RELG 330 - History of Christianity
Course Notes
Chapter 36
Page 510 - William Carey (1761-1834) was a Baptist missionary who translated the Bible into Bengali, Sanskrit, and several other Indian languages.
As a child he was apprenticed as a cobbler, but continued to study, and learned Greek, Hebrew, Italian, French, and Dutch. In 1785 he gave up work as a cobbler, and became a schoolteacher and pastor of the local Baptist Church in the village of Moulton. At this time he read Jonathan Edward's "Account of the Life of the Late Rev. David Brainerd" and started to feel a call to missions. In 1792 he published a book on the necessity for missionary work, and started to preach sermons on the subject. He was a founding member of the Baptist Missionary Society (1792)
In 1793 he and his family went to India, landing in Calcutta, where they stayed for several years and started to learn Bengali. Then they moved to Midnapore, and Carey translated the New Testament into Bengali. Carey's principles for missionary work were that they should have communal living, be financially self-supporting, and train native ministers.
In 1800 Carey moved to Serampore and brought in a printing press to print the Bible in Bengali.
In 1801 he was offered the post of Professor of Bengali at Fort William College (for British Civil Servants), and began to translate the Bible into Sanskrit. Carey is often called "The Father of Modern Missions" because of his pioneering work.
Page 510 - Widow burning (also known as sati) was the religious obligation among the Hindus in India for a widow to burn herself to death on the funeral pyre of her husband. When Hindu man died, his body was cremated on a funeral pyre, and his ashes were river Ganges. To show her devotion, a widow was required to throw herself into the fire and burn to death to join her husband.
Page 516 - the Cambridge Seven were seven undergraduates at Cambridge University: Montague Beauchamp,, William W. Cassels, D.E. Hoste, Arthur T. Polhill-Turner and his brother Cecil H. Polhill-Turner, Stanley P. Smith, and C.T. (Charles Thomas) Studd. They were all young men from privileged backgrounds - C.T. Studd was a member of the English Cricket Team. They spent time together in Bible study and prayer, and some of them already knew Hudson Taylor, and knew about the China Inland Mission. In 1884 C. T. Studd and Stanley Smith attended a meeting of the China Inland Mission, which inspired them to offer themselves as missionaries. During the next few weeks their friends also felt the call to mission in China and in 1885 they sailed together to join the mission field.
Montague Beauchamp traveled for hundreds of miles on foot, often with Hudson Taylor, preaching and teaching. He returned to England in 1911 and served as a chaplain with the British Army. His son also became a missionary to China, and in 1935 Montague Beauchamp returned to work in China. He died at his son's mission station in 1939.
William Cassels was assigned to Western China, and was made Bishop of Western China in 1895, where he lived and worked until his death in 1925.
Dixon Hoste became the Director of the China Inland Mission in 1903. He led the Mission until he retired in 1935. But he remained in China until 1945, when he was interned by the Japanese during WWII. He died in London, in May 1946, the last surviving member of "The Cambridge Seven".
Arthur Polhill-Turner remained for many years in China, and was ordained as a minister in 1888. He retired in 1928 and returned to England, where he died in 1935.
Cecil Polhill-Turner, Arthur's older brother, moved northwest, towards Tibet. In 1900, he became so ill that he was sent home to England. He did manage to make several more missionary visits to China and eventually died in England in 1938
Stanley Smith was sent to North China. He became a fluent a preacher in Chinese, and remained there, preaching and teaching until he died in 1931
Charles Thomas Studd (1860-1931) was from an upper-class English background and played on the English Cricket Team in 1882. He was willing to give up a life of ease for the rigors of missionary work. When his rich father died, C.T.Studd gave away his whole inheritance - some to the Moody Bible Institute, some to George Muller's orphanage, some for George Holland's mission to the poor of London, and some to a Salvation Army mission in India. He was one of the Cambridge Seven who responded to Hudson Taylor's call for missionaries for China. He became so ill in China that he was sent back to England in 1894.
However, his health improved, and he then went to India as a missionary for six years. From 1900-1906 he was pastor of a church in southern India.
Then he felt a call to missions in Africa, and founded the Heart of Africa Mission in 1910. He visited the Sudan in 1910, and the Congo in 1913. The Heart of Africa Mission became the Worldwide Evangelization Crusade (expanding to South America, Central Asia, and the Middle East).
In 1920 he went as a missionary to tropical Africa, where he died in the Belgian Congo in 1931.
Page 516 - the China Inland Mission was founded by Hudson Taylor - see page 523
Pages 520-521 - David Livingstone (1813-1873) was a Scottish Congregationalist medical missionary with the London Missionary Society. His family were poor, working in a cotton mill and living in a tenement, and David started work in the mill at the age of 10. He managed to attend a village school in spite of working 14 hours a day in the mill.
In 1834 he read Gutzlaff's appeal for medical missionaries for China, and began saving what money he could towards a medical education. A Roman Catholic friend taught him enough Latin to qualify for entry to Medical School (Latin was a required subject for all Universities in Britain at that time). The London Missionary Society accepted him for training, and while he was training he met Robert Moffat who interested him in ministry in southern Africa.
During 1852-1856 he explored the Zambezi river, and was the first European to see the Victoria Falls (which he named after Queen Victoria). While exploring, he preached Christianity to the local chiefs, and tried to encourage commercial trade so as to cut back on the slave trade. After exploring the Zambezi, he wanted to explore the River Nile, in particular to find the sources of the Nile (1866). Some of his African workers deserted, returned to Zanzibar, and spread a report that Livingstone had died. Livingstone kept on, although he was suffering from malaria, and his medicines had been stolen. In 1869 he was very ill, but was found by Arab traders, who brought him to their camp. He was ill with various diseases for some time.
In 1871 he witnessed the massacre of about 400 Africans by a group of slave traders, so he abandoned his search for the sources of the Nile and returned to Ujiji on Lake Tanganyika. For about 6 years he had lost contact with Europe and the outside world, and was not expecting to live. During this time the publisher of the New York Herald, James Gordon Bennet, told Henry Stanley, his overseas correspondent, to go to Africa and find Livingstone. Stanley set out with a large party, which was soon decimated by disease and desertion, but he did eventually find Dr. Livingstone in Ujiji in 1871. The two men continued to explore the region. Livingstone died of malaria and other diseases in 1873. His body was brought back to Britain, and he was buried in Westminster Abbey. Livingstone's reports on slavery in Africa were a factor in the work to abolish slavery.
Page 520 - Robert Moffatt (1795-1883) was a Scottish Congregationalist missionary to Africa. He made many exploratory and missionary trips to various tribes in Africa, and published his accounts in England, so raising interest in others to take part in missions. He translated the Bible into Setswana. His daughter Mary was born in Africa, and married David Livingstone.
Page 523 - Hudson Taylor (1832-1905) was born into a Methodist family. His parents prayed that he would become a missionary to China. His first feeling of a call to missions came in 1849, and he started to learn Mandarin Chinese, Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. In 1851 he worked as an assistant to a local doctor, to get medical experience, and in 1852 he began to study at the Royal London Hospital. In 1853, at the age of 23, he sailed for China, and arrived in 1854 after a five-month voyage. On arrival he decided that he would not dress as a European and spend time with European traders and businessmen, but that he would wear Chinese dress, grow his hair into a pigtail like the Chinese, and head into inland China. He made many preaching tours around Shanghai.
Hudson Taylor started work on translating the Bible into some of the Chinese dialects, and recruited other missionaries, both men and women, to join him.
In 1857 he left the Missionary Society which had sent him, and started an independent Mission in Nignpo with four Chinese assistants and one other European, John Jones. In 1860 Hudson Taylor returned to England to recover his health; while in England he translated the New Testament into the Ningpo dialect and completed his medical and surgical studies. In London he met Thomas Barnardo (founder of Dr. Barnardo's homes for boys) and Charles Haddon Spurgeon, who became a great supporter of missions to China.
In 1865 Hudson Taylor founded the China Inland Mission, and soon had 21 potential missionaries, and financial funds to start missionary activity. In 1866 Hudson Taylor, his family, and a missions team set out for China. In spite of great hardships, deaths, illnesses, and opposition, the missions continued, and more missionaries came to join the work. It is estimated that by the time of his death he had brought 800 missionaries to China and founded up to 125 schools.
He equipped Chinese converts to take the Christian Gospel into the land. He accepted Christians from all Protestant denominations, and also allowed women to work as missionaries. He was very active against the opium trade, which Europeans were using for profit in China. He spoke several dialects of Chinese, and helped in the production of a New Testament in the Ningpo dialect.
In 1883 Hudson Taylor returned to England, and recruited "The Cambridge Seven", (including C. T. Studd) in 1885.
In 1887 he recruited more than 100 missionaries, and in 1888 he recruited missionaries from the USA, where he met with D. L. Moody and Cyrus Schofield.
In 1900 the Boxer Rebellion broke out (the Chinese rose up against the Europeans who were pushing the opium trade) and the Chinese started to kill Christians (58 missionaries were killed).
Hudson Taylor was ill and was unable to return to China until 1905, and he died shortly after his return
Page 535 - Samuel Ajayi Crowther (ca. 1809-1831) was the first African Anglican bishop in Nigeria. He was a Yoruba who was captured by Muslim slave traders (in 1821 - when he was 12) and sold to Portuguese slave traders. A British Royal Navy ship captured the Portuguese, freed the slaves, and took them to Sierra Leone. Crowther was cared for and educated by the Anglican "Church Missionary Society", and became a Christian in 1825. He continued with schooling, and showed an aptitude for languages. He was ordained as an Anglican priest, then returned to Africa in 1843. He began translating the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer into Yoruba. He was consecrated as the first African bishop of the Anglican Church (Church of England) in 1864.
Copyright © 2005 Shirley J. Rollinson, all Rights Reserved
