The Man Too Old for Missions (1822-1903)
Abram La Rue was a mariner, gold prospector, shepherd, and tireless colporteur who became the pioneer of Seventh-day Adventist work in Asia. When church leaders told him he was too old to be a missionary and they had no money to send him, the sixty-six-year-old La Rue went anyway — traveling to Hong Kong as a self-supporting missionary and spending the final fifteen years of his life distributing literature to every vessel he could reach. He arranged for the translation and printing of the first Adventist publications in both Chinese and Japanese, and prepared the converts who became the first baptized Seventh-day Adventists in China.
A Life of Adventure
Abram La Rue was born in New Jersey on November 25, 1822. His parents, Joseph L. Rue (born 1792) and Mary (born 1797), were farmers. He was a seaman who traveled the world until about fifty years old. As an eleven-year-old boy, he witnessed the great meteor shower of 1833 — an event “which he so often referred to as a sure token of the near coming of the Lord.”
He traveled to Idaho and California during the gold rush, where he amassed a “considerable fortune” that was ultimately lost through fire and “bad investments.” After traveling to the Hawaiian Islands, he became a Christian. Returning to California, he went into the mountains, made a land claim, and lived as a shepherd and woodcutter, joining the Dunkard Church.
Finding the Advent Message
An Adventist named Ruel Stickney left some tracts with a Dunkard preacher named Mr. Studebaker, who wanted nothing to do with them. His wife gave them to La Rue, who studied them and accepted the Adventist message. La Rue sold his farm to Stickney and became his caretaker, freeing himself to distribute literature. When some locals ridiculed his faith and suggested the lonely man take up smoking, he responded by pulling out his Bible: “This is my company.”
During the summer of 1876, W. C. Grainger moved into the region. La Rue shared literature with him, and evangelistic meetings led to the organization of a church in Christine, California.
The Call to China
About 1883, La Rue went to Healdsburg College to take “a course in Bible study.” With “perfectly white” hair, he shared his desire to be a missionary to China. Church leaders told him he was too old and they had no money to send him. The Foreign Mission Board urged him to locate on “one of the islands in the Pacific.”
Hawaii and Hong Kong
In 1884, La Rue traveled to Honolulu, where he began selling books on ships. He and Henry Scott established “a free reading-room and [book] depository at 189 Nuuanu Avenue.” By the time S. N. Haskell visited, thirteen people had accepted the Adventist message.
On March 21, 1888, La Rue left San Francisco on board the ship Velocity and arrived in Hong Kong on May 3, 1888. He founded a mission room on Arsenal Street near the harbor. J. L. Shaw later marveled that the “work in China” was started “by a man too old to learn the language and too old to be a mission pioneer.”
“I suppose that Hong Kong is one of the hardest places in the world in which to accomplish anything with the third angel’s message. But the ship work here is very important. The seed is being sown all over the Orient, and the Lord will take good care of the results.”
Mo Wen Chang and the First Chinese Publications
La Rue befriended Mo Wen Chang, a translator for the colonial court, who stopped at the mission each morning for worship. Mo Wen Chang translated the first Adventist tracts into Chinese, beginning with “The Judgment” (2,500 copies printed in 1891) and two tracts by Ellen G. White — the first Seventh-day Adventist publications in Chinese. By 1894, La Rue arranged for the tract “The Sinner’s Need of Christ” to be translated into Japanese — the first Adventist publication in the Japanese language.
The First Baptisms in China
In 1901, La Rue wrote: “I am very sorry that I have to give up the ship work, but I am so nearly worn out that I am obliged to do it.” J. N. Anderson and Emma Anderson, with Ida Thompson, arrived on February 2, 1902, as the first official Adventist missionaries to China. On March 1, 1902, seven people La Rue had prepared were baptized — the first Seventh-day Adventist baptisms in China.
Death and Legacy
Abram La Rue died on April 26, 1903, in Hong Kong, from pneumonia arising from malaria and typhoid complications. J. E. Fulton recalled: “Brother La Rue never was known as a great preacher or a great administrator or a great leader in any other sense other than that he was a great follower of the Master, but he left his influence in the hearts of men.” Most people referred to him simply as “Father La Rue.”
He was described as “of short stature, white-haired, and rather frail-looking” yet extremely persistent. His characteristic question to strangers was: “The Lord is coming very soon. Suppose He should come tonight. Are you prepared?”
His grave is in the Hong Kong Cemetery in Happy Valley. On the fiftieth anniversary of his arrival, church members erected the Hong Kong “Pioneer Memorial Church” in his honor.
