The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Maclay, Robert Samuel

MACLAY, Robert Samuel, American Methodist Episcopal clergyman: b. Concord, Franklin County, Pa., 7 Feb. 1824; d. 1907. He was graduated at Dickinson College in 1845 and entered the Methodist ministry in 1846. He sailed as a missionary to Foochow, China, 13 Oct. 1847. He was a member of the committee which translated the New Testament into the Foochow dialect; and in 1852-72 he was superintendent and treasurer of the Foochow Mission. He was transferred to Japan in 1872, becoming secretary and treasurer of the mission there; and assisted in translating the New Testament into Japanese. He was a delegate from Japan to the Ecumenical Methodist Conference at London in 1881. He was one of the founders of the Anglo-Chinese College at Foochow in 1881; and in 1884 he secured from the king of Korea permission to establish Christian missions in that country. He was instrumental in founding at Tokio in 1883 the Anglo-Japanese College, of which he was president in 1883-87; and the Philander Smith Biblical Institute in 1884, serving as dean in 1884-87. He was dean of the Maclay College of Theology at San Fernando, Cal., from 1888 until his retirement in 1893. Author of ‘Life Among the Chinese’ (1861); coauthor with Rev. C. C. Baldwin ‘Dictionary of the Chinese Language in the Dialect of Foochow’ (1871).