That week when Mr. Cameron came to school, Jonathan told him what had happened. Mr. Cameron was delighted and offered to let Jonathan teach Sunday school, which Jonathan eagerly agreed to do. Jonathan soon found the Bible interesting and alive, and he wanted to share the wisdom of what he read in its pages with all those around him.
Soon after Jonathan became a Christian, his parents came to stay at his brother Will’s house for a month. Jonathan saw this as a wonderful opportunity to tell his parents about his new faith. He decided they should all have family devotions together and that he should lead them. Though he had no idea how his father would react to this suggestion, when his sister-in-law had cleared the dishes from the table the first night, Jonathan cleared his throat and said, “We’re going to have family devotions tonight, so please don’t leave.”
Much to his surprise, they all stayed exactly where they were. Jonathan had his Bible ready on the sideboard, and he opened it and read a chapter from the Book of Isaiah. He made a few comments about what the chapter meant and then invited his family to kneel and pray with him. They all did that night and every night that his parents were there.
It was a good thing that Jonathan’s new faith was accepted at home, because it wasn’t at school. Jonathan’s teacher embraced the ideas of Thomas Paine. After the American Revolution, Paine had written a pamphlet called The Age of Reason, which criticized Christianity for being outdated and irrelevant to modern society.
All the students in the class followed the teacher’s lead, making fun of Jonathan and mocking his simple beliefs. Jonathan withstood their taunts as long as he could, but after a while he grew tired of their sarcastic remarks. Yet he didn’t know what to do. He had no answers for Thomas Paine’s criticism of Christianity. Slowly he felt his new faith begin to crumble. Finally he decided the Bible must have the answers he needed; he just had to dig deeper to find them. Every night for many weeks, when he had finished his farm chores, Jonathan would sit down with his Bible and look for answers. And he found them. By the time school recessed for summer, Jonathan’s faith was much stronger. Not only that, he had found convincing ways to answer the questions and taunts hurled against him. First his teacher and then his fellow students gave up their “sophisticated” beliefs and became Christians.
Jonathan was amazed. Right there and then he decided to become a Presbyterian pastor instead of a politician. He spoke to the Reverend Mr. Cameron about his desire. Mr. Cameron was delighted by Jonathan’s decision and began to tutor him in Latin and Greek in preparation for attending Knox College in Toronto, where Jonathan would train to be a pastor.
Jonathan also began sending away for bulk orders of tracts and gave them to everyone he knew, even the elderly women at church. The women were amused to be a part of his evangelistic efforts.
Not long after this, Jonathan was invited to a meeting held by an elderly missionary to Formosa (now Taiwan). Jonathan sat spellbound as Dr. Mackay preached a lively sermon. Towards the end of the presentation, the old missionary’s voice grew quiet. “For the past two years,” he said, “I have traveled from one end of Canada to the other trying to interest some young man in following me back to Formosa. But I have not been able to find a single man. It seems no one has caught the vision. I am getting ready to go back alone. I have no doubt that soon my bones will be lying in a grave on some Formosan hillside. That is no tragedy. To me the tragedy is that no young man has heard the call to come and carry on the work that I have begun.”
As Jonathan listened to Dr. Mackay utter these words, he felt overwhelmed with shame. He wished the floor would open up and swallow him. Wasn’t he a young man? Why had he assumed he should become a pastor, having to travel no farther away from home than Toronto? A Bible verse came to mind. It was from Isaiah chapter six, verse eight, which he had read many times: “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” In an instant, Jonathan knew why his life had been spared twice. He was called to be a missionary, to go to some unknown place where the gospel had never been heard before.
The idea gripped Jonathan’s heart, and he began to read every book and article he could find about foreign missions. He had four years of training at Knox College ahead of him, but he was convinced that when he graduated, he would be on his way to serve in some far-off place, as distant as any he had studied on the classroom map back in elementary school.
Chapter 2
A Country Bumpkin
It was October 1883, and Jonathan Goforth stood waiting for the train. He had a huge grin on his face. He could hardly believe that at twenty-four years of age he was finally on his way to Knox College, one hundred twenty miles away in Toronto. At first he had been a little nervous about going. After all, he’d never been in a big city before. For the first time in his life he would be surrounded by strangers. He calmed his nerves by reminding himself that even though his fellow students at Knox College might start out as strangers, they would soon be friends, since they had so much in common. All twenty-three of the students who would make up his class were training to become Presbyterian pastors or missionaries. Jonathan could scarcely imagine what it was going to be like with so many other enthusiastic and dedicated young men around. He thought of the Bible studies they would have together and the prayer meetings. It was almost too good to be true.
As the train rounded a bend and approached the station, Jonathan hugged his mother good-bye. “Thank you for everything, Ma,” he said, emotion suddenly choking his voice.
“Mind you don’t get that new suit of yours dirty before you even get to the city,” replied his mother.
Jonathan could hear the pride in her voice—pride that he was going off to college and pride for the new suit and shirt he was wearing. She had sat up late many nights hand sewing them. She told Jonathan he needed to look his best, since he was the first Goforth to go off to college.
“I’ll take good care of it, Ma,” he said as the train puffed its way to a halt beside the tiny station platform. “This suit has to last me four years, and then some!”
Jonathan swung his suitcase onto the train, and after a hurried farewell to his father and the five of his brothers who had come to see him off, he climbed aboard, found a seat, and waved good-bye.
“God bless you, lad,” yelled his father as the locomotive lunged forward and the train began to pull away from the station.
The remark brought tears to Jonathan’s eyes. Two years earlier, soon after Jonathan had decided to become a missionary, his father had become a Christian. Now he stood waving enthusiastically as his son set off for a Christian college. Not only that, but he had promised to support Jonathan’s plans in any way he could.
The trip to Toronto was almost like a dream. Jonathan had never been so far away from home. There were so many new sights and sounds to take in as the train rattled along through the rolling green Ontario countryside. Finally Jonathan arrived at Knox College, an imposing old stone building, where he was confident he would spend four happy and productive years studying.
Upon arrival at Knox College, Jonathan got straight down to business. He feared that with twenty-two other eager students in his class, all of the opportunities for Christian service would soon be taken. So he asked one of the college professors for directions to the poorest part of the city. The professor directed him to an area called the Ward, located south of the college. Jonathan would have liked to have asked one of the other students to go with him, but since he didn’t know any of them yet, he went to the Ward alone.
It was early evening as Jonathan strolled the streets of the Ward slum district. He prayed as he walked, and to his amazement many young women came right up to talk to him. Many of them offered to spend time with him. At first their reaction puzzled Jonathan, who finally decided it was because his prayers were working. The young women, it seemed, were somehow drawn to him to learn more about the gospel. Encouraged by the “openness” of people in the area, Jonathan walked for several miles through the streets developing a plan to visit every home in the area and to spend time talking to and praying with as many of the young women as he could.
By the time Jonathan got back to Knox College later that night, he was excited by all the possibilities that lay ahead of him in the Ward. In fact, he was so excited about ministering in the Ward district that that was all he talked about at dinner the following evening. The students ate together, and whenever there was a lull in the conversation, Jonathan cleared his throat and began to speak. “I don’t know if any of you have had the chance to get down to the slum area yet, but I went last night and I was astounded by the openness there to the gospel.”
Most of the other students stopped eating and listened intently. “What do you mean?” asked one of the young men.
“Well,” replied Jonathan, enthusiastically, “take the young women, for example. I must have had ten or fifteen come right up to me and ask me what they could do for me! At home the young ladies are shy, but in the Ward they are very forward. I think God must have been working in their hearts, don’t you?”
At first Jonathan saw a couple of the students cover their mouths with their hands, and then he heard a snicker or two. Within a minute the entire room had erupted into loud howls of laughter. Jonathan felt the prickly sensation of his ears and cheeks turning hot and red. What had he said that was so funny? He had no idea.
When the laughter finally died down, the student to his right elbowed him. “Haven’t you ever seen a prostitute before?” he smirked.
“Didn’t you wonder why those girls were so friendly?” taunted another student.
“You’re joking, aren’t you, Jonathan?” questioned a third.
“No! I think he’s telling the truth,” blurted the young man who sat next to Jonathan at morning devotions. “Look at the country boy’s clothes! Ha, Jonathan! Did your mama make them for you?”
Jonathan sat in stunned silence, unable to reply to anything the students had said to him, unable to imagine that this was the response of students in a Christian college. For the first time he studied the clothes the other students were wearing. Every one of them had on a fancy city suit. Jonathan wondered how he had been so stupid not to notice before now.
Eventually the taunting died down and the dinner conversation moved on to other things, but Jonathan was not interested in taking part. All he wanted to do was to get away to his room and be alone.
Later that night, after he had thought about the incident at dinner, Jonathan knew he would never fit in until he had city clothes like the other students. He had a small amount of money that was supposed to keep him for the first semester, and he decided to spend some of it on having a new suit made. He promised himself he would never let his mother know what he’d done. She would be very upset to learn that her loving handiwork had made her son the laughingstock of the college.
The following day when class was out, Jonathan did not go to the Ward. Instead he went into town and bought five yards of medium-quality black suiting fabric. He planned to take the fabric to a tailor the following evening and have a suit made. However, something happened that night—something worse than Jonathan had ever experienced in his life—that prevented him from doing so.
After dinner that night, Jonathan went upstairs to study. He was sitting alone in his room with his back to the door when he heard it open. He turned to see who it was, and much to his surprise, all of the first-year students were crowding into his room. Jonathan was puzzled; he couldn’t think of any reason for a mass visit at this time of night. Suddenly he saw the length of rope one of the students was carrying, and his blood froze. He searched the faces of his fellow students and saw hatred and disdain. “What do you want?” he asked as evenly as he could.
