Site tools

• home
• contact
• site map

Robert Morrison: Pioneer of Pioneers

State News: Sept 2007

Two hundred years ago, in September 1807, 25 year old Robert Morrison (1782-1834) spent 9 months on a ship. The ship was no ordinary one. It was a ship that had left London and New York to dock in Canton, dropping off a young man whose mind had been consumed with thoughts of 350 million souls. For years, he had been living with the burden that he could now feel underneath his feet, and see with aching eyes: the vast land of China.

Born into a Christian family in England during the Great Evangelical Awakening, as a young man Morrison had fallen away from the Lord and into bad company. Years later, convicted with a deep sense of sin, he undertook missionary training for 30 months. During this time he came across a tract titled, “on the Importance of Translating and Publishing the Holy Scriptures into the Chinese Language”.

Its ideas grew into a passion – he would not be dissuaded from heading to China. The East India Company denied him passage, but Morrison refused to be deterred. His words to a friend hung in his mind, “if we go we must have the sentence of death in ourselves, not to trust in ourselves but in the living God.”

A shipping agent, astounded at his audacity, asked, “Do you really expect you can make an impression on the great Chinese empire?”

“No Sir, I expect God will,” Morrison replied.

And God did. One man’s utter confidence in the Lord saw the pioneering of Protestant mission work in China and the opening of an entire nation to the gospel, with Morrison as His chosen instrument. Morrison translated the first Chinese Bible, baptized the first Chinese believer, ordained the first Chinese pastor. His lifetime of service paved innovations in education, literature and medicine in China, which he saw as an integral part of the Christian gospel.

The love of God motivating his perseverance and sacrifi ce, Morrison’s work established a beach head - a door which God opened and no one could shut. He introduced vaccination. He compiled the first Chinese-English dictionary. With Samuel Dyer (Hudson Taylor’s father-in-law), he pioneered printing by moveable metallic type - a major breakthrough in Chinese printing. With William Milne, he established the Anglo-Chinese College (ACC), which provided education for both boys and girls as well as an educational model for schools to come.

Over the last two centuries, Morrison’s work has been built upon by those who like him, went to China in faith, responding to doubts, “I expect God will.” God is calling today for a new generation of trailblazers to follow Morrison’s footstep to serve the unreached peoples in similarly creative ways.