Josiah Goddard was the son of a missionary couple. He was born in Singapore in 1840. When he was thirteen, he was sent to America for training at Worcester College in New York, but before he arrived it had closed its doors, and this young teenager was left on his own, having never been out of the Orient. Undeterred he traveled to Vermont seeking a distant relative. He was there when word reached him that his father had died back in Ningpo, China, and his mother and sisters were returning home. Sorrow and disappointment continued, when three years later his mother and one sister died, leaving seventeen-year-old Josiah with his younger sister Eliza. In poverty, living on cornmeal mush and milk Josiah persisted and graduated from Brown University, after which he married. When the Civil War began Josiah enlisted and fought, surviving several engagements. At the war his wife died. With his heart set on returning to China, Josiah married again. This young lady had the same name as his sister and his mother: Eliza. Apparently leaving his sister in the loving hands of a good husband, Josiah and Eliza began, on this day in 1867, an arduous 131 day journey toward China. Shortly after their arrival Eliza died in child birth and her baby died a day later. It may have been with some fear that Josiah married the daughter of another missionary, but the young lady’s father, William Dean said, “If man even in the Garden of Eden needed a wife, surely he does among the heathen.” For more than thirty years Josiah and Fanny Goddard faithfuly served the Lord in China – often without any other missionary help. If there has ever been an example of perseverance through trials and pain, Josiah Goddard would be that man.
