Hudson Taylor & China's Open Century

by A.J. Broomhall

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• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0340262109
• ISBN13: 9780340262108
• Release Date: January 1981
• Publisher: Hodder and Stoughton and Overseas Missionary
• Length: 1 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Morrison and Gutzlaff: Preparing the ground for Taylor

This is supposed to be the first book in a series about the life and work of Hudson Taylor. I have no idea what the other books in the series are like, or if they ever even got written, but I don¡¯t care. This is the one that matters. Why? Because it deals with the events in China that preceded and set the stage for Hudson Taylor¡¯s work. This book is important precisely because it is not about Hudson Taylor. There are lots of books about Hudson Taylor. But a study of his life and work can sometimes be misleading if one does not have some grasp of the work that preceded him.Now, I hardly have time in this brief review to lay the foundation of 19th Century history one must have some understanding of in order to put this book in perspective. This book is, in fact, a powerful contribution to that history. But it is more than that, because it deals specifically with men like Robert Morrison and Charles Gutzlaff, whose contributions are often sadly underappreciated by conventional historians. Sun Yat-sen, for example, regarded Robert Morison¡¯s translation of the Bible as the starting point for what he referred to as the "awakening of China."In the twenty-five years that Robert Morrison spent in China, he had about 10 converts. Not much of an accomplishment, perhaps, but in that same time he translated the Bible into Chinese, and that at a time when it was a serious offense to teach Chinese to a foreigner. Much of his work had to be done in secret. In addition to this, Robert Morrison had to support himself by working for the British East India Company. One can ponder long and hard about what could possibly motivate any man to endure the loneliness of the life he lived. It is either some bizarre insanity, or an absolute commitment to the purpose for which he believed God had put him in China. Only the ignorant would belittle Morrison¡¯s contribution to modern missions, or to the eventual demise of the centuries old emperor system which somehow could not survive the freedom of thought which was ushered in by Morrison¡¯s translation of the scripture. It is December of 1833. He has less than a year to live. His wife (who is not in good health) and younger children have sailed for England. He is left alone one more time. Picture him now, pacing back and forth in his home in Macao, singing the hymn that spoke the one consuming passion of his heart during the last few days of his lonely life:O for a heart to praise my God, A heart from sin set free;A heart that¡¯s sprinkled with the bloodSo richly shed for me!Robert Morrison died in 1834, in the arms of his oldest son. His body lies in a cemetery in Macau. He spent a hard, lonely life in pursuit of what he believed was the only hope for the people of China¡ªa Bible in their own language. Gutzlaff is a bit more of a puzzle. He has not always been treated kindly by historians, because his cooperation with the opium smugglers was pretty blatant. He himself was not a smuggler, but