James Joseph Meadows | |
|---|---|
 Missionary to China | |
| Born | 1 September 1835 Norfolk, England |
| Died | 12 December 1914 (aged 79) England |
James Joseph Meadows (1 September 1835 – 12 December 1914), Protestant Christian missionary to China and one of the first missionaries with the China Inland Mission.
Christianity is an Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, as described in the New Testament. Its adherents, known as Christians, believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and savior of all people, whose coming as the Messiah was prophesied in the Old Testament.
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to proselytize or perform ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin missionem, meaning "act of sending" or mittere, meaning "to send". The word was used in light of its biblical usage; in the Latin translation of the Bible, Christ uses the word when sending the disciples to preach The gospel in his name. The term is most commonly used for Christian missions, but can be used for any creed or ideology.
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia and the world's most populous country, with a population of around 1.404 billion. Covering approximately 9,600,000 square kilometers (3,700,000 sq mi), it is the third- or fourth-largest country by total area. Governed by the Communist Party of China, the state exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four direct-controlled municipalities, and the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau.
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Meadows was converted to Christianity at Perth, Scotland. He later lived at Barnsley, Yorkshire.
Perth is a city in central Scotland, on the banks of the River Tay. It is the administrative centre of Perth and Kinross council area and the historic county town of Perthshire. It has a population of about 47,180. Perth has been known as The Fair City since the publication of the story Fair Maid of Perth by Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott in 1828. During the later medieval period the city was also called St John's Toun or Saint Johnstoun by its inhabitants in reference to the main church dedicated to St John the Baptist. This name is preserved by the city's football teams, St Johnstone F.C.
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Sharing a border with England to the southeast, Scotland is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, by the North Sea to the northeast and by the Irish Sea to the south. In addition to the mainland, situated on the northern third of the island of Great Britain, Scotland has over 790 islands, including the Northern Isles and the Hebrides.
Barnsley is a town in South Yorkshire, England, located halfway between Leeds and Sheffield. Historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the town centre lies on the west bank of the Dearne Valley. Barnsley is surrounded by several smaller settlements which together form the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley, of which Barnsley is the largest and its administrative centre. At the 2011 Census, Barnsley had a population of 91,297.
Meadows and his wife, Martha, sailed for China aboard the Challenger on 8 January 1862 and arrived at Shanghai on 24 May. They were at first unconnected to any organized mission agency, as Hudson Taylor's first recruits for the "Ningbo Mission" which three years later became the China Inland Mission. Their first field of work was in Ningbo maintaining the missionary work with missionary John Jones and Edward Clemens Lord at the Bridge Street premises, while awaiting reinforcements from England.
Challenger was a wooden clipper ship built in 1852 by Richard & Henry Green, Blackwall Yard for Hugh Hamilton Lindsay, London.
Shanghai is one of the four municipalities under the direct administration of the central government of the People's Republic of China, the largest city in China by population, and the second most populous city proper in the world, with a population of 24.18 million as of 2017. It is a global financial centre and transport hub, with the world's busiest container port. Located in the Yangtze River Delta, it sits on the south edge of the estuary of the Yangtze in the middle portion of the East China coast. The municipality borders the provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang to the north, south and west, and is bounded to the east by the East China Sea.
James Hudson Taylor was a British Protestant Christian missionary to China and founder of the China Inland Mission. Taylor spent 51 years in China. The society that he began was responsible for bringing over 800 missionaries to the country who began 125 schools and directly resulted in 18,000 Christian conversions, as well as the establishment of more than 300 stations of work with more than 500 local helpers in all eighteen provinces.
Martha died suddenly at Ningbo in 1863, and Meadows later proposed marriage by letter to her friend, Elizabeth Rose. Upon Miss Rose's arrival with the Lammermuir Party at Shanghai on 30 September 1866, the couple were married in October 1866 in Ningbo. Elizabeth Meadows died on 3 November 1890.
The Lammermuir Party was a British group of Protestant missionaries who travelled to China in 1866 aboard the tea clipper Lammermuir, accompanied by James Hudson Taylor, the founder of the China Inland Mission. Mission historians have indicated that this event was a turning point in the history of missionary work in China in the 19th century. This was the largest party of Protestant missionaries to date to arrive at one time on Chinese shores. It was also noteworthy that none of the members of the mission were ordained ministers, and only two had any previous overseas experience. In addition to this, there were among them nine unmarried women traveling to a place where single European women were rare for many reasons.
Ningbo, formerly written Ningpo, is a sub-provincial city in northeast Zhejiang province, People's Republic of China. It comprises the urban districts of Ningbo proper, three satellite cities, and a number of rural counties including islands in Hangzhou Bay and the East China Sea. Its port, spread across several locations, is among the busiest in the world and the municipality possesses a separate state-planning status. As of the 2010 census, the entire administrated area had a population of 7.6 million, with 3.5 million in the six urban districts of Ningbo proper. To the north, Hangzhou Bay separates Ningbo from Shanghai; to the east lies Zhoushan in the East China Sea; on the west and south, Ningbo borders Shaoxing and Taizhou respectively.
Meadows was away from China on furlough between 1871 and 1874, and between May 1895 and November 1896. He died of cancer in 1914.
In the United States, a furlough is a temporary leave of employees due to special needs of a company or employer, which may be due to economic conditions at the specific employer or in the economy as a whole. These involuntary furloughs may be short or long term, and many of those affected may seek other temporary employment during that time.
