On September 4, 1807, Robert Morrison arrived in Canton as the first Chinese missionary of modern times. He quickly applied himself to learning Mandarin Chinese, hiring Chinese instructors who risked their own lives in teaching him (it being illegal to teach a foreigner to read or write Chinese). He completed his Chinese translation of the New Testament in 1813; the Old Testament in 1819. In September, 1814, seven years after he arrived, he secretly baptized his first convert. When he died in 1834 after 27 years in China, he had only baptized ten Chinese believers. Yet, his work became the foundation for much of what is happening in China today.
