Background
Issachar Jacob Roberts was born on February 17, 1802 in Sumner County, Tennessee, United States
leader minister of foreign affairs Missionary founder of the China Mission Society
Issachar Jacob Roberts was born on February 17, 1802 in Sumner County, Tennessee, United States
When he was about nineteen years old he was converted, and later pursued his studies at the Furman Theological Institution, South Carolina.
On April. 27, 1827, he was ordained at Shelbyville, Tennessee
In 1836 he sailed for China under his fund, arriving there the following year. He began his missionary labors at Macao, working as a saddler and preaching to a colony of lepers, which connection ostracized him from his fellow missionaries. Finding his income insufficient, in 1841 he joined the Baptist Mission and following the organization of the Southern Baptist Convention transferred to the latter (January 1, 1846).
He helped open the Baptist Mission at Hong Kong in 1842, laboring first at the village of Chek-chu--partly among British troops (Baptist Missionary Magazine, June 1843)--and the next year at Victoria (Hong Kong).
In 1844 he moved to Canton, where he leased a lot and built a chapel.
In 1852 he finally reverted to a completely independent status.
In 1853 he addressed from his capital at Nanking a letter to Roberts asking him to come and instruct the people.
The zealous missionary felt "constrained to go" and, disregarding the strong disapproval of the project on the part of the American Commissioner, he turned up in Shanghai with two rebel princes (L. S. Foster, Fifty Years in China, 1909, pp. 80-81) and made a futile attempt to reach Nanking.
He contented himself for the time being with fulsome and egotistical writings on the revolution and on his own unique connection with its leader (see Spirit of Missions, May 1854; Putnam's Magazine, October 1856).
On October. 13, 1860.
he finally reached Nanking, where he was assistant to the chief minister of state, a former "convert" named Hung Jin and denoted the Kan Wang ("Shield King").
I, 1901, p. 209).
He was strikingly uncouth and had marked eccentricities.
Quotations: "Let the dead bury their dead, but I must preach the gospel. "
Eccentrical, egotistic
In 1866 Roberts returned to the United States, whither his wife and two children had preceded him in 1855.
He had gone back to marry her in 1849, a former wife, to whom he was married January 4, 1830, having died in 1831.