Abstract: This article examines cause and social influences of the famine relief movement which was organized mainly by Protestant missionaries during the great famine of 1876-1879 in five provinces of North China. As the first organized, planned social relief in the history of modern China, it not only gave the western missionaries unprecedented opportunities for “preaching the Gospel” in China, but also gave impetus to the reform of China and even produced some undeniable influences on the trend of thought toward later social reform