Goddard, Josiah

Goddard, Josiah, a Baptist minister, missionary, and translator of the Scriptures, was born at Wendell, Massachussetts, in 1813; graduated at Brown University is 1835, and at Newton Theological Seminary in 1838. He was appointed a missionary to the Chinese in Siam, China being not yet open to the residence of foreigners. There he labored with success as a preacher, translated the Gospel of John, and prepared tracts and an Angilo-Chinese vocabulary. Being taken with bleeding from the lungs, he removed to Ningpo, one of the treaty ports then recently assigned for foreign trade and residence. Here he continued, with conscious and growing weakness, holding upon life by a peculiarly uncertain tenure, yet with courage and patience, to labor on for six years — preaching, journeying, preparing and circulating tracts, and carrying to completion his version of the New Testament. This is a valuable contribution to the difficult work of Biblical translation in the Chinese language. He was an excellent scholar, and made high attanments in the study of that language. He proved himself a sensible and cautious, but brave and earnest worker. The disease against which he had borne up so long proved fatal in 1854. (L.E.S.)