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Edkins, Joseph, British missionary in China.
Edkins was appointed as a missionary by the London Missionary Society (LMS) and arrived in China in July 1848. With his colleagues in Shanghai, Walter Medhurst, William Lockhart, Alexander Wylie, and William C. Milne, he engaged in evangelism, participated in a training school for pastors, and produced scholarly books for the work of missions in China. During his years in Shanghai he made several contacts with the leaders of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in an effort to determine the precise beliefs of this movement. In 1863 he became one of the first Protestant missionaries to live in Peking (Beijing), where he stayed for 30 years.
He was a part of the team in the capital that produced a Mandarin version of the New Testament. He was an active member of the China and North China branches of the Royal Asiatic Society. He is most noted for two of his later hooks, Religion in China (1880) and Chinese Buddhism (1880). In these he claimed that missionaries should regard Buddhism, particularly in its eschatology, as a preparation for Christianity. Edkins retired from the LMS in 1880 but remained in Peking with the imperial Maritime Customs until 1893. He lived again in Shanghai from 1893 to 1905 and continued to be active in writing until his death.
Ralph R. Covell