In "A Further Account," published in 1659, there are sermons or short discourses of several converted Indians. Five Indian youths were receiving an education at the Cambridge grammar-school in Massachusetts, two of whom had been examined in Latin before the magistrates and elders of the place. In 1670 several " praying towns," as the villages of the converted Indians were called, had been erected under Eliot's auspices. In 1874 there were four " praying-towns' in Massachusetts. Eliot died in 1690, at the age of eighty-six. Mather, Bourne, Sergeant, and Brainerd succeeded each other in the work of bringing the Indians to a knowledge of Christianity, but none of them laboured so successfully as Eliot. Brainerd was an ardent and enthusiastic labourer, and exhausted himself by his extraordinary exertions. He was sent to America in 1742, by the " Honourable Society in Scotland for promoting Christian Knowledge," and died in 1747: By the end of the 17th century the population of the English settle ments in America had greatly increased, while the means of spiritual instruction had not been proportionally extended, and the small num ber of Episcopal churches which existed roused the friends of the Church of England at home to make exertions to supply the defici ency. While the conversion of the natives had chiefly attracted the attention of pious persons, it was found. in 1675, that " there were scarce four ministers of the Church of ,England in all the vast tracts of North America." Compton, bishop of London, prevailed upon Charles II. to allow 201. for passage-money to ministers and school masters who should go out to supply the deficiency ; and a royal gift of 12001. was procured to purchase a Bible, Prayer-Book, and the Homilies, for each parish. In 1679 it was stated that there was not a minister of the Church of England either in Pennsylvania, the Jerseys, or New England, and that these settlements were only occasionally visited by the chaplain to the fort at New York. Many families had never attended any public religious service since they left England. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts origi nated in the desire to supply the spiritual destitution of these and other settlements, and received a charter of incorporation on the 18th of June, 1701. The Society was composed, by charter, of the chief prelates and dignitaries of the Church, and several of the most eminent persons in the state. Archbishop Tennison was the first president. The amount received by the Society in the first four years after its incorporation was—first year, 452/. ; second, 5751.; third, 864/. ; fourth, 13431. The efforts of the Society were at first directed to building churches and sending out orthodox clergymen to the colonies. At the same time, and also before the Society was chartered, strong representations were made to the government of the important poli tical influence which the French Jesuit missionaries exercised in Canada in keeping tribes neutral or in alliance with France ; and at a court held at St. James's, April 3rd, 1700, representations being made to the effect that the five nations of Indians bordering on New York might probably be seduced by the French, the council came to the opinion, that two Protestant ministers, with a competent allowance, should dwell amongst them, in order to instruct them in the true religion and confirm them in their duty to her majesty. The state of the Indians was one of the objects to which the charter directed the attention of the Society. but its funds were for some time expended in maintaining ministers within our own settlements.
About the year 1680 the condition of the negro slaves in our settle ments began to excite attention. In 1680 Morgan Godwyn, " some time student of Christ Church, Oxon," wrote a Persuasive to the Instructing and Baptising of the Negroes and Indians in our Planta tions.' Towards the close of his life, Eliot had begun to instruct the negroes in New York; and in 1704 the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel established catechising schools in New York for the negroes, the number of negroes and Indians in the city being then 1500. In 1727, Gibson, bishop of London, addressed the missionaries in the English plantations, exhorting them to assist in instructing the negroes.
In a sermon preached by Beilby, bishop of Chester, in 1783, before the above Society, the civilisation and conversion of the negroes were announced as one of the great objects of the Society.
The Danish and Moravian missions were the first two in which the chief object was the conversion of the heathen ; for the Society for Propagating the Gospel was for some time limited in its operations, and may be regarded in the early part of its existence rather as a" Pastoral Aid" Society. The Danish Missions owed their existence to Frederick IV., who about 1705, became anxious that the gospel should be preached in the Danish settlements in the East Indies. Ziegenbalgh and Plutscho, who had been educated at Berlin, were the first missionaries sent out ; they proceeded to Tranquebar, on the Coromandel coast. The Danish missionaries immediately established schools, and prepared tracts and small works in the Malabar language. In 1707 their first church was Consecrated. In 1708 the translation of the Testament was begun, and completed in 1711 : but they had no press, and were obliged to employ transcribers. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel opportunely forwarded a prinEng-prees, a hundred reams of paper, six cwt. of type, and engaged a printer for the mission. In 1714 the missionaries had published thirty-four different works in the Malabar language, and fourteen others, written by 4.-1itholie missionaries, were used by their scholars and converts The Moravian missions commenced in 1731. and were supported with singular activity and perseverance. Count Zintendorf, tho founder of the 3Ioravians, or United Brethren, while attending the coronation of Christian VI. at Copenhagen, raw two natives of Greenland who had been baptised by Egedo, who had been sent thither in 1721 by the Danish society, and he heard with regret that the government was on the point of asancloninp; the mission in that country. Ile exerted him self, and with the assistance of the Brethren successfully established missions in Greenland, as also in the West India Islands, Lapland, Tartary, Algiers, Guiana, and in North America, for the Indians, though experiencing considerable persecutions from the European settlers in Georgia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and other places. The cdTorte of the Brethren were directed to many other places with varier success.
In 1742 the Brethren residing in London formed themselves into a " Society for the furtherance of the Gospel." This Society was revived in 1818.
As it is manifestly impossible to detail all tho operations of the various societies, we confine ourselves to giving the following table of the date of their institutions, an outline of the places to which their chief efforls are directed, and the amount of the last annual income of each, wherever it can be obtained :— give the receipts, but the American Board of Foreign Missions, and the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church Mission, have the largest Incomes among tho societies of the United States ; the receipts of the first ranging betwixt 70,000f. and 80,000/. a year; those of the second betwixt 40,000/. and 50,0001. All the others are small, none of the annual lemmas exceeding 10,000/., and some are leas than 1000/. Of the continental minions, the United Brethren and Berlin Missionary Society are the chief ; of these the incomes reach about 16,000/. each, while the total of all the rest does not much exceed that sum. The " lustitut pour la Propagation do la Fel," which was established at Lyon in 1822, and whose chief branches are at Lyon and Paris, pub lishes yearly reports, from which it appears that the missionary labours include Great Britain and Ireland, British America, Australia, the United States, India, Ceylon, China, with other places in each quarter of the world. Their income ranges betwixt 160,000/. and 180,000/. a year, Of the missionary societies of the Continent and America we do not In addition to missionary labours, many of the societies of the United Kingdom have caused to be produced and printed translations of tho Scriptures and other works into the native languages. Notices of most of these will be found under BIBLE SOCIETIES.