Taiwan Church News

3331 Edition

December 28, 2015 - Jan 3, 2016

Church Ministry

The Revised Edition Of MacKay's Diaries(1871-1901) As An Authentic Offer To PCT150

Reported by Lin Yi-ying

On December 12, a book launch of the revised edition of MacKay's Diaries(1871-1901), which is intended to be an authenticoffer to PCT150 and cooperated among lots of scholars from Aletheia University, Academia Sinica's Institute of Taiwan History and the Archives Committee of PCT Northern Assembly, was held at Oxford College at Aletheia University.

The original manuscripts of Rev. Dr. George Leslie MacKay's diaries, recorded from 1 November 1871 to 10 February1901, consists of 12 volumes with 7,000 pages. Due to the unique handwriting of Rev. MacKay are hard to tell precisely, the first published edition of MacKay's Diaries in 2007 had many misprint and mistakes. Through the assistance of high-tech magnifying scanner from Academia Sinica, Rev. MacKay's handwriting becomes easy to tell and spell out correctly. And this revised edition of Mackay's diaries is therefore presented as an authentic offer to PCT150.

Rev. Wang Rong-chang, director of university history at Aletheia University and the chief editor of this revised edition project, remarked that this revised MacKay's diaries will be available on the platform of Digital Archives(digitalarchives.tw) in the future enabling a free search by global users who are interested in Taiwan history, especially in the fields like the agriculture, the aboriginal people, epidemiolgy, anthropology, education and etc.

Missionary Louise Gamble, who is responsible for the critical proof-reading of this revised diaries, expressed that the content of MacKay's diaries was not a record about his personal emotions or feelings, but a detailed descriptions about his evangelical ministry in Taiwan. Ms Gamble said that she felt very honored to be part of this project, allowing her to learn the ideas of Rev. MacKay's theological perspectives and missionary ideals through a first-hand close reading of this extraordinary historical documents!

Translated by Peter Wolfe