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HENRIETTA SHUCK

BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE

Mrs. Henrietta Shuck (1817-1844) was the first American female missionary to China. Although her lifespan was brief in duration, her consecration to the missionary task was boundless and great.

Born on October 28, 1817, in the "neck" of Northeastern Virginia, in the little town of Kilmarnok, she was the daughter of godly parents whose praise and prayers were early familiar to her lips. Her father, the Rev. Henry Hall, a former militia colonel, abandoned his law profession while she was in her teens and devoted himself to full-time Christian service.

CONVERSION AND MISSIONARY CALL

In the summer of 1831, at age 13, she was the first convertinan old-fashioned camp meeting revival in Lancaster County, VA. Giving clear scriptural testimony of conversion, she was baptized by J.B. Jeter, then pastor of the Morattico Baptist Church (He later became the famed pastor of the First Baptist Church, Richmond, VA and also wrote her biography.)

From the commencement of her Christian experience, she cherished a missionary spirit. After attendance at a "female seminary" (The "female seminaries" in early American were NOT post college institutions for training female preachers, but private preparatory schools) in Fredericksburg, VA, she was married on September 8, 1835 to the Rev. J. Lewis Shuck, a student at the Virginia Baptist Seminary (now Richmond University). On September 10, two days later, not having quite reached the age of 18, she and her husband were commissioned for missionary service by the board of the "Baptist Triennial Convention" (The name of the national Baptist Fellowship before the 1845 split.)

DEDICATION TO MISSIONARY TASK

In a letter to one of her former teachers (a Mrs. Keeling) shortly before her departure, her total devotion to the missionary cause was disclosed when she wrote: "The cause of missions, dearest teacher, lies near my heart. I feel greatly for the poor, dying heathen. The sincere prayer of my heart is ‘Oh! That I was qualified to become a missionary of the cross!’…If by parting with all that’s dear by the ties of nature, I could promote the cause of Christ in heathen lands, I would… amongst the benighted heathen labor until death. And if, at last, I should be the means of rescuing one heathen from eternal woe, I should be amply compensated for all the difficulties and trials which I might have to undergo."

Writing to her beloved father just four days before final departure she declared, "I bid you adieu, no more to see you… but when I say dear father ‘no more’ to meet, and I speak of this world. Yes, we shall meet again in a world of glory… we shall soon be called to take up our abode in the paradise above… ‘tis there, dearest father, we shall meet to part no more."

LENGTHY JOURNEY TO DESTINATION

On September 22, 1835, aboard the ship "Louvre", the Shucks, along with eight other couples and four single missionaries, began their journey to the East. Dr. Malcolm, the agent of the Board of the Baptist Triennial Convention declared of that vessel that "never a ship left Boston Harbor more nobly."

A Spirit of humility characterized her brief year of missionary labor. Enroute to destination she wrote, "I have taken on me the responsible name of a missionary-a name too honorable for me to bear, an unworthy worm of the dust… if I know my own depraved heart, I feel willing, year, anxious, if it be the will of Heaven, to live and die without ever again beholding the land of my nativity, and the friends of my childhood. It is sufficient to know that I do it for Christ."

At the first land stop on the long journey, after more than four months at sea and 17,800 miles from home near Calcutta, India), she wrote, " I feel more anxious than ever to labor for the destitute heathen. Yes, in a heathen land let me live and let me die." On February 20, 1836, the ship anchored temporarily at Amherst, Burma, where the missionaries went ashore, visited the grave of Mrs. Ann (Haaseitine Judson, and met Adoniram Judson and his second wife Sarah (Boardman) Judson.

The Shuck’s first year was spent at Singapore on the Malay Peninsula, in fervent Chinese language study. From the beginning of her missionary service, Mrs. Shuck was always sickly in health. Her small, frail, weak body was constantly subjected to extreme sickness, pain, and disease. Yet, she never complained or expressed a desire to return home to her native land.

CONTINUED CONSECRATION TO SERVICE

When the ship which had brought them to the east, left port to return to America, Mrs. Shuck stated, "I felt no desire to return with her. Though nearly every tie which binds me to earth is in the land whither she goes, still I prefer remaining behind… my friends, I confess are truly dear, but I trust I can truly say ‘the cause of Christ is much dearer.’"

One of Mrs. Shuck’s sisters pleaded with her to return to America, indicating that she knew in advance the climate would not be conducive to Mrs. Shuck’s health. In reply, Mrs. Shuck wrote, "So far as I can judge, from present circumstances, I shall never return to America. It is not my wish, dearest Susan. The souls of the heathen are dear to my heart, and for their salvation I am willing to relinquish the comforts of my dear home, the privileges I once enjoyed, and health too, if it is the Lord’s will." To her father she would write on November 3, 1839, "Dear Father, don’t be distressed… I am in my heavenly Father’s care. It may be His design to give me some suffering, and then take me home. If so, I am willing to go. I am happy in the thought of being with Christ."

Spending five hours a day in language studies, she anticipated the joy, along with her husband, of communicating the Gospel. The peninsula of Macao, China, became the place of the Shucks service. On January 21, 1837, some 16 months after their departure, they received their first letter from America. On February 2, 1837, the Shucks had the joy of seeing their first convert baptized.

BLESSINGS AND SUCCESSES

DURING ADVERSITY

Writing to her father on April 4, 1838, she declared, "What a mighty work lies before us! How much to do! How few to do it! Were we to depend merely on our efforts, how surely should we fail; but… we have a high, holy and eternal God… on His promises… we depend."

Pleading for American believers to respond to the missionary call, she wrote again to her father on March 12, 1839, "How delighted should I be to welcome to the mission field some of our dear brethren and sisters… and are there none willing to come? None who feel it their duty and their high privilege to forsake the land of their nativity that they may carry to the perishing Chinese the bread of life?"

In hong Kong, the financial agents handling the Shucks funds went under-broke! For one year, Mr. Shuck had to find secular work as a newspaper editor, but the secular employment did not terminate their missionary labors. During that year, with his wife’s encouragement, the Rev. Mr. Shuck (a) built a chapel called the Queens Road Baptist Chapel; (b) erected a private residence for the family; (c) formed a school with twelve boys enrolled; (d) preached three times on Sundays and held eleven services weekly, the both of them working from early morn until late night. A church which began with live, increased to twenty in a short span.

EXTENSIVE SUFFERINGS VIA SICKNESSES

Despite Mrs. Shucks frail and sickly health, she bore five children to her husband, and labored valiantly in his behalf. Perhaps her chief virtue was her patience in suffering, which she considered a privilege for the glory of God. On April 26, 1840, she wrote, "I think I can bless the Lord more for the affliction of body, which, in his infinite wisdom. He has been pleased to send upon me, than for anything else that I have received at His hand. It has been blessed to my eternal good." When her body was racked by long, continued, agonizing pain, she was often heard to say, "Sweet to lie passive in His arms, and to know no will but His."

In 1844, at the age of 27, Mrs. Shuck experienced her fifth, most serious and final confinement of illness. Having premonitions of her death, she became more fervent in prayer, even more faithful in work and manifested a ripeness of piety far beyond her age. She was particularly remarkable for her affectionateness of disposition, loving everyone with whom she became acquainted and possessing a generous heart that knew no boundaries. In prospect of death, she was described as being "byoyant in hope, full of joy, always cheerful, and seeking to glorify God."

Mrs. Shuck maintained a fervent love for souls to the final step of her earthly journey. In her last letter to her sister Susan, written just a few weeks before her decease, she indicated that Mr. Shuck and she were "greatly encouraged by the number around us who seem to be truly inquiring the way to heaven. She described their great happiness at being able "to point them to the bleeding Lamb of God."

FINAL ILLINESS AND DEATH

Her last letter ever was penned to her pastor, the Rev. J.B. Jeler, who had led her to Christ and baptized her. In that document she rejoiced that many were throwing away their idols and following the Saviour. Some of her final written words contained a plea for kindred saints to invest their lives in proclaiming the gospel to the Chinese. When wrote, "Are there not some willing to come and spend their lives in teaching the Chinese the unsearchable riches of Christ? We are very few in number, and very weak, while the work before us is great and powerful."

On November 27, 1844, her frail body experienced its last trial of pain, and her noble spirit winged its flight to heaven’s shores to meet the Saviour whom she so ardently loved and laboriously served. In summing up her life, the Rev. J.B. Jeter declared that her service was "brief but bright," her "end, peaceful," and her "reward, glorious."

A resolution passed unanimously by the China Baptist Mission team termed Mrs. Shuck "one of the brightest ornaments and most valued members" of the mission. Being loved and esteemed by both the high and low in society, her funeral service was the largest ever conducted in the Hong Kong colony up to that time.

Henrietta Shuck was a consecrated missionary pioneer whose only goal was to be more "conformed to Christ" (her own words) and useable in His service as a humble instrument of the Gospel. Who will follow in her train? DJ