Liang Fa

An engraving of George Chinnery's lost Robert Morrison Translating the Bible . Morrison is assisted by Li Shigong (left) and Chen Laoyi (right).

Liang Fa (1789–1855), also known by other names, was the second Chinese Protestant convert and the first Chinese Protestant minister and evangelist. He was ordained by Robert Morrison, the first Protestant missionary in the Qing Empire. His tract Good Words to Admonish the Age was influential on Hong Xiuquan, who went on to lead the Taiping Rebellion.

Name Liang Fa is the pinyin romanization of Liang's usual Chinese name, which his father used. is the Jyutping romanization of the same name in Cantonese, the usual spoken dialect of Guangdong's natives. His personal name is the common Chinese verb for "to send" but in Chinese grammar can also be understood as its past participle, "[he who is] sent". He is also known as , "", "Afa", "" or "" from the Southern Chinese habit of forming affectionate nicknames using the prefix Ā- (now , formerly ). was apparently his complete name, although it was used less often. It variously appears as "Leang Kung-fa", It was at one such session that Hong Xiuquan first encountered Liang's work Good Words to Admonish the Age. He converted a printer named Lin ("Lam"); Li San, who became his assistant; and others. Liang accompanied Wat Ngong, another Chinese Christian printer, on his trek in 1830, distributing their Christian tracts across southwest Guangdong. He continued the practice for three or four more years. There are unclear references to some long-standing dispute between Wat and Liang that was eventually resolved; they worked together in Malacca and again to continue the mission with another native worker after Morrison's death.

The 1833 Government of India Act ended the East India Company's legal monopoly on Britain's share of the Canton trade. Amid the diplomatic crisis occasioned by the increase in opium smuggling and Lord Napier's resort to force to assert his right to act as the British consul in Guangzhou, the Emperor personally expressed disbelief that westerners were responsible for the Chinese-language magazines and broadsides being distributed by the English. Qing subjects were forbidden to teach to the language, and a crackdown was ordered. Morrison died in August 1834 and, several days into Liang's distribution of tracts at Guangzhou's provincial exams a few weeks later, the city's police came for him and his companions. Liang escaped to Macao, "Good Words to Exhort the World",

He also published: (Chinese titles are given in modern traditional characters, some of which—such as those preceded by the altar radical—vary slightly from their 19th-century forms.) Romanizations include both modern pinyin and the contemporary romanization. Translations are Wylie's, where given. . . .

Liang also assisted Milne's Monthly Chinese Magazine and created The Monthly Total Record of the Inspection of the Worldly Customs (《察世俗每月統記傳》 Cha Shisu Meiyue Tongji Zhuan), one of the first Chinese magazines.

Legacy Liang was an important participant in the establishment of Protestantism in China, but is most remembered for the influence of his tracts on Hong Xiuquan and his Taiping rebels, for whom Good Words to Admonish the Age became a sacred text.

Liang's grave was found to be on land purchased for the expansion of Lingnan University (formerly Canton Christian College and now Sun Yat-sen University). He was re-interred in the center of the college campus on the site reserved for the college chapel. The site was dedicated 7 June 1920.