seen.

A Children's Sermon by Samuel Davies

Samuel Davies once preached a sermon to youth in 1758 (260 years ago) titled Little Children Invited to Jesus Christ (reprinted by the American Tract Society in 1826). It was an argument not to delay but to come to Jesus, and to embrace him by faith.

In this sermon, Davies clarifies what he means by “coming to Christ” (based on this text: “But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little Children to come unto me, and forbid them not: For of such is the Kingdom of God,” Mark 10:14). The truths he lays out in this sermon are timeless and applicable to all, young or old.

You have a right, and that it is your duty, to Come to Jesus. Therefore, oh! come to him: come to him this very day, without delay.

But here, I hope, you start a very proper question, "What is it to come to Christ? or in what sense are we to understand this phrase, as it may be applied to us now, since he is removed from our world?"

Coming to Christ, in my text, did indeed mean a bodily motion to him: and this was practicable, while he tabernacled in flesh among men. But even then, it signified much more. It signified coming to him as a divine teacher, to receive instruction; as a Saviour, to obtain eternal life; and as the only Mediator, through whom guilty sinners might have access to God. It signified a motion of soul towards him, Correspondent to the bodily motion of coming: a motion of the desires, a flight of tender affections towards him. In this view it is still practicable to come to Christ; and it is our duty in these latter days, as much as it was theirs who were his contemporaries upon earth. It is in this view, I now urge it upon you: and in this view, it includes: the following particulars.

1. A clear conviction of sin; of sin in heart, in word, and in practice; of sin against knowledge; against alluring mercies and fatherly corrections; of sin against all the strongest incitements to duty. Without such a conviction of sin, it is impossible that you should fly to him as a Saviour: for he "came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."

2. An affecting sense of danger, upon the account of sin. You cannot fly to him as a Saviour, till you see your extreme need of salvation; and you cannot see your need of salvation, till you are sensible of your danger; sensible that you are every moment liable to everlasting condemnation, and have no title at all to the divine favour.

3. A humbling sense of your own inability to save yourselves by the merit of your own best endeavours. I do not mean, that you should neglect your best endeavours; or that you should not exert your utmost strength in every good work, and in the earnest use of all the means of grace: for you never will come to Christ, till you are brought to this. But I mean, that while you are doing your utmost, you must be sensible, that you do not deserve any favour at all from God on that account, and that you neither can, nor do make any atonement for your sins by all your good works; but that God may justly condemn you notwithstanding. Till you are sensible of this, you will weary yourselves in vain, in idle self righteous efforts to perform the work which Jesus came into the world to perform, and which he alone was able to do; I mean, to make atonement for your sin, and to work out a righteousness to recommend you to God. It is an eternal truth, that you will never come to Christ as a Saviour, till you are deeply sensible there is no salvation in any other; and particularly that you are not able to save yourselves.

4. An affecting conviction, that Jesus Christ is a glorious, all sufficient and willing Saviour: that his righteousness is perfect, equal to all the demands of the divine law, and sufficient to make satisfaction for all our sins, and procure for us all the blessings of the divine favour; that he is able and willing to "save to the uttermost all that come unto God by him;" and that he is freely offered in the Gospel to all that will accept him, however unworthy, and however great their sins. Indeed it is an eternal truth, that though multitudes perish, it is not for want of a Saviour. There is a Saviour all sufficient, and perfectly willing; and this you must be convinced of before you can come to him.

5. An entire dependence upon his merits alone for acceptance with God. Sensible that you have no merit of your own; on which to depend; and sensible also that Jesus is a sure foundation, on which you may safely venture your eternal all, you must cast all your dependence and fix your entire trust on him. You will as it were hang about him, as the only support for your sinking soul, and plead his righteousness as the only ground of your acceptance with God. This is so unnatural to a proud self-confident sinner, that you must be brought very low indeed, thoroughly mortified and self-emptied, before you will submit to it.

6. A cheerful subjection to him as your ruler; and a voluntary surrender of yourselves to his service. If you come to him at all, it will be as poor penitent rebels, returning to duty with, shame and sorrow, and fully determined never to depart from it more. To embrace Christ as a Saviour, and yet not submit to him as our ruler; to trust in his righteousness, and in the mean time disobey his authority; this is the greatest absurdity, and utterly inconsistent with the wise constitution of the Gospel.

And now, my dear young friends, I hope even your tender minds have some idea what it is to come to Christ. And therefore, when I exhort you to it, you know what I mean. Come then, come to Jesus.

For the Children: Two Valuable Books that Parents Should Read

Log College Press has recently added two books to the site which will be of interest especially to parents. 

The first is The Children of the Church, and Sealing Ordinances by Lyman Hotchkiss Atwater (1813-1883). First published in the Jan. 1857 issue of The Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review, then reprinted in 1858, slightly expanded and revised, as a separate volume by the Presbyterian Board of Publication, this work examines the place of children in the church and their relationship to the two sacraments which Christ has instituted for church. This is an excellent little study for parents of children of the covenant.

"It is in Zion that the children of the Church are born to newness of life. Since He has promised to be their God, it is in training them as if they were his; as if it were alone congruous with their position to walk as his children in faith, love, hope, and all holy obedience, that we are to look for that inworking Spirit, and out-working holiness, commensurate with their years, which shall seal them as sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty. This is what we believe to be the blessed significance and intent of infant baptism. This is what we have at heart in writing these pages..."

The author is described by Paul C. Gutjahr thus: "Lyman Atwater enjoyed a long career at Princeton College, serving on its faculty from 1854 until his death in 1883. Although his students fondly lampooned his pear-like shape, they considered him an outstanding teacher in his courses on logic and moral philosophy. He co-edited the Repertory in its various forms from 1869 to 1878 and contributed more than 110 articles to its pages, making him one of the most prolific defenders of Old School Calvinism in the nineteenth century" (Charles Hodge: Guardian of American Orthodoxy, p. 348).

The next book contains an introduction by Atwater, but is primarily the work of William Scribner (1820-1884) (Scribner was the brother of Charles Scribner (1821-1871), who became head of the publishing firm eventually known as Charles Scribner's Sons). It is titled Pray For Your Children; or, An Appeal to Parents to Pray Continually for the Welfare and Salvation of Their Children (1873). Divided into two parts, eight reasons are given to motivate parents to desire and pray for the salvation of their children, and a further eight reasons are given to stir up parents to further pray for God's blessings upon their young ones. 

The first eight reasons are listed here to whet the appetite of parents who love the souls of their children. (Read the rest of this book here.)

  1. Pray for the salvation of your children, because their salvation is so great a prize that it is worth all the pains which your prayers to secure it for them may cost you.
  2. Pray for the salvation of your children, because few will pray for it if you do not.
  3. Pray for the salvation of your children, because none others can pray for it as you can.
  4. Pray for the salvation of your children, because your omitting to do so will be perilous to them and to you.
  5. Pray for the salvation of your children, because you will then find it easier to perform other parental duties on the performance of which God has conditioned their salvation.
  6. Pray for the renewing of the souls of your children, because prayer alone can call into exercise that divine power in their behalf which is absolutely necessary in order that the means which you may employ for their salvation may not be used in vain.
  7. Pray for the salvation of your children, because by their salvation, granted in answer to your prayers, the divine Saviour will be glorified.
  8. Pray for the salvation of your children because you have a strong encouragement and incentive to do so in the express promise of God that, if you are faithful to your trust, he will be their God, and will save them.