Wake Forest University - Howler Yearbook (Winston Salem, NC)

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Yates Speaking in Shanghai

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MATTHEW TYSON YATES PROLOGUE THE life of Matthew Tyson Yates is filled with episodes which portray the ideal spirit of a Wake Forest man. Coming to this campus in 1840, while the college was still in its infancy with Dr Samuel Wait as its President, Yates remained five years preparing himself for the fulfillment of a world- wide task which he saw open before him. Always Yates ' life was characterized by Vision and Toil. First, he got a concept of his task, and then he pro- ceeded to accomplish it, allowing no hardship to defeat his will. While still a boy on the North Carolina farm, he caught a vision of the needed service in foreign fields, and never rested until he had answered that call by giving over forty years of his life to China The Nine teen-hundred- thirty- three Howler has endeavored to pictLire in the following Mam Divisions some of the most characteristic events in the life of Yates He yet lives, and will throughout the ages ' We bow in honor of him, the first and most il- lustrious of our Alma Mater ' s sons. I i i!i|iiii|ii!iiaiiiiiffl '

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mmmmmr?mm:.! ' mi Foreign Missionaries of Wake Forest College THE missionary has always been strong in Walie Forest. It is symbolized on the banner of the Philomathesian Society, which shows the angel of the Kei-etation flying over the lands of the earth with a trumpet to his mouth and in his hand a scroll on which is written in Greek the words TO EUAG- GELION AIONION, meaning THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. In 1S40, one year after Wake Forest Institute became Wake Forest College, was regis- tered a student, who had already devoted his life to the work of giving the Gospel to the heathen. This student was Matthew Tyson Yates, whose work is featured in this volume of the Howi.kb. While a student in the College he organized the Wake Forest Missionary Society, which continues to this day. Graduating in 1.S46. he was appointed a missionary to China the same year by the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, formed the year before. Shortly after his graduation he married Miss Eliza Moring of Chatham County. After receiving much attention from the Bap- tists both of the South and the North the young ' couple sailed from Boston in December. 1S46. After a long voyage around the Horn they reached their destination at Shanghai and took up their work in September, 1S47. Here Yates labored for more than forty years, and laying wisely and well the foundations of his work he builded thereon as a wise master-builder, and made the Central China Mission the pride of Southern Baptists. Long before the end of that time his wisdom and ability had brought him recognition as one of the great missionaries of all time, worthy to be mentioned along with Carey and Judson. Hardly was Yates well located in Shanghai when he began to beg for men to come to assist in the great work of winning China to Christ. Naturally his eyes turned to his own Alma Mater, and he eagerly yearned to have among his fellow-laborers men trained at Wake Forest College. But he had to wait many long years before this desire was satisfied. In his early years in China the sectional troubles that led to the Civil War were engrossing the attention of the young men of his native land, and the call for Christian leaders in North Carolina and in the constantly expanding frontier was so strong that the call to the foreign field was unheeded. Such was the condition too dur- ing the period of the Civil War and Reconstruction. In 1S6!I. however, a young man was graduated from the College with valedictory honors who purposed to devote his life to the work in Shanghai. This was Robert Samuel Prichard, son of Rev. J. L. Prichard. himself a graduate of Wake Forest College, who fell at his post during a yellow fever epidemic in Wilmington in 1S62. After graduation at Wake Forest the young Prichard spent two years at the University of Virginia. He was making preparation for his de- parture for Shanghai, when he became a victim of a rapidly developing con- sumption of the lungs. It was seventeen years later, in January, 1886. that Yates then an old man. opened his door and his heart to welcome his first helper from Wake Forest. This was D. W. Herring, who had graduated from Wake Forest College in 1882. and further fitted himself for missionary work by a course in the Louis- ville Seminary. With him was R. T. Bryan, a graduate of the University of North Carolina. From that day a stream of Wake Forest graduates was pouring into the foreign mission fields, so that in a few years Wake Forest College had the distinction of having among her alumni more foreign mis- sionaries than any other institution in the world. Below will be found a list of the names of these Wake Forest missionaries with indication of the places from which they came, the year each left college, and the field of labor of each. Matthew Tyson Yates, Wake County, 1846, Shanghai, Central China. David Wells Herring, Pender County, 1882. Shanghai. Central China; Interior China. r - ■v ,..:,..„;.i»il«iii ■«W m J. -i fe iiiii ' iiiiiiiiiiiiipiiiiiiriiifliiiipii i ' III