The Legacy of George Leslie Mackay James R
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The Legacy of George Leslie Mackay James R. Rohrer eorge Leslie Mackay (1844–1901) was among the most of his death. Presbyterian youth groups can be spotted wearing Gremarkable missionaries of the late Victorian era. Dur- T-shirts bearing Mackay’s likeness, along with his motto, “It is ing his three decades in Taiwan (1871–1901), he received little better to burn up than rust out.” Christian parents can read chil- substantive assistance from other Canadian missionaries yet, at dren to sleep with tales of Mackay printed in cartoon storybooks, the time of his death, left a community of more than 2,400 bap- while a seemingly endless stream of newspaper articles, art prints, tized communicants and a much larger body of regular hearers postcards, posters, wall calendars, mugs, and medallions recalls who attended more than sixty churches led by full-time native his life. Preachers in Taiwan frequently draw upon his book, From preachers.1 Mackay (pronounced “muh-KIGH”) established a Far Formosa (1895), for sermon illustrations, and politicians have hospital, a school for girls, and “Oxford College,” his training appealed to his memory to promote various agendas. center for native church leaders. Just as important, as one of only Indeed, the legendary Mackay at times threatens to eclipse three known missionaries in nineteenth-century China to have the historical missionary. As the Canadian who became “the married an indigenous spouse, he left behind descendents who son-in-law of Taiwan,” Mackay has served as a useful icon for continued to play leading roles in Taiwan’s Presbyterian Church Taiwanese nationalism, a symbol of the warm ties binding the after his death. island to the Western democracies.3 Christians in Taiwan often Mackay’s achievements have been largely overlooked by invoke him, with little historical justification, as the one who modern historians of mission. During his lifetime, however, Ca- brought democratic ideals to Taiwan, a champion of the rights of nadian publications hailed him as one of the greatest evangelists Taiwan’s tribal indigenes, and an early proponent of Taiwanese since the apostolic age.2 In Taiwan, where Christians constitute independence. The actual complex history of his career deserves roughly 5 to 6 percent of the populace, George Leslie Mackay to be better known, not only by scholars of mission, but also by remains a widely known folk hero. Every day thousands of people Taiwanese Christians in search of a usable past. pass by wall-size photographs of Mackay and his students at Taipei’s Mackay Memorial Hospital, one of the most respected Childhood and Education medical facilities in the island. In 2001 the government in Taiwan issued a commemorative postage stamp to mark the centenary George Leslie Mackay was born March 21, 1844, in Zorra Town- ship, Upper Canada, the youngest of six children of George James R. Rohrer is Associate Professor of History at the and Helen Sutherland Mackay. His parents had emigrated to University of Nebraska–Kearney. He teaches Ameri- Canada in 1830 from Dornoch in Sutherlandshire, Scotland, an can religious history and the history of Christianity. area reeling from the harsh Highland Clearances. Sutherland From 1993 to 1998 he taught history in Taiwan under was a hotbed of evangelical dissent from the Church of Scotland. the auspices of the United Church Board for World The common folk flocked to revivals sparked byNa Daoine (“the Ministries. —[email protected] Men”), itinerant Gaelic lay preachers who called upon the people to be born again and who prophetically attacked landlords and ecclesiastical moderates for their injustice against the poor. Com- October 2010 221 mon people listened also to controversial evangelical ministers From 1867 to 1870 Mackay attended Princeton Seminary, of the established Kirk, such as the fiery John MacDonald, the at the time a favorite choice for North American Presbyterians so-called Apostle of the North, who often visited Dornoch on planning careers as foreign missionaries. At Princeton he became his missionary journeys.4 devoted to Charles Hodge and participated in the Committee of Most Zorra settlers were displaced Highlanders with strong Inquiry, a student organization that investigated mission theories evangelical leanings. The Mackays and their neighbors clung and sponsored visiting missionaries from around the world. tightly to their religious traditions. For many years they contin- Mackay later recalled how he “ransacked” the library’s collec- ued to use Gaelic at home and in worship, and the “family altar” tion of mission books and heard missions debated “a thousand was a central part of their routine. Mackay later recollected the different ways” during these years.8 importance of daily prayer and worship with his parents, and Upon graduation he offered his service to the Canada especially the influence of his mother, who taught him the West- Presbyterian Church as a foreign missionary and then sailed for minster Shorter Catechism by heart while he was still a small child. Scotland to meet another boyhood hero, Alexander Duff. During In 1834 a zealous evangelical named Donald McKenzie received the winter of 1870–71 Mackay sat through Duff’s historic lectures ordination from the Presbytery of Glasgow as a missionary to on evangelistic theology and often visited Duff’s home. He also Canada. The Gaelic-speaking McKenzie settled in Zorra in 1835, studied Hindustani and considered offering himself to the Scot- where until 1872 he shepherded one of Canada’s largest Pres- tish or American Presbyterians as a missionary to India.9 In April byterian congregations while continuing to perform missionary 1871, however, he received instructions from the Committee on duties in nearby counties. Under his leadership Knox Church Missions in Canada to return home to receive ordination. On in Embro became something of a “school for prophets.” During June 14, 1871, the General Assembly of the Canada Presbyterian Church, meeting in Quebec, appointed him their first overseas missionary, with instructions to choose a field in China in consulta- tion with the English Presbyterian missionaries in Amoy. Weeks By the age of ten the young later, a seasick Mackay was bound for the Orient on the steamer George Leslie Mackay had America. Except for two furloughs, in 1880–81 and 1893–94, he decided that he, too, would would spend the remainder of his life in Taiwan, dedicated to the task of building an indigenous church led by native preachers. become a missionary. Mackay later honored William C. Burns, Charles Hodge, and Alexander Duff by naming chapels in Taiwan in their memory. Assessing their precise influence upon his missionary work, the course of his long pastorate, McKenzie watched nearly fifty however, is difficult, for Mackay never committed his own mis- young men from his congregation enter the ministry as pastors siological principles to writing in any systematic fashion. In 1877 or missionaries, among them George Leslie Mackay, whose father and 1890 he characteristically skipped the important Shanghai served the congregation as a ruling elder for twenty-five years.5 missionary conferences held by Protestant missionaries in China, Mackay was only a few months old when his family fol- and throughout his life he showed a marked aversion to corre- lowed McKenzie into the Free Church of Canada. Although the spondence with other missionaries. Even in his private journals ecclesiastical disputes that divided the church in Scotland did not he rarely engaged in theological reflection, leaving us in many exist in Upper Canada, the evangelical leanings of the settlers led cases to read between the lines and to conjecture about his ideas. them to sympathize strongly with the Scottish dissenters. Mis- Still, a few significant influences clearly stand out. First, sionaries from the Free Church of Scotland, such as Robert Burns the blend of evangelical piety and Baconian science that suf- of Paisley and his nephew, the revivalist William C. Burns, soon fused his early years stayed with him.10 Mackay was a lifelong visited Zorra, where the people generously contributed funds amateur naturalist who invested a great deal of energy teaching to support the Free Church back home. Burns became Mackay’s his students the rudiments of geology, zoology, anatomy, and childhood hero, and the Mackay family closely followed his career botany as an essential component of their evangelistic work. after he went to China as a missionary of the English Presbyterian Mackay always insisted that the argument from design was the Church.6 By the age of ten the young George Leslie Mackay had most effective way to convince Chinese people of a sovereign decided that he, too, would become a missionary. God, and that evangelistic preaching ought to begin with the Mackay attended Knox College in Toronto from 1864 to doctrine of creation. 1867. Knox professors conceived of the school as a missionary Second, while never formally disavowing Presbyterian- institution for training evangelists. Mixing evangelical piety ism, Mackay always exhibited the characteristics of a religious and Scottish Common Sense philosophy, the Knox curriculum dissenter who placed his own sense of God’s will ahead of stressed Scripture, biblical theology, and natural science as the denominational loyalty. Throughout his career he exhibited a essential elements of Christian higher education. Knox students fierce independence from the mission committee in Canada, and learned that sound scientific methods inevitably support the he consistently opposed establishing formal Presbyterian gov- authority of the Bible, and that knowledge of natural science ernment in Taiwan as an unnatural “accretion” that should not is vital to effective evangelism. Classmates later remembered be forced upon converts by foreign ecclesiastical authorities. His Mackay as a serious scholar. He especially relished geography, personal scrapbook suggests that he identified with such diverse geology, and natural science and participated in the Knox Liter- evangelists as William Booth, De Witt Talmage, and Dwight L.