This history of one of the pioneering Christian missionaries to China was beautifully written, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. This book follows the life and ministry of Walter Medhurst an Englishman who discerned a call to serve in the East early in life. He went on to learn to speak Mandarin and other dialects fluently, became one of the first westerners to visit mainland China, and served as a translator of the Bible and other religious tracts into Asian languages.

The author is a descendant of Medhurst and did an exhaustive amount of research that went into this book. I appreciated that the author also included narratives of the women in Medhurst's life and gave them full credit for their own ministries and important works. The author did an excellent job of "filling in the blanks" of probable emotions and reactions to various life events, while basing his work on Medhurst's letters and letting the missionary's own words speak.

This would be a great book for anyone interested in history and church history in particular. While respecting indigenous cultures, this book shows how barbaric and violent certain parts of the world used to be. This book shows a world in which Christian missionaries were the first to introduce modern medicine, care for orphans, intolerance for slavery, and other aspects of civilized society which we may now take for granted.

This books describes the life and work of the devoted and hard working early missionary Walter Medhurst . He and his wife set out to proselyte in Asia and were pioneers in establishing a foothold with churches, schools and orphanages in several countries in South East Asia. The ultimate goal was China and after the victory of the First Opium War Walter Medhurst's dream came true. The author describes the life and work of the man but also China and the Chinese people of that time and the reader gains insights into the conditions at that time. However the book could improve with a better structure and analysis, in addition to just a timeline of Medhurst's life.

Walter Medhurst lived an incredible life. He met his wife in India, daughter of an English father and Indian mother. Mixed marriages were encouraged by the East India Company. They made their way to China, where the Chinese authorities imposed tight controls on the conditions of foreign trade and Canton was the only place where foreigners could conduct business. It was a crime punishable by death for a Chinese person to teach a European to speak Chinese.
Missionairies fought the opium trade, published the Bible in Chinese, introduced Western medicine and education, especially education for females. Diseases were endemic, and the Medhurst family experienced many deaths. They returned to London as Walter’s health deteriorated and he died within days of arrival.

I usually do not agree to read and review biographies, but "Mission to China" was well worth the departure from my norm. The life and times of Walter Medhurst was a fun and informative read. I learned a great deal about the missionary movement that accompanied one of history's Great Awakenings and I also learned a lot about the trading system in Southeast Asia that dominated much of the early 19th century.