Biography
Robert Jermain Thomas was born on September 7, 1839, in Rhayader, in Wales, the son of a Congregational minister. He grew up in a devout home and was a bright and eager boy. He had a gift for languages and studied at the New College in London. He took a degree at the University of London. He was an able student, and he felt a call to the mission field. In 1863, he was ordained and was accepted by the London Missionary Society, and he married Caroline Godfrey in the same year. They sailed for China together. He was twenty-three years old.
They arrived in Shanghai, but the climate was hard, and his wife became ill. She died within a few months, in 1864, soon after the birth of a child, who also died. He was left alone and was grief-stricken. He was a man who suffered a great deal in his first year in China. He moved to Chefoo, now Yantai, in Shandong province. There he began to work among the Chinese. He also was attracted by the stories of Korea, a country that was closed to foreigners. In Chefoo, he met two Korean Catholic believers and was moved by the stories that they told of the persecution in their homeland.
He left the London Missionary Society in 1865, after a dispute, and he worked for the Scottish National Bible Society, which employed him as an agent. In September 1865, he sailed from Chefoo on a Chinese boat to the west coast of Korea. He stayed for two and a half months and traveled among the islands and on the mainland. He distributed Bibles and tracts and learned the language. It was a bold venture, since the Korean government had banned Christianity under pain of death. He did not meet with success. In 1866, he returned to China and was in Peking.
In the summer of 1866, he heard of an American merchant ship, the General Sherman, which was sailing to Korea to trade. He was invited to travel on it as an interpreter. He saw this as a chance to return to Korea and to distribute Bibles. He took with him a supply of Chinese Bibles and tracts. The ship sailed up the Taedong River toward the city of Pyongyang. The Korean authorities ordered the ship to leave, but the captain refused to turn back. The ship ran aground in shallow water. A clash followed between the crew and the Korean troops. The Koreans set the ship on fire. The crew jumped into the river and was killed.
On September 2, 1866, Thomas was among those who were killed. He was twenty-six years old. According to the account that has come down, he jumped from the burning ship and waded ashore with a number of Bibles in his hands. He handed them to the people on the bank, and he is said to have cried out for the people to take the book. He was seized by a soldier, Park Chun-kwon, who beat him to death. The soldier took some of the Bibles. It is said that the soldier kept one of them and that the Bibles were used as wallpaper in a house. It is said that a relative of the soldier was converted and became a Christian leader. The details of the story have been enlarged in later accounts, and they cannot all be proved.
His death made an impression in Korea in later years. In the 1880s, when the first missionaries reached the country, they found that a number of people had been influenced by the Bibles that he had distributed. The Pyongyang area, where he died, became one of the greatest centers of the Korean church. It was known as the Jerusalem of the East. His death is regarded as one of the seeds of the church.
He was a man of courage and enthusiasm, who was perhaps rash. He took risks. He also was a man with a gift for language, who was ready to go to the most dangerous place. His life shows that a martyr's death may bear fruit long afterwards. He is remembered in Korea as the first Protestant martyr.