1887年，22岁的循道公会的传教士英国人柏格理（Samuel Pollard）来到中国开始传教。他最终选择了一个偏僻的苗族聚居的小村寨“石门坎”作为基地传播基督教和开展社会公益事业。石门坎是位于中国贵州、云南、四川三省毗邻的乌蒙山区的，这里至今仍是彝族、苗族、汉族等民族杂居相处的地区，当时依靠“结绳刻木”记事的苗族生活在社会的最底层，深受彝族和汉族地主的双重剥削。
柏格理是一个极富献身精神的基督使者，在西南高山险谷地区，在民族关系极为敏感的苗彝民族杂居区传教，数十次出生入死。他凭着自己的胆识和魄力，以基督教的友爱精神，使基督教在乌蒙山区得到辉煌发展。1905年，茅草搭盖的简易的石门坎教堂建立起来，在此后四十余年间直到中华人民共和国于1949年建立，在教会的努力下，整个山区得以福音化，他们在该地区建立教堂，创办学校和医院，为苗族人民创制和推行文字。基督的福音在这样一个起点如此之低的被压迫民族中取得了巨大的成就：石门坎社区接受过大专以上教育的苗族人士30余人，其中两人获得博士学位，接受过中等教育的200余人，接受过小学教育的数千人。1921年的统计显示，在乌蒙山区就有85%人口為基督徒。伯格理被苗族称为“救星”，石门坎被当时英国一些媒介称为基督教的“海外天国”。
1915年，石门坎流行“伤寒”，感染者十有八九身亡。柏格理却坚守救护病人，并因此不幸感染，不久后不治而逝。伯格理以其毕生之力实践了他“引导一个民族的皈依”的理想。
Samuel Pollard, from United Methodist Missionary Society
in Britain, came into China at the age of 22 in the year 1887. After several
years' research in the remote Southwest part of China, he finally settled
down in a Miao-Minority-People-centered mountain village named Stone Gateway,
and started his mission there, contributing a lot to the social welfare of
this region. Stone Gateway is a small village located in the WuMeng mountain
area, bordering Guizhou, Yunnan and Sichuan province. It has been a place
mixed of several different Chinese Minorities such as Yi, Miao as well as
the Han people. At the time when Pollard was coming, the Miao Minority people
hadn't had their written characters. They knotted the rope or carved wood
for documentation of their history and events. Therefore these illiterate
Miao people were oppressed by the Yi and Han Lords and stayed as the lowest
class among all.
Pollard is quite a devoting missionary. He went through fire and water many times in these remote and dangerous southwestern Chinese valleys, where the different minority peoples were very sensitive against each other. With courage and insight, as well as the friendly spirit of Christianity, he started people's belief in this religion and made it widespread in the Wumeng mountain area. The Stone Gateway church was set up in 1905 with simple couch grass. More than 40 years afterwards since then until the foundation of People's Republic of China in 1949, in the effort of church, the whole mountain region was evangelized. A lot of churches were built up, as well as schools and hospitals. They even created a script for the Miao people. It is unbelievable how big a success the Christian Evangelism had achieved in such an oppressed People with so poor business: More than 30 Miao people in the Stone Gateway society got their Junior college degree, and 2 of them became P.H. Ds. Over 200 got their Middle school education, and thousands got primary education. According to the record in 1921, 85% people in the Wumeng mountain area were Christians. Pollard was called “Savior” for the Miao people. The Stone Gateway society was called then by several English medias “The oversea paradise”.
In the year 1915, the area of Stone Gateway was wide infected with typhoid fever. 9 out of 10 people infected would finally die. However, Pollard stayed with the ill and nursed them until the last moment of his life, when he unfortunately caught the disease and died. We could therefore say, Missionary Pollard devoted all his life in practicing his ideal for evangelizing a people.