From The Books
From Other Sources
Quotes About Him
Note: Page references are from original volumes.
Life: "Life In Hawaii" by Titus Coan
Mem, Memorial: "Titus Coan - A Memorial" by Lydia Bingham Coan
Titus Coan Biographical
Conversion/Missionary Call
Bible
Preaching
Revivalist
First Hawaiian Church of Hilo
-Training of Hawaiians
-First Native Churches
-First Native Missionaries
Missions
-Hawaii
-Marquesas
-Patagonia
-ABCFM/Hawaiian
Evangelical Association
Ministry to Americans and Europeans
-English Service
-Pamphlet and Book Ministry
-"Sailor's Sabbath"
Volcanoes
"Pen Painter" Writings
-Correspondence
-Patagonia
-Autobiography
-Memorial Volume
Family
-1st Wife: Fidelia Church Coan
-2nd Wife: Lydia Bingham Coan
-Children
Titus Coan Biographical:
But the experiences of those earlier years were of untold value to the future. He was never to lose through life the influence of his childhood, which passed in a home so beautifully ordered by pious parents that obedience, truthfulness, and filial and fraternal affection were the characteristics of the eight children reared there. [Mem, 1]
God's providences, the advice of thoughtful friends and the convictions which sprang from his own religious vitality, led him to reconsider his decision and to fix upon the ministry. In June, 1831, he entered the middle class of Auburn Theological Seminary. [Mem, 3]
Conversion/Missionary Call:
Throughout the winter of 1829 “there was a cheering revival in the town and in my school, and many of my pupils were hopefully born again. This was the best year of my life up to that time. It was the turning point, the day of decision. It was the voice of God to me. I could no longer doubt…. I said, Lead me, Saviour. Tell me where to go and what to do, and I will go and do.” [Life, 13]
From this point Titus Coan knew that he would become a missionary. He spent the summer of 1830 in Rochester, New York, and the surrounding area “studying and laboring in the revival; sometimes meeting the Rev. Charles Finney.” [From Coan Chronicles; quotations from Life, 14]
"Lord, send me where thou wilt, only go with me, lay on me what thou wilt, only sustain me. Cut any cord but the one which binds me to thy cause, to thy heart." [Letter to Miss Church, his future wife, 1831 - Mem, 5]
Bible:
“As Coan progressed in his studies at Auburn seminary he found the concentrated attention to books frustrating. The theological student revealed his thoughts to his minister brother: ‘After examining the various and contending theories, the magisterial dogmas, the abstruse and subtle disquisitions, the vain and unsatisfying speculations, and grave and confident conclusions… of numerous theological disputants, I gain relief from their perplexing speculations by taking my precious Bible, and stealing away to the feet of Jesus.” [March 21, 1832, letter at HMCS, quoted in Ehlke, 53 - Also Mem, 6]
"Here I learn that I cannot trace the mysterious phenomena of my own mind, then why should I think to find out the Almighty to perfection? Thus I can run to my Bible, and when the billows begin to beat around me, I can lay my hand upon that and find it 'Rock,' and thus with Jesus for my teacher, I can sit and quiet myself as a weaned child." [Mem, 6]
"I have no trust in modern prophets, visionary speculators and spiritual enthusiasts. But I have all confidence in that good old book, the Bible. 'It is a light to my feet and a lamp to my path.' It is my joy by day and my song in the night - more precious than gold and sweeter than honey. The dear ring of the voice of the prophets, the evangelists, and especially of 'The Christ,' sounds into my heart, and I have no doubts as to the truth, the inspiration, the adaptation and p102 the unexplored wealth of the Bible. We all fail to understand much of the mysteries of the Scriptures and of godliness, just as a little child cannot understand the higher mathematics or soar into the realms of abstract science. But the child can be led onward and upward, and so can we when we are docile like little children." [Mem, 101-102]
Preaching:
“When I came to these Islands, and before I could use the Hawaiian language, I often felt as if I should burst with strong desires to speak the word to the natives around me.” [December 24, 1881, letter from Titus Coan to Rev. S. E. Bishop, 224 of Memorial Volume]
Lydia Bingham Coan writes a bridge section on p. 39 of the Memorial Volume: “when the new language had been to some degree acquired, and three months after landing, he had preached his first Hawaiian sermon, he began the touring which was to be a marked feature of his after life,” meaning the rest of his years in Hawaii. [Memorial Volume, 39]
“As he gained more knowledge with written sermons, and preached extempore. The people were impressed, and congregations soon increased. Even in the first year there were many inquirers and marked manifestations of the Holy Spirit’s presence. [Memorial Volume, 40-41:]
Late November/December 1836 preaching tour as related in Life, 42-: “on reaching the western coast of Kau, I visited all the villages along the shore, preaching and exhorting everywhere. The people came out, men, women, and children, in crowds, and listened with great attention. Here I preached three, four, and five times a day, and had much personal conversation with the natives on things pertaining to the kingdom of God. [Late Nov./Dec 1836 Life 42-43]
“[Western Puna] At one place before I reached the point where I was to spend a Sabbath, there was a line of four villages not more than half a mile apart. Every village begged for a sermon and for personal conversation. Commencing at daylight I preached in three of them before breakfast, at 10 a.m. When the meeting closed at one village, most of the people ran on to the next and thus my congregation increased rapidly from hour to hour. Many were ‘pricked in their hearts’ and were inquiring what they should do to be saved.” [Life 43-44]
Revivalist:
"These days and years I never rose to address a native audience without feeling an assurance that a Divine power rested upon me, and that 'Death and Hell' could not withstand the Word of God, but that it was the 'sword of the Spirit, quick and powerful;' that it was the 'fire and hammer,' and the gleaming battleaxe of Jehovah, ordained to conquer Satan and sin; and that it is in deed and truth, 'the power of salvation' to all who believe, whether speaker or hearer." [Letter to Rev. S. Bishop Memorial Volume 224]
"Only let us preach the gospel in living faith, and under the awful pressure of the world to come, and I defy this people... to sleep. Why they might as well sleep under a cataract of fire." [November 24, 1837 letter to Lorenzo Lyons, missionary in the Waimea area of the Big Island - Memorial Volume 43]
"Comparatively few fall here as yet, but O, the tug of battle; the watchings, the fightings, the toils necessary to keep such a church awake and at the post of duty. But I love the struggle and God helps me wonderfully. I want to fight on till I die. I wish to die in the field with armor on, with weapons bright." [Mem, 47]
"Hundreds who were alarmed in Puna have come on here to hear more of the Gospel. ...and before my address was closed my voice was nearly drowned with crying out [Under conviction of sin]. Some may be afraid of this, but it is better than a house full of sinners asleep." [Mem, 45]
First Hawaiian Church of Hilo:
- Training of Hawaiians:
“As numbers of our young and active men desired more full and specific instruction in the doctrines of the Bible and the duties of life than they gained in our common exercises, I received about twenty into a class for daily instruction in systematic theology, Scripture exegesis, sermonizing, etc."
“This school was kept up in convenient terms for several years. It was not designed to make pastors but to train a class of more intelligent workers than the common people. Some of these have since become preachers and pastors at home, and some have gone to labor in heathen lands."
“The whole number of preachers and missionaries who have gone out from the Hilo church and boarding-school is: on foreign missions twelve, with their wives; in the home field, nineteen, or thirty-one ministers in all.” [Life, 117-18] - First Native Churches:
"During the year 1863 the Rev. Dr. Anderson, then corresponding secretary of the A. B. C. F. M., visited the Hawaiian Islands with a view of conferring with the missionaries on the subject of putting most of the churches under the care of native pastors."
"At length I began a movement in that direction, and on the 16th of October, 1864, the first church was set off from the mother church, and a native was ordained and installed over it..."
"Most of these churches had one, two, or three chapels, or smaller meeting-houses, which served as places of meetings on secular days, and on Sabbaths near evening. For a great many years the natives were accustomed to hold morning prayer-meetings, and they might be seen assembling at early dawn every day in the week." [Life, 136-37] - First Native Missionaries:
"In the prosecution of our work on the Hawaiian Islands, an active missionary spirit was developed in great strength. This was of course one of the legitimate fruits of a faithfully preached and truly accepted Gospel. ....establishing a mission in Micronesia in conjunction with the American Board. the idea sprang up in the minds of some of our brethren that we might “lengthen our cords’, This thought ripened into action, and American and Hawaiian missionaries were sent out." [Life, 154-5]
Missions:
- Hawaii:
“We are well and happy, thrice happy in our work. Our temporal circumstances are much more pleasant than we had ever expected on heathen ground—a strong contrast to my solitary pilgrimage in Patagonia. The climate is salubrious and vegetation luxuriant.” [September 11, 1839, letter to his sister, in Memorial Volume, 58]
"In the early years of the mission, the trials of separation were often severe. Hawaii was not only far from all the outer world, but our islands were separated one from another by wide and windy channels, with no regular and safe packets, and no postal arrangements, or regular means of communication. Add to this, many parts of the islands were so broken by ravines, by precipices, and dangerous streams, and so widely sundered by broad tracts of lava, without house, or pool of water to refresh the weary and thirsty traveler, and without roads withal, that social intercourse was impossible without great toil and suffering." [Life, 110] - Marquesas:
"In the prosecution of our work on the Hawaiian Islands, an active missionary spirit was developed in great strength. This was of course one of the legitimate fruits of a faithfully preached and truly accepted Gospel." [Life, 154]
"The day after our arrival, Kaivi, Kauwealoha, Timothy, one of my Hilo church members who accompanied me, and myself, took a stroll of four hours up the valley, and we were more and more delighted with its beauty and fertility. But we were everywhere pained with the marks of savage idolatry and cannibalism. The number and nature of the tabus were shocking." [Life, 171] - Patagonia:
After returning to the USA from Patagonia, “But the perils of the sea and of the howling wildness of savages were now past, and I was in the land of liberty, of light, and of Christian love.” [Life, 17]
On his journey to Hawai’i as he passed the southern cone of South America (then known as Patagonia) he noted that “my heart mourned for this land of Patagonia, a land on which the shadows of death had always rested and where no day had yet dawned.” [Life, 20]
“I do not now regret a sojourn in ‘that great and howling wilderness’ of Patagonia.” [Life, 141] - ABCFM/Hawaiian Evangelical Association:
"The amount given by the churches of the United States for evangelic work here must have been, from time beginning, about one million and a half dollars, and the number of laborers sustained, in whole or in part, by appropriations of the American Board, has been one hundred and seventy." [Life, 248]
Ministry to Americans and Europeans:
- English Service:
"My regular services on the Sabbath were: a Sunday school at 9 A.M.;preaching at 10.30; at 12 M. a meeting for inquirers ; at 1 P.M. preaching ; and at 3 P.M. preaching in English to seamen, and English-speaking residents and visitors. When ships were in port we often had a full house, and not a few hearers professed a determination to forsake all sin and to live godly lives." [Life, 65]
"I have said something in regard to evangelical labors for seamen and for our English-speaking residents. It was resolved at length to organize a church and seek a pastor for this class of our inhabitants ; and on the 9th of February, 1868, a church was organized with fourteen foreign members. On the 26th of July the building was dedicated, ...Standing near the larger native church, it shines like a gem amidst our green foliage." [Life, 135] - Pamphlet and Book Ministry:
"In this labor for seamen I have been led to correspond with the American Bible, Tract, Peace, Temperance, and Seamen's Friend Societies, and have obtained Bibles and tracts in the English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Danish, and Chinese languages ; which with many thousands of tracts have been distributed among these vessels." [Life, 66] - "Sailor's Sabbath":
"Several masters and officers gave up Sabbath whaling, and instead held religious meetings with their men on the Lord's day." [Life, 65]
"On returning to the ship he immediately told his officers and crew that he should drink no more intoxicants, swear no more, and chase whales no more on the Lord's day, but, on the contrary, observe the Sabbath and have religious services on that holy day." [Life, 53]
Volcanoes:
“Our great volcano has attracted many hundreds of visitors, and they have come from nearly all the nations under heaven. Many have been distinguished scientists. Statesmen and foreign officials of almost every rank have looked in upon us, and our intercourse has been most precious with the many Christians that we have been permitted to entertain.” [Life, 143]
“The volcano of Kilauea is always in action. Its lake of lava and brimstone rolls and surges from age to age. Sometimes these fires are sluggish, and one might feel safe in pitching his tent upon the floor of the crater. Again the ponderous masses of hardened lava, in appearance like vast coal-beds, are broken up by the surging floods below, and tossed hither and thither, while the great bellows of Jehovah blows upon these hills and cones and ridges of solidified rocks, and melts them down into seas and lakes and streams of liquid fire.
“As the great volcano is within the limits of my parish, and as my missionary trail flanks it on three sides, I may have observed it a hundred times; but never twice in the same state.” Life, 262
"Pen Painter"--Writings:
"But besides his well-earned reputation as an effective missionary,... Coan additionally provided valuable scientific information on volcanic eruptions. In fact, his descriptions of volcanic activity over four decades were so vivid that the American Journal of Arts and Sciences referred to him as the 'prince of penpainters.'" [This Week in Connecticut History, Philip R. Devlin, “Titus Coan of Killingworth: ‘The Prince of Penpainters.'"]
- Correspondence:
“Early writing to beloved kindred he said of letters: ‘There is no earthly luxury more sweet to us than a good liberal bundle of them. Could I increase my time and my power of writing as much as I can expand my heart with love, you would all have speedy and full answers. But you have no idea how little my time is at my command.'" [Memorial Volume, 51]
“Already had he begun a correspondence that became extensive, embracing between the years 1836 [after arrival in Hawai’i] and 1882 [his death] four hundred and fifty names of individuals to whom he addressed about three thousand letters, not including the even larger number to island residents...The amount seems remarkable, but he wielded a ready pen, and through his busy life, caring for the moments was the secret of his accomplishing so much." [Memorial Volume, 51]
The notable characteristic of steadfastness in Mr. Coan was strongly marked in his friendships. Names that occur on the first pages of his Synopses of Letters are found on the last. It was only as friend after friend crossed the flood [of the River Jordan, i.e. death, to the Promised Land] and passed beyond the reach of voice or pen, that his name dropped out of the list of correspondents.” [Memorial Volume, 50]
“But it was in letters to kindred and to friends, circles ever narrowing, ever widening, that he penned those gems of thought, those heart sentiments that made every word precious to those addressed. To these we turn, not so much to follow the events of the remaining forty years of his pilgrimage, as to linger in the atmosphere of his loving personality, and to be helped by his notes of faith and joy to an attainment of that calm, devout spirit which bears witness to the presence and Fatherhood of God.” [Memorial Volume, 53] - Patagonia:
Looking forward to his future career, he had already decided to devote himself to the work of foreign missions, when the American Board (being assured by a sea captain lately returned from South America that a hopeful field might be found among the tribes of Patagonia) was looking around for a couple of intrepid soldiers of the Cross, to undertake an exploring expedition and fixed upon young Coan, who had at once the physical strength and the fervent spirit. Reports were conflicting about the country and its people, and the expedition promised to be one of a good deal of adventure, if not of personal danger. [From the introduction by Rev. Henry M. Field D.D. to "Adventures In Patagonia" by Titus Coan] - Autobiography:
On the other hand, if it shall appear that during a ministry of almost half a century a blind man has been led into the light, a lame man has been helped to walk in the Way of Life, a leprous soul has been washed in the Fountain opened for sin and uncleanness; if a heathen has found the true God, and cast away his dead idols, if a fierce cannibal has been persuaded to cease to eat the flesh of his enemies, and taught to trust the Son of Man for pardon, or if some who were dead in trespasses and sins have been raised to life by the quickening power of the Gospel, then let God have all the glory. [Titus Coan in the preface of his autobiography, "Life In Hawaii"] - Memorial Volume:
This Memorial will be read with special interest by those who have long been familiar with the bright particular spot which the Sandwich Islands [Hawaii] furnish in the history of modern missions. It can scarcely fail to be a source of rich spiritual profit and encouragement to the growing number who pray in the secret place for the speedy coming of the Kingdom, and whose faith finds its assurance in the divine promise, "All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord : and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee." [S. J. Humphrey, D.D. in his introduction to "Titus Coan - A Memorial" by Mrs Lydia Bingham Coan]
Family:
Their son Titus Munson Coan, born in 1836, became a physician who served in the American Civil War and died in 1921. Daughter Harriet Fidelia was born in 1839 and died in 1906. Daughter Sarah Eliza was born in 1843 and died in 1916. Son Samuel Latimer Coan was born 1846 and died in 1887. Their mother Fidelia died in September 1872. Coan married his second wife Lydia Bingham, the daughter of the Rev. Hiram Bingham I (an earlier missionary), on October 13, 1873. He completed his autobiography in 1881, the year he died.
[Source: Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titus_Coan]
- 1st Wife: Fidelia Church Coan
Upon first wife, Fidelia Coan's death in 1872: "The dear one was an extensive and eclectic reader, a clear and logical thinker. Her mind and heart were well prepared to take an active part in the literary and religious discussions and activities of the age, but she freely chose the life of a missionary to the heathen. To me she was a peerless helper. Her self denial was marvelous. The same self abnegation which led her to say to me, in answer to the question, 'Shall I go to Patagonia?' 'My dear, you must go!' controlled her whole life. She never objected to my going on my most severe or perilous expeditions along the shores or on the mountains of Hawaii; or held me back when duty called me to the Marquesas Islands." [Life, 222] - 2nd Wife: Lydia Bingham Coan
On second Marriage: "It is time to bring these imperfect sketches to a close. The foregoing pages have been written among interruptions and anxieties, but they make some partial record of a life preserved by its Giver in many scenes of danger and crowned with many blessings. And among its chief blessings I would recognize God’s goodness in granting me precious partners in my life work. My second marriage, October 13, 1873, was to Miss Lydia Bingham, daughter of the Rev. Hiram Bingham. This faithful helpmeet is the strength and support of my age. But for her suggestions, and her patient labors in copying the manuscript of this volume, I should not have undertaken, at my time of life, the task of writing it." [Life, 335] - Children:
"Another trial of painful character has been borne by the missionaries in the sending of their tender offspring away from their island home to the fatherland. Surrounded by the low and vulgar throng of early mission days, with no good schools, and loaded with cares and labors for the native race, most of the missionaries have felt it a duty to their children to seek for them an asylum in a land of schools and churches and Christian civilization."
"Our two elder children [Titus Munson, Harriet Fidelia] remained at their island home until they reached an age when the thought of separation was less cruel. They then made the voyage around Cape Horn under the kind care of Capt. James Willis and his excellent wife. Later, our second daughter and son [Sarah Eliza, Samuel Latimer] were sent to the United States under favorable circumstances. Our youngest son has returned, and lives near the old homestead." [Life, 114-115]