R. A. Hardie
Born
Robert Alexander Hardie

(1865-06-11)June 11, 1865
Haldimand County, Ontario, Canada
DiedJune 30, 1949(1949-06-30) (aged 84)
Lansing, Michigan, U.S.
NationalityCanadian
EducationToronto School of Medicine, M.B., 1890
Occupation(s)Missionary and physician
Years active1890–1935
Known forWŏnsan Revival Movement
Great Revival
Spouse
Margaret "Matilda" Hardie (née Kelly)
​
​
(m. 1886)​

Robert Alexander Hardie (Korean: 하리영; Hanja: 谮翠薇; RR: Ha Riyeong;[1]: 1  June 11, 1865 – June 30, 1949) was a Canadian physician and Methodist evangelist who for 45 years served as a missionary in Korea. He is recognized as the catalyst for the Wŏnsan Revival (1903) and also inspired the Great Pyongyang Revival (1907) in what is now North Korea.[2][3][4]

Early life and education

Hardie was born on June 11, 1865, in Haldimand County, Ontario, south of Toronto. Of Scottish descent, he was the first of six children born to James and Abigail Hardie. Both his parents died before he was ten years old. Hardie was then raised by his aunt and uncle, Thomas and Fannie Shaw. He attended a school in Seneca, Haldimand County, earning a teacher's certificate in 1884, and worked as a teacher in Seneca for two years.[5]: 265 

In 1886, Hardie enrolled at the Toronto School of Medicine.[5]: 265  On December 27, 1886, he married Margaret "Matilda" Kelly of Hamilton, Ontario.[5]: 269, 297  As a medical student, he studied under Oliver R. Avison, who later travelled to Korea as an evangelist.[6] Hardie graduated from University of Toronto with a Bachelor of Medicine degree in 1890.[5]: 265 

Career

Physician to missionary

In the summer of 1890, Hardie moved his family to Korea to serve as an independent and nondenominational medical missionary.[5]: 268–271  The Toronto University Medical Student's YMCA (MS–YMCA) had funded his endeavour for the next eight years.[5]: 278, 497 [6] For six months in late 1890 and early 1891, he served as a physician in the Chaejungwon (Extended Relief House: Royal Hospital) in Seoul.[5]: 270  On April 14, 1891, he moved to Pusan and was later joined by his wife Margaret and two daughters at his residence which also served as the location of his medical practice. In 1892, the Hardies briefly moved to Nagasaki, Japan, on account of his poor health; they returned to Pusan later that year.[5]: 272 

When Canadian missionary James Scarth Gale ended his association with his supporters from the University College's YMCA (UC–YMCA) in order join the American Presbyterian Mission, the UC–YMCA lost its only representative in Korea. At Hardie's suggestion, the MS–YMCA and UC–YMCA joined forces to form The Canadian Colleges' Mission (CCM) with Hardie as their representative and beneficiary in Korea.[5]: 276  However, he faced competition from other missionaries in the Pusan area and financial hardship due to the limited support from Toronto. In November 1892, he decided to move his mission to Wŏnsan, where Gale and Malcolm C. Fenwick were then located.[5]: 274–75  In Wŏnsan, Hardie began to emulate Fenwick's methods for self-sufficiency by supplementing his living with farming, "feeding cattle and growing fruit". The Hardie family stayed in Wŏnsan until 1896.[5]: 275 

In July 1896, Hardie relocated his family to Canada, and returned alone to Wŏnsan in October 1897.[5]: 275, 497  In 1898, Gale moved to Seoul, and Hardie joined the American Methodist Episcopal Church, South,[6] when his contract of support from the CCM ended.[5]: 275, 278, 497  With the American Methodist mission, he was first tasked with establishing a medical practice in Songdo, Hwanghae Province, in present-day North Korea.[5]: 278–79  He remained there for less than a year before relocating again to Seoul in August 1899. It was in Seoul, on November 11, 1900, that Bishop Alpheus Wilson ordained Hardie as a deacon in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.[5]: 279 

Revival movements

Sometime after 1900, Hardie stopped practicing medicine to concentrate on his missionary work.[6] From 1902 to 1909, he was charged with the task of proselytising to the people of Wŏnsan and the greater Kangwon Province.[5]: 279, 281  In August 1903,[4] at a Bible study with six other missionaries led by Moses Clark White who was visiting from China,[7] Hardie spoke of prayer and the Holy Spirit.[8] He read from Luke 11:13[7][9] and confessed about his low spirits and disappointment with his efforts to proselytise the Kangwon Province.[2] During later meetings with larger congregations across northern Korea, he made similar confessions that inspired many western missionaries and native Koreans alike to confess their own sins, leading thousands of congregates to accept the missionaries' Christian teachings.[2][8] From 1901 to 1909, there were almost 100,000 new Korean converts to the Christian faith.[5]: 282 

Hardie's confessions became the catalyst for the Wŏnsan Revival which later inspired the Great Pyongyang Revival of 1907 in northern Korea.[2][3][4] His expression of the feeling of "humiliation" at his failings in evangelizing people in the Kangwon Province had the paradoxical effect of inspiring a religious awakening that spread throughout the entire nation.[5]: 280–82  Alfred Wasson, an American Methodist missionary to Korea, wrote in Church Growth in Korea (1934):[10]

[The revival movement] spread until it became a conspicuous feature of the life of the entire Korean Church, and was widely commented on in distant parts of the world. The leader of the movement was the Reverend R. A. Hardie, MD.

Academic career

In 1905, Hardie started a mobile theological school named Sinhakdang (Hall of Theology). The school initially had no defined physical location as he travelled between Inchŏn, Kongju, Pyongyang, and Seoul to teach several months-long sessions.[5]: 291–292  In 1909, he moved to Seoul and began teaching at the Pierson Memorial Bible School and the Methodist Biblical Institute.[5]: 498  In 1913, he founded the Hyŏpsŏng sinhakkyo (Union Theological School) in Seoul.[5]: 292  He served as the president of the school until 1922[5]: 498  and left the school in June 1923.[5]: 292  From 1916, he also published a magazine entitled Sinak saekye (The World of Theology). In 1923, Hardie became the editor-in-chief of the Chosŏn Yesukyo Sŏhoe (now known as the Korean Christian Literature Society).[5]: 447 

Family and later years

When the Hardies arrived in Korea, they had with them a two-year-old daughter named Eva, their second child.[5]: 269, 297  Their first son Arthur Sidney had died as an infant in 1888. Their second daughter Annie Elizabeth was born in Seoul during the first year of their missionary life.[1]: 9  The Hardies' third daughter Marie Mabel died only a day old but they had two more daughters, Gertrude Abigail and Sarah Grace, who lived to adulthood. Their seventh child Robert and youngest daughter Margaret Joy died at eleven and six years old, respectively. The Hardie family also adopted a Korean girl named Chuponia.[1]: 9, 13, 15 

In 1935, Hardie retired from missionary work and moved with his wife to Lansing, Michigan, to live with their daughter Grace. In total, he had served as a medical and then an evangelical missionary for about 45 years of his life. Margaret died in 1945 and Robert on June 30, 1949.[5]: 294, 498 

References

  1. 1 2 3 Kim, Chil-Sung (October 2012). The role of Robert Alexander Hardie in the Korean great revival and the subsequent development of Korean Protestant Christianity (Ph.D. thesis). Asbury Theological Seminary. OCLC 828189401. Archived from the original on April 5, 2020. Retrieved March 28, 2018.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Jang, Jung Eun (November 9, 2016). Religious Experience and Self-Psychology: Korean Christianity and the 1907 Revival Movement. Springer. pp. 78–81. ISBN 978-1-349-95041-6. Archived from the original on December 16, 2019. Retrieved April 3, 2018.
  3. 1 2 Kang, Paul ChulHong (2006). Justification: The Imputation of Christ's Righteousness from Reformation Theology to the American Great Awakening and the Korean Revivals. Peter Lang. pp. 156–157. ISBN 978-0-8204-8605-5. Archived from the original on December 16, 2019. Retrieved April 3, 2018.
  4. 1 2 3 Yang, Daniel Taichoul (December 17, 2014). Called Out for Witness: The Missionary Journey of Grace Korean Church. Wipf and Stock Publishers. pp. 20–21. ISBN 978-1-4982-1724-8.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 Yoo, Young-sik (1996). The Impact of Canadian Missionaries in Korea: A Historical Survey of Early Canadian Mission Work, 1888–1898 (PDF) (Ph.D. thesis). University of Toronto. pp. 265–303, 445–447, 497–99. ISBN 978-0-612-27810-3. OCLC 46560264. Archived (PDF) from the original on March 23, 2018. Retrieved March 23, 2018.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Ion, A. Hamish (May 28, 1990). The Cross and the Rising Sun: The Canadian Protestant missionary movement in the Japanese Empire, 1872–1931. Wilfrid Laurier University Press. p. 32. ISBN 978-0-88920-977-0.
  7. 1 2 Hansen, Collin; Woodbridge, John D. (2010). A God-Sized Vision: Revival Stories That Stretch and Stir. Zondervan. p. 106. ISBN 978-0-310-32703-5.
  8. 1 2 Burgess, Stanley M.; van der Maas, Eduard M. (August 3, 2010). The New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements: Revised and Expanded Edition. Zondervan. ISBN 978-0-310-87335-8.
  9. ↑ Lee, Young-hoon (April 1, 2009). The Holy Spirit Movement in Korea: Its Historical and Theological Development. Wipf and Stock Publishers. p. 26. ISBN 978-1-60608-627-8.
  10. ↑ Wasson, Alfred Washington (1934). Church growth in Korea ... Rumford Press. p. 29. OCLC 590106784.

Further reading

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