Arthur Matthews

Robert Arthur Mathews (4 February 1912 - 29 July 1978) was a Protestant Christian missionary who served with the China Inland Mission (CIM) in China. He and fellow CIM missionary, Dr. Rupert Clark, were the last foreign missionaries to leave China in 1953 following the takeover of the Chinese Communist Party in 1949. Early life Mathews was born on February 4, 1912, in China. He was the son of sinologist Robert Henry Mathews and Annie Ethel Mathews (née Smith), both CIM missionaries from Australia. Arthur spent his early childhood in China, then later as a farm hand in Australia. His mother died in the field, and he was initially not accepted by CIM for this reason. However, in 1936 he began attending Melbourne Bible Institute in preparation for mission work, and arrived in China in 1938. From 1943 to 1946, he was a major with the 12th Frontier Force Regiment in the British Indian Army during World War II. The regimental center was in the Punjab town of Sialkot (now Pakistan). He was influenced by the leaders of the Punjab Prayer Union and the prayers of Praying Hyde, as a revival had broken out there at the turn of the century.