Robert Morrison, FRS (5 January 1782 – 1 August 1834) was a BritishWylie (1867), pp. 3–4 Protestant missionary to Portuguese Macao, Qing-era Guangdong, and Dutch Malacca, who was also a pioneering sinologist, lexicographer, and translator considered the "Father of Anglo-Chinese Literature". Morrison, a Presbyterian preacher, is most notable for his work in China. After 25 years of work he translated the whole Bible into the Chinese language and baptized ten Chinese believers, including Cai Gao, Liang Fa, and Wat Ngong. Morrison pioneered the translation of the Bible into Chinese and planned for the distribution of the Scriptures as broadly as possible, unlike the previous Roman Catholic translation work that had never been published.Townsend (1890), appendix
Morrison cooperated with such contemporary missionaries as Walter Henry Medhurst and William Milne (the printers), Samuel Dyer (Hudson Taylor's father-in-law), Karl Gützlaff (the Prussian linguist), and Peter Parker (China's first medical missionary). He served for 27 years in China with one furlough home to England. The only missionary efforts in China were restricted to Guangzhou (Canton) and Macau at this time. They concentrated on literature distribution among members of the merchant class, gained a few converts, and laid the foundations for more educational and medical work that would significantly impact the culture and history of the most populous nation on earth. However, when Morrison was asked shortly after his arrival in China if he expected to have any spiritual impact on the Chinese, he answered, "No sir, but I expect God will!"
Life
Early life
Morrison was born on 5 January 1782 in Bullers Green, near Morpeth, Northumberland, England. He was the son of James Morrison, a Scottish farm labourer and Hannah Nicholson, an English woman, who were both active members of the Church of Scotland. They were married in 1768. Robert was the youngest son of eight children. At age three, Robert and his family moved to Newcastle where his father found more prosperous work in the shoe trade.
Robert's parents were devout Christians and raised their children to know the Bible and the Westminster Shorter Catechism according to Presbyterian ideals. At the age of 12 he recited the entire 119th Psalm (176 verses long) from memory in front of his pastor without a single mistake. John Wesley was still alive and many foreign mission agencies were being formed during this period of the Evangelical Revival.
In 1796, young Robert Morrison followed his uncle James Nicholson into apprenticeship and later joined the Presbyterian church in 1798.
By age 14 Robert left school and was apprenticed to his father's business. For a couple of years he kept company in disregard of his Christian upbringing and fell occasionally into drunkenness. However, this behavior soon ended. In Robert's own words
When Morrison was at work at his father's business he was employed at manual labour for twelve or fourteen hours a day; yet he seldom omitted to find time for one or two hours of reading and meditation. He read and re-read frequently those few books he was able to obtain. The diary, which he began to keep very early in his life, shows that he did much self-introspection; his earnestness was clearly intense, and his sense of his own shortcomings continued to be remarkably vivid.
Soon he wanted to become a missionary and in 1801, he started learning Latin, Greek, Hebrew, as well as systematic theology and shorthand from the Rev. W. Laidler, a Presbyterian minister in Newcastle, but his parents were opposed to his new vocation. During this period, Robert often spent free time in the garden in quiet meditation and prayer. At work, the Bible or some other book such as Matthew Henry's Commentary was open before him while his hands were busy. He regularly attended church on Sundays, visited the sick with the "Friendless Poor and Sick Society", and in his spare time during the week instructed poor children. He shared his faith in Christ with another young apprentice and to a sailor, showing a deep concern for the conversion of friends and family.
On 7 January 1803 he entered the Hoxton Academy in London and was trained as Congregationalist minister. He visited the poor and sick and preached in the villages around London.
By the age of 17 Morrison had been moved reading about the new missionary movement in The Evangelical Magazine and The Missionary Magazine. However, he had promised his mother he would not go abroad so long as she lived and was present to care for her during her last illness, when he received her blessing to proceed.
Preparing to be a missionary After his mother's death in 1804, he joined the London Missionary Society. He had applied to the Society in a letter dated 27 May 1804, offering himself for missionary service. The next day he was interviewed by the board and accepted at once without a second interview. The next year, he went to David Bogue's Academy in Gosport (near Portsmouth) for further training. For a while he was torn between Timbuktu in Africa and China as possible fields of service. His prayer was:
In 1798, just when the young Robert had been converted, the Rev. William Willis Moseley of Northamptonshire issued a letter urging "the establishment of a society for translating the Holy Scriptures into the languages of the populous oriental nations." He came across a manuscript of most of the New Testament translated into Chinese (probably by earlier Jesuit missionaries) in the British Museum. He immediately printed 100 copies of a further tract "on the importance of translating and publishing the Holy Scriptures into the Chinese language." Copies were sent to all the Church of England bishops and the new mission agencies. Most gave discouraging replies, giving such reasons as the cost and "utter impossibility" of spreading the books inside China. But a copy reached Dr. Bogue, the head of the Hoxton Academy. He replied that if he had been younger he would have "devoted the rest of his days to the propagation of the gospel in China". Dr. Bogue promised to look out for suitable missionary candidates for China. He chose Morrison who soon after turned his attention away from Africa and focused entirely on China. Robert wrote to a friend urging him to become his colleague in his new work,
He returned to London and studied medicine with Dr. Blair at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and astronomy with Dr. Hutton at the Greenwich Observatory. After the decision of the Directors as to his destination, Morrison had most diligently and laboriously pursued the study of Chinese. He learned the Chinese language from a student that he shared lodgings with, called Yong Sam-tak from Canton City. At first they did not get on well together. Morrison absent-mindedly burned a piece of paper with some Chinese characters on it – and infuriated the superstitions of his Chinese mentor, who left for three days. From that time on, Morrison wrote his characters on a piece of tin that could be erased. They continued to work together and studied an early Chinese translation of Gospels named Evangelia Quatuor Sinice which was probably written by a Jesuit, as well as a hand-written Latin-Chinese dictionary. Yong Sam-tak eventually joined him in family worship. In this way Morrison made considerable progress in speaking and writing one of the most difficult of languages for an English-speaking person to learn. The hope of the Directors was that, first of all, Morrison would master the ordinary speech of the people, and so be able to compile a dictionary, and perhaps make a translation of the Scriptures for the benefit of all future missionaries. To accomplish this, it was first of all necessary to get a footing on Chinese soil, and not hopelessly offend the Chinese authorities. At this time, dealings of foreigners with the people, except for purposes of trade, was absolutely forbidden. Every foreigner was strictly interrogated on landing as to what his business might be; the price for giving the wrong answers might be unceremonious return on the next vessel. Morrison was aware of the dangers.Horne (1904), ch. 5 He traveled to visit his family and bid them farewell in July 1806, preaching 13 times in London, Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Early missionary work Morrison was ordained in London on 8 January 1807 at the Scotch church and was eager to go to China. On 31 January, he sailed first to America. The fact that the policy of the East India Company was not to carry missionaries, and that there were no other ships available that were bound for China, forced him to stop first in New York City. Morrison spent nearly a month in the United States . He was very anxious to secure the good offices of the American Consul at Canton (Guangzhou), as it was well known that he would need the influence of someone in authority, if he was to be permitted to stay in China. The promise of protection was made from the United States consul, and on 12 May, he boarded a second vessel, the Trident, bound for Macau.Daily. 2013
The Trident arrived in Macau on 4 September 1807 after 113 days at sea. The first move of the newcomer was to present his letters of introduction to some leading Englishmen and Americans, in Macau and Canton. He was kindly received, but he needed a bold heart to bear up, without discouragement, under their frank announcement of the apparently hopeless obstacles in the way of the accomplishment of his mission. George Thomas Staunton discouraged him from the idea of being a missionary in China. Firstly, the local Chinese-speaking people were forbidden by the government to teach the local languages to anybody, under penalty of death. Secondly, no foreigners could remain in China, except for purposes of trade. Thirdly, Portuguese-sponsored Catholic missionaries in Macau would be bitterly hostile, and were likely to stir up the local people against a Protestant mission. On 7 September, he was expelled by the Roman Catholic authorities in Macau and went to the Thirteen Factories outside Guangzhou . The chief of the American factory at Canton offered the missionary for the present a room in his house; and there he was most thankful to establish himself, and think over the situation. Shortly afterwards he made an arrangement for three months, with another American gentleman, to live at his factory. He effectively passed himself off as an American. The Chinese, he found, did not dislike and suspect Americans as much as they did the English. Still Morrison's presence did excite suspicions, and he could not leave his Chinese books about, lest it should be supposed that his object was to master the language. Certain Roman Catholic natives such as Abel Yun were found willing to impart to him as much of the Mandarin Chinese as they could but he soon found that the knowledge of this did not enable him to understand, or make himself understood by, the common people; and he had not come to China simply to translate the Scriptures into the speech of a comparatively small aristocratic class.
During these early months his trials and discouragements were great. He had to live in almost complete seclusion. He was afraid of being seen abroad. His Chinese servants cheated him. The man who undertook to teach him demanded extortionate sums. Another bought him a few Chinese books, and robbed him handsomely in the transaction. Morrison was alarmed at his expenditure. He tried living in one room, until he had severe warnings that fever would be the outcome. His utter loneliness oppressed him. The prospect seemed cheerless in the extreme.