Birth: 24.12.1852
Death: 27.04.1908
Native Place: Leamington, England
Place of Vision: India
Benjamin Henry Arthur Margoschis was a protestant missionary to India on behalf of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG). While he was pursuing the final year of his medical degree, he heard Robert Caldwell speaking about the urgent need of young men to serve in India. Immediately, he committed himself to serve as a missionary in India. When his family and friends advised him not to hurry and first complete his degree, he said “this is not a job that I can do according to my own convenience.” Arthur arrived in Tamil Nadu in 1875 and stayed with Caldwell for some time mastering Tamil. He was then sent to Nazareth, a small hamlet in the district of Tirunelveli, in 1876.
Arthur plunged into his missionary work with great enthusiasm and realized the need to do a lot to alleviate the sufferings of the helpless and poverty-stricken people. Soon, he launched a full-scale gospel campaign in and around Nazareth, that brought many people to Christ. His medical services in that region were invaluable. Especially, when the deadly Cholera was ravaging the city in 1902, he untiringly rode on a horse to visit people and provide medical assistance. He felt the need to comfort the grieving people and remove their fear and conducted communion service almost every day to comfort the people.
Nazareth, a backward and unrecognized hamlet became a developed place with all facilities owing to his pioneering work. His efforts in establishing Hospitals, educational facilities, orphanages, and other vital infrastructures in Nazareth changed the social status of the local people. In all these efforts, the spiritual growth of his people remained of paramount importance to him. The theological seminary established by him in 1890 grew from strength to strength that raised many men of God. Arthur set an example for other missionaries to follow by not just being a missionary but also a doctor, an educationist, a friend, and a guide to the people he served.