8-20 A Pacesetter in China

This Day in Baptist History, E. Wayne Thompson and David L. Cummins

8-20 A Pacesetter in China
Scripture: Joshua 1:9

Jehu L. Shuck was born in Alexandria, Virginia, on September 4, 1812. We know little of the days of his youth, but he was educated in the Virginia Baptist Seminary, now the University of Richmond. Young Shuck proposed to Henrietta, the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. J.B. Jeter, and two days after their wedding in 1835, they were set apart as missionaries by the Triennial Baptist Convention and sailed for China on September 22, 1835. To Mrs. Shuck goes the honor of being the “first American evangelical woman missionary to go to China.”(1)

Upon journeying to the “Portuguese territory of Macao on the China mainland in 1837, Shuck found a young man who, Through his reading of Christian literature, had become prepared to accept Christ. Shuck thus was privileged to baptize the first Chinese convert to Christianity several years before a mission could be opened on the mainland of China!”(2)

In 1840 the agent from whom the Shucks received their financial support failed, and they relocated for safety in Hong Kong which was under British protection. There J.L. Shuck supported his family as he edited a paper and continued in his missionary work. In 1843 he established a church in Hong Kong with twenty six members. However, in 1844 Mrs. Shuck passed away, and it was necessary for Mr. Shuck to return to the United States to make provision for his children. Yong-Seen-Sang (Seen-Sang corresponds to our “MR.”) was saved and had become a preacher, and thus accompanied the missionary to the States in 1845 and 1846. “He was present at the first anniversary of the Southern Baptist Convention, which met in 1846 at Richmond, Virginia, and made an impressive address in reply to the welcome of the president of the Convention.” (3) Yong traveled with Shuck, and together they were used of God in stirring up new interest for the evangelization of China.

In 1847 Shuck returned to China to labor in Shanghai. The need for a Christian physician was greatly felt. In response, Dr. and Mrs. J. Sexton James of Philadelphia were available and were sent to minister in medicine. Shuck and James had corresponded, and Shuck was anxiously awaiting the arrival of Dr. and Mrs. James. They made the trip to Hong Kong safely, but the schooner to Shanghai capsized in a sudden squall, and the medical missionaries went down with the ship. Shuck was crushed by this tragedy but ventured inland in 1850. Only the Chinese piorts had been open to Christian preaching, but he was successful in establishing the first permanent foothold in the interior of China for the cause of Christ. However, as trials persisted and his second wife passed away, Shuck returned again to America.

Wishing to be nearer his children, Shuck resigned from the foreign board and accepted an appointment from the domestic board of the Southern Baptist Convention to work among the Chinese in California. His first convert, “Wong Mui, returned to Canton and did faithful service as a native preacher.”(4)

Having labored twenty-five years among the Chinese, J. L. Shuck moved to South Carolina in 1861, and he entered heaven two years later on August 20, 1863. His fifty-one years were fruitful, and he witnessed many “firsts” in the ongoing of the gospel among the Chinese. DLC

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(1) Norman Wade Cox, ed, Encyclopedia of Southern Baptists (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1958), 2:1201

(2) David Collier Woolley, ed., Baptist Advance (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1964), p. 81

(3) G. Winfred Hervey, the Story of Baptist Missions in Foreign Lands (St. Louis: C.R.Barnes Publishing Co., 1892) p.473

(4) Ibid., p. 522.
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"It is always better to stand up for conservatism, then to fall into liberalism" Justified Version