Jonathan Goforth Revivalist Apostle To China

Jonathan Goforth was born, the seventh of eleven children, in February 1859 near London, Ontario, in Canada. His parents were hard-working farmers and, if the young Jonathan learned about the things of God through his devout mother, he also learned hard work from his father, who once went to Hamilton for food and walked all the way back through the bush – a distance of 70 miles – with a sack of flour on his back!

As a son, Jonathan was expected to work on the farm from April to November, in addition to his studies at school. This required tremendous diligence on the part of the young man, especially when at just 15 years of age his father put him in charge of their second farm, which was all of 20 miles from the home farm. It is a tribute to the young Goforth’s determination and sheer capacity for hard work that he managed to bring the ‘harvest’ in, not just on the farm, but also in the schoolroom.

This tremendous capacity for hard work would later be featured on the mission field, but it was at the age of 18 that Jonathan dedicated his life and talents to God’s service.

That particular day he was so challenged by the ministry of a preacher named Rev Lachlan Cameron that he yielded his all to Christ. “Henceforth,” he said, “my life belongs to him who gave his life for me.”

Jonathan immediately became a zealous soul winner, startling the rather staid elders in his Presbyterian church by standing at the church door on Sundays, giving each person a tract. Soon he was running a Sunday evening service in an old schoolhouse about a mile from where he lived. And at home he instituted family worship, in the process leading his own father to Christ.

As a young Christian Jonathan was an avid reader of books, with authors like Bunyan, Baxter, M’Cheyne and Spurgeon providing him with both instruction and inspiration. But the mainstay of his spiritual life was always the Bible. In fact, he rose two hours earlier each morning in order to have unhurried time for the study of the Word before going to work or to school.