Timothy Richard

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People Karl Gützlaff Divie Bethune McCartee J. Hudson Taylor Lottie Moon Timothy Richard Jonathan Goforth Cambridge Seven Gladys Aylward (more missionaries)

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Pivotal events Taiping Rebellion Opium Wars Unequal Treaties Yangzhou riot Tianjin Massacre Boxer Crisis First Sino-Japanese War Xinhai Revolution Chinese Civil War WW II People's Republic

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Timothy Richard Image:Timothy-Richard-at-34.jpg Missionary to China Born October 10, 1845 Carmarthenshire, Wales

Timothy Richard was a Baptist missionary to China who influenced the rise of the Chinese Republic.

Richard was born on October 10, 1845, into a devout Baptist farming family in Carmarthenshire, Wales. Inspired by the Second Evangelical Awakening to become a missionary, Richard left teaching to enter Haverfordwest Theological College in 1865. There he dedicated himself to China. He applied to the newly-formed China Inland Mission, but Hudson Taylor considered that he would be of better service to the denominational Baptist missions. In 1869 the Baptist Missionary Society (BMS) accepted Richard's application and assigned him to Yantai (Chefoo), Shandong Province.

Young John Allen founded and edited the monthly Wan Guo Gong Bao, or Review of the Times from 1868-1907, a paper "said...to have done more for reform than any other single agency in China."

The Review attracted a wide and influential Chinese readership throughout its thirty-nine year run. One of the ways in which the Review appealed to a broad, scholarly audience was through its discussion of current events and economics. During the First Sino-Japanese War period of 1894-1895, essay titles included: “International Intercourse, by a descendent of Confucius,” “How to Enrich a Nation, by Dr. Joseph Edkins,” “The Prime Benefits of Christianity, by the Rev. Timothy Richard,” and “On the Suppression of Doubt and the Acceptance of Christ, by Sung Yuh-kwei.” The articles attributed practical applications to the Christian faith and portrayed Christianity as a useful concept for the Chinese, one that Allen and his contributors intended to portray on an equal level to concepts such as market economics and international law. The Qing reformer Kang Youwei once said of the publication: "I owe my conversion to reform chiefly on the writings of two missionaries, the Rev. Timothy Richard and the Rev. Dr. Young J. Allen." Rev. Richard was Allen's colleague and a contributor to the Review.

[edit] Bibliography

• Richard, Timothy; Forty-Five Years in China (1916) and Conversion by the Million in China: Being Biographies and Articles, 2 vols. (1907).
• Bohr, Paul R.; Famine in China and the Missionary: Timothy Richard as Relief Administrator and Advocate of National Reform, 1876-1884 (1972)
• Soothill, W. E.; Timothy Richard of China (1924)
• Stanley, Brian; The History of the Baptist Missionary Society, 1792-1992 (1992)
• Williamson, H. R.; British Baptists in China, 1845-1952 (1957)

Richard's papers are preserved in the BMS archives at Regent's Park College, Oxford.zh:李提摩太