Eugene Bell

Life

Bell was born in 1868 in Kentucky and raised in a Presbyterian family of Scottish descent. After graduating from Central University in 1891, he studied at Union Theological Seminary and Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. He was then appointed a missionary to Korea by the Presbyterian Church in the United States (Southern Presbyterian). He married Lottie Witherspoon, who had been appointed a missionary at the same time, and was ordained a minister. As a member of the second group of missionaries sent by the Southern Presbyterian Church, he arrived at Chemulpo in April 1895 at the age of twenty-seven and took the Korean name Bae Yu-ji.

After studying Korean in Seoul, he was assigned to pioneer work in South Jeolla Province. In 1896 he attempted to establish a mission base in Naju, but local opposition forced him to abandon the plan, and he moved to Mokpo. During his years in Mokpo, his first wife, Lottie, died while he was away in Jeonju. He later married Margaret Bull, the elder sister of William Bull, a missionary serving in Gunsan. Margaret is reported to have died in March 1919 in an accident at a railroad crossing in Byeongjeom, Gyeonggi Province. Bell died on September 28, 1925, and was buried in the missionary cemetery in Yangnim-dong, Gwangju, which is now on the grounds of Honam Theological University and Seminary.

Ministry and Achievements

• Mokpo: He founded the Mokpo Mission Station and was involved in the founding of Yangdong Church, regarded as the first church in the South Jeolla region. He also founded the Younghung School and the Jungmyung Girls' School.
• Gwangju: In 1904 he moved to Gwangju with the medical missionary Clement Owen and established a mission base in Yangnim-dong. On December 25 of that year, about forty people, including local residents, gathered in his temporary residence for a Christmas worship service; this gathering is regarded as the beginning of Yangnim Church, the first church in the Gwangju area.
• Education and medicine: In Gwangju he founded the Soongil School and the Speer Girls' School (1908). He also opened Jejung Hospital (now Gwangju Christian Hospital), the first hospital in Gwangju.
• Church planting: He is reported to have planted some twenty churches throughout Gwangju and South Jeolla. Yeonggwang Dae Church also honors him as its founder.

Influence on the Korean Church

The Mokpo and Gwangju stations that Bell founded became the centers of Southern Presbyterian mission work in the Honam region. Yangnim-dong in Gwangju, where the missionaries lived together, was known as the "Western Village" and is recognized today as a site of modern historical significance. His family, along with the Underwood family, is counted among those that carried on missionary work in Korea for four generations. His descendants established the Eugene Bell Foundation, named in his honor, which is known for humanitarian work such as aid to tuberculosis patients in North Korea. The house in which he lived burned during the Korean War; it was later restored and opened in 2016 as the Eugene Bell Mission Memorial Hall. Other missionaries, including Owen and Elisabeth J. Shepping, are also buried in the Yangnim-dong cemetery.

Assessment

Bell is commonly called the "Father of the Honam Mission" and the "Father of the Gwangju and South Jeolla Mission." Some have credited him and his fellow missionaries with hastening the modernization of Gwangju by introducing education and medicine alongside missions. The churches and schools he founded still honor him as their founder and have stated their commitment to carrying on his legacy. No notable criticism of Bell personally is widely known.