Goforth, Jonathan (1859-

1936) and Rosalind [Bell-

Smith] (1864-1942)
First Canadian Presbyterian
missionaries to mainland China

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.
In 1900 the Goforths barely escaped the Boxers and returned to Canada. After their return to
Honan in 1901, Jonathan Goforth felt increasingly restless. In 1904 and 1905 he was inspired by
news of the great Welsh revival and read Finney’s Lectures on Revivals. In 1907, circumstances
brought him to witness firsthand the stirring Korean revival (When the Spirit’s Fire Swept
Korea [1943] represents his response). 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.”

Goforth remained active well into the 1930s, especially in Manchuria; 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 (1937, with many reprints), and
her own autobiography, Climbing: Memories of a Missionary’s Wife (1940).

Daniel H. Bays, “Goforth, Jonathan and Rosalind (Bell-Smith),” in Biographical Dictionary of

Christian Missions, ed. Gerald H. Anderson (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 1998), 247.

This article is reprinted from Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, Macmillan

Reference USA, copyright © 1998 Gerald H. Anderson, by permission of Macmillan Reference
USA, New York, NY. All rights reserved.

Bibliography
The Goforth’s papers are in the Billy Graham Center archives, Wheaton College, Wheaton,
Illinois, collection 188.

Digital Texts
Goforth, Jonathan. By My Spirit. 1929; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1942; 1964, 1983.

__________. When the Spirit’s Fire Swept Korea. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1943.

Goforth, Rosalind. How I Know God Answers Prayer: The Personal Testimony of One Life-
Time. Philadelphia, PA: The Sunday School Times Co., 1921.

Primary

Goforth, Jonathan. Prevailing Prayer and Revival. Addresses, etc. London: China Inland
Mission, [1909]. At The British Library, Wetherby, West Yorkshire, UK.

_____. “Revivals in China.” In Students and the Present Missionary Crisis; Addresses Delivered
before the Sixth International Convention of the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign
Missions, Rochester, New York, December 29, 1909, to January 2, 1910. New York: Student
Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions, 1910.

_____. A Chinese Christian General, Feng Yu Hsiang. [Chefoo: printed by James McMullan,
1919].

_____. A Chinese Christian Army. [Wuchow, So. China: So. China Alliance Press, 1921].

_____. “Foreword.” In Oswald J. Smith, The Revival We Need. London: Marshall, Morgan &
Scott, 1933.

Goforth, Jonathan, Sherwood Eddy and Charles Grandison Finney. A Spiritual Awakening:
Being Points and Directions from the Life and Lectures of Charles G. Finney. London: Morgan
& Scott, [1909].
Goforth, Jonathan and Rosalind Goforth. A Little Book of Praise in Darkened Days. [An account
of the missionary work of J. Goforth in China]. London: Marshall Bros., [1916]. At The British
Library, Wetherby, West Yorkshire, UK.

_____. Miracle Lives of China. New York and London: Harper & Bros., 1931; Grand Rapids,
MI: Zondervan Pub. House, 1931. Also Elkart, IN: Bethel Pub., 1988.

Goforth, Rosalind. Chinese Diamonds for the King of Kings. Toronto: Evangelical Publishers,
1920; Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1945.

_____. Goforth of China. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Pub. House, 1937, 1943.

_____. Climbing: Memories of a Missionary’s Wife. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Pub. House,
1940. Also Evangel Pub. House, 2008.

Moynan, Mary Goforth, Rosalind Goforth and F. Robert Joyce (ed.). God Brought Us
Through! Toronto: Rejoyce Publishing, 1994. [Includes letters by Rosalind Goforth to daughter
Mary.]

Secondary

Austin, Alvyn. Saving China: Canadian Missionaries in the Middle Kingdom, 1888-1959.

Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986, chapters 2 and 6.

Austin, Alvyn and Jamie S. Scott. Canadian Missionaries, Indigenous Peoples: Representing

Religion at Home and A Abroad. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005.

Bays, Daniel H. “Christian Revival in China, 1900-1937.” In Modern Christian Revivals, edited
by Edith L. Blumhofer and Randall Balmer. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1993.
Craig, Terrence L. The Missionary Lives: A Study in Canadian Missionary Biography and
Autobiography. Leiden and New York: Brill, 1997.

Dagg, Anne Innis. The Feminine Gaze: A Canadian Compendium of Non-fiction Women Authors
and their Books, 1836-1945. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press, 2001, pp. 112-3.

Duewel, Wesley L. Heroes of the Holy Life: Biographies of Fully Devoted Followers of Christ.
Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002.

Engstrom, Ted W. An Hour with Jonathan and Rosalind Goforth: Missionaries to China. Grand
Rapids: Zondervan Pub. House, 1943.

Hansen, Collin and John D. Woodbridge. A God-Sized Vision: Revival Stories that Stretch and
Stir. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010.

Jeffrey, Ruth Goforth. Amazing Grace: A Brief Account of My Life in China and Vietnam.
Stouffville, ON: D.I. Jeffrey, [197-?].

Jones, Charles Edwin. The Keswick Movement: A Comprehensive Guide. Expanded. Lanham,

MD: Scarecrow Press; [Chicago]: American Theological Library Association, 2007. Orig. 1974.

Lawson, J. Gilchrist. Famous Missionaries: Portraits and Biographies of Thirty Famous

Missionaries. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1945. Orig. 1939.

McCleary, Walter. An Hour with Jonathan Goforth: A Biography. Grand Rapids, MI:
Zondervan, 1938. Also Kessinger Publishing, 2010.

Webster, James Benjamin. “Times of Blessing” in Manchuria: Letters From Moukden to the

Church at Home, February 17-April 30, 1908. Shanghai: Methodist Pub. House, 1908.

Wu, Xiaoxin. Christianity in China: A Scholar’s Guide to Resources in the Libraries and

Archives of the United States. n.p.: M. E. Sharpe, 2009, p. 138.
Links

Goforth, Rosalind. Goforth of China. 1937. The first six of twenty-eight chapters are available
for free, the remaining twenty-two chapters for paid download.

Daniel Bays’s above article is also available at the Biographical Dictionary of Chinese

Christianity online. Page includes above photograph of Jonathan and Rosalind Goforth.

Portrait

From online Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity.