O God, who in thy providence didst call Joseph Schereschewsky from his home in Eastern Europe to the ministry of this Church, and didst send him as a missionary to China, upholding him in his infirmity, that he might translate the holy Scriptures into languages of that land: Lead us, we pray thee, to commit our lives and talents to thee, in the confidence that when thou givest thy servants any work to do, thou dost also supply the strength to do it; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Thanks for posting this reminder, Kendall. Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky (but oddly pronounced ‘ShereSHEFFskee’; some Slavic names have unusual spellings) is one of my favorite saints in the TEC calendar. There is a stained glass window devoted to this fascinating and unique figure in the chapel of the now defunct Seabury-Western Seminary in Evanston.
With a trio of OT names like Samuel Isaac Joseph, it may be no surprise that Schereschewsky came from a Jewish family. Indeed, he came from a long line of rabbis. Born in Lithuania, he was converted to Christ while in rabbinical school in Germany. He had been approached by an American (Episcopal) missionary to Jews who dared him to read the NT to find out what Jesus really taught and was like, and simply reading the NT brought him to faith in his messiah (the Holy Spirit having opened his heart and mind to the gospel). Disowned by his family, Schereschewsky ended up studying for the ministry at General Theological Seminary, where in the 1850’s (IIRC) he heard the missionary bishop of China challenge some of the seminarians to give up their small ambitions and come to China as missionaries. And Schereschewsky accepted the challenge and went.
Now the Lithuanian Jewish convert was a whiz with languages, and he accomplished the incredible feat of learning to read Chinese (a very difficult language for Europeans) on the long voyage to China. And knowing the OT very well due to his rabbinic training, soon after his arrival, Schereschewsky started to work on translating the OT into a colloquial form of Mandarin (Wenli), since that had never been done. But he was also engaged in regular evangelistic and pastoral work. Besides his regular duties, Schereschewsky saw the need for an English language university in China and founded St. John’s University in Shanghai, and guided its early developemnt as its director. Eventually he was elected bishop of Shanghai, although he tried hard to get out of it, feeling like anybody could be a bishop, but his translation work was more important and for that he was uniquely qualified.
Alas, the strains of trying to do the impossible, i.e., promoting the growth of the Anglican Church in China, supervising the growth of St. John’s University, and continuing his translation work on the side, all proved to be too much. He collapsed due to sunstroke on one of his episcopal visitation journeys and was left almost totally paralyzed. For the rest of his life, he could only move two fingers.
So Schereschewsky resigned his bishopric and his presidency of his beloved university and all pastoral work, and devoted the remaining 25 years of his life to finishing his translation of the OT into the language spoken by more people on earth than any other tongue.
Fortunately, he lived to complete the task (barely). And at the end of his amazing and colorful life, he wrote something like this:
“[i]For the last 25 years I have sat in this chair and slowly pecked out my translation of the OT with two fingers. At first it was very hard.
But God knew best, and kept me for the work for which I am best suited.[/i]”
That incredible story often moves me to tears when I think about it. To me it demonstrates the precious truth that the Lord, in his inscrutable wisdom, has the most astounding way of using the most unlikely people to accomplish his work.
Who else would ever have imagined that the way to get the majority of the Bible translated into the most spoken language on earth would be to take a Lithuanian rabbinical student, bring him to Christ, and send him as an Episcopal missionary to China, and then sustain him after a stroke left him almost completely paralyzed??
Only God. To him be the glory!
David Handy+