Birth: 13.03.1815
Death: 21.09.1911
Native Place : Pennsylvania, US
Place of Vision: Japan, China
James Curtis Hepburn was one of the great pioneers of the Gospel and Christian civilization in Japan. Obeying the Word of God, … do to others as you would have them do to you,’ Hepburn went about doing good to various Asian communities as a medical missionary. Shortly after graduating from the Medical College of the Pennsylvania University, Hepburn along with his wife Clara Leete traveled to Singapore and then China as a medical missionary. After five years of active missionary work, the Hepburns had to leave China due to health issues and arrived in New York in 1845.
While Hepburn was practicing Medicine in New York, all three of his children fell victim to a serious illness. This personal tragedy rekindled his missionary zeal and that’s when the opportunity to serve in Japan came knocking. Back then, Japan isolated itself from the West, and foreigners were feared and hated by the locals. The Hepburn couple reached Kanagawa (the present-day Yokohama) and immediately started learning the Japanese language. Amidst the hostility, the doctor could finally open a clinic in 1861, through which he introduced modern medicine to Japan and treated thousands of Japanese.
As a translator of the Bible, Hepburn left an indelible mark on Japanese Christianity and literature. He compiled the first Japanese-English dictionary and created the Hepburn system of Romanization. Besides medical service, along with his wife, he started a school teaching English to young Japanese as a means of introducing the Bible. The school later evolved to become Meiji Gakuin University, even now a distinguished Christian institution. Hepburn also established a church at Yokohama to strengthen the faith of the believers.
Hepburn was a loyal, diligent, zealous, and self-effacing servant of Jesus who loved all mankind. He finished his race on this earth at the ripe old age of 96, to be rightly acknowledged by his Lord as “Well done, good and faithful servant… Enter into the joy of your master”
