An early German missionary, Dr. Ernst Johann Eitel served with the Basel German Evangelical Society (or Basel Mission) in South China from 1862-65. He then served with the London Missionary Society in Beijing from 1865-78, and baptised the first Protestant Christian in that city. A sinologist, he wrote for the Chinese Recorder and published several books: Feng-Shui, or the Rudiments of Natural Science in China (1873); Chinese English Dictionary in the Cantonese Dialect(1877); and, Europe in China: the History of Hong Kong (1895). Beginning in 1878, he served as Inspector of Schools in Hong Kong, and later as adviser to the Hong Kong government.
Sources
- A.J. Broomhall, Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century: Barbarians at the Gates, 208, 228, 372, 395
- A.J. Broomhall, Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century: Over the Treaty Wall, 351.
- Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of Christian Missions in China, 436.
- For more details and bibliographic information, see the article on Eitel by R. G. Tiedemann in The Ricci Roundtable.