Thompson, Amherst L

Thompson, Amherst L.

a young Congregational missionary, was born at Peru, Mass., in 1834. Converted at the age of fourteen, he resolved to prepare himself for the ministry. Trusting in Providence and his own arm, he went through the curriculum of Monson Academy and Amherst College, graduating in 1856. He studied theology partly at New York and partly at Andover, graduating at the latter place. He was ordained to the missionary work at Amherst Feb. 2,1860, and on the 13th, in company with eight other missionaries, sailed from Boston for Urumiyah, Persia, where he arrived July 1. On Aug. 16 he was taken with a severe chill; which soon developed into a terrible fever, completing its fatal work on the 25th. He sleeps by the side of Stoddard in the little mission burying-ground in Mt. Seir, Urumiyah. Mr. Thompson had a vigorous and keen intellect, coolness and strong common-sense, and a brilliant imagination. As a man and a Christian he is represented as a model. At his graduation at Andover he delivered an essay on Congregational Church Polity Adapted to Foreign Missionary Work, which was published in the Cong. Quarterly, Jan. 1860. See Cong. Quar. Rev. 1861, p. 67.