On the fifty-first birthday of Adoniram Judson, another eventual missionary was born in Carleton County, Ontario. In his fifteenth year John McLaurin was saved by God’s grace, and at the age of twenty-two he was called into the ministry, entering Woodstock Institute for training. That is where he met his future wife. After pastoring in Stratford, Ontario for a while, he volunteered to sail for India to serve the Lord there. Upon learning the Teloogoo language, McLaurin moved to Ongole to work with an elderly missionary named Clough. Over the next few months, Brother McLaurin traveled more than 1000 miles in the jungles, making five trips of more than twenty days each. The Lord so blessed his labors that he baptized 690 converts, and soon the Ongole church numbered 1,658 members. Then at Cumbum, one of Clough’s mission stations, a terrible, virulent fever broke out, and the unbelievers accused the missionaries of causing the disease. The custom was that a great sacrifice had to be made, and some of the Christians were willing to participate. In God’s providence, however, a number of Christian young people from Cumbum were attending school in Ongole. Brother McLaurin gave them medicine and instructions on how to share it with others, then they were sent home. When the fever abated and the Christians were spared because of the medicine, the unbelievers began to declare that it was a blessing from Jehovah, and a gospel revival was ignited. During the two years of Brother McLaurin’s ministry in Ongole and Cumbum, he baptized 1,185 converts, before moving to another field at Cocanda, where the Lord’s blessings continued.
– Source: This Day in Baptist History II, Cummins and Thompson