Cicero Washington Pruitt
Cicero Washington Pruitt (1857–1946) was among the first
China Inland Mission
, dressing like the Chinese, learning the language and following Chinese customs. The Pruitt family has many pictures extent of him, dressed in Chinese garb.
Mission to North China
In January 1882, he traveled to China as a missionary and was stationed in
Huangxian in North China, where he met his first wife, Ida Tiffany; she died two years later. Later he married Anna Seward Pruitt[1] and they opened a school for boys that subsequently merged with the Carter School for Girls and Bush Theological Seminary, and became the North China Baptist College.[2]
It is still under operation today under another name. Also the church that he, and Anna Seward (and perhaps Ida Tiffany) planted still offers services, over 100 years later.
C.W. and Ann Seward along with William and
Southern Baptist North China Mission
. T.P. Crawford believed missionaries should be self-supporting, but received criticism for spending excessive amounts of time in subsequent business ventures. Crawford brought along most of the North China Southern Baptist missionaries in starting his own mission named Gospel Mission.
Achievements and later years
C.W. considered his greatest achievement to be the translation of his influential teacher
John Broadus' Commentary on Gospel of Matthew from English into Chinese.[2] C.W. and Anna Seward were the parents of Ida Pruitt, an influential writer involved in Chinese financial aid and development. Anna Seward and C.W. retired from China missions in 1936 and C.W. at that time because the Dean of Baptist Foreign Mission of North America
.
C.W. died on December 27, 1946.[3]
Most of this article is taken from the Radcliff Finding Aid. See link below.
See also
- Southern Baptist Convention
- List of Southern Baptist Convention affiliated people
- Anna Seward Pruitt
- Ida Pruitt (daughter)
- Lottie Moon
References
- ^ Christian Index website, Southern Baptist international medical missions trace beginnings back to Georgia, article by Charles Jones dated December 12, 2022
- ^ a b International Mission Board website, Missionaries You Should Know: Cicero Washington Pruitt
- ^ International Mission Board website, C. W. Pruitt