1850 - Carl Fast

October 1850

Fuzhou, Fujian

Carl Fast.

The second Protestant martyr in China was Swedish missionary Carl Josef Fast, of whom no picture or sketch remains.[1] His career in China had barely commenced when pirates in Fujian Province killed him in October 1850, in an incident similar to that which killed Walter Lowrie in Zhejiang three years earlier.

The first Protestant missionary to set foot in Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian Province, was Rev. George Smith in December 1845. He spent a month “exploring the city and its suburbs, and in investigating the question of its eligibility as a point for missionary action.”[2] On January 2, 1846 Stephen Johnson became the first Protestant missionary to reside in the city. In the early part of 1850, two young Swedish men—Carl Fast and Anders Elquist—arrived in Fuzhou. They were the first two Swedish missionaries sent to a foreign land, but the history of these promising young Christians was brief and tragic.

After spending much time in Fuzhou trying to secure a permanent residence from where they could launch their mission work. Fast and Elquist were finally granted permission to rent a home near the city wall. In October 1850, they visited a British ship that was docked at the mouth of the river to exchange money for their work. As they returned in their small boat,

“…they were suddenly attacked by a Chinese piratical craft, filled with armed men, who had put off from one of the villages along the shore. During the encounter, Mr. Fast was mortally wounded, and fell from the boat into the river, which was at once his deathbed and his grave. His remains were never recovered. Mr. Elquist, when his friend had fallen, threw himself into the river, and by diving under the water succeeded in reaching the shore, having received several wounds.”[3]

After swimming to shore, Elquist wandered in the hills above the river for two days before he was rescued by a passing ship and taken back to Fuzhou. His physical wounds coupled with the mental and emotional trauma of the incident were too great for Elquist to overcome. He tried to recommence his missionary work but his health worsened. He spent 1851 in Hong Kong, before returning to Sweden in 1852.

The attrition rate in the early years of missionary endeavour in Fuzhou was extraordinarily high. One book in 1858 summarized the record of workers in the city since the first missionary had arrived just twelve years previously:

“Such has been the force that has been sent into this great heathen city since its first occupancy in 1846; in all, thirty-six male and female missionaries, of whom ten have died, thirteen have been compelled to retire by failing health and other causes, and thirteen still remain connected with the various missions.”[4]

1. None of the English-language missionary journals or accounts mention Fast’s first names. Even the normally-thorough Chinese Recorder simply listed his name as “Mr. Fast.” My thanks to Christian friends in Sweden who provided his full name.
2. Wiley, The Missionary Cemetery, 40.
3. Wiley, The Missionary Cemetery, 43.
4. Wiley, The Missionary Cemetery, 45.