Robert Morrison's Missionary Work in the Qing Empire

Abstract

The subject of the study is the activity of Robert Morrison and his role in Protestant missionary activity. The author offers a description of the beginning of this missionary activity in the 19th century in the person of Robert Morrison. The study attempts to determine the characteristics of Morrison in this field and his motivation. When writing the article, the following sources were used: an article by Russian historian Vladimir Grigoryevich Datsyshen about the history of Christianity in China, a biography of Morrison authored by William John Townsend, the head of the Methodist Church, the work of James Alexander, a professor of rhetoric at the College of New Jersey, a contemporary of the missionary, as well as a retrospective by William Milne describing the activities of Protestant missionaries in that time period. The novelty of the article is to familiarize Russian-speaking readers with the problems of Protestant missionary activity in the 19th century through works that have not been translated into Russian. A small practical result in the spread of Christianity in China is confirmed, despite the accumulated theoretical base. The study confirmed the role of the opium trade as an activity that harmed missionaries, and therefore criticized by Morrison because it became one of the reasons for the rejection of Christianity by the Chinese. It also describes a huge amount of work in the translation of literature carried out by missionaries in order to familiarize the Chinese with the fruits of Western culture.