"The Rev. Dr. Edward W. Syle, a missionary of this Society in China from 1845 to 1861, died in England on the 5th of October last, in the seventy-fourth year of his age. About a year ago he was stricken with paralysis, but resumed his work. The day before he died he had a second stroke. Mr. Syle, an alumnus of the Theological Seminary of Virginia, was appointed, with several others, at the meeting of the Foreign Committee in November, 1844. Mr. Syle and his wife sailed from Boston on the 28th of May, 1845, and arrived at Hong Kong on the 4th of October following, in time to join in the establishment of the mission station at Shanghai. He visited this country in 1853, because of impaired health, and presented the claims of the China mission with great earnestness and much success. For a time he was engaged by the Domestic Committee in work among the Chinese in California. He returned to China in April, 1856, and resumed charge of Christ Church in the native city. Among his plans for benefiting the people to whom he was ministering. Mr. Syle established an industrial school for blind communicants and such other blind persons as chose to attend. This charity was received with much favor in Shanghai.
Since his resignation Dr. Syle has been employed in China and Japan, holding chaplaincies for seamen and for foreign residents. He never, however, lost his interest in the Chinese missionary work. For about six years he has been living in or near London, during which time he has been employed with much frequency in representing the Church Missionary Society throughout that country." (Through the kindness of Rev. Dr. Frank M. Gibson, Librarian of the Maryland Diocesan Library, I have been furnished this information, contained in the organ of the Protestant Episcopal Church Missionary Society, The Spirit of Missions, for September, 1890.)
