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The
Heritage
of
Martha
Cartmell
Story
On January 29th,
1850, at the age of 41, Sarah Cartmell died. She was wife of James
Cartmell, owner of the stone quarry on the edge of the escarpment at
Thorold, Ontario.
She had been poorly, and
confined to bed for many long months. She was a mother of seven, the
youngest but one year of age. It was said of her that early in life
she had given her heart to God, and although her days had been
difficult, she had never murmured a complaint, except to
frequently regret that her love for God was not as ardent as she
thought it ought to be.
A short time before
Sarah’s death, speaking of her coming departure through the veil to
her husband and seven children, she declared her belief that God would
take care of them, and that “when I get to heaven, I shall find my
dear parents, a brother, a sister, and two lovely children who have
gone before.”
When she died, of her
seven living children, the fifth, was Martha, only five years of
age. Martha had been born on December 14th, 1845, sister to
William, Beaman, Margaret and Mary.
Her birth had been
followed by that of Amelia and George. Martha’s mother, Sarah, had
emigrated from England in 1832, with her parents, William and
Elizabeth Robinson, and six brothers and sisters.
William, Martha’s
grandfather, Sarah’s father, had died on board ship, having contracted
cholera only one day out of port. His body was “consigned to the deep
in the presence of his stricken family.”
Elizabeth, his widow,
Sarah’s mother, Martha’s grandmother, had then settled with her
children in Prescott, Upper Canada.
Martha would never know
her grandmother because she would be born six years after her
grandmother would die in the home of her daughter, Sarah, Martha’s
mother, then living in Lockport, New York.
The family moved to
Thorold. Sarah married James Cartmell, owner of the stone quarry, and
seven children were born to them, again, Martha being number five.
And when Sarah died, the
three older children undertook to take care of themselves in the
company of their father. Ultimately, the oldest, William, inherited
his father’s stone quarry.
Meanwhile, the youngest two children were taken
in to the childless home of their uncle William, in Hamilton. And five
year old Martha and her next older sister, Mary, were taken in to the
home of their mother’s sister, Margaret, and her husband Captain James
Sutherland, also living in Hamilton.
Of the cousins in the
Sutherland household, five in all, the closest in age to Martha was
Elizabeth, who at the time was nine. Elizabeth would later marry a
man named Strachan, be widowed by the age of forty, and would become a
charter member of the Woman’s Missionary Society (W.M.S.) of the
Canadian Methodist Church, the founding meeting of which would be held
in Centenary Methodist Church. She would hold office in the W.M.S, as
Corresponding Secretary for 43 years.
In the early days of
Hamilton, prior to the building of Centenary Church, there were three
Methodist churches in the centre of the city that formed a circuit,
King Street, later to be known as First, Wesley, and MacNab Street
Church. Members of MacNab Street Church would found the Wesleyan
Female College in Hamilton, later to be known as the Hamilton Ladies’
College.
In those days only girls
from the Church of England could be educated beyond grade 8 (in Bishop
Strachan School in Toronto).
This was because the
Church of England was the only institution permitted to legally hold
title to land. In protest against this discriminatory restriction, the
MacNab members opened the Wesleyan Female College in 1860, making it
open to accepting girls from all denominations.
The school was located
on the site of the Howard Johnson Connaught Hotel today, on King
Street, in the Gore; and it became the first school for the ‘higher’
education of women in Upper Canada. The building itself was
capitalized at $50,000 or 500 shares at $100 each, and was fully
subscribed from the beginning. Martha Cartmell attended classes there,
graduated, and went on to study at the new Normal School for teachers
in Toronto.
Centenary Church took
the place of the MacNab Street Church. And the cornerstone of
Centenary Church, which is located above the main front doors, was
laid in 1866, the name ‘Centenary’ being adopted to celebrate the
centenary of the founding of the first Methodist church on the North
American continent, in Baltimore.
The building was
officially opened in May of 1868. And four years later, in 1872, when
Martha was 27 years of age, she was captivated by a powerful
missionary address in the church, urging that Canadian Methodism have
a foreign mission, preferably in Japan, which was just emerging from
national seclusion.
Canadian Methodism was
just emerging itself, undergoing a union of the various of actions,
the British and the American wings, because of the confederation of
Canada. And the need for missionaries was being raised, including
women–Martha later saying that she felt ‘called of God then’, but kept
it a secret in her heart for several years.
It was a year later, in
1873, that the first male Methodist missionaries made their way to
Japan, from Canada, a Dr. MacDonald, and a Dr. Cochrane. The
so-called ‘Meiji’ period was just six years old in the Japanese
political experience. A small group of samurai and aristocrats had
overthrown the ruling shogunate and had restored the emperor to his
previous position at the head of the government. These
revolutionaries were actually acting without the support of the
Japanese people.
Nevertheless, on Jan. 3,
1868, the emperor had officially announced the return of imperial
rule. And the emperor, a teen‑ager named Mutsuhito, adopted ‘Meiji’,
meaning ‘enlightened rule’, as the name for the era of his reign.
Mutsuhito reigned from 1868 to 1912.
In practice, during this
period, it was the leaders of the revolution and their successors who
ruled the country, not the emperor. And they did so utilizing the
slogan "Enriching the Nation and Strengthening the Military" as their
guiding policy.
By enriching Japan, the
new leaders believed they would enable the nation to compete with the
Western powers. And thus the environment was set for the changes to
come, not the least of which being the education of women.
The previous norm had
been expressed this way: “It is better for women that they should not
be educated because their lot throughout life must be in perfect
obedience to first a father, next a husband, and third, a son, what is
the use of developing the mind of a woman, or training her powers of
judgement, when her life is to be guided at every step by a male?”
That norm was about to
change, thanks to Martha Cartmell. The male Canadian Methodist
missionaries, arriving at the beginning of this new political era,
soon discovered that there was evangelistic work among the women of
Japan that only a woman could do.
The homes of the
Japanese people were inaccessible to foreign men. And while
these missionaries were attempting to have a Christian influence upon
the men, the wives of the Japanese men at home were training their
children according to the old precepts. For the first time, a role for
women in ministry and in missionary work began to make sense within
the church.
In November of 1880,
thirty three women from across Hamilton gathered in Centenary Church
to constitute the first organizational meeting of the Methodist
Woman’s Missionary Society. Their organizational efforts caused other
auxiliaries to quickly form, embracing the whole of Canada,
Newfoundland, and Bermuda.
Less than a year later,
at a general meeting of the Wesleyan Ladies College, in Hamilton, a
resolution to form a local branch of the Woman’s Missionary Society
was moved by Martha Cartmell, followed immediately by a resolution “to
support a lady missionary in Japan.”
At the first annual
meeting of the W.M.S., a year later, in September of 1882, Martha
Cartmell was appointed to be that first woman missionary. Later that
same fall she sailed for Japan, from San Francisco, as the C.P.R. rail
line through the Canadian Rockies had yet three years to go before
completion. She was assigned a tiny top bunk in a cabin of three high,
and spent most of the voyage in her bunk, seasick.
Miss Cartmell had been
teaching in the Central School in Hamilton for several years, and
seemed particularly suited to the task of teaching children and
training the Japanese women to work among their own people. However,
at her farewell gathering, she was honoured, and all the while, not
allowed to speak.
The report of the
occasion states that ‘a galaxy of reverends’ were present as were the
President and Secretary of the W.M.S. And a group of the women gave
to Miss Cartmell “a well-filled purse”, but it was presented, not by
one of the women, but rather by a man, Mr. Dennis Moore. And
subsequently another man, the Rev. D.G. Sutherland replied for Miss
Cartmell, in what was termed “touching and appropriate terms.” Only
the men spoke, it seems, in those days, at Canadian Methodist Church
meetings.
Martha’s salary was set
at $600 per year, with a furniture allowance of $250. And an invoice
of purchases made in preparation for her journey, dated November 17,
1882, indicated a purchase of supplies, including of a box of
mucilage, two dozen lead pencils, an accounts book, half a dozen note
books, a pen holder, a set of Collins’ Commentary and a copy of ‘Bible
Educator’.
A list of the parting
gifts she received before departing showed the ‘purse’ from “Ladies of
the W.M..S.,” a pair of photo frames from her uncle William Robinson,
a shell match box from her younger brother, George, a bracelet and pin
set from her sister, Mary, gold bracelets from her school class, and a
book of photos of Hamilton.
Upon arrival in Japan,
Martha was met by Dr. MacDonald and two other missionaries. Dr.
Cochrane and his family were back home in Canada on furlough. She was
taken to Dr. MacDonald’s home, where she remained for three months.
The homes of the missionaries were facing a
river, with only the roadway between, while in the garden behind was
the original dwelling of the missionaries, a small two-roomed house
with mat floors and sliding paper panel walls. This original house was
in the process of being prepared for Miss Cartmell’s use by having a
second story built upon it. At the beginning of March, Martha moved
in, to live in the upstairs rooms, receiving visitors on the lower
floor.
Martha Cartmell worked
alone at first, in Japan, learning the language, and laying plans for
her school. She found, of course, that no Japanese women were allowed
or expected to have an education. But she persisted in advocating the
importance of education for girls, believing women would play an
important role in the society in the years to come.
After consultation with
the General Board missionaries, she set to work to found her girls’
school in Tokyo, petitioning the Imperial Court for permission to do
so. Six months after her arrival, she was invited to attend a meeting
of the General Board on the occasion of their decision to purchase a
site for a boys’ school. And when it was revealed that an adjacent
site could be purchased for $1,000, the question came up, ‘would it be
wanted for a girls’ school?’ The young woman who had not been allowed
to speak at her own farewell gathering immediately spoke up and
pledged her infant Centenary W.M.S. group to that amount. She then
wrote home to tell them about it.
A thousand dollars in 1883 was a substantial
sum. But at the very moment that Miss Cartmell was writing home, Mrs.
Gooderham, president of the society in Hamilton was writing to tell
her to found a boarding school immediately, and to not waste time on a
day school. And Mrs. Gooderham was sending moneyfrom her own personal
bank account to help her do it. The two letters crossed in the mail.
The school opened with
two pupils, in 1884, in a small house; but the numbers increased
rapidly. Dr. MacDonald helped her, as did three Japanese pastors. It
was called The Oriental Anglo-Japanese Girls’ School.New buildings
were erected. And Miss Cartmell, as first principal, also undertook
more work outside the school. In 1885 a second teacher arrived to help
with the school–a Miss Spencer, followed by a third.
By 1887, there were 227
pupils enrolled, 127 boarders and 100 day pupils. Records show that a
year after that, by 1888, 120 of the students had been
baptized. Soon, a Normal Training course was started to provide for
the students who wanted to become teachers themselves, and to train
female leaders.
Meanwhile, a group of a
dozen young Japanese men, eager to learn English, had approached Miss
Cartmell to ask her to teach them for three hours a week. She had put
it to her male colleagues. Two of the three had discouraged her from
the idea; but Dr. MacDonald had not only approved, he had
assisted her in making the arrangements. Consequently a class of
young men had been formed, meeting one evening a week, participation
conditional on their attendance at Christian service on Sundays, and
at an additional evening of reading the Bible in English, and having
the passages explained. Most of these Japanese men became Christian,
and several were ordained into the ministry.
From the very first, the
school had found favour with the upper classes. Two young daughters
of Marquis Ito, Prime Minister of Japan, had enrolled, along with the
daughters of counts, viscounts, and military officers, and girls from
upper class homes.
Almost from the first,
the fees paid for the students’ board, but there were some students
for whom their fees were paid by Miss Cartmell herself, in exchange
for their giving of two years of service as teachers, interpreters, or
‘Bible women’.
Once a group of
aristocratic official came to her, offering to pay for any building
she needed if she would agree to keep the school exclusively for their
upper class daughters. For these men the object was the training in
the English language and in the etiquette and good manners of ‘the
gentle Canadian teachers’. Miss Cartmell refused to put such limits
on her school. These officials nevertheless continued their support
for the school.
Many graduates of the
schooldid later become the wives of leading officials and members of
the Court circles. The mother of Emperor Hirohito was a pupil in the
school, as was the mother of Commander Midzumo, who accompanied Crown
Prince Akihito and his wife on their visit to the United States in the
late 60's, and who related that his mother and an aunt had been among
the first student-teachers engaged at the school.
Martha waited many months before she received
her first invitation to visit a non-Christian home. The woman in the
home was suffering from a paralysis, and was desirous of seeing a
woman who had travelled so far to teach her people. Martha spoke of
the woman’s surprise to find that she was willing to take her message
to the ‘second wife’ in the home, even though she had come from a
culture where there were no plural marriages. Weekly visits followed,
with neighbours gathering in to hear the Bible stories. And the work
among wives subsequently began to grow.
In 1887, five years
after arriving, Miss Cartmell was forced to resign because of ill
health. She returned to Canada, whereupon she recovered sufficiently
to once again make her way back to Tokyo. Retiring again in 1896, at
the age of 51, she returned to Canada, and worked for two years with
the Japanese in Victoria, B.C. until ill health brought her permanent
retirement.
She then came home to
Hamilton, to live with her cousins, Elizabeth Strachan, and Mrs.
W.E.Ross, on Markland Street. When her cousin Elizabeth died in 1931,
Martha moved to Toronto to live with a niece, Mrs. W.E. Pescott,
becoming a member of High Park United Church. In these later years,
Miss Cartmell travelled the length and breadth of Canada stimulating
interest in the Tokyo school, and drawing to Japan some of the most
able and dedicated women of our church.
Her last address was
given when she was 88, in Zion United Church, in Hamilton, on the
occasion of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the
W.M.S., and she was said to have spoken with”a clearly thought out
message, easily heard to the back of the church.”
Martha Cartmell lived
into her 100th year, still of sound mind, although
afflicted with deafness and poor eyesight. She died on March 20th,
1945.
In a letter to an Annual
Meeting of the Woman’s Missionary Society, Miss Cartmell wrote these
challenging words, which would be published in The Christian
Guardian:
To the Friends of
Missions:As the Annual Meeting of the Woman’s Missionary Society is
drawing near, I feel prompted to lay before those who have this work
on their hearts and daily pray for the extension of the Kingdom of
Christ in the earth, a statement of the pressure upon the Society and
the earnest appeals for financial help, that can only be partially and
meagrely responded to unless the amount in the treasury is increased
by special donations. Ill health has compelled me to come home,
leaving no hope of return to the work to which I had consecrated, and
in which I hoped to spend my life. This causes the Japan interests to
be constantly before my mind, knowing so well the demands.
But lest I appear
selfish, let me simply say–the seal the Lord has put upon the efforts
made in the past, by giving so many souls who attest the genuineness
of their conversion by fruits of holy living (those gathered in the
school and also in the evangelistic or Bible woman’s work) encourages
me to affirm confidently the Lord of hosts himself invites his Church
to appease the hunger for knowledge he has aroused in the hearts of
the people. They ask they know not what, when they cry for Western
civilization and Western teachers. They are willing to help
themselves as far as they are able.
We know they need the
“Bread of Life.” Shall we allow a scorpion to be given by permitting
godless, if not infidel, teachers to enter the field God has given the
Methodist Church in Canada to cultivate?
I know much, feel
deeply, and could write for hours to strengthen my appeal for Japan,
but forbear. However the work must extend or we cannot be guiltless. .
.
(She goes on at length
in support of other mission work in China) To the Church I commend
this work. Look into it; find out its need. I have done what I
can. Don’t lay this letter aside without prayer and action. James
says, “Show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my
faith by my works.”
Yours for the cause of
Christ, M.J.Cartmell 120 Hughson Street North, Hamilton, Ontario,
September 1887.
Consider the heritage
that is ours. The heritage of Martha Cartmell. The heart for mission
in the name of Christ. The passion for the labours of love. We are
about that toil here in Hamilton. It is time for us to also look to
the needs further afield. To renew our commitment to that to which God
call us–the ministry of Christ across the world. |
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