This Day in 1863
May 8, 1863, the Foreign Baptist Mission Board (now the IMB) reported at the Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting about the first appointed missionaries to Japan, the Rohrers, lost their lives tragically before ever arriving:
It will be remembered that at the last meeting of the Convention, it was stated
that Brother J. Q. L. Rohrer and his wife had sailed for their field in Japan, via Hong Kong and Shanghai, and that brethren C. H. Toy and J. L. Johnson, were only waiting an opportunity to depart. The continuation of the war has indefinitely postponed the embarkation of the last named brethren.
The Board are called are called upon to mourn the loss of Brother Rohrer and his wife who were on board the "Edwin Forest," with brother and sister Bond, to whom allusion has already been made. Our brother and sister Rohrer, were choice spirits. With superior natural and acquired endowments, they seemed specially fitted as pioneers in the difficult work of bearing the tidings of salvation to the Japanese. The vessel in which they took passage, contained besides ours, four Pedo-Baptist missionaries, and the family of the Captain. Why was this preciously freighted bark permitted never again to be heard of, and the manner of her destruction to remain sealed up, until the last great day? God knows why, and with profound humiliation, we have only to say, "even so father, for so it seemed good in thy sight."
It will be remembered that at the last meeting of the Convention, it was stated
that Brother J. Q. L. Rohrer and his wife had sailed for their field in Japan, via Hong Kong and Shanghai, and that brethren C. H. Toy and J. L. Johnson, were only waiting an opportunity to depart. The continuation of the war has indefinitely postponed the embarkation of the last named brethren.
The Board are called are called upon to mourn the loss of Brother Rohrer and his wife who were on board the "Edwin Forest," with brother and sister Bond, to whom allusion has already been made. Our brother and sister Rohrer, were choice spirits. With superior natural and acquired endowments, they seemed specially fitted as pioneers in the difficult work of bearing the tidings of salvation to the Japanese. The vessel in which they took passage, contained besides ours, four Pedo-Baptist missionaries, and the family of the Captain. Why was this preciously freighted bark permitted never again to be heard of, and the manner of her destruction to remain sealed up, until the last great day? God knows why, and with profound humiliation, we have only to say, "even so father, for so it seemed good in thy sight."
