A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Smith, Sarah Lanman
SMITH, SARAH LANMAN,
Was born in Norwich, Connecticut, June 18th., 1802. Her father was Jabez Huntington, Esq. Her biographer. Rev. Edward W. Hooker, says of her early years, after describing her sufferings from ill health during childhood, and also from the severity of a school-mistress, which circumstances, added to the death of her mother, had the effect to bring out great decision and sometimes wilfulness of character:
"But with these things in childhood, showing that she was a subject of that native depravity in which all the human race are 'guilty before God,' she exhibited, as she was advancing in the years of youth, many of the virtues which are useful and lovely; and probably went as far in those excellences of natural character on which many endeavour to build their hope of salvation, as almost any unconverted persons do; carrying with her, however, the clear and often disturbing conviction, that the best virtues which she practised were not holiness, nor any evidence of fitness for heaven.
In 1833, Miss Huntington was married to the Rev. Eli Smith, of the American mission at Beyroot, Syria; and she went to that remote region as the "help meet" for a humble missionary. She was singularly fitted for this important station, having been a voluntary missionary to the miserable remnant of a tribe of the Mohegan Indians; she had thus tested her powers and strengthened her love for this arduous work in the cause of doing good. Her letters to her father and friends, while reflecting on this important step of a foreign mission, will be intensly interesting to those who regard this consecration of woman to her office of moral teacher as among the most efficient causes of the success of the Gospel. The literary merits of her writings are of a high order; we venture to say, that, compared with the "Journals" and "Letters" of the most eminent men in the missionary station, those of Mrs. Smith will not be found inferior in merits of any kind. Her intellect had been cultivated; she could, therefore, bring her reasoning powers, as well as her moral and religious sentiments, to bear on any subject discussed.
Mrs. Smith accompanied her husband to Beyroot, and was indeed his "help" and good angel. She studied Arabic; established a school for girls; exerted her moral and Christian influence with great effect on the mixed population of Moslems, Syrians, Jews; visiting and instructing the mothers as well as the children; working with all her heart and soul, mind and might, and the time of her service soon expired. She died September 30th., 1836, aged thirty-four; a little over three years from the time she left her own dear land.