Of his latest article about Scottish missionaries, Paul James-Griffiths of Christian Heritage Edinburgh writes, “This week we read all about a very energetic Scottish missionary called James Thomson, whom the locals in South America called Diego. I don’t know how he had time to eat or sleep! Everywhere he went Christian schools sprouted up, the Bible was translated into many languages, thousands of Bibles were distributed, and he even found some time to plant some churches!“
A few years ago, we posted on Facebook a series of eight videos all about Scotland’s Christian Heritage. When we studied the diagnostics, we were surprised to see that a high percentage of the viewers had come from Mexico. I could not think of any reason for a Christian connection between Edinburgh and this country, until a friend sent me an article about Revd James Thomson. This amazing man seems to have spent a few years in one Spanish-speaking country, delivering Spanish Bibles and pioneering schools, and then disappearing to the next, in rapid succession, travelling through parts of South America, and even as far as Mexico. Today many Christians in those nations recall him with fondness as “the Bible man”.
James Thomson was born in Creetown in Scotland. He went on to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh, and theology at the University of Glasgow, after which he worked as a co-pastor with Revd James Haldane at Leith Walk Tabernacle. The Haldane brothers – Robert and James – had had dynamic conversions, and being inheritors of great wealth, used this colossal finance in their Edinburgh base to plant 85 churches in Scotland, and assist in setting up evangelist/missionary training colleges in Scotland and England in the early 1800s. Their inspiration in turn came from another Scotsman, Dr David Bogue, who pioneered an academy in 1771 for preparing men for the ministry. From Bogue’s college in Gosport, England, the London Missionary Society developed, and from 1800 he trained missionaries for active service abroad. His energetic enterprise was instrumental in the founding of two other ministries: the British and Foreign Bible Society (1804), and the Religious Tract Society (1799).
After his pastoral experience in Leith, James Thomson trained in the Lancastrian educational and monitorial method in the Borough Road Schools in London. Having been inspired by Dr Bogue and the Haldanes’ love of an integrated mission model, combining evangelism with education and Bible distribution, he left Scotland for Argentina in 1818 under the auspices of the British and Foreign Bible Society, and the British and Foreign Schools Society.
With great wisdom and sensitivity, he established the Lancastrian schooling method in Argentina, Chile, and Peru between 1818 and 1824, and through this means he sought to sell Spanish Bibles to those in influential positions everywhere he went. He had a particularly gracious and winsome way which won the hearts of many Roman Catholic priests, friars, and nuns who had never read the Bible. He believed his work was distributing God’s Word in order to prepare the way for a more biblical understanding in these countries. In Buenos Aires, Argentina, he wrote: “Thus, during the past year, the Scriptures have been introduced and put in circulation, schools have been begun, and the children are employed in reading the word of God.”
The Lancastrian method, pioneered by an English Christian, Joseph Lancaster, combined general education with the Bible, so by doing this Thomson was instrumental in sowing biblical Christianity into South America. His gracious disposition enabled him to spread the Scriptures yet further into Mexico, where he lived between 1827 and 1830. In a letter to Revd A. Brandram on 30th June 1830, he recorded on one occasion of 1,600 Spanish copies of Bibles, New Testaments, and Gospels being bought by local people who were keen to read the Scriptures. Through his distribution of tens of thousands of Christian Scriptures in South America and Mexico, Thomson was preparing the way for others to come and reap a harvest.
God’s grace must have been very special in Thomson’s energetic life. Wherever he went, he established schools, distributed Bibles, helped pioneer Bible translation into many languages, or encouraged others to do so, and sometimes he planted new churches. Although he was only in Peru for a few years, between 1822 and 1824, he left an indelible mark for Christian schools there. Dotted around this nation his name appears in Centro Educativo Diego Thomson, or in Instituto de Educación Superior Pegagogico “Diego Thomson”, or in I.E.P.C. Diego Thomson Burnet-Inicio, and he is seen as a pioneer of education in Peru. He was also behind the translation of the New Testament into the Quechua and Aymara languages. Everywhere he went presidents and leaders in South America opened up doors for him to establish schools, and with this Bible teaching and the gospel.