Charles Cowman

Charles Cowman was born on March 13, 1868, in Toulon, Illinois, to David and Mary Cowman. He grew up in the Methodist Episcopal Church.

At age 15, he was offered and accepted a summer job as a telegraph operator at a local railway station. Excelling at this new job, he chose not to return to school the following fall and continued with his new profession. He received a number of promotions over the following years. At 18, he was transferred to a station in Chicago, and by the time he was 19, he earned a salary comparable to employees who had been working there for many years. On June 8, 1889, at 21 years old, he married childhood friend, Lettie Burd. During their first year of marriage, they moved to the Rocky Mountains in order to escape city life. When the high altitude caused Lettie to become very sick though, they returned to Chicago for the next 10 years.

In the late 1890s, Cowman met and befriended Juji Nakada at his church, Grace Methodist Episcopal Church. Nakada had come from Japan to study at Moody Bible Institute. He, too, would later become a cofounder of the Oriental Missionary Society. Upon Nakada’s return to Japan, the Telegraphers’ Mission Band began financially supporting him as a missionary, thus continuing the connection they had made with him while he was in the states.

After feeling a deep call on their hearts, Charles and Lettie left America on February 1, 1901, to serve as missionaries in Japan. They worked alongside Nakada, with the dream of starting a Bible training institute. “The aim of the institute would not be to produce classical scholars, but young men and women who could handle their mother tongue with effect, who were steeped in the Bible and who could so proclaim it as to arrest and influence all classes of people” (page 52).[1] Within a few months of being in Japan, that dream became a reality when they were able to open a mission hall where Nakada could preach the Gospel message and train leaders. The hall held Bible classes in the daytime and was the venue for evangelistic services in the evening. This was the beginning of the Oriental Missionary Society. In 1902, Ernest Kilbourne joined Cowman and Nakada to assist in their growing ministry.

While back in America, Charles regained his health for a short time. He traveled for six months, telling the incredible story of The Great Village Campaign. He would have likely continued traveling the country, but numerous heart attacks forced him to rest at his home in California. For the next six years, he suffered in great pain, yet he always kept a positive attitude while continuing his work for the Lord. “Although broken in body, he kept an oversight of the home office and every department of work on the field, dictating letters by the hundreds” (page 142).[1] He also began to make plans to go into China, so that another Bible training institute could be established. In March 1924, Cowman faithfully signed the bank books of OMS over to two trustees: Ernest Kilbourne and W.J. Clark, a Los Angeles businessman.

On the night of July 17, 1924, Cowman experienced a stroke that paralyzed his entire left side. The doctors said he would only live a few more hours, but he lived a number of weeks more. He passed just after midnight on September 25, 1924 (page 153).[1] Two days after his funeral, a letter came to him stating that a fellow worker was giving $25,000 to open a Bible Training Institute in China. One year later, in September 1925, the Bible Training Institute was up and running in Shanghai. It was fittingly named, “The Cowman Memorial Bible Training Institute.” (page 155)[1]

• onemissionsociety.org