Changes & Chances
Chapter 8 Sarah’s Memory
Halfway along the inside wall of the eastern side aisle is a marble plaque with black lettering. It reads:
Sacred to the memory of Sarah Sophia Lockwood. Born November 16 1819. Died August 9 1836. A young wife, and a young Christian, but beginning early, and labouring hard, she did much in a little time; benefited her generation during her short pilgrimage, and speedily ripened for glory, leaving her husband and parents to lament her loss.
Henry Lockwood survived his young bride for another forty-seven years, but in his memory she was always his English rose in her 16 year-old freshness. They had met, fallen in love and married on 17 February, only three months after his arrival from Canton. The thirteen year difference in their ages seemed to make little difference because it was a marriage of minds as well as bodies. Responsible but not solemn, devout but not pious, caring but not overbearing, she was as hardworking as her remarkable parents. They should have had a longer engagement, but her parents were due for a trip to England expecting to be away for at least 18 months. She refused to be separated from her darling Henry and there was really no proper way of chaperoning the lovers for such a long time. The simple mission chapel would have been full of well-wishers for the wedding and, with Sarah's family soon bound for England, the happy couple would have been quickly ensconced in the chaplain's house, and just as quickly caught up in helping run the mission station, which was humming with activity. The print-shop was working long hours to produce literature for the Chinese, Dayak, Malay and Javanese missions. The Chinese, Malay and European schools were full. Sunday was devoted to ministering to the English and Malay congregations as well as teaching the Sunday School, which had been mother's favourite task. As well, there was keeping a watchful eye on the Eurasian Orphanage and assisting the constant stream of greenhorn missionaries form the US, Britain and Europe.
With their mutual thirst to absorb everything about the civilisation of the "Middle Kingdom" I can imagine them visiting Pasar Baru Chinese market to drink green tea and exchange pleasantries with the families of the boys they taught and to witness their colourful festivals. They kept a wide berth of the antagonistic priests of the idolatrous temples, who nursed old grudges against Sarah's father for distributing pamphlets decrying as superstitious community high days like the Hungry Ghosts festival. By contrast, they were graciously treated when they visited the Minh Tanh Academy and were ushered into the presence of Choo Tih Lang, in the dark gown, embroidered cap and quaintly elegant manners of a Confucian scholar. Living in an entrepot like Batavia dominated by merchants and priests whose only passion seemed to be accumulating money, Master Tih Lang had quickly recognised in Sarah's father a true scholar. They gazed in awe as he took the calligraphy brush in long-nailed fingers, and with deft strokes formed the complex and beautiful ideograms of an ancient proverb that he presented to them as a wedding gift.
And after six months, she was struck down. Broken-hearted, Henry stayed another couple of years, except for a short break in Canton, consoled by the company of her parents until his health broke down and he returned to New York and was sent by the bishop to the village of Pittsford, on the Erie Canal near the Lake Ontario port of Rochester. There were other dark times, like the Civil War years, when so many local men were killed or returned as amputees from the battlefields of Pennsylvania and Virginia. It was such a wasteful and senseless war for a Christian people whose energies could have been channelled into far more noble causes like the struggle to the take the gospel to China and to bring the millions of China to the feet of the Saviour. Sarah and he had dreamed together of settling in China and bringing up a family. Instead, he had to follow the progress of the China mission from letters from his father-in-law and his Episcopalian colleague, William Boone. When they had finally settled in Shanghai both men had been widowed too, but had remarried. It was not good for a China missionary to be without a wife to provide a semblance of civilisation and to prevent the suspicion that a single status meant a preference for concubines rather than a wife, whereas a parish priest was married to his church and received the care and respect of a whole community. And indeed he remained faithful to his Pittsford flock until his death.
Halfway along the inside wall of the eastern side aisle is a marble plaque with black lettering. It reads:
Sacred to the memory of Sarah Sophia Lockwood. Born November 16 1819. Died August 9 1836. A young wife, and a young Christian, but beginning early, and labouring hard, she did much in a little time; benefited her generation during her short pilgrimage, and speedily ripened for glory, leaving her husband and parents to lament her loss.
Henry Lockwood survived his young bride for another forty-seven years, but in his memory she was always his English rose in her 16 year-old freshness. They had met, fallen in love and married on 17 February, only three months after his arrival from Canton. The thirteen year difference in their ages seemed to make little difference because it was a marriage of minds as well as bodies. Responsible but not solemn, devout but not pious, caring but not overbearing, she was as hardworking as her remarkable parents. They should have had a longer engagement, but her parents were due for a trip to England expecting to be away for at least 18 months. She refused to be separated from her darling Henry and there was really no proper way of chaperoning the lovers for such a long time. The simple mission chapel would have been full of well-wishers for the wedding and, with Sarah's family soon bound for England, the happy couple would have been quickly ensconced in the chaplain's house, and just as quickly caught up in helping run the mission station, which was humming with activity. The print-shop was working long hours to produce literature for the Chinese, Dayak, Malay and Javanese missions. The Chinese, Malay and European schools were full. Sunday was devoted to ministering to the English and Malay congregations as well as teaching the Sunday School, which had been mother's favourite task. As well, there was keeping a watchful eye on the Eurasian Orphanage and assisting the constant stream of greenhorn missionaries form the US, Britain and Europe.
With their mutual thirst to absorb everything about the civilisation of the "Middle Kingdom" I can imagine them visiting Pasar Baru Chinese market to drink green tea and exchange pleasantries with the families of the boys they taught and to witness their colourful festivals. They kept a wide berth of the antagonistic priests of the idolatrous temples, who nursed old grudges against Sarah's father for distributing pamphlets decrying as superstitious community high days like the Hungry Ghosts festival. By contrast, they were graciously treated when they visited the Minh Tanh Academy and were ushered into the presence of Choo Tih Lang, in the dark gown, embroidered cap and quaintly elegant manners of a Confucian scholar. Living in an entrepot like Batavia dominated by merchants and priests whose only passion seemed to be accumulating money, Master Tih Lang had quickly recognised in Sarah's father a true scholar. They gazed in awe as he took the calligraphy brush in long-nailed fingers, and with deft strokes formed the complex and beautiful ideograms of an ancient proverb that he presented to them as a wedding gift.
And after six months, she was struck down. Broken-hearted, Henry stayed another couple of years, except for a short break in Canton, consoled by the company of her parents until his health broke down and he returned to New York and was sent by the bishop to the village of Pittsford, on the Erie Canal near the Lake Ontario port of Rochester. There were other dark times, like the Civil War years, when so many local men were killed or returned as amputees from the battlefields of Pennsylvania and Virginia. It was such a wasteful and senseless war for a Christian people whose energies could have been channelled into far more noble causes like the struggle to the take the gospel to China and to bring the millions of China to the feet of the Saviour. Sarah and he had dreamed together of settling in China and bringing up a family. Instead, he had to follow the progress of the China mission from letters from his father-in-law and his Episcopalian colleague, William Boone. When they had finally settled in Shanghai both men had been widowed too, but had remarried. It was not good for a China missionary to be without a wife to provide a semblance of civilisation and to prevent the suspicion that a single status meant a preference for concubines rather than a wife, whereas a parish priest was married to his church and received the care and respect of a whole community. And indeed he remained faithful to his Pittsford flock until his death.
