Jonathan Goforth

Jonathan Goforth became the foremost missionary revivalist in early twentieth-century China and helped to establish revivalism as a major element in Protestant China missions. He grew up on an Ontario farm, the seventh of eleven children. Hearing G.L. MacKay, Presbyterian missionary to Formosa (Taiwan), speak, he sensed God’s call to go to China. Attending Knox College for training, Jonathan appeared on his first day as a farm boy in a suit his mom had made.  His entire class hazed him and made fun of him until Jonathan’s steadiness and zeal for evangelism changed their minds. Goforth met Rosalind Bell-Smith at the Toronto Union Mission. She had been born in London, England, and had grown up in Montreal. They married in 1887, ready to go to China. Within a year of graduating from Knox College, his classmates, who had at one time hazed him, offered to support him in China since the Presbyterians had no work in China at that time.  The Goforths eventually had eleven children, six of whom survived childhood. Five of their children were buried in China. They pioneered the North Honan (Henan) mission in 1888.  Hudson Taylor, a fellow missionary in China, had hoped to establish work in Honan and wrote Jonathan a letter asking him not to begin work there.  But Jonathan felt compelled by God to go where no work had been done.  

In 1900 the Goforths had to escape China because of the Boxer rebellion. They were stoned and tortured in many villages they passed through to get to Shanghai.  Jonathan almost died at one point. The only way they survived was because of the kindness of fellow believers or people they’d influenced.  Most Chinese were ready to kill the “foreign devils” in their country.  They barely escaped the Boxers and returned to Canada. Jonathan read newspapers to know what was going on in China—he was anxious to return and continue the work they’d begun. Because of his vision to create outposts of their work and incorporating many native Chinese in their work, they saw thousands come to Christ.  After their return to Honan in 1901, Jonathan Goforth felt increasingly restless. He became an itinerate missionary—traveling all over their region. In 1907, Jonathan was asked to accompany Dr. MacKay, secretary of foreign missionaries for the Presbyterian Church in Canada, on a trip to Korea. There he experienced the eye-opening revival taking place. As he returned to China through Manchuria, congregations were so fascinated by his accounts that they invited him back in early 1908. During this extended visit there occurred the unprecedented “Manchurian revival,” which transformed Goforth’s life and ministry; from then on he was basically an evangelist and revivalist, not a settled missionary. He also became one of the best known of all China missionaries, admired by many, but disliked by some for his “emotionalism.”  Jonathan had a detached retina in both eyes and became blind but he never let it hinder their work and never complained about being blind. But in 1934, Rosalind’s health demanded they return home.  As her health improved, Jonathan was in demand in Canada and the United States as a speaker.  He spoke on average, ten times per week. After speaking at a church service on October 7, 1936, he went to bed and fell asleep and never awakened. Jonathan had helped start 48 churches in Manchuria and his work had touched thousands of lives over the entire eastern side of China. 

In 1931 the Goforths coauthored Miracle Lives of China. After his death in Toronto, Rosalind, a capable writer who had first published in 1920, wrote the popular Goforth of China, and her own autobiography, Climbing: Memories of a Missionary’s Wife (1940).