Arthur Tappan Pierson (March 6, 1837 – June 3, 1911) was an American Presbyterian pastor, Christian leader, missionary and writer who preached over 13,000 sermons, wrote over fifty books, and gave Bible lectures as part of a transatlantic preaching ministry that made him famous in Scotland, England, and Korea.

Throughout his career, Pierson filled several pulpit positions around the world as an urban pastor who cared passionately for the poor.

Prior to 1870, there had been only about 2000 missionaries from the United States in full-time service, roughly ten percent of whom had engaged in work among Native Americans.

A great movement of foreign missions began in the 1880s and accelerated into the 20th century, in some measure due to the work of Pierson.

[1][page needed] He acted as the elder statesman of the student missionary movement and was the leading evangelical advocate of foreign missions in the late 19th century.

In 1860, he had married Sarah Frances Benedict; they had seven children, all of whom professed conversion to Christianity before the age of 15 and later served as missionaries, pastors, or lay leaders.

At the age of forty, while serving as pastor of the largest church in Detroit, he attended a series of evangelistic messages and realized he was prideful and greedy, and had sought the approval of the rich.

Pierson spoke with D. L. Moody at his Northfield Conferences and was also a speaker at the Keswick Convention who promoted holiness piety.

As a missionary speaker A. T. Pierson influenced Robert Elliott Speer, Samuel Zwemer, Horace Grant Underwood and John R. Mott, Nobel Peace Prize winner, to give their lives to missions.