Goforth of China

By Rosalind Goforth

Almost from the moment of his conversion at eighteen years of age, Jonathan Goforth was an evangelist. In addition to tireless itinerant preaching, constant evangelism in slums, and even brothels; one summer during his years at Knox College, he visited nine hundred sixty Toronto families. It was said of Jonathan Goforth that, "When he found his

• Language: English
• Publisher: Walking Together Press
• Release date: Oct 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781961568112

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About The Scripture Testimony Edition

The life of Jonathan Goforth was a vibrant testimony to the reality and loving character of God. Having read the Bible through seventy-three times in his lifetime, he was a man to whom God’s Word became true food. At the end of his life, when he was blind (but still keeping an aggressive speaking schedule), he said to his wife one morning, Instead of going out this morning, let us have a feast of the Word. Read me that precious book, the Gospel of John. It is no wonder then, that Goforth himself was filled with the love of God, and that his life of faith shed that love upon others. This powerful biography is filled with stories of faith —faith for provision, faith for deliverance from peril and sword, and faith for the Holy Spirit to work miracles of transformation— that testify to the reality of the Living God, and to the truth of His teachings.

The Scripture Testimony Index is an extensive research project by Walking Together Press to use artificial intelligence and data science to develop a New-Testament-driven subject index across a large body of missionary biographies and personal narratives. In analyzing the database of these books programmatically; beautiful, bright threads emerge, threads of prayer, provision, deliverance, specific leading, healing, transformation, and miraculous salvation. The end result is an index of short story excerpts organized by subject and Scripture verse that empirically demonstrate the truth of the Scriptures, and which is freely available on our website at https://walkingtogether.life.

Walking Together Press has enhanced this classic title, Goforth of China, by identifying and marking twenty-nine portions of the narrative that illustrate specific Biblical topics and verses. An extensive Scripture Testimony Index has also been added containing short summaries of how each Scriptural topic is illustrated, making locating specific stories easy. Furthermore, this title is one of many in the Scripture Testimony Collection.

Introduction

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 literature of missionary biography would be sadly lacking without this story of his life and work. He towers as a spiritual giant among God’s missionary heroes of his generation.

He was an electric, radiant personality, flooding his immediate environment—wherever he might be—with the sunlight that was deep in his heart and shone on his face because his life was hid with Christ in God. For some twenty years I had the privilege of knowing this man of God intimately—at conferences in America, in the mission field in China, in his home in Toronto, and in my home in Philadelphia. In all these places the rare sunshine of his presence abides as an undying memory.

With the sunshine of God’s love in his heart there was an irresistible enthusiasm and a tireless energy. Nothing could stop his dynamic drive in that to which God had commissioned him. It was the same when he was seventy-seven as when he was fifty-seven. The loss of his eyesight during the last three years of his life did not halt the energy—it seemed only to heighten it. When this providence of God was permitted, after forty-eight years of missionary service, the undaunted apostle of the Gospel said to a newspaper reporter: Bless you my boy, I’d go back for another forty-eight years if my sight were only good."

But Dr. Goforth’s radiant smile and brilliant spirit did not mean indifference to the dark side of life, its stern realities and the sinister attacks of the Adversary. With his warmth and love there was also keenest discernment of the falsehood of Modernism, and an unswerving, undying intolerance of all that sets itself against the Word of God. The sharply defined issue between Modernism and Fundamentalism in the foreign mission field was coming to the front in the summer of 1920, when Mrs. Trumbull and I had an unforgettable visit with Dr. and Mrs. Goforth in their home at Kikungshan. Dr. Goforth told me, with fire in his eye and his heart, of the inroads on missionary testimony being made by missionaries who were betraying the faith and substituting eternally fatal poison for the Gospel and the Word. Always he stood like Gibraltar, steadfast and uncompromising for the old faith which is ever new; and that is another reason why God so abundantly blessed his ministry to the very hour of his death.

First, last, and always Dr. Goforth was an evangelist, a soul-winner. That is what he went to the foreign mission field for; no other interest, no other activity, no other ministry appealed to him. The Scripture that comes to one, in thinking of Jonathan Goforth, is that other great missionary’s inspired word: Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God (2 Corinthians 5:20).

His life-long, unflagging, persistent and importunate zeal in giving the Gospel to the unsaved was a rebuke to the many missionaries who turn aside from the only missionary call God ever gives to take up side-issues and who thus drop out of God’s great program for evangelizing a lost world. Being not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, and knowing that it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, Dr. Goforth believed in God’s revival power. God used him in mighty revivals over and over again through his long life; and there would be more revivals among God’s children who have lost their first love if there were more witnesses like Dr. Goforth.

Dr. and Mrs. Goforth were given of God to each other. It was a marriage of rare beauty, fellowship, and unity in faith and work. They were a rich blessing to all who entered their home in China, in Manchuria, or in Canada, and they brought a rich blessing into every home they entered. When Mrs. Goforth’s hearing was impaired, Dr. Goforth was ears for her; and she, in his blindness, was eyes for him. But no physical weaknesses or limitations ever stopped their enthusiastic labors in winning souls for their Lord. May He bless this life-story to the raising up of many to walk in their footsteps, till the Lord come.

Charles G. Trumbull

Philadelphia, Pa.

Foreword

Nine months ago, a few days after my husband had passed beyond the veil, the conviction came to me that I had survived him for the writing of his life-story. In the days that followed, the Lord undertook for me in such a remarkable way as to leave no room for doubt but that the good hand of my God was leading me to undertake the work. A Christian lady, Mrs. S. H. Blake, gave me a quiet, ideal refuge in her home while engaged in the work: her fellowship and encouragement contributed in no small measure to the accomplishment of the task. My son Frederic rendered invaluable aid in collecting data.

A second imperative need was for someone to help in the clerical work. But before this need was actually felt, a Christian young woman, Mrs. F. O. Maddock, daughter of China Inland missionaries, offered her services as stenographer. On my asking her charges, she opened her eyes a little wider as she smilingly said, I am undertaking this as a ministry for the Lord, not for pay. So all through the months following, her work was as unto the Lord. She has been indeed a God-given companion and helper over many hard places.

But that which gave courage and lasting inspiration for the writing of these memoirs was the following:

One evening I sat in front of the trunk containing my husband’s diaries, letters, and other private papers. I had unlocked the trunk and then gave myself up to a feeling of utter despair at the magnitude of what I was facing. My advanced age alone seemed to make it impossible. I came almost to the point of giving up all thought of attempting the work when on opening the trunk I found on top of a pile of old Christmas cards a card of which the following is an exact duplicate—

What could I do in face of such a timely and wonderful message, but just go forward in faith believing for the Divine strength and wisdom and power needed and promised?

It is with a heart filled with deepest gratitude and thankfulness to my faithful Almighty Lord for His continued grace and strength throughout the writing of the story that I now commit it unto Him to be used for His glory.

Rosalind Goforth

Contents

About The Scripture Testimony Edition

Introduction

Foreword

I—1859-1887

I — Early Leadings

II — Beginning at Jerusalem

III — My Lord First

IV —The Vision Glorious!

II—1888-1900

V — For Christ and China

VI — Go Forward on Your Knees!

VII — Within the Promised Land

VIII — Changte at Last!

IX — All Things to All Men

X — The Escape

III—1901-1925

XI — In God’s Crucible

XII — Following the Gleam

XIII — Gleams of Revival

XIV — When Revival Blessing Came to Changte

XV — Furlough 1909-1910

XVI — After Furlough—Testings

XVII — Saved from Himself

XVIII — Gospel Nomads

XIX — Harvesting on Famine Fields

XX — In Journeyings Oft

IV—1926-1936

XXI — Through Clouds and Darkness

XXII — Manchuria

XXIII — Laying the Foundations

XXIV — Testings and Triumphs

XXV — Results of Aggressive Evangelism

XXVI — Triumphing over Tragedy

XXVII — Clouds Before Sunset

XXVIII — Sunset

Appendix

Scripture Testimony Index

Illustrations

Jonathan Goforth, 1925

Mrs. Jonathan Goforth, 1925

Jonathan Goforth, 1887

Lord Crucified

Dr. and Mrs. Goforth at Keswick, Ontario, August, 1930

Christians at one of the meetings held during Goforth’s last visit to Changte in 1932

evangelists working in the Szepingkai region

GOFORTH OF CHINA

I

1859-1887

...Behold your calling, brethren, how that not many wise... not many mighty, not many noble, are called: But God chose the foolish things of the world... and the things that are despised did God choose... THAT NO FLESH SHOULD GLORY BEFORE GOD.

The Apostle Paul

I

EARLY LEADINGS

Even a child is known by his doings.

Proverbs 20:11

It is the sincere desire of the writer of these memoirs that they be both written and read with the lesson of Jonathan Goforth’s favorite story in mind. The story is as follows: While the Goforths were attending a summer conference, south of Chicago, it was announced that a brilliant speaker was to come on a certain day for just one address. A very large expectant audience awaited him. The chairman introduced the speaker with such fulsome praise there seemed no room for the glory of God in what was to follow. The stranger had been sitting with bowed head and face hidden. As he stepped forward he stood a moment as if in prayer, then said:

Friends, when I listen to such words as we have just been hearing I have to remind myself of the woodpecker story: A certain woodpecker flew up to the top of a high pine tree and gave three hard pecks on the side of the tree as woodpeckers are wont to do. At that instant a bolt of lightning struck the tree leaving it on the ground, a heap of splinters. The woodpecker had flown to a tree near by where it clung in terror and amazement at what had taken place. There it hung expecting more to follow, but as all remained quiet it began to chuckle to itself saying, ‘Well, well, well! who would have imagined that just three pecks of my beak could have such power as that!’

Scripture Testimony

Apostles redirect misplaced praise

Acts 3:11-16 · Acts 10:25-26 · Acts 14:8-18

When the laughter this story caused ceased the speaker went on, Yes, friends, I too laughed when I first heard this story. But remember, if you or I take glory to ourselves which belongs only to Almighty God, we are not only as foolish as this woodpecker, but we commit a very grievous sin for the Lord hath said, ‘My glory will I not give to another.’

Many times Jonathan Goforth on returning from a meeting would greet his wife with, Well I’ve had to remind myself of the woodpecker tonight, or, I’ve needed half a dozen woodpeckers to keep me in place. Early in life he chose as his motto, Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit (Zechariah 4:6). It was remarked that of the many wonderful tributes paid to the memory of Jonathan Goforth at that last triumphant service following his translation, there was not one but could be traced back to the abounding grace of God in him.

Dr. Andrew Bonar wrote of Murray M’Cheyne, "All who knew him not only saw in him a burning and a shining light but felt also the breathing of the hidden life of God; and there is no narrative that can fully express this peculiarity of the living man." These words might truly have been written of Jonathan Goforth. He was God’s radiant servant always. Of all the messages which reached his wife after he had entered the gloryland, none touched her as the following: A poor Roman Catholic servant girl in the home where the Goforths had often visited, on hearing of his passing said to her master, "When Dr. Goforth has been here I have often watched his face and have wondered if God looked like him!" That dear girl saw in his face, sightless though he was, what she hoped for in her Heavenly Father!

—

John Goforth came to western Ontario, Canada, from Yorkshire, England, as one of the early pioneers in 1840. His wife was dead. He brought with him his three sons, John, Simeon, and Francis. Francis married a young woman, named Jane Bates, from the north of Ireland. They settled on a farm near London, Ontario. Of their family of ten boys and one girl, Jonathan was the seventh child. He was born on his father’s farm, near Thorndale, February 10, 1859.

Those were hard, grinding times for both father and mother, and for the boys, as one by one they were able to help by working out at odd jobs with neighboring farmers. There are those still living who remember how the Goforth boys were diligent, hard working lads. The hardships endured by the Goforth family, and indeed other pioneers of those early years, may be glimpsed by the following told in later years by Jonathan himself: I remember my father telling of his having tramped through the bush all the way from Hamilton to our home near London, a distance of seventy miles, with a sack of flour on his back.

When Jonathan was but five years of age, he had a miraculous escape from death. We quote from his diary:

My uncle was driving a load of grain to market. I was to be taken to my father’s farm some miles distant. The bags were piled high on the wagon, and a place was made for me just behind my uncle in a hole which was deemed perfectly safe. Suddenly, while driving down a hill, a front wheel sank deep into a rut, causing the wagon to lurch to one side. I was thrown out of my hole and started to slide down. Before my uncle could reach me I had dropped between the front and back wheels. The back wheel had just reached me, and I felt it crushing against my hip. At that same instant my uncle also reached me, but I was so pinned under the wheel he had difficulty in getting me free. A fraction of an inch farther and my hip would have been crushed.

The above was but the first of many remarkable deliverances from imminent death in Jonathan Goforth’s life. In writing of those early years he says:

"My mother was careful in the early years to teach us the Scriptures, and to pray with us. One thing I look back to as a great blessing in my later life, was mother’s habit of getting me to read the Psalms to her. I was only five years of age when I began this but could read easily. From reading the Psalms aloud came the desire to memorize the Scriptures which I continued to do with great profit. There were times when I could not find anyone with time or patience to hear me recite all I had memorized.

From those earliest years I wanted to be a Christian. When I was seven years of age a lady gave me a fine Bible with brass clasps and marginal references. This was another impetus to search the Scriptures. One Sunday, when ten years old, I was attending church with my mother. It was Communion Sunday, and while she was partaking of the Lord’s Supper, I sat alone on one of the side seats. Suddenly it came over me with great force that if God called me away I would not go to heaven. How I wanted to be a Christian! I am sure if someone had spoken to me about my soul’s salvation I would have yielded my heart to Christ then.

For almost ten school years Jonathan was under the great handicap of being obliged to work on the farm, from April till October or even November. We are told, however, though naturally behind his schoolmates when returning to school in the autumn, by spring he could compete with the brightest.

The following striking picture of Jonathan as a schoolboy comes from the pen of Dr. Andrew Vining, a Canadian Baptist leader and one of Jonathan’s early schoolmates:

I remember Jonathan as cheerful, modest, courageous and honest, and I recall his constant sense of fairness, because my friendship with him began one day when he challenged and very effectively trounced a schoolhouse bully who had been making life unhappy for me, a younger and smaller boy. The years of his matchless service have given significance to one clear recollection I have of him. He had a habit of standing during recess in front of the maps which hung in the schoolroom. I clearly remember seeing him, day after day, studying these maps: the World, Asia, Africa. Many times since I have wondered if even as a boy there stirred within him a realization that his work was to lie in far-away places of the earth.

His father put Jonathan at the age of fifteen in charge of their second farm, called The Thamesford farm, some twenty miles distant from the home farm. His younger brother Joseph was to assist him. Of this responsible commission for a lad of his age, Jonathan wrote:

I was ambitious to run my farm scientifically and I was well rewarded for my pains for my butter always sold for the highest price in the London market. In farming and cultivating I consistently endeavoured to apply scientific methods and with gratifying results. In handing over the farm, father had called special attention to one very large field which had become choked with weeds. Father said, ‘Get that field clear and ready for seeding. At harvest time I’ll return and inspect.’

Jonathan, in later years, kept many an audience spell bound as he described the labour he put into that field. Ploughing and reploughing, the sunning of the deadly roots and again the ploughing till the whole field was ready for seeding; then how he procured the very best seed for sowing and finally he would tell of that summer morning when just at harvest-time his father arrived, and how his heart thrilled with joy as he led his father to a high place from which the whole field of beautiful waving grain could be seen. He spoke not a word—only waited for the coveted well done. His father stood for several moments silently examining the field for a sign of a weed but there was none. Turning to his son he just smiled. That smile was all the reward I wanted, Goforth would say. I knew my father was pleased. So will it be if we are faithful to the trust our Heavenly Father gives us.

About this time an incident occurred which might well have ended fatally for the young lad. He was assisting at a neighbour’s barn-raising, an affair sufficiently dangerous, at that time, to keep the women folk in suspense till all was over. Operations had reached the dangerous point when the heavy beams had one by one been hauled up and laid on the cross bent. Jonathan was standing below these beams in the centre of the barn when a sudden cry rang out, Take care, the bent is giving! Looking up, he saw the beams had already started downward. There was no time to escape by running. There was but one thing to do—stand still and watch the beams as they fell and dodge between two. This he did, escaping unhurt.

While on the Thamesford farm he became ambitious to study law and become a politician. After the evening chores were done he would walk miles to attend a political meeting. At the back of the home was a swamp. Here he would get out alone and practice speaking. Travellers on the highway some distance away could hear the voice. Being well versed on both sides of political situations, he was often the centre of heated discussions both at school and at home. Mother would often say I should be a teacher, he has said, but I argued the country needed good politicians!

Jonathan Goforth was now getting well on in his eighteenth year. He was known as a good lad, diligent, always ready to help others, eager to get an education (though this seemed, at times, hopeless), and he was liked by all for his happy, friendly ways—but he was still an unawakened soul.

After taking a short commercial course in London, Ontario, Goforth returned to the old country school near his home, hoping to struggle through his high school there. The Rev. Lachlan Cameron, Presbyterian minister at Thamesford, visited the school regularly, holding Bible-study services with the pupils. Mr. Cameron was a godly man, of strong convictions, tireless energy, and deeply concerned about the salvation of his flock.

Jonathan’s marked proficiency in art penmanship, much in vogue at that time, attracted Mr. Cameron’s attention. The lad, always responsive to kindness, took a great liking for the minister and determined to hear him in his own pulpit. One who was present at that first Sunday gives the following:

Almost sixty years have passed since then but I can still see the young stranger sitting immediately in front of the minister with an eager, glowing look on his face and listening with great intentness to every word of the sermon.

It was Mr. Cameron’s unvarying custom to close each sermon with a direct appeal for decisions. We give in Jonathan’s own words what took place the third Sunday under Mr. Cameron:

That Sunday, Mr. Cameron seemed to look right at me as he pled, during his sermon, for all who had not, to accept the Lord Jesus Christ. His words cut me deeply and I said to myself, ‘I must decide before he is through.’ But contrary to his usual custom, he suddenly stopped and began to pray. During the prayer the devil whispered, ‘Put off your decision for another week.’ Then immediately after the prayer, Mr. Cameron leaned over the pulpit and with great intensity and fervour again pled for decisions. As I sat there, without any outward sign except to simply bow my head, I yielded myself up to Christ.

How complete was that yielding can be seen by his after life, and also from the following dictated to a daughter on his seventy-fifth birthday:

My conversion at eighteen was simple but so complete that ever onward I could say with Paul, ‘I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me’ (Galatians 2:20). Henceforth my life belonged to Him who had given His life for me.

At the next Communion, Jonathan joined the church and at once began to seek avenues of service for his new-found Master. He was given a Sunday-school class but this did not satisfy him. He sent off for tracts and became an object of wonder to the staid old elders, something akin to bewilderment to others, and amusement to the young, as he stood Sunday after Sunday at the church door giving to each one a tract! Very soon he started a Sunday evening service in the old schoolhouse a mile or more from his home.

We give in his own words two incidents of this time:

"At the time of my conversion I was living with my brother Will. Our parents came on a visit, and stayed a month or so. For some time I felt the Lord would have me lead family worship. So one night I said, ‘We will have worship tonight, so please don’t scatter after supper.’ I was afraid of what my father would say for we had not been accustomed to saying ‘grace’ before meals much less having family worship.

I read a chapter in Isaiah and after a few comments we all knelt in prayer. Much to my relief, father never said a word. Family worship continued as long as I was home. Some months later my father took a stand for Jesus Christ.

The following occurred while he was attending high school in Ingersoll, twelve miles from the home farm:

My teacher was an ardent follower of Tom Paine. He persuaded all the boys in our class to his way of thinking. The jeers and arguments of my classmates proved too much for me. Suddenly all the foundations slipped. I was confounded! Instead of going to my minister or any other human aid, I felt constrained to take the Word of God alone as my guide. Night and day for a considerable period of time, I did little else than search the Scriptures until, finally, I was so solidly grounded I have never had a shadow of a doubt since. All my classmates, as well as our teacher, were brought back from infidelity, the teacher becoming one of my lifelong friends.

Thus the Lord began to use him from the time of his conversion. But for one year he still retained his ambition of becoming a lawyer and a good politician, believing he could serve the Lord thus. His Master, however, had other plans for this servant of His.

One Saturday afternoon Jonathan had occasion to go with horse and buggy to see his brother Will, whose farm lay some fifteen miles distant. He remained over night, and early Sunday morning started homeward. As he was leaving, Will Goforth’s father-in-law, Mr. Bennett, a saintly old Scot, handed Jonathan a well-worn copy of The Memoirs of Robert Murray M’Cheyne, saying, Read this, my boy, it’ll do you good. Laying the book on the seat beside him the young man drove off.

The day was one of those balmy, Indian Summer days in October. Jonathan had not gone far when remembering the book he opened it and began to read as he drove slowly on. From the first page the message of the book gripped him. Coming to a clump of trees by the roadside, he stopped the horse, and tethering it to a tree made a comfortable seat of dried leaves and gave himself up to the Memoirs. Hour after hour passed unnoticed, so great was his absorption in what he was reading. Not till the shadows had lengthened did he awake to how time had passed. He rose and continued his journey, but in those quiet hours by the roadside, Jonathan Goforth had caught the vision and had made the decision which changed the whole course of his life.

The thrilling story of M’Cheyne’s spiritual struggles and victories, and his life-sacrifices for the salvation of God’s chosen people, the Jews, sank deep into his very soul. All the petty, selfish ambitions in which he had indulged vanished for ever, and in their place came the solemn and definite resolve to give his life to the ministry, which to him meant the sacred, holy calling of leading unsaved souls to his Saviour.

That good man, Rev. Lachlan Cameron, greatly rejoiced on hearing of Jonathan’s decision. At once arrangements were made for the young man to come regularly to the Manse for lessons in Latin and Greek in preparation for his entering Knox College. I have before me a list of the books which Goforth says himself he devoured at that time. Here it is: Spurgeon’s Lectures to His Students; Spurgeon’s Best Sermons; Boston’s Fourfold State; Bagster’s Call to the Unconverted; Bunyan’s Grace Abounding, and Baxter’s Saint’s Rest.

The Bible was, however, even then, the great Book with him for he has left this record that for two years previously to his entering Knox College, Toronto, he rose two hours earlier each morning in order to get time for unbroken Bible study, before getting to work or off to school.

The story of Jonathan Goforth’s call to foreign service we now give in his own words: