Chamberlain, Jacob

CHAMBERLAIN, JACOB: Reformed (Dutch) missionary; b. at Sharon, Conn., Apr. 13, 1835; d. at Madanapalli, Madras, India, March 2, 1908. He was educated at Western Reserve College, O. (B.A., 1856), the Reformed Theological Seminary, New Brunswick; N. J., and the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York. In 1859 he went as a medical missionary to the Arcot Mission, Madras, and was stationed successively at Palmaner, Madras (1860–1863), and at Madanapalli, Madras (1863–1901). From 1891 he was lector in Biblical languages and prophecy and acting principal of the Theological Seminary in the Arcot Mission, Palmaner. He was chairman of a committee for the translation of the Bible into Telugu, 1873–94; member of the Telugu Revision Committee of the Madras Tract Society in 1873–80, and in 1878 was elected vice-president of the American Tract Society for India. In 1901 he was first moderator of the South India United Church Synod, and since engaged in literary work in Tamil and Telugu. He translated the liturgy of the Reformed Dutch Church into Telugu (Madras, 1873), and also prepared a Telugu version of the Hymns for Public and Social Worship (1884), as well as other devotional works in the same language. His English works include: The Bible Tested (New York, 1878); Native Churches and Foreign Missionary Societies (Madras, 1879); The Religions of the Orient (Clifton Springs, N. Y.,1896); In the Tiger Jungle (Chicago, 1896); The Cobra's Den, and Other Stories of Missionary Work Among the Telugus of India (1900); and The Kingdom in India, with introductory biographical sketch by Henry N. Cobb (1908).