M. T. Yates, D. D.
The Baptist Encyclopedia, 1881M. T. Yates, D. D. was born in Wake Co., N.C., in 1819; was baptized into the, fellowship of the Mount Pisgah church in October, 1836; went to school to George W. Thompson, near Wake Forest College, in 1838; became a beneficiary of the Convention, and was graduated from Wake Forest College in 1846; was ordained in October, 1846, during the session of the Convention in the city of Raleigh. Rev. Thomas Meredith preached the sermon, Rev. William Hill Jordan offered the prayer, Dr. James B. Taylor, of Richmond, delivered the charge, and the venerable Dr. Wait presented the Bible. Immediately after his ordination he and his wife sailed for China, where they have been laboring for thirty-five years. Dr. Yates has visited the United States three times during this period, in search of health, and he is now publishing in the Biblical Recorder "Reminiscences of a Long Missionary Life," which will be issued in book form after the series has been completed.
Dr. Jeter, clarum et venerabile nomen, once said to the writer that "he regarded Dr. Yates as the ablest missionary whom he had ever known." I asked, "Did you know Judson?" "Yes," he replied. "I knew Judson; but Yates has more mind than Judson." During the war between the States, Dr. Yates was enabled, by a judicious investment of some money he had left on interest in New York, to sustain the missionaries of the Southern Baptist Convention in China, who were cut off from all communication with the board that sent them out. Dr. Yates has rendered valuable service in the translation of the Scriptures, and in issuing evangelical tracts in Chinese. He was honored with the title of D. D. by Wake Forest College in 1872.
============ [From The Baptist Encyclopedia, 1881; rpt, 1988, pp. 1282-83. Scanned and formatted by Jim Duvall.]
Matthew Tyson Yates (1819 -1888), Early Baptist Missionary to China, By Henry Winters Luce
Recollections of M. T. Yates, the Missionary by Rev. A. B. Cabaniss.
A Google Book Link The Story of [M. T.] Yates the Missionary, as Told in his Letters and Reminiscences, By Charles E.Taylor, 1898
Baptist China Missionary Index
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