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, 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 and eventually had eleven children, six of whom survived childhood. They pioneered the North Honan (Henan) mission in 1888.
John Goforth of Yorkshire, England, immigrated to Canada in 1840 and settled near Thorndale in western Ontario. Jonathan, his seventh child, was born February 10, 1859. The parents, as pioneer farmers, were exposed to many physical hardships and had to practice the utmost economy. The mother was faithful in teaching the Scriptures to her children, and when Jonathan was seven years of age, he received a Bible from a neighbour lady.
Jonathan respected the Presbyterian pastor Lachlan Cameron, who was faithful in preaching the Word of God and said later that it was Cameron’s preaching, which made him respond and join the Presbyterian Church. Jonathan Goforth dated his conversion from a service which he attended when he was eighteen years of age.
Through much hardship and noble effort, he obtained his grammar and high school education. During the years of his youth he often debated within himself whether he should be a teacher or a politician. His pastor, the Rev. Mr. Cameron, invited Jonathan to his home for instruction in the Scriptures and in Latin and Greek, and thus helped him prepare to enter Knox College, Toronto.
One day, while he was in college, he heard Missionary George Leslie Mackay of Formosa present the claims of Christ for that mission field in a most forceful way. Jonathan described that meeting in a few words: "I heard the voice of the Lord saying: 'Who will go for us and whom shall we send?' and I answered: 'Here am I, send me.' From that hour I became a foreign missionary." He lost no opportunity to prepare himself for the mission field and to declare the claims of Christ and the needs of the unevangelized multitudes.
In the year 1885, Goforth received a copy of Hudson Taylor's book, China's Spiritual Need and Claims. He was deeply impressed and from that time on, with renewed dedication, he began to pray that a door would be opened for him to go to China. At the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Canada in June 1887, a new missionary vision came to that body of Christians with the result that Jonathan Goforth was appointed their pioneer missionary to North China.
On October 25 of the same year Goforth was ordained, and the same month he was married to Florence Rosalind Bell-Smith. On February 4, 1888, they sailed for China. By the middle of September of the same year they were looking over their new mission field in the Province of Honan.
It was soon evident that Goforth was "a man sent from God." He was untiring in his evangelistic services and efficient in the training of national workers and the establishing of churches under the leadership of Chinese Christians. It was there that the grace of God was revealed in a special way, as the Lord sustained and comforted Jonathan Goforth and his family in their manifold trials, sufferings, and sorrows.
Goforth had a passion for winning souls for Christ. He was outstanding as a conservative theologian. He required that at his public prayer meetings the one who took part should be definite in petition, and that the prayer should be accompanied by thanksgiving and confession.
He visited eight of the principal mission centres in Korea in 1907, the year the great revival was passing over that country, and wrote the booklet, When the Fire Swept Korea. His book, By My Spirit, has enjoyed world-wide circulation.
Dr. Charles G. Trumbull, late editor of the Sunday School Times, wrote: "Dr. Goforth was one of the most radiant, dynamic personalities that ever enriched my life. God's missionary program of the past half century would not have been complete without him."
The last few years of his life Jonathan Goforth was totally blind. Nevertheless, the fragrance of thanksgiving and holiness accompanied the distinguished missionary until he died in Canada, October 7, 1936. His life's motto was: "By my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts."
At his funeral, the Rev. Dr. John G. Inkster, pastor of Knox Presbyterian Church, whence they had been sent out as missionaries many years before, said of Goforth. “He was a God-intoxicated man - fully surrendered and consecrated. Above all, he was humble. . . He was filled with the Spirit because he was emptied of self; therefore he had power which prevailed with God and man.”
Goforth had a strong desire to see a great moving of the Holy Spirit and many souls were brought into the kingdom of God. He gave himself to much prayer and study of the Bible which made him one the greatest missionaries who strived to reach and bring a lot of people to Christ. Finally to conclude the Goforth’s were extraordinary people who did extraordinary work for God in China.
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