His was an enduring guiding light of hope for the wretched masses trapped in the lower depths of the conquered feudal kingdom.

Hugh Heung-Wu Cynn (pronounced "Shin"), an American-educated Christian reformer, was ahead of his time by a century — a living legacy of an idealistic American medical missionary. His twilight struggle inside the occupied Korea, however, was long overshadowed by illustrious political leaders Philip Jaisohn, Syngman Rhee and Dosan Ahn Chang Ho during the turbulent course of independence struggles.

Cynn was an ex-student and disciple of modern Korea icon Jaisohn. Cynn was also a former cellmate of Rhee in the royal dungeon and a comrade of martyred patriot Dosan, with whom he was later thrown in Japanese prison. Cynn, Rhee and Ahn were all former members of the reformist Independent Club founded by Jaisohn upon his return from exile in the United States in 1896.

Spanning four decades, Cynn’s contributions were unrivaled when it came to sustained uplifting of those at the bottom rungs of the Confucian hierarchical society — women, youth and peasants — under Japan’s draconian rule. He took a different and difficult course, apart from other political exiles who decided to fight abroad when Korea was annexed by Japan in 1910.

After Dr. Harry Sherman’s untimely death, his wife Florence continued to support Cynn. She also established the Korean Methodist Episcopal Mission in Los Angeles in 1904, for which Cynn was the founding pastor.

With a wife and two infants, the founding pastor of what is now the century-old Los Angeles Korean United Methodist Church chose to return to the vanquished homeland where poverty and colonial oppression were widespread. According to his Korean biographer, the annexation news plunged him into despair. He even expressed his desire to return to kill the enemy and himself, but University of Southern California President C.F. Bovard dissuaded him from taking such action.

Thus began Cynn’s marathon reconstruction campaign, waging grassroots drives involving youth training, women’s emancipation and rural development projects in the hinterlands. Throughout, his pre-Peace Corps outreach mission withstood a series of threats, arrests and imprisonment until Japan’s surrender. Finally his 10-year rural renewal works reaching hundreds of villages were shut down by the Japanese militarists.

Born to a literati family in 1883, he started learning the classics at age 5. At age 6, he attended Korea’s first Methodist mission school. At age 16, he graduated from Pai Jai Academy and High School mastering the English language.

The teenager rebelled against the suffocating Yi Dynasty. Soon he was hunted by police under an order by the king, who was disturbed by reports of Cynn’s "youth movement." When the fugitive heard of his father’s arrest, he produced himself and spent three years in prison at the tail end of the oppressive royal regime.

The Korean Methodist Episcopal Mission originally occupied a house in downtown Los Angeles on Hill Street.

It was karma that Cynn, 18, deathly sick in jail and converted to Christianity, drew the attention of Methodist missionary Dr. Harry Sherman. Cynn’s 1901 encounter with the 23-year-old doctor would influence the future course of his Christian faith toward social justice and national reform. Shortly after, Sherman and his missionary colleagues successfully engineered to free Cynn, along with fellow cellmate Rhee, from the prison.