1912 Gansu Pentecostal Revival

Introduction: A Spark on the Tibetan Border

In the early years of the 20th century, the Gansu-Tibetan border was a land of stark contrasts—a rugged, isolated, and spiritually contested frontier where ancient traditions met the encroaching forces of modernity.¹

It was a region of immense physical hardship and profound spiritual need, made all the more volatile by the political chaos convulsing China, including the great revolution of 1911-1912 that toppled an empire.³ Stationed in this remote outpost were William Wallace Simpson and his wife, Alma Ottilia Ekvall Simpson,¹ missionaries with the Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA).¹

Like many of their colleagues, they were driven by a deep sense of calling but also felt an acute spiritual inadequacy in the face of the monumental task before them. They were on a quest for a deeper spiritual power, a divine enablement that would transcend the limits of their own strength and training.⁵

This report argues that the Simpsons’ reception of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit in Taozhou, Gansu, in May 1912 was the catalytic event that transformed their ministry and ignited one of the earliest and most significant Pentecostal revivals in inland China.

This experience fundamentally shifted their theological framework from the “Higher Life” paradigm of their sending agency to a dynamic, and ultimately controversial, form of “power evangelism” characterized by supernatural phenomena such as speaking in tongues, prophecy, and divine healing.⁶

This paper will trace the Simpsons’ journey from their roots in the C&MA to their new identity within the nascent Assemblies of God. It will provide a detailed account of the 1912 outpouring and the subsequent revivals it spawned, analyze the theological schism that necessitated their departure from the C&MA, and evaluate their lasting legacy of church planting and leadership training in a nation on the brink of radical transformation.

The story of William and Otilia Simpson is more than the biography of two missionaries; it is a window into a pivotal moment when the spiritual currents of the global Pentecostal movement converged on the remote frontiers of China, leaving an indelible mark on the landscape of Chinese Christianity.

¹ The subject of this report, William Wallace Simpson (born October 2, 1869, in Tennessee; died November 3, 1961, in California), should be distinguished from several other individuals of the same name who appear in historical records. He is not Albert Benjamin (A.B.) Simpson, the founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance.

Table 1: Chronology of Key Events in the Life and Ministry of William W. and Otilia Simpson

 

Date	Event	Significance
1869	William Wallace Simpson is born in Tennessee, USA. Alma Ottilia Maria Ekvall is born in Sweden.	The origins of the two individuals whose lives and ministries would become intertwined on the mission field.17
1892	W.W. Simpson and Otilia Ekvall (with her brother Martin) travel to China as C&MA missionaries.	Marks the beginning of their nearly six-decade-long missionary careers in China, initially focused on reaching Tibet.1
1895	William Wallace Simpson and Alma Ottilia Maria Ekvall are married on December 7.	Formalizes their partnership in life and ministry on the Gansu-Tibetan border.17
1900	Boxer Rebellion creates widespread anti-foreign violence across China.	A period of extreme danger for missionaries, forcing many to evacuate and shaping the context of their future work.19
1901	Their son, William Ekvall Simpson, is born.	“Willie” would later follow in their footsteps as a missionary and become a martyr for his faith.21
1911-1912	The Xinhai Revolution overthrows the Qing Dynasty, establishing the Republic of China.	Creates a period of profound political instability, civil unrest, and warlordism that forms the backdrop of their ministry.3
1912	W.W. and Otilia Simpson are Baptized in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues in Taozhou.	The pivotal event of their ministry, marking their embrace of Pentecostalism and sparking a local revival.6
1914-1915	Simpson resigns from the C&MA over doctrinal differences regarding Pentecostalism.	The formal break from their sending agency, illustrating the growing schism between the Holiness and Pentecostal movements.6
1915-1917	The Simpsons are on furlough in the USA. W.W. Simpson affiliates with the new Assemblies of God.	Establishes a new denominational home that aligns with their Pentecostal convictions.6
1917	Otilia Simpson dies of cancer in Old Orchard Beach, Maine.	A profound personal tragedy for the family and the loss of a key partner in the 1912 revival.23
1918	W.W. Simpson returns to China with his three children as an official Assemblies of God missionary.	Begins the second major phase of his ministry, now fully under the AG banner and focused on church planting and training.1
1925	W.W. Simpson marries Martha Merrill, another missionary.	Establishes a new family and partnership for the remainder of his time in China.6
1927	A second major revival occurs, marked by miraculous healings, including the reported raising of a woman from the dead.	A powerful demonstration of the “power evangelism” that characterized his AG ministry, leading to widespread conversions.23
1932	Their son, William E. Simpson, is killed by bandits on the Tibetan-Chinese border.	A devastating personal loss and a stark reminder of the dangers of their work; he is remembered as a martyr.1
1949	The Communist Party establishes the People’s Republic of China. W.W. Simpson is forced to leave China.	Marks the end of his 57-year ministry in China and the beginning of a new era of persecution for the Chinese church.1
1949-1961	Simpson lives in retirement in the United States, where he continues to promote missions.	Even after leaving the field, he remained dedicated to the cause of world evangelism.1
1961	William Wallace Simpson dies in San Francisco, California, at the age of 92.	The end of a long and impactful life dedicated to the people of China.17

 

Chapter 1: The Path to Taozhou: Forging a Missionary Identity

Early Lives and Calling

The story of the Gansu revival begins with the convergence of two distinct yet complementary paths. William Wallace Simpson was born on October 2, 1869, in White County, Tennessee, a region still recovering from the American Civil War.⁵ Raised on a farm, he was saved early in life and by the age of 21 was already a teacher and a lay preacher at his local Baptist church. His unpublished autobiography,

Contending for the Faith, reveals a clear and early sense of purpose: “I had a calling to bring the love of Jesus to the reaches of China”.⁵ This calling led him to A.B. Simpson’s Missionary Training Institute in New York City, a hub for aspiring missionaries animated by a passion for world evangelization.¹

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic in Sweden, the Ekvall family was stirred by the same missionary fervour. When A.B. Simpson toured churches in New England, his call for volunteers to carry the Gospel “to the ends of the earth” resonated deeply with three of the Ekvall siblings.¹⁹ Among them was Alma Ottilia Maria Ekvall, born in Kristianstad, Sweden, in 1869.¹⁸

She and her brother Martin enrolled in the Missionary Training Institute’s class of 1891, placing them in the same spiritual and educational milieu as William Wallace Simpson.¹⁹ Commissioned in the spring of 1892, Otilia and Martin first traveled to Shanghai and then to Wuhu for language study.¹⁹

It was in this context that her path crossed with that of the young man from Tennessee. On December 7, 1895, William Wallace Simpson and Alma Ottilia Maria Ekvall were married, formally uniting their lives and their shared calling to the people of China.¹⁷

The C&MA Theological Context

To understand the seismic shift that would occur in the Simpsons’ ministry in 1912, it is essential to first grasp the theological soil in which they were planted. The Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA) was not a traditional denomination but a movement forged in the fires of late 19th-century revivalism, deeply influenced by the Keswick “Higher Life” movement.³⁰

Its founder, A.B. Simpson, articulated a theology cantered on a post-conversion crisis experience, variously described as “entire sanctification” or the “baptism of the Holy Spirit”.³²

This “second blessing” was understood as a definite work of grace that empowered the believer for holy living and effective service.⁵ It was a theology of spiritual crisis followed by a process of growth, a call to move beyond initial salvation into a deeper, more powerful walk with God.³⁴

This was the theological framework that William and Otilia carried with them when they arrived in China in 1892. Their initial goal was ambitious and romantic: to be among the first to evangelize the closed land of Tibet.¹

They, along with colleagues like William Christie, established the Kansu-Tibetan Border Mission, a remote and rugged outpost of the C&MA.² Their work was characterized by perseverance and hard labour in a politically unstable and often dangerous environment, marked by banditry and periodic Muslim revolts.³

The C&MA’s theological emphasis on a distinct, post-conversion encounter with the Holy Spirit created a spiritual vocabulary and a framework of expectation among its missionaries. It established the category of a “second work of grace,” a profound spiritual event subsequent to salvation that was to be actively sought and experienced.

While the Keswickian understanding did not require supernatural manifestations like speaking in tongues, it nevertheless primed its adherents to be receptive to claims of a more dramatic and empowering encounter with the Spirit.²² The C&MA’s theology, in effect, had built the vessel; the emerging Pentecostal message would soon offer to fill it in a new and startling way.

Spiritual Hunger on the Frontier

Life on the Tibetan frontier was gruelling, and the spiritual results were often meagre. The missionaries, including the Simpsons, soon felt a profound sense of their own inadequacy. This spiritual hunger is palpable in the historical record.

W.W. Simpson himself wrote of possessing an “unutterable longing for the Spirit to come upon his life” and a conviction that the church needed “fervent love before we can expect Pentecost”.⁵ This was not a passive discontent but an active, prayerful search for more spiritual power than their current experience afforded.

This personal and collective seeking did not occur in a vacuum. By the early 1900s, news of powerful spiritual outpourings was circling the globe. Chief among these was the Azusa Street Revival, which began in Los Angeles in 1906 and quickly became the epicenter of the modern Pentecostal movement.⁵

Reports from Azusa Street, which explicitly linked the Baptism of the Holy Spirit to the biblical sign of speaking in other tongues as described in the Book of Acts, had reached C&MA mission fields in India, the Congo, and China.⁵

For missionaries like the Simpsons, who were already steeped in a theology that encouraged them to seek a “baptism of the Spirit” and were simultaneously feeling the weight of their own limitations, these reports offered a compelling and biblically-grounded explanation for the power they lacked.

They were not moving from a position of no expectation to one of expectation; rather, they were being drawn from a framework of a primarily sanctifying Spirit-baptism to one of an empowering and supernaturally-attested, apostolic Spirit-baptism. The stage was set for a dramatic spiritual breakthrough in the remote mountains of Gansu.

Chapter 2: The Pentecost of 1912: An Outpouring in Gansu

The Setting and a Prelude of Discernment

The spring of 1912 found the missionaries and Chinese believers of the Kansu-Tibetan Border Mission gathered for a convention in Taozhou, Gansu.⁶ The atmosphere was one of earnest seeking, a collective desire for the “Pentecost” that W.W. Simpson and others had been praying for.⁵

This was not, however, a naive or undiscerning hunger for any supernatural manifestation. A crucial event four years earlier had sharpened the missionaries’ spiritual senses. In 1908, Simpson had documented a troubling incident at a conference in Mincheo, where a Chinese man, their own cook, began to tremble, shake, and speak in what seemed to be various languages, including English, uttering the words “Eternity is nigh”.⁵

While initially perplexing, the manifestation was ultimately discerned as demonic. The man impersonated Jesus, used foul language, and became enraged at the singing of hymns about the blood of Christ before he was delivered.⁵

This experience provided a critical lesson in spiritual discernment, preparing the missionaries to distinguish between a true move of the Holy Spirit and a counterfeit manifestation. It inoculated them against a blind acceptance of phenomena and equipped them to test the spirits, an ability that would prove vital in the days to come.

The Outpouring Begins

The breakthrough came on May 5, 1912. After a prolonged period of intense personal seeking, William Wallace Simpson experienced what he had longed for: he “received the baptism of the Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues”.²²

This was not a quiet or private affair for long. The spiritual fire spread with astonishing speed, following a pattern that gave it immediate credibility and momentum within the local Chinese community.

The very next morning, May 6, a respected Confucian scholar and one of the first converts in the region, Chow Chao-nan, came to visit Simpson. During their time together, he too began to speak in tongues.²² This was a pivotal moment. Had the experience remained confined to the foreign missionaries, it might have been dismissed as a peculiar Western phenomenon.

But its immediate reception by a respected Chinese intellectual served as a powerful cultural and spiritual endorsement, signalling that this was a work of God available to all, not a foreign import.

The revival then swept through the Simpson household. Over the next two days, Otilia received the Spirit baptism, as did their daughter, Margaret. The experience even touched their ten-year-old son, Willie, who began speaking in tongues in the family kitchen.²²

The transmission of this spiritual gift proved to be immediate and relational. In a simple yet profound demonstration of this, Margaret laid her hands on one of her Chinese friends, who instantly began to speak in tongues as well.²²

The Revival Ignites

Word of these events spread like wildfire through the small Christian community. The Simpsons’ home was soon overwhelmed with seekers. The interest was so great that “so many came that they had to put the men in one room and the women and girls in another”.²² The results were remarkable.

The Simpsons’ official annual report at the end of 1912 documented that “more than thirty have received the Holy Spirit accompanied by speaking in tongues and prophesying” and that there had been “many cases of instantaneous and remarkable healings”.⁶ In just ten days, a powerful Pentecostal revival had been birthed on the Tibetan frontier.²²

The explosive and indigenous character of this revival was a direct result of its unique beginnings. The combination of its initial validation by a respected local figure like Chow Chao-nan and its rapid, non-hierarchical transmission through personal, relational contact—even from a child like Margaret to her friend—prevented it from being perceived as a missionary-controlled program.

 It was not something the foreigners were teaching; it was something God was doing, and it was happening to everyone. This organic credibility within the Chinese church itself allowed the revival to take root and grow with a speed and authenticity that a top-down, missionary-led initiative could never have achieved. It became a shared experience of the local body of believers, a fire lit by God on the Chinese frontier.

 

Chapter 3: A Contentious Faith: The Break with the Alliance

A Pentecostal District

The revival that began in the Simpson home in May 1912 quickly reshaped the spiritual landscape of the entire C&MA district. The experience of Spirit baptism, evidenced by speaking in tongues, was not a fringe phenomenon but became the defining characteristic of the church in the region.

By 1913, W.W. Simpson felt confident enough to report to C&MA headquarters that “virtually the entire work in northwest China was Pentecostal”.²² Initially, there seems to have been a degree of openness, or perhaps a delay in central oversight, as Simpson’s testimony of the revival was even published in the C&MA’s official publication, the

Alliance Weekly.⁶ However, this period of ambiguity was short-lived. The events in Gansu were forcing a doctrinal question that the broader Holiness movement was grappling with worldwide, and a confrontation was inevitable.

The Doctrinal Collision

The nascent Pentecostal movement’s insistence on glossolalia, or speaking in tongues, as the necessary initial evidence of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit created a theological crisis for established Holiness denominations like the C&MA.³⁶

While the C&MA taught a “baptism of the Spirit” for sanctification and power, it did not mandate any specific supernatural sign as proof of that experience. The developments in Gansu, championed with what some described as Simpson’s “dogmatism,” forced the C&MA leadership to clarify its position.⁶

The response from headquarters was unequivocal. They formulated a doctrinal statement that perfectly articulated the classic Keswick/Holiness position and sent it to the Simpsons for their signature: “We hold that the consecrated believer may receive the Holy Spirit in His fullness without speaking in tongues or without any supernatural manifestations whatever”.²²

This was more than a request; it was an ultimatum. The Simpsons were required not only to assent to this doctrine but also to cease from preaching and teaching their Pentecostal perspective. For William and Otilia, who had personally experienced and witnessed what they believed to be a restoration of apostolic power, this was an impossible demand.

Their refusal to sign the statement and abandon their convictions led the C&MA leadership to ask for their resignation as missionaries.²²

The conflict between the Simpsons and the C&MA was not merely a local dispute over mission field practice. It was a microcosm of the broader, global theological divergence between the 19th-century Holiness Movement and the new 20th-century Pentecostal Movement.

The specific doctrine of “initial evidence” was the fault line upon which this great separation was occurring. The events in Gansu were one of the many places around the world where this theological tension reached its breaking point, forcing individuals, churches, and mission boards to choose sides.

The Simpsons’ story thus serves as a textbook case study of this pivotal moment in the development of modern evangelicalism.

Separation and New Affiliation

In 1914, W.W. Simpson formally resigned from the mission agency that had first sent him to China over two decades earlier. He justified his departure on purely theological grounds, stating it was because the C&MA “required us to subscribe to unscriptural teaching about the Baptism in Holy Spirit”.⁶ Now independent, he began to search for a new organizational home.

He first applied to join the British Pentecostal Missionary Union (PMU), led by Cecil Polhill. While the PMU Council supported his Pentecostal position, they were understandably cautious about the sensitive politics of accepting a missionary who had just broken with another established agency, especially since Polhill himself still served on the board of the China Inland Mission.⁶

Simpson’s search for fellowship coincided with the formal organization of the Pentecostal movement in the United States. In 1915, while on furlough, he attended the General Council of the newly formed Assemblies of God (AG) in St. Louis and chose to affiliate with them.²²

In the AG, he found a movement whose foundational doctrines perfectly matched his own experience and convictions. After a period of transition, which included serving for two years as the principal of Bethel Bible School in Newark, New Jersey, he was officially commissioned as an Assemblies of God missionary in 1918, ready to return to the land and the people to whom he had dedicated his life.¹

Chapter 4: The Revival Spreads: Power Evangelism in Practice

A New Commissioning

The death of his beloved wife and ministry partner, Otilia, from cancer in 1917 marked the sorrowful end of one chapter in William Simpson’s life.²³ Yet, it was also the prelude to another. In 1918, Simpson returned to China, no longer as a C&MA missionary but as a widower and single father of three teenagers, commissioned under the banner of the Assemblies of God.¹ His vision, laid out in an article for the

Weekly Evangel, was bold and expansive. He planned to establish New Testament churches, reach the vast population of Mandarin-speaking Chinese, create a Bible school for training indigenous preachers, and hold Pentecostal meetings in new mission stations across the nation.²⁴ This was a strategy for a national movement, fuelled by the Pentecostal fire that had been kindled in Taozhou six years earlier.

The 1927 Revival: A Mighty Miracle in Taochow

Nearly a decade later, Simpson’s reports from the field chronicled a second, powerful wave of revival that swept through the region. In the February 12, 1927, issue of the Pentecostal Evangel, he gave an account of a series of conventions held under the theme “Overcoming in Preparation for the Lord’s Coming”.²³

These meetings were characterized by what Simpson termed “fighting actual battles in conquering disease, death and the devil,” and one testimony stood out as a dramatic confirmation of this spiritual warfare.²³

The central event occurred in Taochow, Old City, and involved the niece of a local man.²⁶ The young woman had been sick for three months and was near death. Her uncle summoned Mr. Chow, a Chinese leader in charge of the work there, to pray for her. After she confessed her sins and was saved, Mr. Chow and the uncle began to pray for her healing. Despite their prayers, her condition worsened.

By the next morning, she was dressed in burial clothes according to Chinese custom; her limbs were cold and stiff, and she finally stopped breathing, her tongue falling back into her throat—a clear sign of death.²³ Her father, a doctor, confirmed that she was gone.²³

Undeterred, the two men continued to pray, not for healing, but for “victory over death”.²³ After a few minutes, a single word was heard from her “dead throat”: “Faith!”.²³ As they began to praise God, Simpson reported that “the mighty Spirit of Life from Christ Jesus filled the lifeless clay and all heard clearly the dead lips speaking in a tongue as He gave utterance! And the same Spirit who gives utterance in tongues raised the dead woman to life”.²³

Upon becoming alert, the woman’s first act was evangelistic. She turned to her father and declared, “Except you believe in Jesus, your daughter cannot live”.²³ The doctor, who had rejected Christianity for 30 years, immediately fell to his knees and accepted Christ. She then secured a confession of faith from her husband.

Her uncle discovered three men outside mocking the proceedings and brought them into the room. The revived woman confronted them directly, and the Spirit of God spoke through her, issuing a public challenge: “To show you that Jesus is true and your religion false, I will cause this woman to stand on her feet today, sit up tomorrow, and walk the third day”.²³

Immediately, without assistance, she stood and preached the gospel for two and a half hours. The prophecy was fulfilled precisely: the next day she sat up, and on the third day, she walked before many witnesses. The result was a spiritual landslide: her entire family and a host of others were converted.²³ Her father later travelled 60 miles to the Minchow Convention to publicly testify and be baptized.²³

Other Manifestations and Their Apologetic Function

This dramatic resurrection was not an isolated event. During the same series of meetings, Simpson reported the deliverance of a 16-year-old girl who had been demon-possessed for over a year. Her freedom was supernaturally linked to the exorcism of a demon from a Tibetan woman who was also present in the meeting.²³

These events were more than just pastoral blessings; they were public, polemical demonstrations of spiritual authority. In the context of Northwest China—a world steeped in folk religion, Buddhism, and animism, and plagued by the chaos of warlords—supernatural power was the ultimate proof of truth.

The raising of the dead was framed as a direct contest between Jesus and other spiritual systems, a divine sign meant to validate the gospel’s claims. This approach, which would later be termed “power evangelism,” was a deliberate strategy in Simpson’s ministry.⁷

The miracles served as the primary apologetic, a culturally resonant and irrefutable argument for the supremacy of Christ that catalyzed widespread conversion and solidified the faith of the burgeoning Pentecostal church.

Chapter 5: Building a Lasting Work Amidst Tragedy and Turmoil

A Strategy for Permanence

While the spectacular events of the revivals drew much attention, the enduring substance of William Simpson’s ministry lay in his tireless and strategic efforts to build a lasting, indigenous church. He understood that revival fires needed to be channeled into stable structures to have a permanent impact.

His life’s work, especially in the decades following his return to China with the Assemblies of God, became the training and encouragement of Chinese leaders.¹ He traveled extensively, often on foot, to evangelize and teach in local Bible schools.²² He was a key figure at the Truth Bible Institute, established in Beijing in 1936, where he helped train a new generation of Chinese ministers.⁶

His missiology was remarkably progressive for its time. Rather than building a mission dependent on foreign personnel and funds, his stated goal was the establishment of self-supporting, self-governing New Testament churches led by Chinese pastors.⁷ By January 1920, just two years after his return, he could already report ten such “Assemblies” with around 300 members and a Bible school with 24 students in his Gansu district.⁶

This focus on indigenous leadership proved to be providentially crucial, as it equipped the Chinese church with the resilience it would need to survive and even thrive after all foreign missionaries were expelled in 1949.

Humanitarian and Social Impact

Simpson’s vision for ministry was holistic, extending beyond the purely spiritual to address the pressing physical needs of the people he served. The 1920s were a time of immense suffering in China, marked by civil unrest, drought, and famine.²²

In response to the devastating famines of 1923 and 1928, Simpson organized relief efforts, raising funds and distributing food to the hungry. He also established a home for famine orphans, providing a sanctuary for the most vulnerable victims of the crises.²²

Perhaps his most unique and lasting contribution was agricultural. Simpson introduced a new variety of potato to Northwest China. This crop proved to be exceptionally resistant to the region’s harsh drought conditions.

These “Simpson potatoes,” as they came to be known, became a vital food source and were credited with saving countless thousands of lives from starvation.²² This practical act of compassion demonstrated a gospel that cared for both body and soul, earning him a legacy of goodwill that transcended religious boundaries.

The High Cost of Service

The power and progress of Simpson’s ministry were forged in a crucible of profound personal suffering. The spectacular miracles existed alongside, and were given deeper meaning by, his experience of immense personal tragedy.

In 1917, his wife Otilia, his partner in the 1912 revival, succumbed to cancer while they were on furlough in the United States.²³ He returned to China a widower, facing the daunting task of raising three children alone on the mission field.

An even more crushing blow came on June 25, 1932. His son, William Ekvall Simpson—the same “Willie” who, as a ten-year-old boy, had spoken in tongues in their kitchen during the first days of the revival—had grown up to become an Assemblies of God missionary himself.

Known for his fluency in Tibetan dialects and his courage in traversing dangerous borderlands, the younger Simpson dedicated his life to sharing the gospel with nomads and Buddhist priests.²¹ On that day, he was attacked and killed by a horde of bandits near Xiahe in Gansu.¹

His father had to retrieve his son’s mutilated body from the roadside.²⁸ The event sent shockwaves through the missionary community, and William E. Simpson was mourned as a martyr for the gospel.²¹

This lived reality of deep loss gave Simpson’s ministry an incredible weight and authenticity. He could preach a gospel of supernatural power while simultaneously embodying a theology of the cross. His life demonstrated that faith in Christ’s power to raise the dead did not grant immunity from the world’s suffering but rather provided the divine resources to endure it and continue in faithful service.

This powerful synthesis of Pentecostal victory and personal tragedy prevented his message from becoming a shallow triumphalism and created a ministry that was both powerful and deeply relatable to the Chinese people, who were themselves living through decades of unimaginable war, famine, and loss.

Conclusion: The Legacy of the Gansu Revival

The arc of William Wallace Simpson’s ministry is a testament to extraordinary endurance and unwavering focus. For 57 years, from his arrival as a young C&MA recruit in 1892 until his forced departure as a veteran AG missionary in 1949, he poured his life into the people of China.¹

At the age of eighty, when the Communist takeover brought an end to the era of foreign missions, he returned to the United States.⁶ Yet, his work was not finished. Even in retirement, he “continued to promote missions,” advocating for the cause of world evangelism until his death in 1961 at the age of 92.¹

His legacy is multi-faceted. He stands as one of the most significant early Pentecostal pioneers in China. The revival that he and Otilia experienced and stewarded in Taozhou in 1912 was a pivotal moment, a key entry point for the Pentecostal message into the vast interior of the nation.

His subsequent ministry was marked by a powerful combination of supernatural demonstration and practical compassion, from raising the dead to planting potatoes.

Perhaps his most providentially significant contribution, however, was his lifelong commitment to training indigenous leaders and establishing a self-sustaining Chinese church. This strategic focus, born of conviction and wisdom, helped prepare the church for the immense trials it would face after 1949.

When the foreign missionaries were gone, the Chinese church, led by the very ministers Simpson and others like him had trained, was able to endure and, in time, experience explosive growth.

Ultimately, William Wallace Simpson can be seen as a crucial transitional figure. He carried the spiritual hunger of the 19th-century Holiness movement onto the mission field, became a conduit for the new power of 20th-century Pentecostalism, and dedicated his life to planting a church that could survive the seismic political shifts of modern Chinese history.

The fire that was lit in a small mission station in Gansu in 1912 was never extinguished; it continued to burn in the hearts of the Chinese believers long after the missionary who first brought the spark was gone.

Works cited

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