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– MISSIONARY TO CHINA (1859 – 1936) -

Jonathan Goforth was the first Canadian Presbyterian missionary to China.  It is said of the “flaming preacher” that “when he found his own soul needed Jesus Christ, it became a passion with him to take Jesus Christ to every soul.”

Call to the foreign mission field

A schoolmate persuaded him to hear Dr George Mackay, a pioneer missionary in Formosa.  Mackay gave this challenge:  “For two years I have been going up and down Canada trying to persuade some young man to come over to Formosa and help me, but in vain … I am therefore going back alone.  It will not be long before my bones will be lying on some Formosan hillside.  To me the heartbreak is that no young man has heard the call to come and carry on the work that I have begun.”  Goforth, “overwhelmed with shame,” responded :  “There was I, bought with the precious blood of Jesus Christ, daring to dispose of my life as I pleased.  I heard the Lord’s voice saying, ‘Who will go for us and whom shall we send?’  And I answered, ‘Here am I; send me’.  From that hour I became a foreign missionary.”

Preparation for the mission field

To prepare for the mission field, Goforth enrolled in Knox College, Toronto.  Ironically, it was in this Christian seminary that he faced the greatest humiliation.  Soon after his arrival, the poor farm boy realised that the outfits his mother had made for him did not measure up to the fashion in the college.   He became an object of ridicule among the students.

Despite his very limited funds, Goforth resolved to ease the situation.  He purchased some material which he planned to take to a seamstress in order to have a new outfit made.   Learning about his intentions, his college mates one night took him from his room by force, put his head through a hole they had cut in one end of the cloth and made him drag it up and down the hall through a gauntlet of jeering students.  That night, with tears, the young man knelt down before God with the Bible in his hand and prayed for strength to overcome the greatest struggle of his life.  A classmate, Dr Charles W Gordon, in a letter he wrote after Goforth’s death, recollected that he was repeatedly subjected to terrible humiliations by the students.  They would mock at his innocence and good intentions.  Goforth was deeply saddened not just because he was the target of their constant jeers but that such cruel acts could happen in a Christian college.

Whilst at Knox, Goforth’s passion for souls led him to evangelise the slums of St John’s Ward, a haunt of thieves, prostitutes and down-and-outers, much to the amusement of his fellow students.  He did not hesitate to enter saloons and brothels; it was in these places that he won for Christ a number of broken, disreputable persons.  One night as he was leaving a sleazy area, a policeman met him and said, “How have you the courage to go into those places?  We policemen never go there except in twos or threes.” “I never walk alone, either,” replied Goforth. “There is always Someone with me.”
 
During his years in college and in slum work,  he was often down to the last penny but God proved faithful in every test.   Like George Mueller and Hudson Taylor, Goforth learned to trust God fully for all his needs.  He also learned to trust the Spirit’s guidance in every situation.   On one occasion, when scheduled to speak at a certain place on Sunday, he found he had only enough money to buy a ticket one station short of where he was to preach.  After praying for God’s guidance, he bought the ticket and rode to that station, then began to walk the remaining ten miles.   As he neared his destination, he came upon a group of men repairing the road.  Engaging them in friendly conversation, he pointed them to the only “Name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” and invited them to the service the following day.   To his great joy, several of them turned up and at least one of them was saved.  

Soon, however, the hostile Knox students grew to respect their zealous college mate. They admired Jonathan’s steadfast faith and passion for souls, and when he did not receive a reply form the China Inland Mission, his classmates were the ones who raised the money for him to go to China.   Interestingly, by the time he graduated, the majority of his classmates volunteered for service on the mission field. 

Marriage proposal

In the course of his mission work in Toronto, Goforth met Rosalind Bell-Smith who was from a cultured and wealthy family.  At their first meeting, Rosalind noted both the shabbiness of his dress and the challenge of his eyes.  At a mission meeting some days later, she picked up Jonathan’s Bible, which was lying on a chair, observed that it was marked from cover to cover and noted that parts of it were almost in shreds from frequent use.  “That’s the man I want to marry,” she said to herself.  A few months later, she accepted his marriage proposal  “without a moment’s hesitation” upon the condition he himself stipulated, namely, that in all things he should put his Master’s work before her.  Little did she dream what that promise would cost her through the long years ahead.

The first taste of what her decision would mean was Jonathan’s announcement that instead of giving her the engagement ring she had dreamed of, he had decided to spend the money on tracts for China.   She wrote later, “As I listened and watched his glowing face, the visions I had indulged in of the beautiful engagement ring vanished.  This was my first lesson in real values”   (… to be continued)