Miss Clementina Butler

Miss Clementina Butler was born in India January 7, 1862 to parents Clementina Rowe Butler and Rev. William Butler (founders of the Methodist missions in India and Mexico, see the link for more information). She was described by Dr. Dana Robert as "the consummate networker and behind the scenes organizer who kept the women of New England at the top of innovative mission planning and support." She wrote mission books for women, was secretary of the American Ramabai Association, and founded in 1912 the Committee on Christian Literature for Women and Children in Mission Fields, which pushed for Christian literature for younger generations in their native languages. As her father's sermon inspired the creation of the society in 1862, Miss Butler suggested the windows be commissioned for the Tremont St. Methodist Episcopal Church as the "permanent memorial" to the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society.

As part of the library's Massachusetts Bible Society Collection see The Holy Bible in the Marathi language. This was donated to the MBS by Miss Butler in 1924. Translated by Pandita Ramabai, a woman who learned Hebrew and Greek in order to translate the Bible into simple Marathi for rural folk who "found the classical style of other translations too difficult"--Book of a Thousand Tongues (2d ed.) p. 282. "Story of This Bible" by [Miss] Clementina Butler tipped in front. View the record for the Bible in our online catalog. Read more about the story of Pandita Ramabai through our History of Missiology site.  According to Clementina Butler, this Bible was also printed and bound by Ramabai’s students who had converted to Christianity.  “It is,” she says, “the only Bible in the world produced entirely by women and these all converts to Christianity.” Find more resources on Pandita Ramabai in our catalog.