John Ross

Early Years and Calling

John Ross was born in 1842 in a village in Easter Ross, in the northern Highlands of Scotland. Gaelic was his mother tongue from childhood. He later studied at the University of Glasgow and received his theological training in Edinburgh. As a young man he resolved to take the gospel to the Far East and gave himself to overseas mission.

Opening the Work in Manchuria

In 1872 Ross was sent to China by the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland and arrived in Northeast China, then called Manchuria, at first living in the area of Yingkou and Niuzhuang. He studied hard the Chinese language and the ways of the Northeast, and for years travelled and preached across the vast countryside, his journeys covering the towns and villages of Liaodong, and he became one of the pioneers of Christianity in the Northeast. Later he moved to Mukden, today's Shenyang, and made it the center of his long-term work. Because the Qing authorities did not allow churches to be built inside the city walls, he set up a meeting place outside the East Gate; this became the later well-known Dongguan Church, whose founding is commonly dated to 1889. The church later became one of the largest and most influential churches in the Northeast.

Translating the Bible into Korean

While working in the Northeast, Ross met Koreans who traded back and forth across the border. Korea was then closed to the outside world and the gospel could hardly enter, so he determined to begin from the Northeast. With the help of Korean merchants he learned Korean and set to work translating the Bible. He held that the Bible should be in Hangul, which ordinary people could read, rather than in classical Chinese, which was used only among the scholar class. In 1882 the Gospel of Luke was printed in Mukden; by 1887 the first complete Korean New Testament, Yesu Seonggyo Jeonseo (예수셩교젼셔), was finished, the first Korean New Testament in history. He was also the first to separate words with spaces in written Korean, which had a far-reaching influence.

Writings

Ross also wrote diligently, leaving works such as Corean Primer, History of Corea, Mission Methods in Manchuria and The Original Religion of China, which are of value for mission, for language, and for history and geography.

Return to Scotland in Later Life

In 1910, advancing in years and failing in health, Ross returned to Scotland, where he kept on lecturing and writing and continued to care about mission work in China. In 1915 he died in Edinburgh and was buried in a cemetery there.

His Legacy for Korea

The far-reaching significance of Ross's life is seen above all in his contribution to the Korean church. The Korean New Testament whose translation he led was carried back to Korea by Korean merchants who had come to faith, before Western missionaries entered Korea in large numbers, so that the seed of the gospel took root there first. The flourishing of Christianity in South Korea today, traced to its source, is closely bound up with this Scottish missionary who labored quietly in the Northeast.