Letters to Children

A remarkable time capsule from the dawn of American engagement with China, these letters were written in 1834 by Elijah Coleman Bridgman, the first American missionary to serve in that country. Bridgman addresses young readers at a Massachusetts Sabbath school with an immediacy that transcends nearly two centuries, describing the people, customs, and above all the spiritual landscape he encounters in a nation he portrays as drowning in idol worship. He outlines the three dominant religious traditions of China, Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism, with the methodical attention of a man convinced his readers must understand the scope of what he calls China's "spiritual needs." Yet beneath the evangelistic purpose lies genuine anthropological curiosity: these are among the earliest American eyes on Chinese soil, recording observations that would shape how an entire nation understood this vast civilization. The letters ache with a particular 19th-century earnestness, imploring American children to recognize their extraordinary privilege in having access to the Bible while millions of Chinese children live, in Bridgman's framing, in darkness. It is a document of its time and a window into the origins of cross-cultural encounter between America and East Asia.