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Winslow, Myron, D.D., LL.D.

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

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an eminent Congregational missionary, was born at Williston, Vt., Dec. 11, 1789. He was of the same stock as the two governors Winslow of Massachusetts, and the Kenelm Winslow mentioned in the English history of the 16th century. At the age of fourteen he entered a store as a clerk, and finally established himself in business in Norwich, Conn. During this period he was converted, and convictions that he ought to preach to the unevangelized nations took hold upon him. Abandoning a profitable business, he entered college and graduated at Middlebury in 1813, and Andover Theological Seminary in 1818. He was ordained as a missionary in Salem, Mass., with Pliny Fisk and others, Nov. 4, 1818, and in the following year embarked at Boston, arriving at Calcutta in five months. He took up his residence in Oodooville, Ceylon, in 1820, where he labored seventeen years, founding a seminary and otherwise consolidating the mission. In 1836 he was transferred to Madras. His biography during his residence in India would be no less than the history of the missions there. He founded the Madras Mission; was general secretary and financial agent of that and other missions; was president of Madras College from 1840, and head of all the native schools; had the care of a native church of several hundred members; supervised the printing and editing of various educational and religious works in the Tamil language; and was at the time of his death the oldest missionary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. He died at the Cape of Good Hope, on his way to America, Oct. 22, 1864.

Dr. Winslow wrote the following: History of Missions (Andover, 1819, 12mo, 432 ph.): — Hints on Missions to India (N. Y. 1856, 8vo): — A Comprehensive Tamil and English Dictionary of High and Low Tamil (Madras, 1862, 4to). "This work has received the encomiums of native, English, and American scholars, and ranks second to no other philological achievement of the age. Not merely for the profound scholarship-displayed in its pages, but for the vast influence it exerts in civilizing and Christianizing India, has it called forth the thanks of the religious world. In the preparation and completion of this work, Dr. Winslow spent upwards of twenty years of continuous toil. It has one thousand pages, three columns to a page, and contains sixty-eight thousand words and definitions. Of these nearly half owe their lexicographic birth and position to the author. The dictionary contains the mythological, astrological, scientific, official, and poetic terms of the Tamil; names of heroes, gods, authors, etc., and geographical and historical information, thus forming an encyclopedia of Tamil learning." Dr. Winslow is said to have devoted more study to the Eastern languages than any other American. He also conducted a continuous correspondence for forty years with the Missionary Herald, N. Y. Observer, and other publications. Several Sermons and Addresses were published in pamphlet. Dr. Winslow was five times married. Memoirs of two of his wives and one of his children were published. See Cong. Quarterly, 1865, p. 209; Appleton's Annual Cyclop. 1864, p. 814; Allibone, Dict. of Brit and Amer. Authors, s.v.