The Church missionary society was formed in 1799. Finding none in England to engage in the work, they for a time employed Germans. William Wilberforce was one of its warm supporters, and its first mission was naturally to the west coast of Africa. It had to struggle against the intrigues of the slave-traders and a most unpropitious climate, but after the transfer of the colony to the government of England the Sierra Leone mission became stable and successful. Their mission in the Tin/levelly district has received great accessions within two or three years, 11,000 heathen having sought instruction preparatory to baptism in 1878. The society had in 1878, 181 stations, 20:3 European ordained missionaries, 11 East Indian, 170 native do., 2,183 native male assistants. 497 female assistants, 27,080 communicants, 123,724 Christians baptized, 1499 schools, 57,145 scholars. It has a missionary inst-itutution at Islington.
The Wesleyan Methodists engaged in mission work as early as 1786, when Dr. Thomas Coke went to the West Indies. In the conduct of missions there and in America be crossed the Atlantic 18 times. He died in 1813, on his way to the East Indies for the purpose of establishing a mission. His live companions of the voyage began a mission in Ceylon, which afterwards extended its labors to the continent. There was no regularly organized Wesleyan misssionary society until 1817. It has since carried on missions in Spain, Portugal, Africa, India, China, Australia, in the Fiji Isla :As, where "cannibalism, war, and murder ceased wherever they penetrated," and in the Friendly islands, where the once hostile tribes are united under the native convert king George. who is Christian preacher as well as king, and among the uegroes of the West Indies, where they have been very successful. This society has 429 stations, 457 missionaries and assistant missionaries, 9,882 catechists, local preachers, and teachers, 8-3,770 full church-members, 92,921 scholars.
The church of Scotland formed a missionary society in 1824, and began its work in 1829 by sending Dr. Duff to Calcutta, who with his schools made a powerful impression on the native young men of that city. At the disruption of the Scotch church its missionaries joined the Free church. The State chnrch of Scotland has missions at Calcutta, Madras, Sealcote, Darjeeling, and Bombay, with an income of $51,000. The Free church of Scotland has missions in India. South Africa, Australia, and Syria, and among the Jews at different points, their schookin Constantinople having 200 pupils. It has 45 Europeans and 196 natives employed in mission work, 2,163 communicants, 11,086 pupils, and an income of nearly $100,000. The United Presbyterians of Scotland have 48 missionaries and 8 medical missionaries in the West Indies, Spain, Old Calabar, South Africa, India, and China; 6,927 communicants, and an income of $190,000. The Presbyterian church of Ireland had in India and China in 1879, 8 missionaries, 11 native evangelists, 236 communicants, 1082 baptized natives, and an income of $73,755. Many other societies in Great. Britain, local or limited in sphere, do very useful work.
The missionary interest in the United States during the 17th and 18th centuries had been expended in efforts to Christianize the Indians, and evangelize its own wide newly settled regions. In looking for the origin of the foreign missionary work in America we find three young men in Williams college withdrawing one summer afternoon in 1807 to a retired field, telling each other their impressions concerning the condition of the pagan nations, and kneeling there to implore divine direction as to their duty. They converse privately with ministers on the subject, socrietimes venturing to allude to it in a prayer-meeting. In 1810 they with others unite in an appeal to their "revered fathers" of the general association (Congregational) at Bradford, Mass., who, recognizing their impressions as a "divine intimation of something great and good in relation to the propagation of the gospel," proceeded to constitute the American board of commission ers for foreign missions. Its first missionaries to foreign lands were Newell, Judson; Hall, Nott, and Rice; all of whom were, on their arrival at Calcutta, ordered by the East, India company to return in the vessels which brought them. Judson and Rice having on shipboard changed their views in regard to baptism, united with the Baptists and left the American board. Hall and Nott wept to Bombay, and were ordered to return, but after much discussion and negotiation with the East India company and the home government were allowed to remain. Thereafter India was open to American mission aries. Newell on being sent from Calcutta went with his wife to the Isle of France, where she died. Ile went ultimately to Bombay. In the East Indian field the American board has since conducted with success missions in Ceylon, Ahmednuggur, Madras. and Madura. In 1817 the Rev. Cyrus Kingsbury commenced labor among the Cherokees. The work was extended to the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks, Seminoles, Dakotas. Sioux, 0 jibwas, 0 ttowas, Iroquois, Cay ugas, Walla-Wallas, and Nez Perces. Between 1817 and 1860 the American board expended among the Indians $1,100,000, and the laborers employed were more than 500, Other societies have done much. The work has been greatly thwarted by successive removals of the tribes, the sale among them by govern ment agents of intoxicating liquor, and prejudice awakened by the fraudulent dealings of white men. Yet some of these tribes are recognized as civilized communities, and com pare favorably with the white people about them. Ten thousand of the Indians are members of Christian churches, and 75,000, including women and children, conform to the customs of civilized life. In sonic instances, while Christians were turning their thoughts towards foreign lands, events in those lands were preparing the people for the conning of missionaries. Vancouver in his four visits to the Sandwich islands had given the people some thoughts on the folly of idolatry, and had told them that missionaries would some time come to teach them, to whom they must listen. Kaine hameha I. was so far influenced that in his last sickness be forbade the customary offering of human sacrifices. Reports reached the people of the cessation of idolatry in the Society islands and of the great improvement in the condition of those islanders. Five Sandwich Islands youths who had gone with American shipmasters to America were receiving it Christian education, and one of them had written to his father describing the advantages of the Christian religion. The people also had become restive under the restrictions of the taboo system, and had noticed that foreigners incur red no risk by their non-observance. The mother of the new king Liholiho first broke taboo, and many of the chiefs, and at length the king, did so also, and afterwards destroyed the idols. It was the presence of the Sandwich Islendsyouths in America that induced the American board to send a mission to those islands; and in 1820, when the people were breaking taboo and burning idols, the missionaries, wholly uninformed of these events, were on their way from Boston. They found a nation open to instruction.
The details of the work among them are of remarkable interest, and those islands are now, in the usual sense of that term, a Christian people. There are now 12,360 members in 57 churches. most of them having native pastors.—In 1820 the American board began mission work in Turkey, sending Parsons and Fisk to Smyrna. In 1831 Goodell, hav ing carried an Armeno-Ttukish translation through the press at Malta, reached Constant tiuople. A succession of able laborers, male and female, have continued the work to the present time through numerous cities and villages of both European and Asiatic Turkey. In 1827 the Maronite patriarch, in his decree of excommunication against the mission aries, by which the people were forbidden to deal with them in any way, stated that "they are unwearied in their efforts;" that "they go about, manifesting a zeal in coin passionating their neighbors ;" that " they have opened schools and supplied instructors, all at their own expense;" that "in their outward works they appear as men of piety;" and that "the evil grows day by day." This truly, though inadequately, describes the work and the workmen for 60 years past; and though there has been much persecu tion, the results are equal to the work. Christopher R. Robert, a merchant of New York, erected a college in Constantinople and left property to sustain it. It has 250 stu dents, of 13 nationalities. The native converts of Aintab have contributed largely towards founding a college which is in operation in that city. There are four theological seminaries in Marsovan, Kharpnt, Marash, and Mardin. Though the work has been directed chiefly towards the regeneration of various lapsed Christian sects, yet there is abundant evidence that indirectly thousands of Mohammedans have been convinced that there is a Chris tianity, which makes man kind and true, though it would be death to them to adhere publicly to it. They listen often to Christian preaching, their children attend the schools, and individually they sometimes show great enlightenment; but very few Mohamme dans have dared to take a stand on the side of Christ. It is the view of the missionaries to " increase knowledge and conscience, to inculcate saving truth, to promote piety, and to leave forms and ceremonies, however vain and hurtful, to be disposed of by the people themselves when they should become Christians at heart." The trials and exposures undergone in caring for the sick and wounded during the recent Russo-Turkish war, and in distributing to the hungry in the famine, made a deep impression on the people. Throughout the Turkish empire, "despite oppression, misrule, and anarchy," says the last annual report of the American board, the leaven of the gospel is doing its work." Of the agencies involved we may note the existence of 93 churches, with 6,500 members; nearly 500 pastors, preachers, and teachers; 30 colleges, seminaries, and high schools, attended by 1500 youth of both sexes in nearly equal numbers; BOO common schools, with over 9,000 pupils; and an educational and reliNious literature amounting in the past year to 13,000,000 pages.—In 1S30 the rev. Jonas king entered the service of the Ameri can board as its missionary in Greece. He was already on the ground, having been sent by the ladies' Greek committee of New York with relief for the suffering in the struggle for independence. Dr. King preached the gospel in the parlor, in the street, in the school-room. He endeavored, through the teachings of the ancient Christian fathers, whom they revered, to lead the Greeks back to the simple truth of the gospel. Ile greatly improved the condition of the schools, translating school-books and providing slates and other aids, of which they had been destitute. His work was appreciated by parents and children, and in most cases by the government, but he was repeatedly brought to trial by the ecclesiastics, and often was in peril of his life. He, however, gained refl.-ions toleration for Greece. He was joined by the rev. Elias Riggs in 1833.— In Nov., 1%5, rev. Justin Perkins and Dr. Grant, with their wives, reached Oroomiall for the purpose of laboring among the Nestorians of Persia. They were well received, bishops, priests, and deacons attending their schools, and inviting the missionaries to preach in their churches. Dr. Grant acquired great fame by his surgical skill, especially by successful operation for cataract, and gained access to wild mountain regions among Koords, where Christian travelers probably never had gone before. There are now 1152 members in the reformed Nestorian church, 18 ordained native pastors, 45 preach ers, and 90 teachers and other helpers.—The mission to West Africa was commenced in 1834, the rev. J. L. Wilson and wife, with a colored woman, arriving at cape Palmas in that year, and from the first was undisturbed and effective. That to the Zulus in South Africa was begun in 1836. It met with many interruptions from sickness, death, and war. Its 15 native churches have bad much to contend with, and some relapses into old customs are reported. Yet a good degree of desire is shown to make the gospel known to their heathen neighbors.—In 1830, the rev. Elijah C. Bridgeman, mission ary of the American Com], reached Macao, to establish a mission in China, and in 1884 was joined by Dr. Peter Parker. In 1885 Dr. Parker established an eye infirmary, which was supported wholly by foreign residents. With the exception of a few pupils under Dr. Bridgeman's instruction, it afforded for a time, through conversation and books, the only opportunity of making known religious truth. Ile had soon three Chinese students in medicine and surgery under instruction, and a hospital under his care sufficient for 150 patients. In four years he had treated 6,450 cases. This institution was favorably viewed by the government and gratefully appreciated by the people. Through it much Christian truth was dispensed. The treaty of China with the United States in 1861, known as the Tientsin treaty, stipulated "that the principles of the Christian religion are recognized as teaching men to do good, to do to others as they would have others do to them; any person, either citizen of the United States or Chinese convert, who, accord ing to these tenets, peaceably teaches and practices the principles of Christianity, shall in no case be interfered with or molested." Thenceforth mission work was much extended in China. The American board has two great mission centers in China, the Foochow mission and the North China mission. It has 17 missionaries, 3 medical mis sionaries, 28 female assistants, and 25 churches. Of the missionaries of different names who traveled through the famine-stricken district in n.e. China beariug food to the hungry, five fell victims to their over-exertions. This self-sacrifice revealed the Chris tians, whom the Chinese had been taught from childhood to despise, in favorable contrast with their own mandarins. In one such district the people were led by this means to consecrate their temple to the Christians' God, and, after destroying the idols, to present to the missionaries a deed transferring the temple legally and perpetually as a place of Christian worship.