Robert Morrison

Robert Morrison was born on January 5, 1782, in Bullers Green, near Morpeth, Northumberland, England, the youngest of eight children. His father, James Morrison, was a Scottish farm laborer and a maker of lasts for shoes, and his mother, Hannah, was a devout woman. The family moved to Newcastle when Robert was a child. He left school at the age of twelve to be apprenticed to his father in the business of making boot lasts. He was a diligent boy who spent his spare time reading. He studied Latin and Greek at night and took an interest in religion. He was converted at about the age of sixteen and joined the Presbyterian church.

He was drawn to the idea of foreign missions. He applied to the London Missionary Society and was accepted. He studied at the Hoxton Academy in London, and then at the Missionary Academy at Gosport, where he learned medicine, astronomy and languages. He was a man of great diligence. The society chose him for work in China, a land that was closed to foreigners, where no Protestant missionary had yet been. He was ordained in 1807. He learned Chinese from a young Chinese man in London, Yong Sam-tak, who helped him to make a start in the language. He copied a Chinese manuscript of the Gospels and parts of a dictionary that was in the British Museum.

He sailed for China in January 1807, by way of the United States, since the British East India Company would not allow a missionary on its ships. He reached Canton in September. He was twenty-five. At that time, foreigners were confined to a small trading area outside the city, and it was illegal for a Chinese person to teach a foreigner the language. He lived in great secrecy. He dressed as a Chinese, he ate with chopsticks and he let his nails grow long. He lived in a cellar. He suffered in health and was alone. The first years were hard. He began to study the language with a teacher who carried poison, in case he was caught.

In 1809, he was appointed as a translator for the East India Company, which gave him a salary and a legal standing. He held the post for the rest of his life. He worked at a number of tasks. He had a heavy workload but found time for his own work. In 1807, he began the translation of the Bible into Chinese. In 1813, he finished the New Testament, and in 1823, with the help of William Milne, who joined him in 1813, he completed the whole of the Bible. He also compiled a Chinese dictionary in six volumes, published between 1815 and 1823, which was a monumental work and was of great use to later scholars. He wrote a Chinese grammar and a number of tracts.

He also made the first convert, a man named Cai Gao, whom he baptized in 1814, after seven years of work. He was a printer whom he had employed. In the same year, he baptized a second. He was conscious of the slow progress. He held that his work was to lay a foundation for those who would follow. In 1818, he founded the Anglo-Chinese College in Malacca, a school for the training of Chinese and Europeans in language and learning. He was a man who thought long term.

He married Mary Morton in 1809, and she died in 1821. He remarried in 1824. He had a number of children, and he lost some of them. He bore the cost of separation from his family. He visited England in 1824 and was honored. He returned to China in 1826. He continued his work, as a translator and a scholar. In 1834, he was asked to take part in the negotiations between the British government and the Chinese authorities as an interpreter. He fell ill and died on August 1, 1834, in Canton, at the age of fifty-two. He was buried in the Old Protestant Cemetery in Macao.

He was not a perfect man. He was criticized for working for the East India Company, which was involved in the opium trade. He did not oppose the trade. He was also a man of a somewhat cold nature. Yet he laid the foundation for the mission to China. His life shows the cost of beginning a great work. He sowed in a closed land and saw little fruit. After his death, many missionaries followed. His translations were used for decades. He is remembered as the father of Protestant missions in China.