1854–1937 · Methodist Episcopal bishop & missionary to South Asia
Born in Bangalore to an Irish family, Oldham converted to Methodism in 1873 and sailed for Singapore in 1885, where he founded the Anglo-Chinese School the following year. He was appointed Missionary Bishop of Southern Asia in 1904 and served as a general bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church from 1916 until his death. He was a working preacher and lecturer, which is exactly the setting in which the line first surfaces — as a platform quip reported by a religious weekly, not a sentence from a book.