Daily Devotion

“Daniel Jerome Macgowan (1814–1893), a medical missionary sent to China by the American Baptists, reached Ningbo in 1843 and opened a dispensary that November, practising medicine while often preaching to the Chinese. In Ningbo he wrote the Bowu Tongshu (1851), a treatise on the solar eclipse (1852) and a manual of navigation (1853), and in 1854 founded the Zhongwai Xinbao newspaper. He died in Shanghai in 1893; The New York Times called him one of the oldest residents of Shanghai.”

Wikipedia · "Daniel Jerome Macgowan," Chinese Wikipedia (citing Wylie, Memorials of Protestant Missionaries to the Chinese)

Scripture

Psalm 104:24 How many things you have made, O Lord! In your wisdom you have formed them; the earth is full of your riches.

Reflection

In Ningbo, Daniel Jerome Macgowan both healed and preached while writing books to introduce Western natural science; his work echoes Psalm 104. All things are not a chaotic jumble, but an order woven by God's wisdom. When we observe the veins of a leaf or the speed of lightning, we should not only marvel at their apparent beauty, but also deduce the "unknown" creator through these "known" natural laws. True "practical learning" is not merely accumulating knowledge, but cultivating a sense of awe. In this age of information overload, may we not be lost in the forms and textures of matter, but like the sages of old, decipher the profound message left to humanity by the Creator in the function and reason of all things, and find the essence of life.