him every evening in his last days before succumbing to typhoid. In the same year, Bridgman became the first joint secretary of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge; he was a founder of the Morrison Education Society and its president for many years, and active in organizing the Medical Missionary Society of China (1838). From 1839 to 1841 he worked at Macau, preparing a Chinese chrestomathy to aid in language learning. During negotiations to secure American access to China, Bridgman assisted as translator and adviser from 1842 to 1844. In 1840, Bridgman was part of a group of four people including Walter Henry Medhurst, Charles Gutzlaff, and John Robert Morrison who cooperated to translate the Bible into Chinese. The translation of the Hebrew part was done mostly by Gutzlaff from the Netherlands Missionary Society, with the exception that the Pentateuch and the book of Joshua were done by the group collectively. This translation, completed in 1847 is very famous due to its adoption by the revolutionary peasant leader Hong Xiuquan of the Taipingtianguo movement (Taiping Rebellion) as some of the reputed early doctrines of the organization. From 1845 to 1852 he continued to work as a translator. On June 28, 1845, Bridgman married Eliza Jane Gillett, an American Episcopalian missionary. They worked together at Guangzhou and adopted two little Chinese girls. Eliza later, in 1850, founded and managed for 15 years the first girls' school in Shanghai. Elijah Coleman Bridgeman died on November 2, 1861, in Shanghai after 32 years of missionary work. After her husband's death Eliza moved to Peking, secured substantial property and started Bridgman Academy, noted for educating a large number of Chinese women leaders. Shortly after baptizing his first convert Bridgman moved to Shanghai in 1847, where he was primarily occupied in working on Bible translation, his version appearing shortly after his death. Bridgman published a translation of the Hebrew Bible, characterized by the accuracy of the translation and its loyalty to the original Hebrew texts. Later he was the first president of the Shanghai Literary and Scientific Society (later the North China branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, established in 1857, and edited its journal until his death in 1861. Bridgman and his wife were both buried in Shanghai. Works Elijah Coleman Bridgman, ed. Eliza Jane Gillett Bridgman (1864). The Pioneer of American Missions in China: the Life and Labors of Elijah Coleman