In 1786 Thomas Coke, the Methodist who had been sent to Nova Scotia, was driven to the West Indies by a storm. The story which he brought back of heathen conditions was the foundation of the Methodist missions. William Carey was the first English Protestant to en gage personally in the work, which led to the foundation of the Calvinist Baptist Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Heathen and in 1793 he, with his family, set sail for India and landed at Calcutta where he laid the foundations of the later missions in Asia. In 1794 an address to professors of the Gospel call ing for the support of at least 20 or 30 missionaries among the heathen was pub lished. This led to the foundation of the London Missionary Society which began its work by the dispatch to the South Seas of 29 missionaries. In 1818 the mission in Madagascar was established. The Church of England felt the impulse of missions and in 1799 started a society for missions to Africa and the East which was afterward called the Church Missionary Society for Africa and the East. Henry Martyn, the pioneer mis sionary, had intended to go out under their auspices but he went out as a Brit ish chaplain. Their first expedition was to west Africa. They went to New Zea land in 1814, the Levant in 1815, India in 1816, and Ceylon in 1817. Work among the Indians of northwest Amer ica in 1826, work in equatorial Africa in 1844, in China in 1845 and in Japan in 1869 was carried on by this remarkable society. The Wesleyan Missionary So ciety was formed in 1814 and entered the field in south Africa. Missions in New South Wales were established in 1815, in Tasmania in 1821, among the Maoris of New Zealand in 1822, in the Friendly Islands in 1826, Fiji Is lands in 1834, in Victoria in 1838, in Queensland in 1850, and in China in 1853.
The American Board of Missions was organized at Bradford, Mass., June 29, 1810. In January, 1812, the first mis sionaries sailed to India, but when they reached Calcutta they were ordered home by the British East India Com pany, on the ground that commercial in terests would be jeopardized if any at tempt were made to interfere with the religious faith of the Ilindus. Two of
the missionaries to India changed their views in regard to baptism and this led to the''formation of the American Bap tist Missionary Union in May, 1814. The Ceylon mission was begun in 1816 and a foreign mission school was founded at Cornwall, Conn., in the same year, but the school was abandoned in 1826. Mis sions were opened among the Cherokee Indians in 1817 and among the Choctaws in 1819. The first mission in the Ha waiian Islands was established in 1819. The first missionary to China went out in 1829. In 1830 missions were estab in Asia Minor and Persia and in 1831 in Athens. The Gabun mission in west Africa was sent out in 1834 and that to the Zulus in south Africa in 1835; that in Japan in 1869.
The first mission work of the Presby terian Church was directed to the evan gelization of India. The Western Mis sionary Society was organized in Fitch burg about the close of the 18th century. In 1818 the United Foreign Missionary Society was formed but did not enter the foreign field. The Presbyterians worked through the American Board till 1870. In 1870 the Presbyterian Board of Missions was formed and took charge of the Persian, Syrian, and Gabun missions. The missionary society of the Methodist Church was organized in 1819. In 1835 they established the Brazil Mission. The first Methodist missionaries to China sailed in 1847, to Bulgaria in 1852, to India in 1856, to Japan in 1872, to Mex ico in 1873, to Korea in 1885 and to Malaysia in 1889.
A Domestic Foreign Missionary So ciety of the Episcopal Church was founded in 1835, occupying China in the same year, Japan in 1859, and Haiti in 1861.
The World War checked missionary advance, but great progress has since been made. At the Foreign Missionary Conference of North America held in New York the annual income was stated to be $20,400,000 as compared with $16, 935,741 in 1915.