The Messenger, published since the middle of nineteenth century in England, was the main media of Presbyterian Church of England. Following the development of the mission works in overseas, the information related to Formosa gradually appeared in this magazine, which also became the useful media for the missionaries, Presbyterian Church of England, to promote their mission works in Formosa to the Christian readers. Hence, it would be important to realize, through The Messenger, how missionaries practiced their social concern in their gospel works during that period of time, and on what kind of strategies they decided to promote their life in Formosa to the readers.
According to the reports focused on Formosa from The Messenger, this article would like to examine the perspectives from the missionaries of Presbyterian Church of England, who carried out social concern works in Formosa. The aim of this article is to clarify the characters and promote functions of this magazine. For instance, there were lots of report topics concerned with the medical works, which were not only represented the difficulties of non- Christians in Formosa, but also described how Christianity could reform the society through the gospel preaching.
The Messenger preserved lots of resources related to the life conditions in Formosa, especially in the early twentieth century, although these reports were composed of gospel ideas. However, it is worthy to pay more attention on its variety of topics and analyze the way to promote the gospel works in Formosa. In short, on the one hand, some medical missionaries, as reporters, attempted to represent the fruitful results in order to combine with gospel and medical works, to the Christian readers in England. On the other hand, one of the possible writing purposes could be realized that these reporters tried to inspire the Christian readers to support the needs of mission works in overseas by the active narratives in their records.