Robert Morrison, FRS (5 January 1782 – 1 August 1834), was an Anglo-Scottish 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 twenty-five 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.
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.