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 hstEditor. 
 
 OUTLINES OF EARLY CHURCH HISTORY. 
 Ante-Nicene Period. By H. Wallis Smith, 
 D.D. 
 
 LIFE OF DAVID. Rev. Peter Thomson, M.A. 
 ^ Twelfth Thousand. 
 
 LIFE; OF MOSES. Rev. James Iverach, M.A. 
 Twentieth Thousand. 
 
 LIFE; OF PAUL. Paton J. Gloag, D.D. Tenth 
 Thousand. 
 
 LIFE AND REIGN OF SOLOMON. Rev. R, 
 Winterbotham, M.A., L.L.B. Tenth Thou¬ 
 sand. . 
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION. Rev. 
 
 Professor Witherow. Sixth Thousand; 
 
 THE KINGS OF ISRAEL. Rev. W. Walker, 
 M.A. Fifth Thousand. 
 
 THE KINGS OF JUDAH. Rev. Professor Given, 
 Ph.D. Fifth Thousand. 
 
 JOSHUA AND THE CONQUEST. Rev. Professor 
 Croskery. Fifth Thousand. 
 
 A - 31- 
 B 
 
 BIBLE WORDS AND PHRASES. Explained and 
 Illustrated. By Rev. Charles Michie, 
 M.A. 18mo, cloth, Is. 
 
 ~4 r ( \ 2 
 
 T. & T. CLARK, 
 
 38 GEORGE STREET, EDINBURGH. 
 

 Bible. Class primers. 
 
 v 
 
 EDITED BY PROFESSOR SALMOND, D.D., ABERDEEN. 
 
 OUTLINES 
 
 i *" 
 
 OF 
 
 PROTESTANT MISSIONS. 
 
 ©binburgh: 
 
 T. <fc T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET. 
 

 
 v6c£> ^ 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter I.— Missionary Progress up to the close 
 
 of last Century.7 
 
 1. Christ’s Commission to His Disciples—2. Apostolic 
 Missions—3. Missions of the Church till the Deforma¬ 
 tion—4. Effect of the Reformation ‘on Missions—5. 
 Tardiness of Protestant Churches in Missions—6. . Swiss 
 Mission to Brazil—7. Dutch Missions—8. Mission to 
 Ceylon—9. Anglo-American Missions to North American 
 Indians—10. John Eliot—11. Subsequent Work among 
 the Indians—12. Danish Mission to Greenland ; Hans 
 Egede—13, Moravian Missions—14. Moravian Mission 
 to Greenland—15. Other Moravian Missions. 
 
 Chapter II.— Rise of the Missionary Movement in 
 
 the Protestant Churches .... 19 
 
 16. Earlier Missionary Efforts in England 17. Causes 
 which produced the Change —18.. First Missionary 
 Society—19. Other Missionary Societies of England- 
 20. Spread of the Movement in Scotland—21. Spread 
 of the Movement in America—22. Spread of the Move¬ 
 ment on the Continent—23. Auxiliary .Societies -24. 
 Medical and Zenana Missionary Societies 25. Aim 
 of the Missionary Movement — 26. Field of Foreign 
 Missions. 
 
 Chapter III. —Polynesian Missions ... 29 
 
 27. Polynesia and its Inhabitants. 
 
 I. Tahiti—28. Founding of the Mission--29. The Night 
 of Toil—30. Dawning of the Day—31. Establish¬ 
 ment of Christianity, Importance of the Mission to 
 Tahiti—32. Results of Christianity—33.. Spread of 
 the Gospel in other islands—34. John Williams... 
 
 IT. 35. Mission to the Hawaiian Islands—36. Plawaiian 
 Missions. 
 
 III. 37. Tonga Mission—38. Mission to Fiji. 
 
 IV. 39. Mission to the New Hebrides—40. Erromanga. 
 
 V. *41. The Melanesian Mission—42. Summary. 
 
6 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter IV.— Africa, the West Indies, Madagascar 43 
 43. Africa and the Africans. 
 
 I. West Indies —44. The West Indies—45. Moravian 
 Mission —46. Other Missions —47. Slavery and 
 Emancipation—48. Subsequent Progress. 
 
 II. Western Africa —49. Sierra Leone and Liberia— 
 50. Sierra Leone Missions—51. Liberian Missions— 
 52. Old Calabar and Cameroon Missions—53. Re¬ 
 view of West African Missions. 
 
 III. South Africa —54. Inhabitants, Climate, History 
 —55. Moravian Missions—56. Colonial Church 
 Missions—57. London Society’s Missions ; Robert 
 Moffat—58. Rhenish and Finnish Missions—59. 
 Presbyterian Missions—60. American Board Mission 
 -—61. French and Swiss Mission—62. Berlin, Nor¬ 
 wegian, and Hermansburg Missions ; Summary. 
 
 IV. Central Africa—6 3. Livingstone—64. Universities’ 
 Mission—65. Nyassa and Blantyre Mission—66. 
 Nyanza and Mombasa Missions—67. Tanganyika 
 Mission—68. Congo Missions—69. General Review. 
 
 V. Madagascar—70. Tribes and Religion—-7L Plant¬ 
 ing of Mission of L. M. S.—72. Hostility to and 
 Expulsion of Missionaries—73. Persecution—74. 
 Growth of the Church—75. Re-establishment of the 
 Mission—76. Work of other Societies—//. Charac¬ 
 teristics of the Madagascar Mission. 
 
 Chapter V.— India and Burmah .... 69 
 
 I. India —78. Extent, Population, History—79. Re¬ 
 
 ligions—80. Introduction of Christianity—81. The 
 Danish or Pioneer Mission ; Schwartz—82. The Ser- 
 ampore Mission ; Carey—83. Educational Missions ; 
 Duff—84. Bombay—85. Missionary Societies at 
 Work—86. Mission Agency and Co-operation—87. 
 Missionary Methods—88. Missionary Progress—89. 
 Indirect Effects. 
 
 II. Burmah—90. American Mission; Judson—91. The 
 Karens. 
 
 Chapter VI.—A Glance at other Fields . . 86 
 
 92. Other Mission Fields—93. China—94. Japan—95. 
 Encouragement, Call, Warning. 
 
 Bibliography of Missions.01 
 
OUTLINES OE PROTESTANT MISSIONS. 
 
 - 0 - 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 MISSIONARY PROGRESS UP TO THE CLOSE OF 
 LAST CENTURY. 
 
 1. CHRIST'S COMMISSION TO HIS DIS¬ 
 CIPLES. Christ during His life on earth confined 
 His ministry mainly to the Jews. While others 
 occasionally benefited by it, rt He yet consider e 
 Himself sent only to the lost sheep of the house of 
 Israel ) b and He bade His apostles confine their 
 efforts to them. 0 But at the same time He antici¬ 
 pated the spread of His kingdom over all the earth A 
 
 It was after His resurrection that He gave the 
 commission to His disciples to preach the Gospel to 
 all nations. 0 He indicated the order in which this 
 was to be accomplished—“ Jerusalem and Judea, 
 Samaria—the uttermost parts of the earth ”/ —their 
 own city and country, in which the true religion was 
 known—lands in which it was known but corrupted 
 —the uttermost parts of the earth where it was all 
 unknown. These remain to this day the concentric 
 fields of work for Christ’s disciples in the order of 
 
 their obligation. . 
 
 2 APOSTOLIC MISSIONS. After Christs 
 ascension, Peter and the other apostles began to 
 fulfil His commission by preaching in Jerusalem. 
 
 a Matt. viii. 5-13; xv. 21-28; Jolimv. b Matt. xv. 24. 
 c Matt. x. 5, 6. d Matt. viii. 11,12 ; xxiv. 14; Luke xili. 29, Ac. 
 e Matt, xxviii. 19; Luke xxiv. 47. / Acts i. b. 
 
8 
 
 The Church there increased rapidly ; and some of the 
 disciples, going to other places, may have carried the 
 Gospel with them. But they made no effort to 
 spread it to other lands, and it was not till persecu¬ 
 tion scattered them that it was widely preached. 
 Thus God in his providence thrust forth labourers 
 into His vineyard. 
 
 It was at Antioch that the Church first purposely 
 sought to carry out Christ’s commission, a and fairly 
 entered on its missionary career. By setting apart 
 for this work Paul and Barnabas, its foremost men, 
 it taught the Church in all ages to devote to the 
 mission work its highest talent. The three journeys 
 of the Apostle Paul are the only missionary efforts 
 recorded in the New Testament, and are thus the 
 model for all since, due allowance being made for 
 altered times and circumstances. They are pro¬ 
 bably the noblest example of similar work, which 
 was being carried on at the same time by apostles 
 and others throughout the Homan Empire and in a 
 great part of the East. 
 
 3. MISSIONS OF THE CHURCH TILL THE 
 REFORMATION. For some centuries after the 
 apostolic age, the Church continued to spread by 
 internal consolidation and by efforts at extension. 
 The Christian communities planted in the midst of 
 heathen nations were always gaining fresh converts, 
 and missions from time to time were sent to new 
 tribes. In the beginning of the fourth century the 
 conversion of Constantine enlisted the power of the 
 Empire on the side of Christianity and favoured its 
 spread, though it weakened its spiritual strength. 
 When the power of the Empire began to decay, 
 heathen tribes began to overrun it, but these all 
 yielded to the sway of .the Christian religion. It 
 continued to extend to the remote parts of Europe, 
 till the reaction of heathenism on the Church cor¬ 
 rupted and deadened its life, and by the fourteenth 
 
 a Acts xiii. 1-3. 
 
9 
 
 century all missionary activity had ceased. By that 
 time all Europe, with the exception of some tribes 
 in the very north, had been converted to a nominal 
 Christianity; but Mahommedanism had wrested 
 from it those lands in the East where it had been 
 begotten and first had spread, and left its followers 
 there few and subject. 
 
 4. EFFECT OF THE REFORMATION ON 
 MISSIONS. With the sixteenth century came the 
 great revival of the .Reformation. It had a reflex 
 influence in awakening the activity of the Roman 
 Catholic Church. Two nations which still adhered 
 to it, Spain and Portugal, had-made wide conquests in 
 the Old World and in the New, and had thus been 
 brought into contact with many heathen nations. 
 This opened up a path for many devoted Roman 
 Catholic missionaries, to seek to compensate that 
 Church for its losses in Europe by bringing under 
 its sway the heathen world. The missions thus 
 begun have continued to be carried on ever since. 
 The most celebrated Roman Catholic missionaries 
 are Francis Xavier, who laboured in India, and 
 Matteo Racci, who laboured in China in the sixteenth 
 century ; Abbe Dubois, who laboured in India, and 
 Peter Claver who laboured in South America in the 
 following century. 
 
 5. TARDINESS OF PROTESTANT CHURCHES 
 IN MISSIONS. It was two and a-half centuries 
 before the missionary spirit was fully developed in 
 the Churches of the Reformation. In this respect 
 their history bears some analogy to that of the 
 Apostolic Church. At first there was no attempt 
 to spread the Gospel; then with the spread of Pro¬ 
 testantism by conquest or colonization, the Gospel 
 too was spread ; and at last missions were recog¬ 
 nised as part of the work of the Church. The great 
 work of the Reformation was to regain Christian 
 truth, and re-organise the Church on its principles. 
 In all the lands in which it triumphed, it did so by 
 
10 
 
 association with the civil power which enabled it to 
 repel the attacks of Romanists. It thus came in 
 each country to form a national Church, depending 
 for its support and extension on the Government. 
 Each Church sought to do its duty within its own 
 country, and, if there were heathen in it, sought to 
 convert them, but did not think of going beyond. 
 Thus in 1559, Gustavus Vasa, king of Sweden, sent 
 a mission to the Laps, almost the only tribe in 
 Europe that still remained heathen, which ultimately 
 converted them to nominal Christianity. 
 
 6. SWISS MISSION TO BRAZIL. But generally 
 it was only by colonization that Protestant nations, 
 and consequently Protestant Churches, were brought 
 into contact with the heathen. And even while the 
 Reformation was struggling to establish itself this 
 result was attained. The celebrated French states¬ 
 man, Coligni, established a colony in Brazil as a refuge 
 for French Protestants. He applied to the Swiss 
 churches for preachers, and, in September 1556, four¬ 
 teen young ministers started from Geneva for Brazil. 
 They laboured chiefly among the colonists, but they 
 also began to learn the language of the natives, and 
 to teach them through an interpreter. But the 
 governor, Villegagnon, won over by the intrigues 
 of Rome, began to persecute the missionaries, and at 
 last forced them to return to Europe after having 
 been in the country only ten months. Three who 
 returned to Brazil were, by his orders, thrown into 
 the sea, and thus became the protomartyrs of Pro¬ 
 testant missions, suffering, like the first Christian 
 martyrs, not from the heathen, but from fellow-coun¬ 
 trymen. The colony soon after ceased to exist. 
 
 7. DUTCH MISSIONS. In succeeding centuries 
 three nations undertook missionary work in connec¬ 
 tion with their colonies—the Dutch, the English, and 
 the Danes—and their operations mark three stages 
 of missionary progress. After the Dutch had thrown 
 off the yoke of Spain in the close of the sixteenth 
 
11 
 
 century, tliey spread their maritime conquests in 
 many parts of the world, chiefly in the East Indian 
 Islands. They generally sought to make their con¬ 
 quests a means of spreading the Reformed Faith. 
 As early as 1612 a seminary was founded at Leyden 
 to train students for missionary work, and by the 
 middle of the century missions were established at 
 Java, Formosa, Amboyna, and Ceylon, which soon 
 counted their converts by the thousand. Missionary 
 work was with the Dutch closely connected with the 
 civil power; it was in fact a department of Govei n- 
 ment. This secured a quick spread of nominal 
 Christianity, but prevented real work being done. 
 
 8. THE ISLAND OF CEYLON may serve as an 
 instance. This was conquered from the Portuguese 
 by the Dutch in 1636, and, six years after, several 
 ministers were sent to teach and Christianize the 
 people. The Government passed a law that no 
 native should be admitted to any employment under 
 Government, or even hold land, unless he joined the 
 Reformed Church, and subscribed the Helvetic Con¬ 
 fession of Faith. As the amount of instruction 
 required for baptism was very small, the number of 
 converts grew rapidly, and by the end of the eigh¬ 
 teenth century amounted to upwards of four hundred 
 thousand. The character of their Christianity was 
 such as might be imagined. Heathen practices con¬ 
 tinued, and the number of communicants was 
 scarcely one per cent. In 1795 Ceylon was conquered 
 by the British, who removed all religious disabilities. 
 In the course of one generation nearly the whole 
 nominally Christian community melted away,. its 
 adherents having openly professed the paganism 
 which they had never practically renounced.. Ruin¬ 
 ous pillars, or desolate walls, amid almost inacces¬ 
 sible jungle, were soon all that remained of what had 
 once been Christian churches, monuments of the 
 truth that superficial instruction and appeal to 
 worldly interest can never do the real work of the 
 
12 
 
 Gospel. Since the beginning of this century a fresh 
 work has been begun in Ceylon—missions being car¬ 
 ried on by the two societies of the English Church, 
 the Baptists, the Wesleyans, and the American Board. 
 Connected with these there are in all about 30,000 
 adherents, including about 9000 Burghers or Euro¬ 
 pean mixed race. 
 
 9. ANGLO-AMERICAN MISSIONS TO THE 
 INDIANS. The colonies, from which the New 
 England states have sprung, were founded mainly 
 by the Puritans who went to America to escape the 
 tyranny of the Stuarts. As they went chiefly on 
 account of their religion, they could not be indif¬ 
 ferent to the state of the Aborigines among whom 
 they went. The seal of the Massachussets Colony 
 was an Indian with the legend “ come over and help 
 us.” 
 
 The religion of the Indians , among whom the 
 colonists found themselves, is highly spiritual. They 
 believe in multitudes of spirits everywhere ; every 
 kind of animal even having its spiritual antitype. 
 They have a sort of belief in one Supreme Spirit. 
 They look on religion as useful only for prolonging 
 life, and getting advantages in it, and have no idea 
 that their actions here have any bearing on their 
 future state, which they picture as a delightful region 
 of hunting and enjoyment. Hence they see no con¬ 
 nection between religion and morality; and gambling, 
 lewdness, and murder often accompany their most 
 solemn rites. 
 
 10. JOHN ELIOT was the first to attempt sys¬ 
 tematic work among the Indians. He was born in 
 England in 1604, studied at Cambridge; but coming 
 under serious impressions, and adopting Puritan 
 views, he went to America, and arrived in Boston 
 in November 1631. He was ordained minister of a 
 church at Roxbury, about a<mile from Boston ; but 
 after much consultation with others, and earnest 
 prayer, he resolved to dedicate himself to mission 
 
13 
 
 work among the Indians. He still retained his pas¬ 
 torate of the Roxbury church, which nobly sup¬ 
 ported him in all his efforts. He first set himself to 
 learn the language, and soon mastered the compli¬ 
 cated Indian grammar. His first sermon he preached 
 at a wigwam village about four miles from his house. 
 The poor Indians were greatly impressed at hearing 
 the Gospel preached in their own language, and a 
 long conversation followed. The opposition of the 
 Powahs or priests was aroused, but the people flocked 
 to hear him. He resolved to gather them together 
 first into civil society, then into ecclesiastical, and for 
 this purpose he got a grant of land from the local 
 Government. Notwithstanding many difficulties, he 
 at last saw a town called Natick erected, mainly by 
 the efforts of the Indians themselves, and many of 
 them settle down to agriculture and useful trades. 
 It was not till 1660 that a native church was formed, 
 and, owing to the strictness of admission, it increased 
 slowly. 
 
 Meanwhile he had been working at a translation 
 of the Bible into the Indian language. The-New 
 Testament was printed in 1661, and the Old, two 
 years after—the first Bible ever printed in America. 
 While doing this work he also went on distant tours, 
 mostly on horseback, in which he encountered great 
 difficulties ; but he says, “ I have considered the 
 exhortation of Paul to his son Timothy : Endure 
 hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” As the 
 result of these labours fourteen towns of praying 
 Indians were gathered within the limits of the 
 colony of Massachussets. Before his death, premoni¬ 
 tions of the doom in store for the Indians saddened 
 him. A war broke out between the colonists and 
 the Indians in 1675, in which the praying Indians 
 became involved, and at the close only four of their 
 towns remained. Eliot still continued to do his 
 work bravely, and had the satisfaction of seeing a 
 native pastor settled over the congregation at Natick. 
 
14 
 
 His strength, however, began to decay, and he sank 
 under an" attack of fever in the beginning of 1690. 
 Shortly before his death he said, “ There is a dark 
 cloud upon the work of the Gospel among the poor 
 Indians. The Lord revive and prosper that work.” 
 
 Eliot, though all his life minister of an English 
 congregation, may be considered the pioneer of 
 Protestant missions to the heathen. He was. the 
 first to show how the Gospel could be brought within 
 grasp of the heathen, and what power it had over 
 them as well as over civilized Europeans. In fact, 
 he laid down the lines on which Protestant missions 
 have been conducted ever since. 
 
 11. SUBSEQUENT WORK AMONG THE 
 AMERICAN INDIANS. The work begun by Eliot 
 continued to be maintained after his death, many 
 able ministers of the New England churches giving 
 the whole or a greater part of their time to it. Four 
 generations of the name of Mayhew laboured in an 
 island called Martha’s Vineyard. The work at 
 Stockbridge in Massachussets, was distinguished by 
 the labours of Sergeant and Jonathan Edwards; 
 and in the earlier part of last century, David 
 Brainerd devoted the years of his short ministry to 
 work among the Indians, with a piety, zeal, and 
 self-devotion, the record of which has had a powerful 
 influence on modern missions. Moravian missionaries 
 subsequently did good work among the. same tribes. 
 But the cloud, which Eliot foresaw, continued to rest 
 in darker gloom on the Indian nation. The Indian 
 tribes have gradually been extirpated, till now little 
 more than 300,000 are left. A change seems lately to 
 have taken place. During the last twenty-five years 
 more systematic efforts have been made to evangelize 
 them, backed by political action both in Canada and 
 in the United States. Great numbers of the Indians 
 have accepted Christianity, and are settling down in 
 civilized and self-sustaining" communities of agricul¬ 
 turists and mechanics. 
 
15 
 
 12. DANISH MISSIONS. In the beginning of the 
 eighteenth century the Pietist movement in Germany 
 began to awaken missionary zeal. It still continued 
 to work through Government channels. Frederick 
 IV., king of Denmark, resolved to make an 
 attempt to convert the heathen connected with the 
 Danish possessions in India. Two missionaries, 
 Ziegenbalg and Plutcho, were sent out in 1705 to 
 Tranquebar, but their labours may be more appro¬ 
 priately treated in speaking of Indian missions. 
 The Danish Mission to Greenland was the first 
 effort of the missionary spirit to go beyond the 
 limits of national jurisdiction, and may be looked on 
 as the transition to the modern mission. Hans 
 Egede, its originator, was pastor of a small parish in 
 Norway. From reading old Norwegian chronicles, 
 he was led to believe that the heathen savages of 
 Greenland were descendants of Norse Christian 
 settlers, and he resolved to attempt their conversion. 
 He resigned his charge and came with his family to 
 Bergen. The inhabitants of the .town viewed him 
 with wonder, and many alleged that he must have 
 had visions and revelations to induce him to begin 
 such a work. There was no Danish settlement of 
 any kind in Greenland, and he did not think of 
 forming a society to support him as a preacher of 
 the Gospel to the heathen. He tried to get a trading 
 company formed to found a settlement in Greenland 
 of which he should be chaplain. Innumerable dif¬ 
 ficulties stood in the way, but he surmounted them 
 all, got the company formed, received the approval 
 and support of the king, and in May 1721 sailed for 
 Greenland. 
 
 He was disappointed to find that the inhabitants 
 were Eskimo, and not descendants of the Norsemen. 
 A settlement, however, was made, but did not 
 prosper as a trading concern. In 1727 the Bergen 
 company dissolved, and in 1731 Egede received 
 notice that the Government support would be with- 
 
16 
 
 drawn. This was a blow to him, as he had overcome 
 the shyness of the natives, learned their language, 
 and secured their confidence. They entreated him 
 to remain, and he agreed to do so another year ; and 
 before it had expired, a change had come over the 
 Danish Court. Soon, thereafter, a terrible scourge, 
 the small-pox, broke out, and in a few months more 
 than 3000 people died. Egede and his wife did 
 what they could to combat the misery, but the strain 
 proved too great for the latter. Undeterred by the 
 entreaties of her friends, she had accompanied her 
 husband to the bleak shores of Greenland, had 
 cheerfully endured all privations, and sustained her 
 husband’s spirit, when it was ready to sink. After 
 she was taken, he felt himself a broken man, physi¬ 
 cally unfit for the work any longer. He returned 
 to Europe, and was made director of the missionary 
 seminary in Copenhagen. The mission was continued 
 in Greenland, and there is now a flourishing church 
 there. Hans Egede may be considered the first to 
 give the idea of the modern missionary enterprise— 
 entering a country for the sake of converting it to 
 the Gospel. But he could not conceive of this work 
 being supported solely by Christian liberality; his 
 idea was to win the Greenlanders to Christianity by 
 gaining their country for Denmark. In both objects 
 he has succeeded ; he is alike the apostle of Green¬ 
 land and the founder of Danish sovereignty in it. 
 
 13. MORAVIAN MISSIONS. In the year 1722, 
 the year following that in which Egede sailed for 
 Greenland, an apparently trivial event occurred, which 
 was destined to place a new ideal of missions before 
 Christendom. Two families of Hussites, under the 
 leadership of Christian David, left Moravia on 
 account of the persecutions to which they were then 
 exposed, to seek a place where they could freely 
 worship God. When they came to Upper Lusatia 
 they happened to meet the celebrated Count Zinzen- 
 dorf, who offered them an asylum on his estates. 
 
17 
 
 There they settled and founded a village called 
 Herrnhut. They were soon joined by other co¬ 
 religionists ; and the Count himself cast in his lot 
 with them and became their leader. He was at 
 Copenhagen in the year 1731, attending the corona¬ 
 tion of King Christian YI. There he met a negro 
 called Anthony, an attendant of one of the courtiers, 
 who lamented the sad condition of his enslaved 
 fellow-countrymen in the W est Indies. This man after¬ 
 wards visited Herrnhut. His visit enkindled a desire 
 in the hearts of two young men, Leonhard Dober 
 and David NiTSCHMANN,to devote themselves to work 
 among the slaves. Their proposal was at first coldly 
 received by the congregation, but as they persisted, 
 the Brethren sought God’s pleasure, as they then 
 frequently did, by the lot. The lot proved favourable, 
 and the two started in 1732 for the West Indies. 
 Thus the Moravians began their missionary career 
 when they did not number more than six hundred. 
 
 14. THE MORAVIAN MISSION TO GREEN¬ 
 LAND was undertaken when the Danish Government 
 was thinking of withdrawing theirs. Two cousins of 
 the name of Stach offered themselves, and Christian 
 David, the original leader of the Moravians, offered 
 to go with them to see them settled. They started 
 in January 1733. Matthew Stach says, “ There was 
 no need of much time or expense for our equipment. 
 We had nothing but the clothes on our backs. 
 Being used to make shift with little, we did not 
 trouble our heads how we should get to Greenland 
 or live there.” They had enough money to take 
 them to Copenhagen. When they arrived there they 
 were introduced to some persons of distinction. 
 Count Yon Pless, the chamberlain, asked David 
 how he proposed to procure food in Greenland ? 
 “ By the labour of our hands,” he answered, “ and 
 God’s blessing, we will build a house and cultivate 
 the land.” “But there is no wood to build with,” 
 said the Count. Then,” said David, “ we will dig 
 
 B 
 
1ft 
 
 in the earth and lodge there.” “ No,” replied the 
 other, “ take wood with you and build a house, and 
 take these fifty dollars, for. the purpose.” Others 
 gave them further contributions, and thus they were 
 able to start on their mission. 
 
 When they arrived in Greenland they were wel¬ 
 comed by Egede, and settled at a little distance 
 from his station, at a place.which they called New 
 Herrnhut. In the following year they received 
 a reinforcement of two other missionaries, but the 
 first few years were years of terrible trial of plague 
 and famine, in which they were reduced to eating 
 shell-fish and sea-weed. Just as they were at their 
 utmost extremity, in the spring, of 1736, a . vessel 
 arrived from Holland with provisions. During all 
 this time they made no progress in impressing the 
 Greenlanders. They had been teaching them pre¬ 
 liminary truths, such as the existence of God, the 
 creation of the world, the fall of man. One day a 
 company of Eskimo came on one of the brethren, as 
 he was writing out a translation of one of the 
 Gospels. They wished to know what was in the 
 book; and he read an account of Christ’s agony in 
 the Garden, and enlarged on His suffering and death, 
 that we might be saved. One of the listening 
 savages, Kaiarnak, stepped up to the table and said 
 with much earnestness, u How was that! Tell me 
 that once more, for I would fain be saved.” That 
 was the first evidence of conviction being produced. 
 He remained to be instructed, and was received into 
 the Church by baptism next year along with his 
 family. 
 
 The work thus begun continued to prosper, not¬ 
 withstanding perils of climate and enmity of the 
 heathen. The converts at New Herrnhut increased, 
 and the settlement, which had been a terrible wilder¬ 
 ness, became by degrees a cultivated pasture land 
 sustaining a flock of sheep. Other settlements were 
 afterwards formed, and now,, owing to the labours of 
 
19 
 
 the Danish and Moravian missionaries, all the 
 Greenlanders profess Christianity. Though they are 
 still rude, yet they have been raised from being wild, 
 filthy savages to being a docile civilized people. 
 
 15. OTHER MORAVIAN MISSIONS. For about 
 sixty years-after they began their missions, the little 
 Moravian Church seemed to concentrate in itself 
 the whole missionary zeal of Christendom. Before 
 one missionary had gone out from any of the great 
 churches of Germany or Great Britain, they had 
 sent theirs to nearly all parts of the earth. They 
 established missions in Greenland and Labrador, 
 among the Indians of North America and the 
 negroes of South Carolina, in the West Indies and 
 South America, in Tartary and Africa. They thus 
 showed what Christian zeal could accomplish for the 
 one end of preaching the Gospel to the heathen. 
 This work was admired by many Christians in 
 England as well as on the Continent. But it was 
 not till the last decade of the eighteenth century that 
 the movement began to spread in other Churches. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 RISE OE THE MISSIONARY MOVEMENT IN THE 
 PROTESTANT CHURCHES. 
 
 16. EARLIER MISSIONARY SOCIETIES IN 
 ENGLAND. Though no direct effort was made in 
 England earlier than the end of last century to send 
 the Gospel directly to the heathen, societies were in¬ 
 stituted to aid the work carried on in the colonies. 
 The labours of Eliot were the first to draw out 
 interest. The Long Parliament sent a circular to 
 the churches in 1648, calling for gifts to missions ; 
 and in the following year it granted an ordinance 
 founding the Society for Propagating the Gospel in 
 
20 
 
 New England. This society seems to have changed 
 its name in 1701 to that of the Society for the. Pro¬ 
 pagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts,.but it did 
 very little during last century. The Society for the 
 Propagation of Christian Knowledge was founded 
 in 1698, but it concerned itself chiefly with the 
 colonists. There was generally utter apathy through¬ 
 out England regarding missions to the heathen, the 
 struggle with Deism absorbing the greater part of 
 the religious energy of the Church. 
 
 17. CAUSES WHICH PRODUCED A CHANGE. 
 The Holy Spirit can revive His work when and how 
 He pleases. Last century the means He used for 
 reviving religion in England was the Methodist 
 movement. John Wesley, its leader, was influenced 
 by the Moravian movement in Germany, though 
 the religious awakening within him originated quite 
 independently. He said “ the world is my parish, 
 and though his own labours were confined .mainly 
 to his fellow-countrymen, before his death in 1791 
 his followers had begun to labour among the slaves 
 of the West Indies. A ship, on board of which was 
 Dr Coke and six other Methodist preachers bound 
 for Nova Scotia in 1786, was driven south by stress 
 of weather and made for Antigua. There Dr Coke 
 and his companions were so well received that they 
 resolved to attempt the establishment of a mission 
 to the West Indies. The mission work thus begun 
 was carried on with vigour, at first under the 
 management of Dr Coke and a committee, and after 
 1817 under the direction of the Wesleyan Missionary 
 Society. It was, however, more in awakening re¬ 
 ligious life in other churches that the Methodist 
 movement told on missions. As religious life rose 
 it sought an outlet for its energy. Narratives of 
 what was being done by individual workers among 
 the heathen were stirring some minds ; and thus the 
 way was prepared for the Church when the signal 
 was given, stepping beyond the bounds of national 
 
21 
 
 opportunity and realising the world-wide obligation 
 of the commission of her Lord. 
 
 18. THE FIRST MISSIONARY SOCIETY. The 
 man who was instrumental in first setting the move¬ 
 ment a-going was William .Carey. He was born 
 in 1761, the son of a schoolmaster in Northampton¬ 
 shire. Owing to the straitened circumstances of his 
 parents he was bound apprentice to a shoemaker. 
 His desire for knowledge was so great that, while 
 serving, he managed to acquire much useful learn- 
 ino\ Coming under serious convictions, he joined 
 the Baptists first as a teacher, then as a preacher, 
 and ultimately became minister of a large congre¬ 
 gation in Leicester. During all this time he was 
 continuing his studies, acquiring Latin and Greek 
 and Hebrew. His mind was also deeply impressed 
 with the state of the heathen, and while still work¬ 
 ing as a cobbler he had planned the conversion of 
 the world to Christ; but his ideas were at first 
 scouted. On May 31st, 1792, at Northampton, he 
 preached his famous missionary sermon on Isaiah 
 liv. 2. Among those who heard him was one 
 Andrew Fuller, Baptist minister at Kettering. He 
 did not wish to allow the interest awakened by 
 Carey’s sermon to subside, so he called together 
 some ministers and other friends, and in^ a small 
 back parlour in Kettering on October 2d, 1792, they 
 founded the Baptist Missionary Society . Andrew 
 Fuller was appointed secretary, and William Carey 
 offered to go as their first missionary wherever 
 he might be sent, saying—“ I will go down to the 
 pit if you stand at the mouth and hold the rope. 
 A subscription was opened, and £13, 2s. 6d. was 
 received. 
 
 19. OTHER MISSIONARY SOCIETIES OF 
 ENGLAND. The formation of the Baptist society 
 did not at first meet with much favour. Even the 
 Baptist ministers of the metropolis fought shy of it. 
 But it embodied a true principle, it sought to realize 
 
a true Christian ideal, and soon secured support 
 from many beyond the Baptist denomination. It 
 also led to the formation of other such societies. 
 Foremost among these was the London Missionary 
 Society (L. M. S.). Dr Bogue of Gosport had the 
 honour of suggesting and carrying put its formation. 
 It was formed on September 21, 1795, and on the 
 three following days six solemn services were held in 
 the churches of London. It was at first entirely un¬ 
 denominational, and gave a wide impulse to interest 
 in missions. As this interest extended, the various 
 churches began to take up mission work separately, 
 and the London Missionary Society, while still pro¬ 
 fessedly undenominational, is practically the Society 
 of the Independents. In 1799, a Society for Missions 
 to Africa and the East was founded by ministers of 
 the Church of England. In 1812 it changed its 
 name to the Church Missionary Society (C. M. S.), 
 which has now a larger income than any other. 
 The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel 
 in Foreign Parts (S. P. G.), whose origin has already 
 been noticed (§ 16), began a new life in the beginning 
 of the present century, and is now the second great 
 society connected with the Church of England. 
 Besides these there are in the same connection, the 
 South-American Missionary Society, founded in 
 1844, and the Universities’ Mission to Central Africa, 
 founded in 1861. The origin of the missionary 
 activity of the Wesleyan Methodists and the forma¬ 
 tion of their missionary society in 1817, have already 
 been noticed. There are missionary societies also 
 in connection with four of the other branches of 
 Methodism. The Friends’ Foreign Mission Society 
 (1865) and the China Inland Mission (1865) are 
 the principal remaining missionary societies in 
 England. 
 
 20. SPREAD OF THE MOVEMENT IN SCOT¬ 
 LAND. The Scottish Church showed some interest 
 in the colonial missionary movement in the end of 
 
the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth 
 century. The chaplains sent with the Darien ex¬ 
 pedition in 1699 were enjoined to teach the heathen; 
 and a Scottish society supported Brainerd in his work 
 among the Indians of North America. The Seces¬ 
 sion Church, which originated in 1743, early made it 
 obligatory on its licentiates to go to wliatevei pait 
 of the world they might be called ; but this had 
 reference to colonial work. When, subsequently 
 on the initiation of the movement in England, a 
 proposal was made in the General Assembly of the 
 Church of Scotland to approve of missions to the 
 heathen, it was opposed as dangerous to the State 
 and a preposterous reversal of the order of nature, 
 and was rejected by a large majority. This led to 
 the foundation in 1796 of two undenominational 
 Missionary Societies, the Scottish Missionai y Society, 
 with its headquarters in Edinburgh, and the Glasgow 
 Missionary Society. In 1824, Dr Inglis induced the 
 Church of Scotland (E. C.) to undertake missions 
 on its own account. When the Free Church (F. G.) 
 separated in 1843 all the missionary agents united 
 with it, leaving the missionary property to the 
 Established Church ; which, as soon as it began to 
 recover, undertook fresh missionary operations. Thus 
 the missions of the older societies came to be absorbed 
 in those of the churches, and when in 1847 the United 
 Presbyterian Church (U. P. C.) was founded by 
 the Union of the Secession and Belief Churches, it 
 took over all the remaining missions of the earlier 
 societies, and foreign missions came to be a recog¬ 
 nised part of church work. In close connection with 
 the Churches of Scotland is the Presbyterian 
 Church of Ireland, which began foreign mission 
 work in 1840 ; and the Enolish Presbyterian 
 Church, which began independent foreign missions 
 
 m 21 85j SPREAD OF THE MOVEMENT IN 
 AMERICA. The American churches have from the 
 
24 
 
 beginning of their history had a missionary field 
 among the Indians of that Continent (8-10). The 
 impulse which led to its being extended to other 
 heathen fields, came from S. J. Mills, a theological 
 student. While at Williams College, his mind was 
 impressed with a sense of the importance of foreign 
 missions, and he met with some fellow-students 
 under the shadow of a large hay stack to consult and 
 pray over the matter. He entered Andover Semin¬ 
 ary in 1§09, and there held consultations with others 
 who were impressed in a similar manner. In June 
 1810, he, along with Judson, Newell, and Nott, 
 presented an address to the General Association of 
 Massachussets drawing attention to the claims of the 
 heathen world. This led to the formation of the 
 American Board of Foreign Missions in the same 
 month. Like the London Missionary Society it was 
 at first supported by Christians of all denominations, 
 but it is now under the control of the Congrega- 
 tionalists. 
 
 Two of its first missionaries, Judson and Rice, on 
 their way to the mission field adopted Baptist views, 
 and this led to the formation of the Baptist Mis¬ 
 sionary Union in 1814. The Methodist Episcopal 
 Church of the Northern States undertook its first 
 missions in 1819, and the other branches of the 
 Church in the South and in Canada followed subse¬ 
 quently. The Presbyterian Churches at first sup¬ 
 ported the American Board, but one after the other 
 they began independent work. The Episcopal 
 Church undertook foreign missions in 1824. The 
 German Reformed Church, the Lutheran Church, and 
 others, have -also established missions of their own. 
 
 22. SPREAD OF THE MOVEMENT ON THE 
 CONTINENT. The Moravian Church continued 
 the only missionary society on the continent for 
 many years. The new impulse from England seems 
 to have been first felt in Holland, where a society 
 for missions to the heathen was founded in 1797, 
 
25 
 
 though its first agent was not sent out till 1813. In 
 1815 the Basel Missionary School was founded by 
 a society of the citizens of that city, as a thanksgiving 
 for their deliverance from the French yoke. In 1822 
 it undertook the formation of mission stations m 
 heathen lands. This society for some time attracted 
 most of the support given to missions in Switzerland 
 and Germany, but other societies were soon formed. 
 The Rhenish Missionary Society was founded in 
 1823, the North German in 1836, and the Leipzic 
 in 1846. In 1836 Gossner founded a separate society 
 in Berlin, on the plan of dispensing with a high 
 literary standard for missionaries, and teaching them 
 to support themselves by the work of their hands. 
 The Hermannsburg Society was started in 1849, on 
 the plan of organising colonies among the heathen. 
 Missionary societies were founded in Denmark in 
 1821, in France in 1824, in Sweden in 1835, m 
 Norway in 1842, and in the Canton de Vaud in 1869. 
 The movement has not yet taken such a hold on the 
 continental churches in general, as it has on those of 
 Great Britain and the United States, but it is still 
 
 spreading. . . 
 
 23. AUXILIARY SOCIETIES. The missionary 
 society founded in the back parlour in Kettering has 
 now grown to be upwards of seventy societies ; the 
 £13, 2s. 6d. has increased to an annual income of a 
 million and a half pounds sterling', and the one mis¬ 
 sionary who then offered himself is now represented 
 by about three thousand European and American 
 missionaries. Other societies have been established 
 auxiliary to the work. Two of these, or rather two 
 classes of these, may be looked on as supplying the 
 ammunition of war—viz., the various Bible societies 
 and tract societies. Of the former the principal is 
 the British and Foreign Bible Society, founded in 
 1804, which, in 1883, had an income of £233,309, and 
 issued 3,118,304 copies of the Bible, or portions of 
 the Bible. The National Bible Society of Scotland, 
 
26 
 
 amalgamated in 1860, has an annual income of 
 £31,343, and an annual issue of 481,166 copies or 
 portions of scripture. The service rendered by 
 these societies to missions is incalculable, as they 
 have provided the means for printing the Bible in 
 nearly all the languages spoken in the various 
 mission fields. It is now printed entire, or in part, 
 in 330 different languages. The various Tract 
 Societies, of which the principal is the Religious 
 Tract Society (1799), with an income, including 
 trade receipts, of £220,000, and an issue in 1883-84 
 of 75,721,360 publications, have also aided missions 
 greatly, by bearing the cost of printing and circulat¬ 
 ing pure literature in the languages and dialects of 
 the mission fields. 
 
 24. MEDICAL AND ZENANA MISSIONARY 
 SOCIETIES. From the beginning of missionary 
 work, medicine has been found a useful auxiliary. 
 Almost from the necessities of their position mis¬ 
 sionaries were obliged to use what knowledge they 
 had in curing the diseases of the untutored people 
 among whom they were. Successful treatment 
 always gave them access to the hearts of those 
 who were treated, and impressed on others the 
 benevolent nature of the religion that was being 
 commended to them. By degrees, the necessity of 
 having duly qualified doctors sent to co-operate with 
 evangelistic missionaries became recognised. Such 
 are now to be found in most mission fields, and 
 several special societies are founded for training 
 them. 
 
 So, too, from the beginning of missionary work 
 the need of reaching the women has been felt. This 
 has always been more difficult than reaching the 
 men; and in some countries, such as India, there are 
 large classes the women of which are almost absolutely 
 inaccessible to men. The work of teaching them was 
 undertaken partly by the wives of missionaries, but 
 it was found that to do it efficiently special agents 
 
27 
 
 were needed. Hence, connected with, many. of the 
 missionary societies, there are now societies foi 
 training female teachers, evangelists, and medics 1 
 women, through whom to reach the female popula¬ 
 tion of the land to which missions are sent. These 
 are usually called Zenana missionary societies. Tk e 
 Zenana is that part of a Hindu home reserved for 
 the female members of the household, into which no 
 men, save the members of the family, are ever 
 admitted. As the women living there were, fiom 
 their position, the most inaccessible to the Gospel, 
 special societies were formed for reaching them. 
 But the number of women living in zenanas, even in 
 India, is a small minority, and dealing with them is 
 only a part of the work that must fall to societies 
 undertaking the task of the enlightenment and evan¬ 
 gelization of women. ___ 
 
 25. AIM OF THE MISSIONARY MOVEMENT. 
 The motive impelling this movement is no doubt the 
 command of Jesus Christ, binding still on all his fol¬ 
 lowers, “ Go ye therefore and make disciples of all 
 the nations.” « But what is the particular sphere in 
 which the missionary societies seek to fulfil this com¬ 
 mand 1 We have already seen (§ 1) that Christ indi¬ 
 cated three spheres in which His disciples were to 
 work—their own land where the true religion was 
 known—lands where the true religion was known 
 but corrupted—and lands where it was not known at 
 all. These still remain the spheres in which Pro¬ 
 testant churches have to work. There are their 
 own lands, where Bible truth is known, but in which 
 there is a great deal of ignorance and unbelief. 
 Efforts made by Christians to overcome these, to 
 convert the ungodly and to raise the fallen, are called 
 Home Missions. There are lands under the Roman 
 Catholic and other corrupt forms of Christianity, which 
 offer a field of labour for Protestants in seeking to 
 restore Christian truth to its supremacy. Some 
 
 a Matt, xxviii. 19. 
 
28 
 
 churches reckon these efforts among their foreign 
 missions; but as we are dealing with missions to the 
 heathen we will not refer to them. Lastly, there are 
 all those nations who not only do not know Christ, but 
 who worship others than Him, other gods than the 
 true God. It is the object of Christian missions to 
 spread the knowledge of Christ and of the true God 
 in these lands, so that the worship of all false gods 
 may be destroyed, and the Christian faith become 
 the only faith of all the earth. The work of Home 
 Missions is to teach religion to those in Christian 
 lands who have no religion at all; the object of 
 Foreign Missions is to teach the Christian religion to 
 those who have another but a false religion. When 
 in any heathen land the worship of idols has been 
 abolished, and Christ alone is worshipped, the work 
 of foreign missions has succeeded; it becomes a 
 Christian land, and the work which the Church has 
 to do in it is the same as it has to do in England—to 
 enforce the claims of Christ on the conscience and 
 life of all the inhabitants. 
 
 26. FIELD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS. When 
 Protestant missions began about two hundred and 
 fifty years ago, the Protestant faith had established 
 itself in Great Britain, Holland, Scandinavia, 
 Northern Germany, and parts of Switzerland. All 
 the rest of Europe, except Turkey, was Roman 
 Catholic or of the Greek Church. Central America, 
 and the greater part of South America, the Philip¬ 
 pines and other islands to the East, had been con¬ 
 quered by Roman Catholic nations, who had imposed 
 on them their religion. All the rest of the world 
 belonged to non-Christian peoples. Protestantism 
 has during these two and a half centuries spread by 
 colonisation. The whole of North America has thus 
 become Protestant, and the churches in it have, as 
 has already been related (§§ 8-14), sought to evangelise 
 the heathen aborigines. In the same way Australia, 
 New Zealand, and Tasmania have become Protes- 
 
29 
 
 taut. The aborigines have disappeared in Tasmania, 
 and they are disappearing in the other lands too, 
 though not without efforts, and these partially suc¬ 
 cessful, on the part of the churches to preserve and 
 to Christianize them. 
 
 All the rest of the world was open to the mission¬ 
 ary enterprise which sprung into life with this cen¬ 
 tury. In the South Sea Islands and in Africa 
 savage tribes were enslaved by cruel, fetish idolatries. 
 In India, an ancient civilisation was wedded to a 
 philosophic, pantheistic idolatry. In Ceylon and 
 Burmah, Thibet and a great part of China, Buddh¬ 
 ism had spread. In China Confucianism and Taoism 
 also ruled, and in Japan Shintoism shared with 
 Buddhism the religious empire. In Central and 
 Western Asia, in Turkey and along the north of 
 Africa, Mahommedanism had spread. While among 
 all, and distinct from all, the Jews preserved the 
 faith of Moses, rejecting its fulfilment in Christ. 
 Such was the field which the Church of Christ, 
 roused by His Spirit, went forth at the dawn of 
 this century to conquer. We shall confine our¬ 
 selves to the principal missions to lands of heathen 
 idolatry. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 POLYNESIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 27. POLYNESIA AND ITS INHABITANTS. The 
 
 Pacific Ocean is, in its southern part, studded with 
 groups of beautiful, islands, mostly of volcanic or 
 coral origin, to which the name of Polynesia lias 
 been given. Three races inhabit them. The 
 Saicaioris , inhabiting chiefly the central and eastern 
 groups, are a fine tall race, affable and polite. They 
 believed in one great god who was never worshipped, 
 and in numbers of inferior deities. Shapeless idols 
 
30 
 
 were worshipped, human sacrifices offered, and gross 
 licentiousness prevailed. The Tarapons ,, inhabiting 
 the north-western groups, resemble the former in 
 their appearance and religious beliefs, but are smaller 
 in stature, and more uncivilised. The Papuans , 
 inhabiting the western groups, are savage cannibals, 
 broken up into tribes at war with one another. 
 They have a strong belief in evil spirits and in 
 witchcraft. 
 
 The interest excited by the publication of the nar¬ 
 rative of Captain Cook’s voyages led to these islands 
 being among the first fields selected for the establish¬ 
 ment of missions. Work was begun from three 
 centres, all belonging to the Sawaiori race. The 
 L. M. S. worked from Tahiti, the American Mission 
 from Hawaii, the Wesleyans from Tonga. Subse¬ 
 quently two missions have been established in the 
 most westerly groups, the Presbyterian Mission in 
 the New Hebrides, and the Melanesian Episcopal 
 Mission to the same field. 
 
 I .—Mission to Tahiti. 
 
 28. FOUNDING OF THE MISSION, When the 
 purpose of the L. M. S. to undertake a mission to the 
 South Seas was known, great interest was excited, and 
 many volunteers offered. A ship, called the Duff, 
 was purchased for the Society, and put in command 
 of Captain James Wilson, a retired East India cap¬ 
 tain ; and on September 23, 1796, it sailed from 
 Portsmouth, bearing thirty missionaries—the first 
 purely missionary expedition which Protestantism 
 had sent forth to conquer heathenism. It drew the 
 attention of all Protestant churches, and brought the 
 missionary enterprise into a prominence which it 
 never before had. The voyage was prosperous; 
 Tahiti was reached in March .following. Nineteen 
 missionaries were landed, and were well received 
 by King Pomare, who assigned to them a large house, 
 and the district in which it was situated. The Duff 
 
31 
 
 then sailed for Tonga, where ten missionaries landed, 
 and to the Marquesas, where one was left. After 
 four months it returned to Tahiti, where Captain 
 Wilson found the mission still growing in favour with 
 the natives. He then sailed for England by China, 
 and reached it after an absence of two years. The 
 favourable news he brought raised the enthusiasm of 
 Christians at home to the highest point. A fresh 
 expedition was resolved on, and such was the zeal 
 aroused that, in three months, the Duff sailed again 
 with as large a band of missionaries as before. But 
 disaster now began to try the rising zeal. The Duff 
 was captured by a French privateer, and the mis¬ 
 sionaries, after enduring great hardships, made their 
 way back to England. A third expedition of twelve 
 missionaries sailed in 1800, not in a mission ship, but 
 as passengers on board the Royal Admiral , a convict 
 ship bound for Port J ackson. Discouraging news, 
 too, came from the South Seas. 
 
 29. T H E N I G H T O F TO IL. The romance and en- 
 thusiasm associated with the beginning of the South 
 Sea Mission was not so likely to bring suitable men to 
 the front, as the penury and opposition through which 
 the first Moravian missionaries had to struggle. Of 
 those who first sailed in the Duff only two, Nott and 
 Bicknell, showed in their subsequent career the back¬ 
 bone needful for pioneering such a work as was being 
 undertaken. The fan of adversity soon winnowed 
 them. Three of the missionaries who had settled on 
 Tonga were killed, and the rest fled from the island at 
 the first opportunity. The one left on the Marquesas 
 abandoned it after a year’s trial. In Tahiti, after 
 some months, troubles arose, during which great 
 hostility was shown to the missionaries, some of 
 whom were subjected to severe outrages, and barely 
 escaped with their lives. This so alarmed the 
 majority that they left by a ship visiting the island 
 at the time, and only seven remained. Of these, one 
 began to live with a native woman, was separated 
 
/ 
 
 32 
 
 from the mission, and was shortly after found dead. 
 Another apostatized, and went to live among the 
 natives. It seemed as though, instead of the mis¬ 
 sionaries conquering heathenism, heathenism was 
 conquering them. When, in 1801, the lloycd Ad¬ 
 miral arrived at Tahiti, the new missionaries found 
 only five of the thirty who had preceded them still in 
 the field. Strengthened by the^reinforcement thus 
 received, and taught by experience, the missionaries 
 set afresh to work. Having, after much. difficulty, 
 learned the language, and reduced it to writing, they 
 made more direct efforts to teach the natives Chris¬ 
 tianity, but their teaching was at first received with 
 ridicule. Pomare, the king, favoured them, and 
 showed a desire to learn secular knowledge. But a 
 rebellion broke out; he was driven from Tahiti, 
 and obliged to take refuge in the neighbouring 
 island of Eimeo. By the same war the missionaries 
 were obliged to leave, and they ultimately all sailed 
 for New South Wales? except Nott, who remained 
 with Pomare at Eimeo, and Hayward, who went to 
 Huahine, an island at some distance. Thus, after 
 twelve years, the mission to the South Seas seemed 
 decisively to have failed. We must not blame the 
 missionaries too severely, considering that during all 
 these years they had only twice received supplies and 
 tidings from home. A complete change meanwhile 
 came over the sentiments of the Christian public at 
 home. Missions were scouted and laughed at. The 
 directors of the L. M. S. seriously discussed the 
 abandoning of the mission. Two of them strenuously 
 opposed this, and proposed a season of special piayei 
 for a blessing on its work. This, was agreed to; 
 letters of encouragement were written to the mis¬ 
 sionaries ; and while the ship that bore these letters 
 was on her way to Tahiti, another ship was bearing 
 to England the rejected idols of the people.. 
 
 30. THE DAWNING OF THE DAY. Five of the 
 Missionaries who had gone to New feoutli Wales, 
 
33 
 
 urged by letters from Pomare, returned to Eimeo in 
 1811. The king soon thereafter gave evidence that 
 the truth was at work in his heart; and at last he 
 openly showed his contempt for idolatry by eating 
 some sacred food. His subjects expected him to die 
 at once, but as no harm befell him, their faith in 
 idolatry was shaken. In June 1813 a report came 
 to Eimeo that a change was coming over some of the 
 Tahitians, and two missionaries, Scott and Hayward, 
 crossed to Tahiti to ascertain the truth of it. Next 
 morning, one of them who had gone into the bush 
 for meditation, heard, with a thrill of joy, the voice 
 of a native raised in prayer to God—the first token 
 that their teaching had been blessed in Tahiti. The 
 missionaries sought out the praying native, and 
 learned that several young men had banded together 
 to give up idol worship. They returned to Eimeo, 
 taking two of these converts with them. A similar 
 movement began to spread in that island. On July 
 25tli the first place of Christian worship was opened, 
 and on the day following, about forty natives gave 
 in their names as disciples of Jesus. Soon thereafter 
 the priest of the chief temple in Eimeo publicly 
 burned his idols, and his example was followed by 
 others in the island. Thus, after a night of toil of 
 sixteen years, the dawn broke. 
 
 31. ESTABLISHMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 Meanwhile, Pomare, with the help of chiefs from 
 neighbouring islands, was re-establishing his autho¬ 
 rity in Tahiti. It came at last to be a question 
 between Christianity and heathenism. The crisis 
 occurred on Sabbath, 12th November 1815, while 
 Pomare, with abotit 800 followers, who had come 
 from Eimeo, were engaged in worship, they were 
 treacherously attacked by a large force of idolaters. 
 A fierce battle ensued, in which the latter were 
 routed and fled to the hills. Pomare forbade pursuit, 
 plundering the property, or molesting the families 
 of the vanquished. Such clemency completely won 
 
 0 
 
34 
 
 the hearts of his foes. They made their submission, 
 confessing that his religion was better than theirs. 
 All the idols in the island were destroyed or removed 
 from their temples, and sent to England as trophies. 
 Idol temples were pulled down, and churches for the 
 worship of the true God erected in their place. In 
 a few years Christian worship was universal both in 
 Tahiti and Eimeo, and though the missionaries were 
 careful in administering baptism, it was evident that 
 > Christianity had definitely triumphed. 
 
 Though Tahiti is a small island, with a population 
 of only about 16,000, the mission to it was, in some 
 respects, the most important of modern missions. 
 The limited size of the field made it a sort of little 
 world, in which the whole struggle with the larger 
 heathen world could be rehearsed and its issue 
 forecast. The long years of fruitless labour, the 
 signal triumph at last, have taught the Church a 
 lesson of patience and assurance which has never 
 been forgotten. In entering on any new field now, 
 the Church does so with the confidence of ultimate 
 success, but prepared, if need be, to struggle through 
 barren years ; and to this attitude, next to the 
 promises of the Gospel, the Tahitian Mission, which 
 first signally embodied them in history, has most 
 contributed. 
 
 32. RESULTS OF CHRISTIANITY. The dis¬ 
 tinctive work of Foreign Missions had now been 
 achieved in Tahiti; false religion had been over¬ 
 thrown, Christianity had been established. There 
 remained the work of enforcing the claims of Christ 
 on the conscience and life of the people (§ 25). Some 
 obvious good results followed ; human sacrifices and 
 infanticide were of course abolished; concubinage 
 was prohibited and the marriage tie respected ; the 
 Sabbath was observed as a day of rest and worship; 
 decent clothing was substituted for the old art of 
 tattooing. Education spread ; a printing press was 
 set up from which the translation of the Bible and 
 
35 
 
 a good literature soon issued. Pomare gave his 
 subjects a code of laws and a constitution in 1819, 
 and before he died in 1821 saw his island not only 
 Christianized but comparatively civilized. A great 
 deal of this was at first necessarily superficial; the 
 inherited evils of idolatry yielded but slowly to the 
 new faith, but as the Gospel continued longer among 
 the people it exerted more influence over their 
 lives. 
 
 In 1843 Tahiti was, consequent on intrigues of 
 Homan Catholic Missionaries, taken possession of by 
 the French. Protestant Missionaries were subjected 
 to great hindrances and annoyances, and everything 
 was done to favour Roman Catholicism. Only one 
 English Missionary is now allowed to remain on the 
 island, but there are thirteen native pastors, minister¬ 
 ing to about 8000 church adherents, of whom 2500 
 are members. The Paris Missionary Society has 
 also agents there. The Roman Catholics number 
 about 500. 
 
 33. SPREAD OF THE GOSPEL IN OTHER 
 ISLAN DS. Among the allies who helped Pomare to 
 re-establish his authority were the chiefs of Huahine, 
 Raiatea, and other islands of the Society group, of 
 which Tahiti is one. These carried back with them 
 news of the change that had come over that island, 
 and soon petitions came for teachers and missionaries 
 to be sent to them. Their settlement on any island 
 was almost uniformly followed in a year or two 
 by the destruction of idols, the establishment of 
 Christianity and a change in social condition similar 
 to what had taken place in Tahiti. A Polynesian 
 Missionary Society was formed with its headquarters 
 at Raiatea, and from it Christianity spread to the 
 other groups. In 1816, the Austral Islands were 
 occupied; in 1821, the Ilervey Islands; in 1830, 
 the important Samoan Islands, from which the 
 Gospel was carried to some outlying groups. These 
 groups are all inhabited by Sawaioris. The Gilbert 
 
36 
 
 islands, inhabited by Tarapons, were occupied by 
 missionaries from Samoa in 1871. The Loyalty 
 islands, inhabited by Papuans, were occupied by 
 agents of the L. M. S. in 1841. The narrative of 
 each of these missions is intensely interesting, and 
 exhibits the power of the Gospel, changing savages 
 into civilized beings, obeying the Gospel and contri¬ 
 buting liberally for its support and spread. _ The 
 last advance of the L. M. S. was to the large island 
 of New Guinea, in 1871. Polynesian Missionaries 
 went first, followed by Europeans. Difficulties were 
 at first experienced. Some of the first agents died, 
 and others were killed, but the mission has now 
 fairly established itself, and has connected with it a 
 small steamer, the Ellangowan , the gift of Miss 
 Baxter of Dundee. 
 
 34. JOHN WILLIAMS was the chief agent in 
 spreading Christianity among these islands, in the 
 earlier years of its progress. He was originally an 
 ironmonger, but offered himself as a missionary to 
 the L. M. S., and was settled at Baiatea in 1817, 
 when he was only twenty-one years of age. He in¬ 
 structed the natives there in many arts, and set 
 himself to develop their missionary activity. He 
 went many voyages to islands not hitherto visited, 
 and settled native evangelists in them. In 1823 he 
 discovered Rarotonga, one of the Hervey group ; he 
 found that news of Christianity had already reached 
 it, and the people were prepared to receive the 
 teacher whom he left. When he returned in 1827 
 he found that idolatry had been wholly abandoned. 
 He intended on this occasion to remain only a month 
 or two, but as no ship appeared to take him off he 
 resolved to build one. He knew little of ship build¬ 
 ing, he had scarcely any tools to work with, and no 
 one to help him but the natives; yet he succeeded 
 in about three months in completing a vessel between 
 seventy and eighty tons burden, which he called the 
 Messenger of Peace. This vessel he used for some 
 
37 
 
 years in going on his evangelistic voyages among 
 the islands. He visited England in 1834, and by 
 his speeches, and the publication of his narrative of 
 missionary enterprise, did a great deal to revise 
 interest in missions. He returned to the South Seas 
 in 1838, and in the following year went to introduce 
 the Gospel to the New Hebrides. He landed at 
 Erromanga, with Mr Harris, another missionary, 
 when they were suddenly attacked and murdered 
 by the natives. 
 
 II .—American Mission. 
 
 35. MISSION TO THE HAWAIIAN OR SAND¬ 
 WICH ISLANDS. One morning in the year 1809 
 in the town of New Haven in Connecticut, a 
 coloured youth was found by the Eev. E. W. 
 Dwight, weeping at the gate of the College. On 
 enquiring as to the cause, he learned that he was 
 weeping because there was no one to instruct him. 
 His name was Aboodiah, he was a native of Hawaii 
 and had come to America on board a vessel. He 
 was distressed at himself and his fellow-countrymen 
 being without the means of knowledge. This led 
 to interest being taken in him and in other Hawaiian 
 youths, who had found their way to America, and 
 ultimately to a mission being sent to the Hawaiian 
 Islands by the American Board in 1819. These 
 islands are the most northerly of the Pacific groups 
 and are larger than those to the south. The first 
 missionary band, consisting of seven Americans with 
 their wives and three Hawaiians, led by Messrs 
 Bingham and Thurston, ordained missionaries, 
 reached Hawaii on 4th April 1820. They expected 
 to see heathen temples standing and idolatrous rites 
 practised, to encounter long opposition, and possibly 
 bloody persecutions, before the Gospel was estab¬ 
 lished. Instead of this the first thing they learned 
 was that idolatry had been abandoned, the temples 
 burned, human sacrifices done away with, the priest- 
 
38 
 
 hood abolished, and the nation was waiting for a 
 religion. This was not owing to any influence 
 having reached this group from Tahiti, but owing 
 to impatience of the yoke of idolatry itself. The 
 most marked feature of Hawaiian idolatry was the 
 system of tabu. This consisted in declaring certain 
 places, persons, and things. sacred, so that they must 
 not be approached ; certain days sacred so that no 
 work must be done on them. This had been carried 
 to such a length that the chiefs had risen up against 
 it and rejected the whole system. Christianity had 
 thus free scope from the beginning, and spread 
 rapidly among the islands. The chief opposition 
 came from unprincipled traders, who found that the 
 missionary influence restricted the license they had 
 previously enjoyed. By 1848, in these islands, the 
 constitution, laws, institutions, and religious pro¬ 
 fession were as decidedly Christian as in many of the 
 older nations of Christendom. Measures were then 
 begun for withdrawing the American missionaries, 
 and in 1873 the Hawaiian churches became indepen¬ 
 dent, bearing all expenses except those of the few 
 American missionaries that might still remain. In 
 1870 the membership of these churches amounted to 
 about 15,000, raising nearly £5000 for home work 
 and £1300 for foreign missions. 
 
 36. HAWAIIAN MISSIONS. As early as 1852 
 the Hawaiian churches began foreign missions of their 
 own. One mission was to the Sawaiori race, that to 
 the Marquesas,—a very difficult field owing to the 
 numerous divisions of the people and their hostility 
 to one another, and one in which results have been 
 therefore small. The other missions have been to 
 Micronesia, inhabited by the Tarapons. The northern 
 islands of the Gilbert group, the Marshall, and the 
 Caroline Islands, have been occupied by Hawaiian 
 and American missionaries. The progress in the 
 Marshall Islands has not been so great; in the other 
 groups it has been very encouraging, but much yet 
 
39 
 
 remains to be done. A mission ship called the 
 Morning Star makes the round of the islands every 
 year. 
 
 III.— Wesleyan Missions. 
 
 37. TONGA MISSION. The Tonga or Friendly 
 Islands, the first mission to which has been already 
 noticed (§ 28, 29), were occupied in 1822 by the 
 Wesleyan Missionary Society, and though at first 
 there were dangers and difficulties to be met, steady 
 progress was made from the beginning.. It was 
 somewhat retarded by wars between the idolatrous 
 and Christian party, which had not the same de¬ 
 cisive result as in Tahiti. At a critical period in 
 the history of the mission, Taufuahau, king of a 
 number of the islands, whose sway ultimately ex¬ 
 tended over the whole group, was converted. At 
 his baptism he took the name of King George. 
 While in the church claiming no higher position 
 than any other member, he has by his character and 
 influence done a great deal to promote Christianity. 
 He gave his subjects a constitution based on Chris¬ 
 tian principles. The Tonga Islands are now Christian. 
 There are more than 8000 church members, and 
 after paying their own expenses, they contribute 
 upwards of £2000 to the Australasian Conference. 
 
 38. THE FIJI ISLANDS are not far from the 
 Tonga Islands, but the inhabitants are of the Papuan 
 race, and were noted for their cannibalism. I his 
 was more or less practised in all the South Sea 
 Islands, but in Fiji it was interwoven with the 
 whole framework of society, and gave to it and to 
 the religion of the island a hideous repulsiveness. 
 The Wesleyan Mission began here in 1835, Messrs 
 Cross and Cargill coming from Tonga, and Mr 
 Calvert and others from England. The influence of 
 King George of Tonga secured for them a favour- 
 able & reception, and the first converts were Tongan 
 immigrants. It was probably partly owing to th is that, 
 
40 
 
 though the missionaries had often to witness scenes of 
 great barbarity, and were often threatened, none of 
 them became victims of the savages among whom they 
 had taken up their abode. By degrees the Fijians came 
 under the power of the Gospel, till now, out of a popu¬ 
 lation of 120,000, upwards of 100,000 are professing 
 Christians, with upwards of 20,000 church members, 
 and over 40,000 Sunday scholars. In 1874 the islands 
 were ceded to Great Britain, by the chiefs, with the 
 approval of the islanders, and, as a British colony, 
 they have been making rapid progress. 
 
 IV .—Canadian and Scotch Missions. 
 
 39. THE NEW HEBRIDES, between Fiji and 
 Australia, have a population of 100,000, the most 
 savage, most superstitious, and most backward of 
 any in the South Seas. Occasional attempts were 
 made, after the martjndom of Williams, to evangel¬ 
 ise them, but the first to settle permanently among 
 them was Dr John Geddie, from Nova Scotia, who 
 landed in Aneityum in 1848, and laboured for twenty- 
 four years, when he died at Geelong on his way 
 home. A memorial tablet, in the church at Anei¬ 
 tyum, records his work there—“ When he landed in 
 1848 there were no Christians here, when he left in 
 1872 there were no heathens. 5 ’ The work in these 
 islands is carried on by the Presbyterian Churches 
 of Canada and Australia, and the Free Church of 
 Scotland. They were served by the mission ship 
 belonging to the L. M. S. till 1864, when they 
 acquired a schooner of their own, called the Day 
 Spring. One other island, Aniwa, has become pro¬ 
 fessedly Christian, and progress has been made in 
 most of the others. 
 
 40. Erromanga, one of the principal islands in the 
 group, has obtained a sad pre-eminence as a land of 
 martyrs. There the noble Williams, along with his 
 companion Harris, was murdered in 1839 and eaten 
 
41 
 
 by the savages. Their martyrdom attracted to the 
 spot the Rev. G. N. Gordon from Nova Scotia, who 
 landed there in 1857, and with his devoted wife 
 laboured for four years. Then the natives, attribut¬ 
 ing to their sorceries some calamities which had 
 visited the island, set on them one morning and 
 murdered them both. Their labours, however, had 
 not been in vain. A band of faithful followers 
 gathered their mangled remains and buried them ; 
 and some were brave enough next morning to ring 
 the bell and assemble for worship. A brother of 
 Gordon, on receiving the news of his death, devoted 
 himself to the work in which he had fallen, and went 
 to Erromanga in 1864, as soon as he had completed 
 his studies. There he laboured till 1872, when he 
 was murdered in circumstances similar to his 
 brother. In the same year another labourer, Rev. 
 H. A. Robertson, from the same country, stepped 
 into the breach and carried on the work in which 
 the two Gordons had fallen. He has been permitted 
 to labour since. A small Christian church has been 
 gathered, and, though the progress is slow, we have 
 reason to hope that ere long the fruit of the martyrs’ 
 deaths will appear in the entire conquest of Erromanga 
 for Christ. 
 
 V .—Episcopal Mission. 
 
 41. THE MELANESIAN MISSION. Melanesia 
 is the name given to the New Hebrides, Banks 
 Islands, and others to the east of Australia. Dr 
 Selwyn, afterwards Bishop of Lichfield, when Bishop 
 of New Zealand, laboured earnestly for the evan¬ 
 gelization of these islands. He made several voyages 
 among them, and succeeded in inducing many of the 
 natives to go to New Zealand to be instructed, that 
 they might return and teach their fellow-country¬ 
 men. In 1855 he was joined by Coleridge Patteson, 
 who, in 1861, was consecrated Bishop of Melanesia, 
 and laboured for the islands with an apostolic devo- 
 
42 
 
 tion which cost him his life. As the southern islands 
 were occupied by the Presbyterian missionaries, he 
 confined his labours to the northern groups. Norfolk 
 Island was made the headquarters of the mission. 
 There a training institution was established, and 
 young natives were brought from the various islands 
 to be trained as teachers and evangelists. Patteson 
 sailed about among the islands, seeking to induce 
 promising youths to accompany him, taking them 
 back when they had been trained, placing them and 
 superintending their work. Unfortunately, European 
 traders visited the same islands, kidnapping the 
 natives, and treating them often with a barbarity 
 worse than that of savages. Bishop Patteson saw 
 the danger thus caused to his work ; but he con¬ 
 tinued unflinchingly at his post till, in 1871, he was 
 murdered while endeavouring to open communica¬ 
 tion with the natives of the island of Mukapa, which 
 had been shortly before visited by a kidnapping 
 ship. Shortly after, Commodore Goodenough was 
 murdered by the natives of the same island. 
 
 In 1877, J. P. Selwyn, son of the pioneer bishop, 
 was consecrated Bishop of Melanesia, and the work 
 continues to be conducted on the same lines. It is 
 a kind of work slower in producing fruit, and though 
 there have been encouraging signs, no very marked 
 or extensive results seem yet to have been attained. 
 
 42. SUMMARY. Looking over the whole of 
 Polynesia we see that in the principal groups 
 Christianity has definitely triumphed. In the 
 Society, Austral, Cook, Samoan, Tokelan, Hawaiian, 
 Ellice, Tonga, Fiji, Loyalty, and some isolated islands, 
 idolatry has disappeared. Nearly all the other 
 groups have been entered, and in some Christianity 
 has made great progress. Following in the train of 
 Christianity, civilization has spread, and the moral 
 character of the islanders has been raised. The 
 Bible has been translated into most of the languages, 
 and a Christian literature introduced. The native 
 
 * 
 
43 
 
 churches are in many cases self-supporting, and are 
 contributing for the spread of the Gospel. Much 
 remains to be done, and many obstacles still stand in 
 the way. Godless Europeans, trading among the 
 islands, are doing much to neutralize the power of the 
 Gospel. The political action of the French, support¬ 
 ing the operations of Roman Catholic priests, is 
 likewise a disturbing element. But the results 
 attained in Polynesia bear witness to the power of 
 the Gospel, and give earnest of like success in wider 
 fields. 
 
 CHAPTER IY. 
 
 AFRICA, THE WEST INDIES, AND MADAGASCAR. 
 
 43. AFRICA AND THE AFRICANS. Africa, the 
 second continent of the world in extent, and the 
 third in population, is about four thousand miles in 
 length, north and south, and about the same at its 
 greatest breadth. The northern and southern por¬ 
 tions enjoy a temperate climate, but the greater part 
 of it lies within the Torrid Zone. The interior, 
 which was long supposed to consist of sandy deserts, 
 has been found to possess large fertile districts, with 
 high hills, wide lakes, and great rivers. The popu¬ 
 lation is estimated at upwards of two hundred 
 millions. Christian churches were early planted 
 along the northern coast, but these soon succumbed 
 to Mahommedanism, which is now the dominant 
 religion there. The greater part of Central Africa 
 is inhabited by the negroes, a black race in a low 
 stage of civilisation, with a fetish religion darkened 
 by cruel customs, who, from early ages, have been 
 enslaved by other races. After the discovery of the 
 New World, great numbers were carried thither as 
 slaves, and it was there that the Gospel was first 
 
44 
 
 brought to the African race. The negroes in North 
 America have been evangelized by the churches 
 there. We shall look at missions to the rest of this 
 race and to other races of Africa in the following 
 order—1st, Missions to those once slaves in the West 
 Indies ; 2d, those to the West Coast of Africa, 
 springing from work among the slaves ; 3d, those 
 starting from the Cape of Good Hope as a base ; 
 4th, those to Central Africa, following on geographi¬ 
 cal exploration; 5th, those to Madagascar. 
 
 I.— West Indies. 
 
 44. THE WEST INDIES is the name given to 
 islands between North and South America. With 
 them are usually associated British, Dutch, and 
 French Guiana, on the northern coast of South 
 America. The original inhabitants have almost 
 entirely disappeared ; the bulk of the population 
 consists of negroes, descendants of African slaves. 
 Hayti is independent, and Roman Catholic ; Cuba 
 and Porta Rica belong to Spain ; Martinique, Gua- 
 daloupe, and French Guiana to France ; the rest of 
 the islands to Protestant nations. 
 
 45. The first mission to the negroes was that of 
 the Moravian Brethren. What led to its being un¬ 
 dertaken has already been related (§ 13). The two 
 brethren, Dober and Nitschman, started from 
 Herrnhut on foot, prepared if need be to go into 
 slavery that they might preach the Gospel to the 
 slaves. From Copenhagen they got a passage to 
 St Thomas, which they reached in 1733. They first 
 sought out the sister of Anthony (see § 13), and 
 found her living as a slave on a plantation along 
 with her husband. They delivered to her a letter 
 from her brother, and at her request opened and 
 read it. In it occurred the quotation, John xvii. 3, 
 from which they preached the Gospel to the slaves 
 who had gathered. The negroes understood enough 
 to make them clap their hands with joy. They had 
 
45 
 
 up to that time supposed that all the good things 
 were for the white people alone, and could hardly 
 believe that the same salvation was offered them. 
 Such was the first breaking of light for the children 
 of the dark continent. 
 
 The two brethren supported themselves by their 
 own labour. They were soon called back to Europe, 
 but others took their place ; the work made progress, 
 and many negroes were baptised. This roused the 
 opposition of the planters \ the missionaries were 
 thrown into prison, but were shortly after released, 
 and continued their work, extending it to the other 
 islands. Its good effects came to be recognised by 
 the planters, and it was remarked that a Moravian 
 negro had a higher market value than another. 
 
 46. Other churches came to work along with the 
 Moravians. The origin of the Wesleyan Missions 
 to the West Indies has already been mentioned (§17). 
 The Baptists were next in the field. The first 
 labourers were Moses Baker and George Liele, 
 emancipated American slaves, who laboured as evan¬ 
 gelists in Jamaica unconnected with any society. 
 The Bev. Mr Rowe, the first missionary sent out by 
 the society, landed in Jamaica in 1813.. The L. M. fe. 
 began amission to British Guiana in 180/. The 
 Scottish Missionary Society, in 1824, sent out George 
 Blyth, who had previously laboured in Russia, and 
 he was soon followed by others. 
 
 47. SLAVERY was for a long time the chief diffi¬ 
 culty in the way of the Gospel. The slaves were wil¬ 
 ling to hear, but the planters and white population 
 generally were hostile, and subjected the missionaries 
 to persecution, especially when they were suspected 
 of helping the oppressed negroes. Whenever the 
 slaves rose in rebellion, the missionaries were, ac¬ 
 cused of fomenting it. Mob law was brought into 
 play. Missionaries were tarred and feathered, others 
 huno- in chains, others driven from their homes, and 
 their chapels destroyed. Mr Smith, a missionary of 
 
46 
 
 the L. M. S. in Demerara, a friend of the negroes, 
 but one who had always sought to restrain their vio¬ 
 lence, was arrested in 1823 on a charge of inciting 
 to rebellion, tried with a mockery of justice, and 
 sentenced to be hanged. Succumbing to ill health 
 and cruel treatment, he died before the sentence was 
 carried into effect. His body was ignominiously 
 buried next morning, and his widow was refused per¬ 
 mission to pay the last rites. This precipitated the 
 downfall of slavery. Henry Brougham brought the 
 case before the House of Commons, and though his 
 motion for an inquiry was lost, the country was 
 fairly roused. “ The missionary’s case ” became one 
 of the watchwords at next Parliamentary election. 
 At length, in 1833, an act was passed emancipating 
 the slaves, which came into force on 1st August 1834. 
 An outbreak on the part of the negroes was feared, 
 but instead of this they crowded to their churches 
 and chapels, and spent the day in thanksgiving. 
 
 48. Since then progress has been made by all the 
 churches. The Moravians have about 150 mission¬ 
 aries with 60,000 negroes under their care. The 
 Wesleyans have six circuits, with upwards of 300 
 churches and stations, 100 missionaries and assistants, 
 besides paid catechists and unpaid local preachers. 
 They are mostly self-supporting. The Baptists have 
 77 churches, and 20,000 church members, indepen¬ 
 dent of the home church. The United Presbyterians 
 have a synod divided into four presbyteries, with a 
 theological hall, 47 churches, and about 9000 church 
 members, largely self-supporting. The Congrega- 
 tionalists have 70 chapels and stations, and upwards 
 of 4000 members. The West Indies are now Chris¬ 
 tian, in the sense of Christianity being the only 
 religion professed. The character of the Christianity 
 is still low. The effect of ages of idolatry and subse¬ 
 quent slavery has not yet been eradicated, but 
 Christianity is gradually telling on the people, im¬ 
 proving their morality, and raising them in the social 
 scale. 
 
47 
 
 II.— Western Africa. 
 
 49. Western Africa was the principal seat of the 
 slave trade, which led to the establishment of 
 missions there early in this century. In 1797, a 
 London company, called the African Company, pur¬ 
 chased a peninsula, called Sierra Leone , for the pur¬ 
 pose of settling emancipated negroes who had served 
 in British ships of war. In 1808 this became a 
 colony under the rule of the British Crown, and has 
 since served as an asylum for negroes who have been 
 rescued from slavery. The American Colonization 
 Society, formed mainly by the exertions of S. J. 
 Mills (§ 21), resolved to purchase land in Africa to 
 provide a home for slaves who might be liberated in 
 America. Mills died while on the way to look out 
 for a suitable spot, but others took up the work, and 
 the result was the formation of the negro republic 
 of Liberia , with a coast line of about 600 miles 
 stretching eastward from Sierra Leone. It was 
 declared independent in 1847. These kfro colonies, 
 formed, one under English, the other under Ameri¬ 
 can, auspices, have been the chief centres of work in 
 Western Africa. 
 
 50. SIERRA LEONE MISSIONS. Missions were 
 begun in Sierra Leone itself in 1816, by W. A. B. 
 Johnson, an agent of the C. M. S. The work was at 
 first very discouraging, but ere long, consciences 
 were reached, and multitudes awakened. This 
 change produced a change in outward appearance, 
 and the Colony became a civilized State. A bishop¬ 
 ric was established in 1851, and in 1862 the native 
 church was organized on an independent basis. It 
 is now self-supporting, and has begun missions of its 
 own to Rio Pongas in the north. 
 
 The Yoruba Mission, a thousand miles east of 
 Sierra Leone, is one of the principal offshoots of the 
 mission there. One of its chief agents was Samuel 
 Crowther, a native of Abeokuta, a town in that 
 
48 
 
 country. When a boy he was carried off as a slave, 
 rescued by a British cruiser, educated first at Sierra 
 Leone, then in England, and at the close of his 
 course of study ordained by the Bishop of London 
 as a missionary to Sierra Leone. In 1846 he returned 
 to Abeokuta, where, after a separation of twenty- 
 five years, he again met his mother. Two years later 
 he had the joy of receiving her along with four 
 others as the first converts of the mission there. 
 The number soon increased \ the Christians had to 
 suffer severe persecutions, but the mission continues 
 to prosper. It has now nine stations, with five 
 European and ten native missionaries, and 7000 
 adherents. The Niger Mission was begun in 1837, 
 when Crowther accompanied the third of a series of 
 expeditions sent up that great river by the British 
 Government with a view of stopping the slave trade. 
 The steamer was wrecked 400 miles up the river, 
 and he was detained in the district eighteen months, 
 during which time he laid the foundation of the 
 mission. Ill succeeding visits he established various 
 stations, and in 1864 he was consecrated Bishop of 
 the Niger. 
 
 Wesleyan Missions have been established in Sierra 
 Leone and Yoruba, and also on the Gold Coast and 
 Gambia. In all, this society has along the coast 
 107 chapels, and about three times that number of 
 preaching stations, attended by about 13,300 members 
 ministered to by 40 missionaries, European and 
 native, and 32 catechists. They are also carrying on 
 a vigorous educational work, having 160 paid teachers 
 and 6000 day scholars. . 
 
 51. LIBERIAN MISSIONS have naturally been 
 undertaken by the American Churches. The first in 
 the field, and now the most numerous, was the 
 Baptist Mission, which owed its origin to Lot Cary. 
 Born in slavery, he purchased his own freedom, and 
 ultimately became pastor of a Baptist Church in 
 Bichmond. By great exertions he succeeded in 
 
49 
 
 forming an African Missionary Society, by which he 
 and another colleague were sent to Liberia in 1821. 
 The Methodist Episcopal Church began a mission in 
 1833, which has now one foreign missionary and 
 twenty-one native ordained preachers. The Episco¬ 
 pal Church has also a mission, with one bishop and 
 fourteen clergy, of whom two are white. The 
 Presbyterian Church (1842), has three American 
 missionaries and six native helpers. These missions 
 were chiefly among the colonists from America, who 
 are nearly all nominally Christian. Two important 
 offshoots from the Presbyterian Mission are those to 
 Gaboon and Corsico , a little north of the equator. 
 The latter place is an island twenty miles from the 
 land, considered a good basis from which to evange¬ 
 lize the tribes along the coast. Both of these 
 missions are considerably embarrassed by the 
 presence of an active Romish Mission, begun conse¬ 
 quent on the occupation of the Gaboon by the French. 
 Many missionaries have succumbed to the climate. 
 There are now five American and seven native agents 
 engaged, and about 400 natives have been gathered 
 into Church membership. 
 
 52. The OLD CALABAR MISSION originated 
 with the presbytery of Jamaica. The negroes who 
 had there been brought to the truth expressed a 
 desire to send it to the land whence they had come. 
 The presbytery resolved to begin a mission, and fixed 
 on Old Calabar, from whose chiefs they had received a 
 request for teachers. The mission was finally taken 
 up by the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland. 
 Hope M. Waddell, from the Jamaica Mission, with 
 a band of workers, entered the Old Calabar River in 
 1846, and was cordially welcomed by the kings and 
 chiefs of Duke Town and Creek Town. The mission 
 has proved fatal to many European labourers, but 
 progress has been made. A presbytery was consti¬ 
 tuted in 1858, having five European and two native 
 missionaries, five congregations with about twenty 
 
 D 
 
50 
 
 out-stations, and about two hundred full members. 
 In all the towns occupied by the mission, Sabbath 
 observance has been established ; human sacrifices, 
 the murder of twin children, trial by the poison 
 bean, and other heathen practices, have been entirely 
 abolished. The Bible, Pilgrim’s Progress, and other 
 books have been translated into Efik. A mission 
 to the Cameroons, a little south of Old Calabar, was 
 established in 1845 by the Baptist Missionary 
 Society. The New Testament has been translated 
 into the language of the Isubus and Dualas, the 
 two principal tribes. Here, too, there is the record 
 of heavy loss to European life, of slow but steady 
 progress. About two hundred members are gathered 
 in at ten stations. 
 
 53. Reviewing the missions to West Africa, we 
 see rewards of sacrifice and patience that may well 
 encourage the Church to persevere. No missions 
 have been marked by more terrible loss of life—the 
 Coast is called the White Man’s Grave. But fast as 
 labourers have fallen, others have stepped into their 
 place. The standard of the Cross has been raised in 
 two hundred central stations. Twenty dialects have 
 been reduced to writing, and the Bible, in whole or 
 in part, has been translated into them ; and though 
 only a fringe of the great population has been 
 touched, thirty thousand negroes have been gathered 
 into full communion with the Church. 
 
 III .—South Africa. 
 
 54. SOUTH AFRICA, stretching from Cape 
 Fria and the Zambesi to the Cape of Good Hope, is 
 inhabited by tribes quite different from those of the 
 Western Coast. The Kafirs or Bantus are the most 
 numerous, numbering in all their various subdivi¬ 
 sions about three millions. They are intelligent, 
 brave, and capable of civilization. In religion they 
 are the most materialistic savages that have been 
 discovered, which has probably led to the name Kafir 
 
51 
 
 (infidel) being applied to them by the Arabs. They 
 believe in witchcraft, and their moral character is 
 low. The jHottentots, fewer in number than the 
 Bantus, smaller in stature, milder in disposition, 
 and not so intelligent, yet evince considerable mental 
 capacity, and are in much the same religious con¬ 
 dition. The Bushmen are still smaller, and less 
 capable of civilization—picture drawing being their 
 only art, and an art possessed by them alone of 
 African tribes. There are traces of sun worship 
 among them, and they have dim notions of a deity. 
 
 The Cape of Good Hope was discovered by the 
 Portuguese in 1486, occupied by the Dutch in the 
 middle of the seventeenth century, and conquered 
 by the English in 1806. As the climate is temperate, 
 European immigrants have settled in considerable 
 numbers. The Dutch or Boers form a large propor¬ 
 tion of the population, and have founded two Inde¬ 
 pendent Republics to the north—Orange Free State 
 and Transvaal. A bad feature in their character 
 has been the denial of all rights to the darker races. 
 Cape Colony and Natal, on the eastern coast, belong 
 to the English, and they exercise a suzerainty over a 
 large tract, inhabited chiefly by native tribes. The 
 European population of South Africa is about 
 300,000. The same circumstances which have led 
 European emigrants to South Africa have made it 
 a good field for Christian missions—no less than 
 fifteen societies, representing eight different nation¬ 
 alities, being at work. 
 
 55. The MORAVIANS were the first to enter. 
 George Schmidt went from Holland to the Cape of 
 Good Hope in 1737, to begin work among the Hot¬ 
 tentots at Gnadenthal, 120 miles from Cape Town. 
 Owing to the opposition of the Boers he was 
 obliged to return to Europe in 1744, leaving a con¬ 
 gregation of about fifty, who continued to meet and 
 read a Dutch Bible which he had given them. In 
 1787, some of the Brethren, landing at Cape Town 
 
52 
 
 on their way to India, saw an old Hottentot woman 
 who had the Bible, and who entreated that the 
 mission should be resumed. This led to communi¬ 
 cations with Holland, and to permission being 
 granted to re-establish the mission. In 1792 three 
 artizans went to re-commence it. From the first 
 their work among the Hottentots was successful. 
 They have extended it among the Kafirs to the east, 
 and established churches in face of attacks from 
 heathen tribes. A Kafir woman, baptized by the 
 name of Wilhelmina Stompjes, did a great deal for 
 the spread of the Gospel. Her word had such 
 weight, even with the chiefs, that they were often 
 swayed by it, and consulted on critical occasions the 
 lowly maiden in the missionary’s house. 
 
 56. Of other churches some work through the 
 colonial population. The Dutch Church, the oldest 
 of the Colonial Churches, had not its missionary 
 spirit fairly awakened till 1848, when the Synod 
 took missions to the natives in hand. No distinction 
 is drawn in the returns between European and 
 native adherents ; the latter are estimated at 26,000, 
 of whom 4500 are communicants. The Wesleyans 
 entered the colony in 1814, and have now a number 
 of stations all round the coast, attended by Euro¬ 
 peans and natives alike, in which upwards of 
 £50,000 are raised for church and mission purposes. 
 Their only exclusively mission work is that in Trans¬ 
 vaal and Swatziland, where they have sixteen prin¬ 
 cipal stations and forty out-stations, attended by 
 11,000 adherents and about 700 church members. 
 The S. P. G. began work in 1838, after the appoint¬ 
 ment of Dr Gray as Bishop of Cape Town. His 
 ability and devotion led to its rapid extension. 
 About a hundred stations are occupied by the 
 society, divided into five dioceses. The native adhe¬ 
 rents are estimated at 16,000, about a fourth being 
 communicants. 
 
 57. The L. M. S. has led the centre of the advance 
 
53 
 
 of the missionary army into South Africa. Dr J. P. 
 Vanderkemp, successively cavalry officer, physician, 
 and missionary, began work along with three others 
 at the close of last century. Subsequently Dr Philip 
 did much to improve the condition of the natives, 
 and to stimulate mission work. The chief name in 
 connection with the society is that of Robert Moffat. 
 Born in 1795 at Ormiston, near Haddington, bred a 
 gardener, his attention was turned to missions by 
 seeing a placard announcing a missionary meeting 
 in Warrington, near which he was working. He 
 offered himself to the L. M. S.; was, after training, 
 ordained along with John Williams and seven 
 others, in October 1816, and sailed thereafter for 
 South Africa, to which he had been appointed. He 
 first settled in Namaqualand among a Hottentot 
 tribe, under a chief called Africaner, a successful 
 marauder, a terror to natives and colonists alike. 
 He was the means of bringing him under the in¬ 
 fluence of the gospel, and his changed life con¬ 
 vinced many, who had never believed in them before, 
 of the efficacy of Christian missions. In 1821 Moffat 
 went with his wife, a most efficient helper and coun¬ 
 sellor, to labour among the Bechuanas. Soon there¬ 
 after, on the occasion of a severe drought, the tribe, 
 on the advice of the rain-makers, resolved to expel 
 the missionaries. The chief went with twelve fol¬ 
 lowers to the mission house to carry out the resolu¬ 
 tion. Moffat went to meet them, while his wife 
 with her first-born child in her arms, and Mr Hamil¬ 
 ton, the father of the mission, were standing at the 
 door. He bared his breast and said, “ If you will, 
 drive your spears into my breast, and then my com¬ 
 panions will know that it is time to leave. 55 The 
 chief, turning to his followers, said, u These men must 
 have in them something of immortality. 5 ’ They were 
 subdued, and the missionaries remained. Still Moffat 
 was inclined to be despondent from his want of 
 success, when his wife said to him, “ The gospel has 
 
54 
 
 not yet been preached to them in the tongue in 
 which they were born.” From that hour he^ set 
 himself resolutely to learn their language.. Soon 
 conversions began to take place, and invitations 
 came from the interior for a visit from him. He 
 translated the New Testament into the Sechuana 
 tongue, the first foundation of its literature. When 
 Kuruman station, at which he resided, was laid out, 
 he had to act as land surveyor and architect, quarrier 
 of stones and hewer of timber. He paid a visiHto 
 England in 1840, and came home finally in 18/0. 
 His wife died in 1871, and he in 1883. 
 
 The L. M. S. has continued to push northward, and 
 older stations in the colony and Griqualand have 
 been left to their own resources. . They have now 
 two stations in Kafirland and eight among the 
 Becliuanas, at four of which there is a Christian 
 community of 5000, a church membership of 1600, 
 and 1200 children attending schools. 
 
 58. While the L. M. S. has led the centre of the 
 missionary advance through Griqualand and Becliu- 
 analand on to the Zambesi, the Rhenish mission has 
 led the left wing along the west coast. .Tim society 
 entered this field by advice of Dr Philip in 1828. 
 Its agents laboured first among the Hottentots in 
 Cape Colony. The opposition of the Boers drew out 
 the self help of the natives, and they have now ten 
 stations in the Colony almost self supporting. They 
 have pushed on to great Namaqualand, a barren 
 land stretching 400 miles along the coast, lately 
 annexed by Germany. Here several barbarous 
 tribes are being evangelized and civilized; and 
 eleven stations have been established with 5000 
 church members. The mission has extended into 
 Hereroland, inhabited by a hardy race of Bantus, 
 among whom they have three stations with 1300 
 members, contributing in one year £1040. Altogether 
 this mission has now 15,000 members, drawn chiefly 
 from the most degraded races. North of them in 
 
55 
 
 Ovampoland the missionary society of Finland has 
 lately begun work and has sent out ten agents. 
 
 59. Turning to the east, the oldest missions are 
 those of the Free and United Presbyterian Churches 
 of Scotland. They originated with the Glasgow 
 Missionary Society, which sent out its first agents 
 in 1821. The Rev. John Ross went in 1823, and 
 continued fifty-five years at the work without once 
 visiting his native land. In 1837, in consequence 
 of the Voluntary controversy, the present-division 
 took place, which is now happily in a fair way to be 
 healed. These missions are chiefly in British Kaff- 
 raria and Kafirland, and have suffered greatly from 
 wars. The F. C. have now nine stations, besides 
 three in Natal, with a membership of upwards of 
 2000. At Lovedale is a seminary opened in 1841 by 
 Mr Gowan, and carried on since 1870 by Dr James 
 Stewart. Instruction in industrial arts, as well 
 as higher education, is given, and several native 
 pastors have been trained. A similar institution 
 has been opened among the Fingoes at Blytliswood 
 beyond the Kei, at their own request; and they 
 subscribed £4000 in aid of its erection. The total 
 number of scholars connected with this mission is 
 2647. The first missionary of the U. P. C. was 
 the Rev. William Chalmers, who went in 1827, 
 and died after twenty years’ labour. The mission, 
 though greatly hindered by wars, has now grown to 
 have eight stations, with a membership of about 
 1650, and about 900 pupils at day schools. Con¬ 
 nected with this mission was Tiyo Soga, the first 
 fully educated ordained Kafir missionary. He was 
 educated first by Mr Chalmers, then at Glasgow. 
 He took a complete theological course “to learn 
 better how to preach Christ as his known Saviour to 
 his heathen countrymen who know Him not.'’ He 
 was ordained in Glasgow in 1856, and returned to 
 his native land. Among other work he translated 
 the Pilgrim’s Progress into Kafir, and assisted in 
 
56 
 
 translating the Bible. He died in 1871, aged forty- 
 two, lamented by all who desire the welfare of the 
 Kafirs 
 
 60. The mission of the American Board in Natal 
 began in 1835, when six missionaries settled there. 
 At first the progress was slow, owing to wars between 
 the Boers and natives. In 1843, Natal became an 
 English colony, and since then the mission has made 
 steady progress. It has now 9 stations, lo out- 
 stations* and 16 churches, with a total membership 
 of 645. Besides 11 missionaries, there are 3 native 
 pastors, and 45 native preachers. The translation of 
 the whole Bible into the Zulu language has been 
 completed—a work which will meet the wants, not 
 only of Natal, but of the Zulu speaking tribes as far 
 
 as the Zambesi. _ . . 
 
 61. The French Missionary Society began a mission 
 in 1829, Dr Cassilis being one of its first mission¬ 
 aries. After working some time near Karuman, the 
 missionaries accepted an invitation of Moshesh, 
 the enlightened chief of the Basutos. For some 
 years they laboured peaceably, but a war broke out 
 between Moshesh and the British, with results not 
 very creditable to the latter, though, in the end, 
 the Basutos had to submit. Thereafter the Boers 
 of the Free Orange State did all they could to break 
 up the mission, till the missionaries induced Moshesh 
 to place himself under British protection, since which 
 time steady progress has been made. Moshesh died 
 in 1870. Though never baptized, he accepted 
 Christianity as his faith, and secured its establish¬ 
 ment among his tribe. The mission has now 14 
 stations, 66 out-stations, about 3500 church members, 
 and 20,000 adherents. It has schools of a high 
 order, with 3000 scholars. Following in the train 
 of Christianity, commerce has spread ; the Basutos 
 import yearly £150,000 of European goods. The 
 mission is now being extended to the banks of the 
 Zambesi. Closely connected with this mission is 
 
57 
 
 that of the Free Church of the Canton de Vaud. Its 
 agents at first laboured along with the French 
 missionaries, but in 1875 they founded a new mission 
 among the Amatonga Kafirs near Delagoa Bay, 
 appropriately called Yaldezia. Notwithstanding 
 various hindrances, much progress has been made, 
 and many have accepted the Gospel. 
 
 62. The Berlin Mission began in 1834. It has 
 done good work in British Kaffraria, chiefly among 
 German colonists, also in Natal, the Orange Free State, 
 and especially the Transvaal. It has in all thirty- 
 seven stations, in which 7500 have been gathered into 
 church membership. Settling the converts in civilised 
 communities and the establishment of good schools 
 are the characteristics of this mission. The Nor¬ 
 wegian Mission to the Zulus began in 1842, but in 
 1865 most of its agents left for Madagascar. The 
 Hermannsburg Mission began in Natal in 1856, and 
 has since spread into Transvaal and Zululand. It 
 has now 40 stations and upwards of 4000 converts. 
 It is in its character largely industrial and agricul¬ 
 tural. 
 
 Thus the small missionary army is pressing into 
 the centre of Africa in various lines. They have 
 been hindered by war; the colonists themselves, 
 especially the Boers, have at times opposed the work 
 as bitterly as the heathen themselves. But tangible 
 results have been obtained. About 180,000 of the 
 natives are now directly under Christian influence. 
 This has been accompanied with education, civilisa¬ 
 tion, and distinct progress towards self-support in 
 the native churches. 
 
 IY .—Central Africa. 
 
 63. Advancing from South Africa one great mis¬ 
 sionary traveller has been the means of throwing 
 open nearly all the centre of the continent to Chris¬ 
 tian missions. David Livingstone was born at Blan- 
 
58 
 
 tyre on March 19, 1813, of parents of the working 
 class. Early brought under serious impressions, he 
 resolved to become a missionary—educated himself 
 under great difficulties, and completed his curriculum 
 in Arts, Medicine, and Divinity. Meeting Moffat, 
 he resolved to go to South Africa, and was sent 
 thither by the L. M. S. in 1840. He went first to 
 Kuruman, but ere long he moved on to Kolobeng. 
 In 1849 he pushed north across the Kulhari desert, and 
 after two months of great hardship discovered Lake 
 Ngami. The people, called the Makololo, received 
 him very cordially. He determined to try to find a 
 way to the sea for them, and so open up Central Africa 
 to commerce and Christianity. He accordingly 
 returned, went to Cape Town in 1852, and sent home 
 his wife—a daughter of Moffat’s—and family. Re¬ 
 turning to Kolobeng, he found it had been destroyed 
 and plundered by the Boers. He then went to 
 Linyanti, the capital of the Makololo, and started 
 thence for the west coast with twenty-seven men. 
 
 On starting, he wrote to his brother, commending 
 his wife and little girl to his care, being resolved to 
 succeed or perish in the attempt. He felt rather 
 glad that the Boers, by taking possession of all his 
 goods, had saved him the trouble of making a will. 
 Only sustained by such a spirit could he have accom¬ 
 plished the work before him. Weakened by repeated 
 attacks of fever, exposed to innumerable hardships, 
 he persevered till after six months he reached Loando 
 on the coast. After remaining there for some time, 
 he returned by Linyanti to the east coast, reaching 
 Quillimane on May 26, 1856. By his four years’ 
 travelling in the centre of Africa, he had shown that 
 it was possible to live in it, that there were in it 
 comparatively healthy highlands. He returned to 
 England, published his travels, and by his presence 
 awoke great interest in the dark continent. He 
 returned to Africa in 1858 at the head of a Govern¬ 
 ment expedition, when he discovered Lake Nyassa. 
 
59 
 
 But Mrs Livingstone died at Shapunja on the Zam¬ 
 besi, and so many disasters befell the expedition that 
 the Government at last withdrew it. Livingstone 
 went home in 1864, and returned in 1866 to try 
 further to open up its interior. He was shortly after 
 deserted by some of his attendants, who brought to 
 the coast a report of his death. A long period of 
 suspense followed till, in 1871, Mr Stanley, of the 
 New York Herald , found him at Ujiji on Lake 
 Tanganyika, in a state of great destitution. Being 
 amply relieved by Stanley, he resolved to start afresh 
 to discover the watershed of the continent. But 
 illness overcame him, and at Ilala, on the banks of 
 Lake Bangweola, on the morning of May 1, 1873, he 
 was found kneeling by his bedside, dead. His faith¬ 
 ful attendants buried his heart and viscera, brought 
 his remains to the seaside, and thence to England, 
 where they were buried in Westminster Abbey on 
 April 18, 1874, amid the mourning of a nation. 
 
 64. Livingstone was throughout faithful to the 
 missionary idea, and no less than eight missions^ to 
 Central Africa have resulted from his work. The 
 first of these was the Universities’ Mission, under¬ 
 taken consequently on a speech from Living¬ 
 stone at Cambridge on his first visit home. Bishop 
 Mackenzie, at the head of a band of three ordained 
 missionaries and some artizans proceeded in 1860 to 
 the Shire Valley, and founded the first settlement at 
 Magomero, on the highlands to the east. The pro¬ 
 spects were at first encouraging, but Bishop Mac¬ 
 kenzie, when on a tour, succumbed to fever, and was 
 buried by his companion, Mr Burrup, in a secluded 
 spot, on which a cross has since been erected 
 another missionary milestone. Burrup returned to 
 Magomero, where he expired a few weeks after. 
 Quarrels broke out among the tribes in which the 
 missionaries became involved, and sickness further 
 weakened them. The Shire Valley was abandoned, 
 and Bishop Tozer, who succeeded Mackenzie, settled 
 
60 
 
 at Zanzibar, a town of 100,000 inhabitants, on .an 
 island 20 miles from the mainland, as the best point 
 from which ultimately to reach the centre of the 
 continent. The slave trade in this port was abolished 
 by treaty concluded through the agency of Sir 
 Bartle Frere with the Sultan, and a church, school, 
 and hospital now occupy the place of the slave 
 market. 
 
 65. The Livingstonia Mission of the F. C. of Scot¬ 
 land was the next undertaken. It was definitely 
 begun in 1874, and Lake Nyassa was fixed on as 
 the base of operations. The expedition was led by 
 Commander Young of the R.N.; Dr Robert Laws, 
 an ordained medical missionary of the U. P. C., 
 was appointed first missionary, along with several 
 artizans, and a pioneer missionary of the E. C. 
 accompanied the expedition—the three great sections 
 of the Scottish Church thus uniting in the first effort 
 to evangelise Central Africa. A small steamer, 
 called the Ilala, was sent out in pieces, was put 
 together at the mouth of the Zambesi, steamed up 
 that stream and the Shire as far as the Murchison 
 Cataracts, when it was taken to pieces, carried by 
 natives to the Upper Shire, and put together again, 
 not a single bolt being wanting. It then steamed 
 with the mission party on board to Lake Nyassa, 
 where it still plies. A station was founded at Cape 
 Maclear, near the south of the lake, but as this was 
 found not to be healthy it was changed to Bandawe, 
 about half-way up the west side. Dr Black, who 
 went out in 1876, soon fell a victim to the climate, 
 as did also Mr Stewart, the civil engineer, in 1882. 
 Dr Laws has been spared to establish the mission, 
 gather in the first fruits, and translate the New 
 Testament into the language of the Lake people. 
 The mission of the E. C. was settled at Blantyre , a 
 healthy terrace to the east of the Shire, about 8000 
 feet above the sea. Connected with the station is a 
 farm of about 60 acres, on which nearly 500 natives 
 
61 
 
 are employed. The mission has had many troubles, 
 in the beginning of its history, owing to complications 
 with the natives, but these have been got over, and 
 there is prospect of steady work. A commercial 
 company, called the African Lakes’ Company, has 
 been formed, mainly to attend to the commercial 
 and transit business involved in such a mission, 
 leaving the missionaries to devote themselves to the 
 work of evangelization. The Universities’ Mission 
 have occupied afresh the east side of the Lake 
 Nyassa, and have a steamer of their own. 
 
 66. The Nyanza mission was undertaken by the 
 O. M. S. in consequence of a letter from Mr Stanley, 
 telling of the desire of Mtesa, king of Ugandu, to 
 the north of the large lake Victoria Nyanza, for 
 Christian teachers. Liberal support was offered, 
 and the first mission party of four agents started 
 from Zanzibar in June 1876, followed by others. 
 The first station was established at Mpwapwa, about 
 230 miles inland, as a midway station. Two stations 
 were subsequently established on Lake Nyanza, one 
 at Ugandu in the north, and the other at Ukerewe, 
 a large island in the south. In consequence of a 
 quarrel between the chief and an Arab trader, in 
 which the mission party became involved, they were 
 attacked and speared by the natives. In the follow¬ 
 ing year another missionary was murdered on his 
 way up from Zanzibar. Three of the agents, includ¬ 
 ing Dr Smith, the first medical missionary, fell 
 victims to disease in the first three months. Not¬ 
 withstanding these trials, the mission has been 
 vigorously prosecuted. Three stations have been 
 established in the Usagara country, on the way from 
 the coast \ one has been established at Msalala in the 
 south of the Lake, and another at Eugula in the 
 north. Thirteen missionaries labour at these stations, 
 one of whom, Mr Hannington, has been consecrated 
 bishop of equatorial and central Africa. About 
 seventy converts have already been gathered in, one 
 of them being a daughter of Iving Mtesa. 
 
62 
 
 This society has also a mission in the east coast of 
 Africa at Mombasa , an island about 100 miles north 
 of Zanzibar, begun in 1843 by Dr Krapf, and carried 
 on by him and Mr Kebmann for many years. They 
 made several inland journeys, and did much pioneer¬ 
 ing work. There are now four stations connected 
 with this mission, conducted by six missionaries with 
 a -Christian community of 850, and upwards of 100 
 communicants. A steamer called the Henry Wright 
 has been sent out to facilitate the work. 
 
 67. Lake Tanganyika is another large lake between 
 Nyassa and Nyanza. A mission to it was resolved 
 on by the L. M. S. in 1877. The advance to the Lake 
 took much longer than was expected, and it was not 
 till August 1878 that the mission party reached 
 Ujiji. The leader, J. B. Thomson, died shortly after 
 arriving, and two others had to leave. Dr Mullens, 
 the able and accomplished secretary of the society, 
 while leading a fresh party to the field, died on his 
 way thither. Since then the mission has lost more 
 of its agents by death, but that has not deterred 
 others from taking their place, and the mission is 
 now established : three stations being occupied on 
 the Lake and one at Urambo on the way thither. 
 A steel launch called the Morning Star has been 
 sent out and begun to ply on the Lake, and since 
 then a steamer called the Good Mews has been sent 
 out by the Nyassa route. 
 
 68. CONGO MISSIONS. From Tanganyika a 
 river issues called the Lualaba. Stanley traced the 
 course of this stream in canoes, sailing down 1400 
 miles that had never been traversed by a European 
 before. When he came to a reach called Stanley 
 Pool he found that he could navigate no longer. 
 The stream there contracts from a width of ten miles 
 into an impetuous torrent of a few hundred yards in 
 width, and in a series of rapids descends to the lower 
 Congo. It was thus shown that the Congo issued 
 from Tanganyika, and with its tributaries drained a 
 
63 
 
 basin of upwards of a million square miles with a 
 population of 40,000,000 into the midst of which it 
 offered a clear water-way above Stanley Pool. An 
 international association under the presidency of the 
 King of Belgium has been formed for the opening 
 up of the Congo to trade and to civilization, and for 
 the suppression of the slave trade. 
 
 The first to take advantage of this opening was 
 the East London Institute , under the presidency of 
 H. Grattan Guiness. The first missionaries were 
 sent out in 1878, and about fifty in all have been 
 sent out, but ten of these have lost their lives, others 
 have been invalided, so that only half that number 
 are now in the field. A grammar and dictionary of 
 the Congo language have been compiled, Gospel 
 narratives and other books written in it. One steam 
 launch plies on the lower Congo, and another called 
 the Henry Reid has been carried in pieces above 
 Stanley Pool to navigate the upper Congo. The 
 mission is now too large to be managed as a depart¬ 
 ment of the Institute, and has been handed over to 
 the American Baptist Missionary Union. The Eng¬ 
 lish Baptist Missionary Society, urged and aided by 
 Mr Arthington of Leeds, sent out in 1879 four 
 missionaries followed by others. It has had to 
 endure heavy losses, no less than three missionaries 
 and two artizans having fallen in one year. It has 
 now five stations, manned by twelve missionaries, 
 and a steamer' called the Peace for service above 
 Stanley Pool. 
 
 The American Board, after a careful survey of the 
 fields in Central Africa, resolved to enter the country 
 of Bilie, 250 miles inland, an elevated healthy region 
 inhabited by compact tribes of a comparatively fine 
 race. A station has been established at Bailunda, 
 with eight agents in all. Thus five missions have 
 penetrated Africa from the east and three from the 
 west, the fruit of Livingstone’s work. 
 
 69. GENERAL REVIEW. Looking at Africa as 
 
64 
 
 a whole, we see that on the western coast and in the 
 south, missions have long been established, are con¬ 
 solidated, and beginning to be self-supporting and 
 aggressive. There are now two on the east coasfc, 
 eight have penetrated into the centre, and others aie 
 preparing to follow. Upwards of 200,000 have been 
 brought into the Christian Church; little more as 
 yet than one in a thousand of the vast population. 
 These successes, too, have been won at a sacn ce o 
 life greater than in any other mission field. -But tne 
 initial difficulties have been conquered. Ail Africa 
 is waiting for the Gospel, and if the Church of 
 Christ rises to the occasion and enters m by the dooi 
 opened, triumphs may be expected of which those 
 already achieved are only the faint forecasts. 
 
 V.— Madagascar. 
 
 V0. Madagascar is a large island off the east coast 
 of Africa, 1030 miles long and 360 broad. It is 
 inhabited by several tribes, of which the principal is 
 the Hovas, who inhabit the central provinces. _ An¬ 
 tananarivo is their capital, and they claim sovereign y 
 over the whole island, though it has never been 
 established over much more than half. I he yla a- 
 gasy, before the coming of the mission, were indus¬ 
 trious and semi-civilised, but ignorant and licentious. 
 Their laws were cruel, and slavery prevailed, they 
 had some remains of a spiritual belief, but idolatry 
 had established itself in its most despotic form. 
 Maoic power was supposed to be possessed by astrol¬ 
 ogers, who could determine the destiny of every new 
 born child, and whether it ought to be preserved 
 or destroyed. The poison ordeal was also common. 
 
 71 PLANTING OF THE MISSION. Two mis¬ 
 sionaries of the L. M. S., Messrs Jones and 
 Brown, with their wives and children, were sent 
 to Tamatave on the coast in 1816, when the first 
 English embassy went. Sickness soon carried on 
 all the party except Mr Jones, who returned soi- 
 
65 
 
 rowing to the Mauritius. In 1820 he again re¬ 
 turned to Madagascar, and accompanied the British 
 agent to the capital, where he was well received 
 by the king, Radama, and soon began work with 
 a class of three scholars. Other missionaries and 
 missionary artizans followed. The language was 
 learned and reduced to writing. At that time 
 some Arabs had settled at Antananarivo, and were 
 beginning to write the language in the Arabic 
 character ; but the king seeing books printed in the 
 Roman type expressed his greater favour for it, 
 and it thus became the alphabet of the Malagasy 
 language. In 1828 there were thirty-two schools 
 and 4000 scholars connected with the mission. In 
 the same year the king issued a proclamation giving 
 liberty to his subjects to receive baptism and profess 
 Christianity. Soon after he died at the early age of 
 thirty-six, his end being hastened by habits of in¬ 
 temperance which he had learned from Europeans 
 during a visit to Tamatave. 
 
 72. HOSTILITY TO THE MISSION. He was 
 succeeded by one of his wives, Ranavalona, who 
 murdered all competitors for the throne. At her 
 coronation she declared her purpose to maintain 
 the authority of the national idols, but she did 
 not forbid teaching, and in 1831 renewed the pro 
 clamation of religious liberty. The first Sabbath 
 thereafter, twenty converts were baptized in one 
 place, and the Sabbath following eight in another. 
 The work thereafter made rapid progress, till at 
 last the heathen party were thoroughly alarmed, 
 and by falsely accusing the Christian preachers 
 of teaching treason, succeeded in arousing the 
 vengeance of the queen. She convoked an assembly 
 of the people, expressed her determination to treat 
 as criminals all who refused to worship idols, and 
 required all within a week to tell the authorities 
 whether they had been guilty of listening to Chris¬ 
 tian teaching. Many half-hearted abandoned Chris- 
 
 E 
 
66 
 
 tianity, but others gave themselves to prayer, and 
 did not falter when they appeared before the judges. 
 XIpwards of 400 officers were reduced in rank, 2000 
 were fined, and warning was given that death or 
 slavery would be the punishment for subsequent 
 offences. The missionaries were ordered to leave 
 the island, but a few were allowed to remain to 
 teach the natives soap making. The respite thus 
 obtained they improved in pressing forward the 
 translation and printing of the Bible in Malagasy, 
 and by the time the last left in 1836 the whole of 
 the. New Testament and the greater part of the Old 
 had been printed and put into circulation, and .was 
 left to do its work while human agents were driven 
 away. 
 
 73. PERSECUTION immediately thereafter burst 
 on the infant church. Some Christians were sold 
 into slavery, chained together by dozens, and sent 
 into the fever districts \ others were put to death. 
 There were four special places of martyrdom j Am- 
 bohipotsy, where they were speared and thrown 
 to the dogs ; Ampamarinana, where they were hung 
 over a precipice by a rope round the waist, asked if 
 they would renounce Christ, and if they refused, the 
 rope being cut, they were dashed to pieces on to the 
 rocks below \ Fiadanana, where they were stoned to 
 death ; and Faravohitra, where they were burned. 
 The following is an account of an execution at the 
 last named place, literally translated from a native 
 chronicler. 
 
 ‘ £ As they took the four that were to he burned alive to the 
 place of execution, these Christians sang the 90th hymn, 
 beginning, ‘ When our hearts are troubled 5 : each verse 
 ending with, ‘Then remember us.’ Thus they sang on the 
 road. And when they came to Faravohitra, there they 
 burned them, fixed between split spears. And there was a 
 rainbow in the heavens at the time, close to the place of 
 burning. Then they sang in the hymn 158— 
 
 * There is a blessed land, making most happy, 
 
 Never shall the rest depart, nor cause of trouble come.’ 
 
67 
 
 That was the hymn they sang after they were in the fire. 
 Then they prayed, saying, ‘ 0 Lord receive our spirits ; for 
 Thy love to us has caused this to come to us. And lay not 
 this sin to their charge. ’ Thus they prayed as long as they 
 had life. Then they died; but softly, gently. Indeed, 
 gentle was the going forth of their life. And astonished 
 were all the people around that beheld the burning of them 
 there.” 
 
 74. GROWTH OF THE CHURCH. Notwith¬ 
 standing this severe persecution, the number of 
 Christians continued to grow. They met at night in 
 appointed places, sometimes on the mountain sides, 
 some even in secret in the capital. There they 
 prayed together, and read those portions of the Bible 
 which they were able to preserve. In one district 
 the only Bible retained by the persecuted Christians 
 was kept for twenty-five years in a cave, which was 
 used as a small-pox hospital, and into which the 
 Government officers would not go. In all their 
 meetings, rolls of members were kept, and losses and 
 additions carefully marked. There was a relaxation 
 of persecution in 1853 when William Ellis, formerly 
 missionary to the South Seas, was sent out by the 
 L. M. S. He paid a visit to the capital in 1856, and 
 found that the heir-apparent was favourable to 
 Christianity, and that there was more liberty for 
 prayer. After his departure persecution broke out 
 again, and did not cease till 1860, when the queen 
 died and was succeeded by her son Badama II. 
 When the missionaries left the island there were 
 about 300 Christians in full communion ; upwards of 
 1600 died in the persecution ; and yet there were 740 
 members and 7000 adherents to welcome them back. 
 
 75. RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF THE MISSION. 
 Mr Ellis, at the king’s invitation, returned in 1861, 
 and was followed by other missionaries. The four 
 chief places at which the Christians had suffered 
 martyrdom were made over to him by the king, and 
 on them four memorial churches were built at an 
 expense of £T2,000 subscribed in England. The 
 
68 
 
 king, who, though favourable to Christians, had not 
 much moral stamina, was murdered in 1862, and his 
 wife Rabodo succeeded. Though a heathen, she 
 allowed complete liberty, and when she died in 1868, 
 her younger sister, Ranavolana II., ascended the 
 throne as a professed Christian. On the 21st Febru¬ 
 ary 1869, she and the prime minister, her husband, 
 were publicly baptized by a native pastor. Shortly 
 after, the people of Imerina, the central province, 
 agreed to burn all their idols, and the same day the 
 idols of the palace were burned. Since then steady 
 progress has been made in education and evangeliza¬ 
 tion. There are now connected with the L. M. S., 
 70 native ordained ministers, 3000 native preachers, 
 70,000 church members, and 240,000 adherents. 
 There are 800 schools attended by 71,000 scholars. 
 
 76. WORK OF OTHER SOCIETIES. The C. M. S. 
 established a mission on the East Coast in 1863, 
 in which earnest and successful work was done, 
 but in 1874, in consequence of their disapproval of 
 the action of the S. P. G., and in order to carry out 
 its principle of non-interference with other Protes¬ 
 tant work, it withdrew from the island. The S. P. G. 
 began operations in Tamatave in 1864, and in 18/4 
 a Bishop of Madagascar was consecrated and sent to 
 Antananarivo. Besides evangelistic work it has a 
 college for the training of a native ministry, an 
 hospital, and a printing press. The Norwegian 
 Missionary Society sent two missionaries in 1866, 
 and their numbers are now increased to twenty. 
 They have 17 congregations with 1400 church 
 members, and 12,000- adherents. Seven thousand 
 pupils attend their schools. The Friends Foreign 
 Mission Association began work in the capital, 
 where, and in the country, they have eight mission¬ 
 aries. They co-operate with the L. M. S., and have 
 charge of one of the city churches, and a district to 
 the south-west. 
 
 77. The chief interest of the history of the church 
 
69 
 
 in Madagascar is, that in the absence of European 
 teachers, with no teaching but that of the Word of 
 God, blessed by,the Spirit, under the severest persecu¬ 
 tions which a mission church has ever had to under¬ 
 go, sustained by no power but that of God, it estab¬ 
 lished itself firmly in the land. When persecution 
 was removed, the progress was just what might be ex¬ 
 pected. The centre of the island, and the most power¬ 
 ful tribe, the Hovas, have been gained for Christ; 
 but the greater part of Madagascar has still to be 
 evangelized. French Jesuits found their way into 
 Madagascar in 1862, and by their intrigues have 
 succeeded in embroiling the country with France. 
 As yet the French have not succeeded in doing any¬ 
 thing more than occupying some positions along the 
 coast. The missionary work is still going on, and 
 we may hope that the present trials will further 
 consolidate Protestant Christianity in the island. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 INDIA AND BURMAH. 
 
 I.— India. 
 
 78. EXTENT, POPULATION, HISTORY. India, 
 or Hindustan, is a vast empire in the south of Asia, 
 lying between the Himalayas and the sea. It has an 
 area of about a million and a half of square miles, 
 and a population of about 250 millions. These are 
 divided into several races and kingdoms, all now 
 under the rule or suzerainty of Great Britain. The 
 oldest inhabitants, sometimes called Dravidians, are 
 found chiefly in the south and among the hill 
 tribes. The Aryas, the ancestors of the Hindus 
 proper, and originally of the same stock with 
 Europeans, entered from the north-west, and im- 
 
70 
 
 posed their literature and religion on the country. 
 The Mahommedans invaded the country in the 
 beginning of the eleventh century, and their sway 
 was established over the whole under Akbar in the 
 end of the sixteenth. Last century their empire 
 broke up into a number of states at war with one 
 another. In the midst of the anarchy an English 
 trading company, the East India Company, which 
 had gradually been acquiring territory and political 
 power, pushed its conquest further, and at last be¬ 
 came the paramount power throughout India. In 
 1858, consequently on the revolt of the native army, 
 the government was placed immediately under that 
 of England ; and on January 1, 1877, the Queen of 
 England was proclaimed Empress of India. 
 
 79. RELIGIONS. The religion of the aborigines 
 seems to have been fetishism, nature worship, and 
 devil worship ; and about six millions still adhere 
 to it. Hinduism has supplanted it throughout 
 nearly all India, and is professed by 190 millions. 
 Originally a system of nature worship, it has de¬ 
 veloped into pantheistic idolatry \ it has an ancient 
 literature, and is linked with a rigid social system. 
 The Hindus believe the Supreme Spirit to be the 
 only existence : the visible universe they call Mo,yci, 
 delusion, a dream. They hold the transmigration 
 of souls. The human soul is an emanation from the 
 Supreme Spirit, has already passed through several 
 births, must at death enter another body, of a man 
 or an animal, god or demon, to be rewarded or 
 punished for what it does now, and must continue 
 to pass through hundreds of thousands of births till 
 it is at last absorbed in the Supreme Spirit. One 
 great-object of the Hindus is to be delivered from 
 this long chain of births. The easiest way to attain 
 this is worshipping the gods , of whom there are said 
 to be 33 crore (330,000,000) in the Hindu pantheon. 
 Vishnu and Shiva are the chief, but there are many 
 popular gods subordinate to them. Wherever 
 
71 
 
 a daub of red paint is put on a stone, it is supposed v 
 to be an object of worship. Caste is the most pecu¬ 
 liar feature of Hindu religion. According to it all 
 professions, trades, and occupations are hereditary, 
 and persons of one trade or occupation will eat and 
 drink only with those of the same. Some castes are 
 higher than others ; the lower may take food from 
 the higher, but not the higher from the lower. The 
 highest of all castes is that of the Brahmans, who 
 are worshipped as gods. Their hereditary occupa¬ 
 tions are performing worship, teaching, and begging. 
 Some castes are honest and kind \ others untruthful, 
 unclean, and cruel. Any sin is excused if it is 
 permitted by caste rules j the only sin that cannot 
 be forgiven is breaking caste, and any one who does 
 so is socially dead. Hindus consider it pollution to 
 eat with a European or a Christian. They may, how¬ 
 ever, leave their caste to join any of the religious orders 
 of fakirs or recluses, which are so common in India. 
 Buddhism began in India about 600 b.c., from the 
 teaching of Buddha. He ignored the gods, religious 
 worship, and caste, and taught a very pure morality. 
 His religion has spread through Ceylon, Burmah, 
 and China, but his followers number only three and 
 a half millions in India, chiefly in British Burmah. 
 The Jains are a widespread wealthy sect, somewhat 
 like, the Buddhists. They are specially careful not to 
 destroy animal, even insect, life. The Mahommedan 
 religion is professed by about fifty millions, the 
 descendants of the Mohammedan conqueror of 
 India, or of those whom they forced to embrace 
 their faith. The Parsees are a small but influential 
 community, numbering about 100,000, resident 
 chiefly in Bombay. They are descendants of the 
 Persian fire worshippers. 
 
 80. INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY. On 
 
 the Malabar coast there is a community called Syrian 
 Christians. They say that they were converted by 
 St Thomas, whose tomb is pointed out smith of 
 Madras. They enjoyed much prosperity till the 
 
72 
 
 Portuguese came. The Roman Catholic priests 
 claimed them as subjects of the Pope, and when iey 
 refused to submit, stirred up persecution against 
 them, which did not cease till the English oo 
 possession of the country. They number about 
 300 000. The Roman Catholic religion was intro¬ 
 duced by the Portuguese, who conquered Goa m 
 1509. Thirty years later Xavier began an earnest 
 mission work, subsequently continued by otheis. 
 had the defect of attempting little more than secur¬ 
 ing the consent to outward rites. There was a good 
 deal of inter-marriage between the Portuguese and 
 natives, and their descendants are reckoned Roman 
 Catholics. According to the census of 1881 the 
 number of Roman Catholics in India was 865,643. 
 
 The East India Company at first encouraged the 
 introduction of Christianity, but, when it began . o 
 assume political power, it bitterly opposed all mis¬ 
 sionary effort. When its charter was removed in 
 1813, liberty was given to spread Christianity treeiy. 
 Since then mission work has proceeded without 
 hindrance. There is a marked difference between 
 the history of missions in India and their history in 
 the South Seas and Africa. India has, since the 
 development of Protestant missions, been under 
 British sway; life and property have been safe; and 
 thus, while there have been devoted missionary 
 lives, they have not been exposed to peiils and 
 privations as those in other fields. The people aie 
 civilised, so that Christianity does not produce the 
 same transformation in their outward appearance. 
 The interest of the religious struggle is philosophical, 
 moral, and social. This does not present the same 
 features to mark narration. We shall therefore look 
 at the history of one or two of the most charactenstic 
 missions, and then give general results. 
 
 81. THE DANISH OR PIONEER MISSION. The 
 first Protestant missionaries to India, Ziegexba.lg 
 and Plutciio, were sent in 1706 by the King of Den- 
 
73 
 
 mark to Tranquebar, a Danish possession on the 
 Coromandel coast (see § 12). They were at first 
 bitterly persecuted by the Europeans, and notwith¬ 
 standing the express orders of the Danish King, 
 Ziegenbalg was thrown into prison for four months. 
 They, however, persevered ; in 1707 the first Pro¬ 
 testant church was opened ; and in 1711 Ziegenbalg 
 had completed the translation of the New Testament 
 into Tamil, and three years later it was published. 
 He died in 1719, in his thirty-sixth year—a short 
 life, but long enough to see the foundations of the 
 Christian Church laid, and more than 250 converts 
 gathered in. Plutcho had to leave India in the same 
 year, and the mission was carried on by younger men, 
 who did the work well. 
 
 In 1750 the mission was joined by Schwartz, who 
 laboured first in Tranquebar, and afterwards in 
 Tanjore and Trichinopoli. He had an income of 
 only £48, and lived on native food. As chaplain to 
 the garrison at Trichinopoli he received £100 a year, 
 which he handed over to the mission. His personal 
 influence was'such that native Rajahs and the English 
 Government alike desired to use it; but he would 
 never take political service, except on one critical 
 occasion. Hyder Ali, Sultan of Seringapatam, was 
 the determined foe of the English, and his successes 
 alarmed them. They wished to treat with him, but 
 he refused to trust any ambassador except Schwartz. 
 “ Send me the Christian,” he said, “ he will not 
 deceive me.” Schwartz undertook the embassage, 
 and was received with the greatest respect. The 
 negotiations were unavailing ; a bloody war broke 
 out, in the midst of which Schwartz and his fellow- 
 labourers continued, amid many interruptions, to 
 carry on the work of the mission without being 
 molested. The last twenty years of his life lie spent 
 at Tanjore, on ground given him by the Raja, where 
 he built an orphan asylum, and where he died in 
 1798, surrounded by his infant flock. The Raja, who 
 
74 
 
 had been his pupil, built a memorial church in the 
 fort at Tanjore, in which was placed a marble monu¬ 
 ment by Flaxman. A similar memorial was erected 
 by the East India Company, in St Mary’s Church, 
 Madras. 
 
 The Tranquebar Mission, at first supported by the 
 Danes, came latterly to be supported by English 
 Societies. It used preaching and the press, schools 
 and medical missions. In the course of the century 
 its converts numbered upwards of 50,000. One fatal 
 defect in its system was the recognition of caste. 
 This wrought much mischief in the native church, 
 and was at last with difficulty put down by Bishop 
 Wilson. One missionary of this society, Kiernan- 
 der, went to Calcutta, where he laboured till near the 
 close of the century, when the first of the British 
 missions entered the field. 
 
 82. THE SERAMPORE MISSION. The part 
 which Carey took in promoting the missionary re¬ 
 vival in England, and his personal offer to go, have 
 already been noticed (§18). A correspondence with 
 Mr Thomas, a surgeon on board an East Indiaman, 
 who was desirous of going to Bengal as a missionary, 
 led to Bengal being selected as the first field of the 
 Baptist Society, and to Carey and Thomas being- 
 appointed the first missionaries. They were refused 
 a passage in any English ship, and at last were taken 
 in a Danish ship to Calcutta, where they landed on 
 November 10th, 1793. Carey’s plan was to try to 
 earn his own bread, but it was some months before 
 he could secure any employment, and during that 
 time he and his wife and four children, by whom he 
 was accompanied, were reduced to the greatest 
 penury. At last he obtained a situation as super¬ 
 intendent of an indigo factory at Dinapore. There 
 he remained for about six years, mastering the 
 Bengali language, and beginning his great plan of 
 evangelizing the world by going about on foot among 
 the villages, preaching Christ to those who would 
 listen. 
 
75 
 
 In 1799, Marshman and Ward went out and 
 settled at the Danish station of Serampore, 16 miles 
 above Calcutta, where Carey soon joined them. The 
 English Government tried to have them expelled, 
 but the Danish governor remained firm. Marshman 
 and his wife opened boarding-schools for the children 
 of Europeans in India, from which they cleared 
 about £1000 a year. Ward superintended the 
 printing press. When King William’s College was 
 founded in Calcutta, Carey was appointed professor 
 on a salary of £600 a year. With funds thus raised 
 they carried on and extended the mission the three 
 families living together, and dining at a common 
 table, at an expense of little more than £100 a year. 
 
 For more than twenty years these three worked 
 together, and as a result of their labours, the Bible, 
 or parts of it, was translated into about forty Orien¬ 
 tal languages—a work accomplished principally by 
 Carey, with the assistance of native scholars. Verna¬ 
 cular schools were also established, as well as a col¬ 
 lege for higher education. As opportunity offered, 
 other stations were established in Bengal, Orissa, and 
 the North-West. The first convert was admitted to 
 fellowship in 1800. In 1803 the first Brahman was 
 baptized, and in the same year two other converts, 
 before baptism, broke caste by eating with the mis¬ 
 sionaries. This threw the native community into 
 a ferment. The infuriated multitude dragged the 
 converts before a magistrate, and demanded theii 
 punishment, but he ordered their release, and pro¬ 
 tected them. Ever since then it has been felt that 
 it is between caste and Christianity that the war is 
 being waged, and that only with the fall of caste will 
 Christianity triumph. 
 
 Carey died in 1834, preceded by Ward by ten 
 years, and followed by Marshman in four. He had 
 corresponded with Schwartz, the last of the Danish 
 missionaries, and he met with Duff, the apostle of the 
 latest development in Indian missions. He saw an 
 
76 
 
 * 
 
 organised native church in Serampore, and about 
 thirty others—offshoots from it—in other parts of 
 T tk! i ci 
 
 88. EDUCATIONAL MISSIONS. The next im¬ 
 portant step in Indian missions was taken by Alex¬ 
 ander Duff, the first missionary of the Church of 
 Scotland to India, and from 1843 connected with 
 the Dree Church. He was born in 1806, and landed 
 in India in 1830. Up to his time the Oriental 
 languages were looked on as the proper medium 
 for all instruction in India, both in missionary 
 and Government institutions. Dr Duff saw that 
 much greater power could be attained by using the 
 English language, and making it the medium for 
 teaching western sciences, and conveying ideas of 
 Christian civilisation. Young men thus trained 
 could influence their fellow-countrymen. In defiance 
 of the Orientalists, he opened a college for the teach¬ 
 ing of English and giving a high-class education 
 through its medium. It was from the beginning a 
 great success, led to the development of English 
 education by the Government, and to its being 
 adopted, more or less, as a mission agency by other 
 societies. The college also bore spiritual fruit. Early 
 in its history some young men of high position and 
 attainment were converted and baptized, one or two 
 of whom afterwards entered the Christian ministry, 
 and became leaders in native thought. Their con¬ 
 version raised a storm in the native community in 
 Calcutta. The college was for a time almost entirely 
 deserted, but the scholars soon returned, and the 
 agitation subsided. Other institutions founded on 
 its model have had to pass through similar crises. 
 Dr Duff continued at the head of the college till 1864, 
 exercising a wide influence over the whole commu¬ 
 nity. He made two visits home, in which, by his 
 eloquence, he did a great deal to rouse missionary 
 enthusiasm, and in one of which he was made 
 Moderator of the Free General Assembly. In 1864 
 
77 
 
 he was obliged to leave India, but continued to work 
 for missions as Convener of the Mission Committee 
 of the Free Church, and as Professor of Evangelistic 
 Theology till 1878, when he fell asleep. 
 
 84. MISSIONS TO BOMBAY. The American 
 Board of Foreign Missions in 1812 sent out five 
 missionaries to Calcutta. On their arrival the Govern¬ 
 ment ordered them to be put on board a ship and 
 sent back to England. Three escaped in a ship to 
 the Isle of France, and two, Messrs Hall and Nott, 
 escaped to Bombay. An order was sent to the 
 Governor, Sir Evan Nepean, to expel them, but, 
 being a man of deep religious feeling, he interested 
 himself on their behalf, and secured their residence 
 in the country till the charter of 1813 opened India 
 to missions. The American Board was thus the first 
 to begin missions in Western India, and it has 
 extended them to Ahmednuggar and the South 
 Maratha country. The Scottish Missionary Society 
 sent out its first missionary to Bombay, Rev. David 
 Mitchell, in 1822, and he was followed by others, 
 who begun mission work first at Bankot to the north, 
 and then in Puna, the Maratha capital. Robert 
 Nesbit, in 1827 (died 1855), and Dr John Wilson, 
 in 1829, settled in Bombay, and established the mis¬ 
 sion there. They connected themselves with the 
 Church of Scotland in 1835, and came out with the 
 Free Church in 1843. Dr Wilson founded^ in Bom¬ 
 bay an institution similar to that of Dr Duff in Cal¬ 
 cutta. By his keen intellect, extensive learning, and 
 warm sympathy, he exercised a wide influence on 
 European and native communities alike till his death 
 in 1875. The F. C. has a mission in Madras, and the 
 college formerly connected with it has been put on 
 a Catholic basis, is supported generally by the vari¬ 
 ous missions in the Presidency, and ranks as far the 
 largest college in the country. The F. C. has also 
 missions in the Central Provinces, Haiderabad, and 
 among the Santhals. 
 
78 
 
 85. MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. As most of the 
 societies at work in India occupy several fields, and 
 as several are found at work alongside one another, 
 a detailed account of their operations is impossible. 
 We can therefore do little more than note the prin¬ 
 cipal, and the districts which they occupy. British 
 Societies .—The Baptist M. S. has carried on the work 
 of Carey, and has spread its stations mainly in 
 Northern India, and up the Ganges valley to Delhi, 
 where, since the meeting of 1857, a great work 
 has been done. The general Baptists have occupied 
 Orissa since 1822. The L. M. S., the first to follow 
 the lead of the Baptists, established its first station 
 at Chinsurali, near Calcutta, in 1805 ; subsequently 
 it has spread its operations to Madras and Travan- 
 core, Calcutta, and the N.-W. Provinces. Among its 
 missionaries the names of La Croix, Swiss by birth, 
 and Mullens are pre-eminent. Next in order comes 
 the two great societies of the Church of England. 
 The S. P. G. took up the work of the Danish Mis¬ 
 sion in the south, about the beginning of the cen¬ 
 tury, and it has now spread to various parts of 
 India, chiefly Southern India, Ahmednuggar, and 
 Chota Nagpore. The C. M. S. (1815) has now missions 
 in all parts of India, its chief strength being in the 
 very south, the N.-W. Provinces, and the Punjab. 
 The Wesleyans (1820) have extensive missions in 
 Madras, Mysore, Calcutta, and Lucknow. The 
 Church of Scotland retained the mission buildings 
 in Calcutta and Bombay when the missionaries there 
 separated from it, and as soon as it could re-organise 
 its mission, it sent out fresh agents to carry on the 
 work. It has also established missions in the Pun¬ 
 jab and in Punah. The Irish Presbyterian Church 
 in 1841 began a mission in Kuthiawar, and in 
 1846 it entered the contiguous province of Gujarat, 
 taking over the work of the L. M. S. there, since 
 which time it has had these two provinces to itself. 
 The United Presbyterian Church of Sotland, moved 
 
79 
 
 by the mutiny of 1857, began a mission to the 
 native states of Rajputana, starting with the British 
 province of Ajmere, and this important field it has 
 also to itself. 
 
 American and Continental Societies .—The American 
 Board, besides those already mentioned, have ex¬ 
 tensive missions in Madura and the South. The 
 Presbyterians have missions through the North-West 
 Provinces and the Punjab, up to the Himalayas. 
 The Baptists have a mission—latterly most successful 
 —in Telingany in the South, besides one in Assam 
 and one to the Khassias. The Episcopal Methodists 
 have missions in Rohilcund, Oudh, the N.-W. Pro¬ 
 vinces, and other parts of I ndia. The principal con¬ 
 tinental missions are those of the Basel Society in 
 Mangalore, South Canara, and other districts in the 
 South ; the Berlin Society in Chota Nagpore ; the 
 Leipsic Society in Tranquebar; the Moravians among 
 the snows of the Himalayas. 
 
 Good mission work has also been done by indi¬ 
 viduals not connected with missionary societies. 
 Among bishops of the Church of England, the 
 names of Heber and Wilson; among its chaplains, 
 Henry Martyn and Daniel Corrie ; and among 
 those of the Church of Scotland, David Brown and 
 Claudius Buchanan, before missions were fully 
 established, are noted for their active interest in the 
 evangelisation of India. In Bombay, too, George 
 Bowen, unsupported by any society (though latterly 
 connected with the Ep. Methodist Church), has 
 been exercising for some forty years great influence 
 on Gospel work as a writer and a preacher.] 
 
 86. MISSION AGENCY AND CO-OPERATION. 
 Besides the societies above named others have smaller 
 missions, there being in all no less than thirty 
 societies at work in India. Connected with them 
 there were in 1881 about 600 foreign ordained agents 
 and upwards of 460 native ordained agents, 170 
 foreign lay agents, including teachers, and 2488 
 
80 
 
 native lay preachers. It will thus be seen that the 
 Christian Church has a considerable army of workers 
 in India. Yet, after all, the number of owfcined 
 agents at work would be equal to only about 100 foi 
 all England. It will be seen also, from the brief 
 enumeration given, that not only do. most of t le 
 societies occupy more than one province, most o 
 the provinces are occupied by several societies. I ms 
 might seem to hinder harmonious working. Eracti- 
 cally, however, the different societies co-operate with 
 one another, respect each other’s fields, regard eac 1 
 other’s discipline, and exhibit the catholicity ot 
 Christianitv beneath its various forms. From time 
 to time, local and general conferences of agents ot 
 the various societies discuss principles and modes ot 
 work, and compare notes as to progress. I he on y 
 exceptions to this are the S. P. G. and the Leipsic 
 Society, the latter also recognizing caste; but the 
 Christian Mission Army presents on the whole a 
 united front to the heathenism of India- . . 
 
 87 MISSIONARY METHODS. Public'preaching 
 is the first and chief method of spreading the Gospel. 
 Many facilities exist for it in India. In almost any 
 of the bazaars or public streets, at any of the 
 numerous fairs, numbers will usually gather to 
 listen to a missionary or evangelist who may stand 
 up in a convenient place to address them. Questions 
 are often put which give opportunities for further 
 enforcing the trnth. Itinerating is resorted to when 
 the weather allows, by which towns and villages at 
 a distance from the central station are visited. 
 Education is resorted to by most, societies. It was 
 missionaries who first systematically began both 
 vernacular and English education. These are now 
 largely undertaken by Government, and the natives 
 are also establishing schools and colleges of their 
 own. Grants in aid are given by Government to 
 mission and native schools, and the higher colleges 
 are affiliated with the Government universities. I he 
 
81 
 
 objection to Government education is, that it is, 
 from a religious point of view, purely destruc¬ 
 tive. In all mission schools, though non-Christian 
 teachers are employed in some cases for the secu¬ 
 lar branches, the necessity of religion is impressed, 
 and the facts and doctrines of Christianity, as the 
 only true religion, are taught. The Christian Ver¬ 
 nacular Education Society was founded in 1858 to 
 supply Christian school-books. Its founder and mana¬ 
 ger, Dr John Murdoch, had originally a Govern¬ 
 ment appointment as a teacher in Ceylon, which he 
 gave up that he might devote himself to promoting 
 Christian education. The society has three normal 
 schools for training native teachers, and it has issued 
 upwards of 1000 publications in eighteen different 
 languages. Colporteurs are employed by this society 
 as well as by missionary societies to circulate the 
 Bible and Christian literature. There were, in 1881, 
 in all 3405 missionary schools and colleges for males, 
 attended by 131,244 scholars, with 3841 Christian 
 and 2402 non-Cliristian native teachers, besides 
 foreign and Eurasian agents who devoted the whole 
 or part of their time to education. The 'periodical 
 press has also been largely resorted to. The Friend 
 of India, begun by Marshman, was for a long time 
 the leading newspaper in India. The Bombay 
 Guardian and Lucknow Witness, conducted by mis¬ 
 sionaries, and the Bengal Christian Herald, con¬ 
 ducted by natives, represent the missionary cause in 
 the English weekly press, and fight the battle of 
 Christianitv in the large section of the native com- 
 munity that understand English. The Indian Evan¬ 
 gelical Review, a high-class quarterly, has been 
 published for some years, and the Christian College 
 Magazine has been started more recently. There are 
 also several newspapers and periodicals in the various 
 vernaculars. 
 
 Zenana Missions, or missions to women, have lately 
 been largely developed. India of all countries, is 
 
 F 
 
82 
 
 that where they are most needed. In 1881 there 
 were 479 foreign and Eurasian female agents, 1643 
 native Christian and 281 non-Christian female agents 
 employed. There were 1270 female schools, attended 
 by about 50,000 scholars, and admission had been 
 obtained to 7500 houses where close on 10,000 women 
 were being educated. As yet, out of every 2000 of 
 the females of India, only one is receiving Christian 
 school education. Y^hen this work has been properly 
 developed it will tell with mighty power on bhe pro¬ 
 gress of Christianity. . . 
 
 Medical Missions are employed by many societies 
 as a valuable auxiliary, and have been the means of 
 securing an opening and acceptance for the Gospel 
 which might not have been gained otherwise. This 
 has been especially marked in native states such as 
 Cashmere and Pajputana. 
 
 88. MISSIONARY PROGRESS. From the facts 
 stated (§ 79) with regard to religion and society in 
 India, it will be seen with what formidable obstacles 
 Christianity has to contend in that country. Above 
 all, caste stands in the way. When a native pro¬ 
 fesses Christianity, and eats and drinks with Chris¬ 
 tians, he is driven out from his home. His family looks 
 upon him as dead; his wife assumes widow’s weeds; 
 and he is an outcast from his countrymen. The 
 family system also constitutes an obstacle. The sons 
 of a family when they marry remain with their wives 
 and families under the parental roof, and thus in 
 each household an amount of influence from numbers 
 is felt, against which the individual is powerless. Yet 
 the progress that has been made is encouraging, and 
 shows the power of the Gospel to overcome the most 
 philosophic as well as most barbarous religions. In 
 1851 the first census of Protestant Missions in India 
 was taken, and it has been taken every ten years 
 since. The following table shows the decennial 
 increase :— 
 
8 
 
 1851. 
 
 Stations, . . . 222 
 
 Foreign Missionaries, 339 
 Native Ordained Agents, 21 
 Native Catechists, &c., 493 
 
 Churches or Congrega¬ 
 tions, . . . 267 
 
 Native Christians, . 91,092 
 Communicants, . 14,661 
 
 1861, 
 
 1871. 
 
 1881. 
 
 319 
 
 432 
 
 569 
 
 479 
 
 488 
 
 658« 
 
 97 
 
 225 
 
 461 
 
 1,266 
 
 1,485 
 
 2,488 
 
 971 
 
 2,278 
 
 3,650 
 
 38,731 224,258 417,372 
 24,976 52,816 113,325 
 
 Among the native Christians are some who have 
 shown themselves men of great talent and power, and 
 have produced books both in English and in the ver¬ 
 nacular worthy to rank with first-class theological 
 works in Europe. Some are editors of newspapers 
 and magazines which take as high a place as any in 
 India. In some missions, Christians are gathered 
 into separate villages and form district communi¬ 
 ties ; in others they are encouraged to remain among 
 the heathen population. The number of native 
 Christians is still relatively small—only two out of 
 every thousand of the inhabitants; but thirty years 
 ago it was only one out of every two thousand. 
 
 89. INDIRECT EFFECTS are being produced; 
 obstacles are being broken down, superstitions are giv¬ 
 ingway before education. Female education especially 
 is beginning to spread rapidly, and will profoundly 
 affect native society. One of the most remarkable 
 instances of the indirect effects of Christianity is seen 
 in the Bralimo Somaj. This took its rise from Ram 
 Mohan Roi, a Brahman who, about the beginning of 
 this century, tried to lead his countrymen to a better 
 faith by combining the moral teaching of Christ with 
 the best parts of the Hindu Shastras. His followers 
 have renounced many of the practices of Hinduism, 
 and they exercise some influence on Hindu society, 
 but they are not winning many Hindus to their creed. 
 In Calcutta, from 1876 to 1881, while the native 
 Christians had increased from 2636 to 4101, the 
 
 a Including 72 lay agents. 
 
84 
 
 Brahmos had increased only from 479 to 487. 
 Much more important is the spread of sceptical 
 and materialistic systems. Between these and 
 Hinduism there is a strong affinity. The character 
 of Government education and intercourse with 
 Europe is causing them to spread rapidly, and it 
 seems as if ultimately the battle of Christianity ior 
 possession of India would be not with Hinduism 
 but with unbelief. 
 
 II ,—Burmah. 
 
 90. Burmali is an empire on the eastern side of 
 the Bay of Bengal, with a population of about 
 6,000,000, mostly Buddhists (§ 79). Connected with 
 their monasteries there is a pretty wide system ot 
 primary education. Caste does not exist, and women 
 are not secluded. The Government is an absolute 
 monarchy, and society is very insecure. Barge 
 portions adjoining Bengal were annexed by Great 
 Britain subsequent on wars in 1825 and 1852. Mis- 
 sion work has been carried on since-1810 by the 
 American Baptist Union (§ 21). Among the three 
 American missionaries who escaped to the Isle ot 
 France, as related (§ 84), was Adoniram Judson 
 and his wife. They ultimately were led to Ban- 
 goon, the port of Burmah, where they settled. 
 Judson at once set to to learn the language—a very 
 difficulty one. They were exposed to many trials 
 and dangers before, in 1819, Judson saw his way to 
 begin public work by opening a building m the 
 bazaar for reading and discussion. The first baptism 
 took place in June of that year, and others followed. 
 In 1822 Dr Price, a medical missionary, and m the 
 following year Mr and Mrs Judson went to Ava, 
 the capital. In the following year war broke out 
 with England. Hough and Wade, two missionaries 
 who remained at Rangoon, were thrown into prison, 
 and were saved from execution only by the captuie 
 of the place by the British. Judson and Price were 
 
85 
 
 thrown into the death prison at Ava, and kept for 
 nine months on rice and water. Mrs Judson was 
 left free, and did all she could to mitigate their 
 sufferings. She was allowed to go both to the prison 
 and to the palace, and was never molested by the 
 Burmese, even at the time of greatest excitement. 
 The prison doors were thrown open consequent on 
 the victories of the British ; but Mrs Judson did not 
 long survive the strain then put on her. Judson 
 continued his labours till 1846. 
 
 91. The Karens are a semi-barbarous tribe in the 
 Siamese Peninsula, numbering about 5,000,000. 
 They have tradition of creation and of the flood 
 very like those of the Bible. About 1826 Dr Judson 
 purchased the freedom of a Karen, Ko-thah-byu, 
 who was a slave in Ava. He was a man of violent 
 and flagitious character, but under the influence of 
 the Gospel he became a new creature. He went 
 as a preacher to his fellow-countrymen, and had 
 wonderful success among them. Boardman, Wade, 
 Mr and Mrs Mason, and others carried on the work. 
 The Karens welcomed with great delight the intro¬ 
 duction of a literature in the form of a translation of 
 the Bible into their own language, as they had a 
 tradition of books having once existed in it. 
 Numbers were baptized and, though exposed to 
 persecution, they continued to increase. There were 
 in 1882, 432 Karen Baptist Churches, with about 
 22,000 members and 70,000 adherents, 91 ordained 
 and 293 unordained preachers. In 1878, the fiftieth 
 anniversary of the foundation of the mission, a large 
 memorial hall was opened at Bassein, bearing the 
 name of the first Karen convert and preacher of the 
 Gospel. 
 
86 
 
 CHAPTEK VI. 
 
 A GLANCE AT OTHER FIELDS. 
 
 92. OTHER MISSION FIELDS. The lands, the 
 missions to which we have been considering, though 
 having a population of upwards of 450,000,000, 
 are only about a half of the field yet to be evan¬ 
 gelized. It is, however, in them that missions have 
 been longest tested, and have achieved the most con¬ 
 siderable 0 results; yet, a short glance at the prin¬ 
 cipal of the other fields will enable us to estimate 
 the total work done and what remains. I do not 
 speak of missions to the Jews, nor of those to the 
 Mahommedan populations of Turkey, Western Asia, 
 and Northern Africa, conducted principally by 
 American societies, and whose gains, though not 
 exclusive of Mahommedans, have been principally 
 among the adherents of the corrupt and fossilized 
 Christian churches of these lands. But there are 
 two important fields of missions to the heathen that 
 have been little more than entered on—China and 
 Japan. 
 
 93. CHINA. Passing from Burmah eastward by 
 Siam, where the American Presbyterians. ha\e 
 established a mission, we come to China, with its 
 population variously estimated from 250,000,000 to 
 400,000,000, given over to ancestral worship, con¬ 
 joined with Confucianism, a materialistic philosophy; 
 Taoism, a gross idolatry; and a corrupt Buddhism. 
 The Chinese show greater vitality and enterprise 
 than any other races of the east; they are beginning 
 to spread everywhere, and if they were Christianized 
 they would exercise a great influence for. good. 
 Roman Catholic missionaries early made their way 
 thither, and they now number their followers, at 
 2,000,000. China was jealously closed against 
 
87 
 
 foreigners till 1842, when five treaty-ports were 
 opened, and greater liberty has been granted since. 
 Dr Morrison, sent by the L. M. S. in 1807, was the 
 first Protestant missionary. He mastered the lan¬ 
 guage, prepared a grammar and dictionary of it, and 
 translated the Bible into it. In this he was aided 
 by Dr Milne, who joined him in his work. Gutz- 
 laff, a German missionary, also did pioneering 
 work, making voyages into China, at a time when 
 it was supposed to be closed. But at Morrison’s 
 death, in 1834, there were only two Protestant mis¬ 
 sionaries and four converts in the whole empire. 
 Protestant missions really date from 1844, after the 
 opening of the treaty-ports, and there are now about 
 thirty societies at work. Most of the great societies 
 represented in India are represented in China also, 
 and some work almost exclusively in this field. The 
 English Presbyterian Church has its principal mis¬ 
 sion in Amoy and on the Island of Formosa oppo¬ 
 site. It was begun by the apostolic W. C. Burns, 
 and has been carried on by a succession of able 
 men. Its churches have united with those of the 
 American Reformed Church Mission to form a united 
 Church, with a short Confession of Faith suited to 
 the field. The China Inland Mission, formed by 
 the Rev. J. Hudson Taylor in 1865, designed send¬ 
 ing missionaries two and two, along with two native 
 converts, to each of the central provinces. The idea 
 was scouted when first started, but the plan has 
 been carried out, and all the provinces occupied but 
 one. It has enlisted many willing workers, includ¬ 
 ing men of culture and position, as volunteers. 
 There are now in China about 600 Protestant mission 
 agents, including 280 ordained missionaries and phy¬ 
 sicians, and 90 ordained natives. The difficulties in 
 the way have been numerous and powerful. Besides 
 the pride of antiquity, literature, and religion, there 
 is above all the opium traffic, and the fact that it, 
 along with access for the Gospel, has been forced by 
 
88 
 
 war. Yet progress is encouraging. Upwards of 700 
 chapels have been erected. From 1877 to 1881 the 
 number of church members increased from a little 
 over 13,000 to nearly 20,000, and they now number 
 upwards of 25,000. 
 
 94. JAPAN is the latest great mission field opened 
 to the Gospel—with the exception of Corea to the 
 north of China—and is showing the greatest readi¬ 
 ness to accept it. It consists of several large islands 
 to the north-east of China, with a population of 
 35,000,000. The national religion is Shintooism, 
 which inculcates the worship of spirits, deified great 
 men, and even of the animal creation, as a means to 
 temporal happiness—the future not being thought 
 of. Confucianism and Buddhism have also obtained 
 a footing. 
 
 Roman Catholic missionaries early entered Japan, 
 but owing to their political intrigues, they were 
 driven out about the beginning of the seventeenth 
 century, and the country remained absolutely closed 
 against foreigners till 1858, when, subsequent on 
 various negotiations, it was again thrown open. 
 Since then it has adopted Western customs and insti¬ 
 tutions at a rate unprecedented in any Eastern land. 
 As soon as the country was open, American and 
 English missionaries began to enter, and there are 
 now more than a dozen societies at work in Japan. A t 
 first there was a great deal of suspicion ; the old 
 edicts against Christianity were again posted up. 
 But these prejudices were overcome, and full tolera¬ 
 tion granted. 
 
 The Presbyterian Church and Dutch Reformed 
 of America, and the U. P. Church of Scotland, have 
 united to form one church, called the Union Church 
 of Japan. They have a theological college and thirty- 
 five churches, with a membership last year (1884) of 
 over 3000. The American Board had (1883) nineteen 
 churches, with 1100 members. The Protestant Epis¬ 
 copal and Methodist Episcopal churches of America, 
 
89 
 
 and the two Church of England Societies have also 
 missions. The total number of church members in 
 Japan, which was 1617 in 1878, cannot now be much 
 short of 6000. Material philosophy and infidelity 
 are, however, making rapid progress. The Church 
 will need to put forth more exertion than ever if it is 
 not to be forestalled by these; and it is a happy omen 
 that some of the Japanese statesmen are beginning 
 to recognise Protestant Christianity as one of the 
 most healthy civilising agencies. 
 
 95. Looking over the progress of Protestant mis¬ 
 sions up to this time, and looking at their present 
 position, we see abundant grounds for confidence 
 and encouragement, calls for further exertion, and 
 warnings to be diligent and not to lose time. 
 
 For encouragement , not only have we the pro¬ 
 mises of God’s Word: what has been done shows what 
 may be expected. Christianity has already definitely 
 triumphed in the West Indies, in Polynesia, at cer¬ 
 tain points of Africa. These fields are limited, and 
 the religions were rude and simple \ but that is 
 merely to say that where an agency has been em¬ 
 ployed proportionate to the size of the field the result 
 has been complete success. The actual progress 
 made has been greater in India, in face of the most 
 philosophic religions, than even in uncivilised lands. 
 In all about 625,000 church members, representing a 
 population probably of 2,000,000, have been brought 
 from heathenism into the Church of Christ. 
 
 Call for further exertion. But there are still 
 800,000,000 to be evangelised, and the total agency, 
 male and female, sent out by the churches of Europe 
 and America to evangelize this mass is under 6000, 
 equal to about 25 for all Scotland. The amount 
 that has been done appears scarcely a drop in the 
 bucket, compared with what remains to be done, 
 and will be profitable only if it incites the Church 
 of Christ to put forth efforts proportionate to what 
 is required. It must set itself to deal with popula- 
 
90 
 
 tions of millions as it has dealt with populations of 
 thousands; and each individual Christian must 
 learn that part of the responsibility rests on him. 
 
 There is also a warning not to delay. Other re¬ 
 ligions are active. Hinduism is making more rapid 
 progress among the aboriginal tribes of India than 
 even Christianity. Buddhism is making progress 
 among the Karens, and is bestirring itself for the 
 light in Japan. In India and in Africa Mahom- 
 medanism is sending forth its missionaries in greater 
 numbers than Christendom to win these lands. 
 And where, as in India and Japan, old religions are 
 withering under the assault of modern science, vari¬ 
 ous forms of European scepticism are taking their 
 place. If Christianity is not active, it may find 
 that it has to contend finally in these lands not with 
 decaying faiths, but with a strong scientific infidel¬ 
 ity, as in this country. The world is now open to 
 Christianity as it never has been before. Christi¬ 
 anity has apparently a freer field than it ever will 
 have. It is for the Church of Christ to hear the call, 
 to fulfil Christ’s command, and not to delay to go 
 and make disciples of all nations. 
 
91 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF MISSIONS. 
 
 To interest a Bible-class in missions, it is important 
 to present details more fully than can be done in a 
 short manual like the preceding. For these the fol¬ 
 lowing works may be consulted. 
 
 Biographies of many of the missionaries named 
 in the Primer have been published. See also— 
 
 “ Great Missionaries.” Rev. Dr Thomson. 
 
 “ Heroines of the Mission Field.” 
 
 “ Modern Missions.” Robert Young. 
 
 “ Light in Lands of Darkness.” Robert Young. 
 
 “ Short History of Missions.” Dr Geo. Smith. 
 
 “ History of Propagation of Christianity,” 3 vols. 
 Brown. 
 
 “Missions and Culture.” Warneck. 
 
 “ Protestant Missions.” Christlieb. 
 
 Polynesia — 
 
 “ Night of Toil, or First Missionary Labours.” 
 “Narrative of Missionary Enterprise.” John 
 Williams. 
 
 “Forty Years’ Mission Work in Polynesia and 
 New Guinea.” A. W. Murray. 
 
 Africa and Madagascar — 
 
 “ Livingstone’s Travels.” 
 
 “ South Africa and its Mission Fields.” J. E. 
 Carlyle. 
 
 “ Visits to Madagascar.” W. Ellis. 
 
 “Nine Years’ Mission Work in Madagascar.” 
 Matthews. 
 
92 
 
 * 
 
 India — 
 
 “ History of Protestant Missions in India.” 
 Sherring. 
 
 “ Hinduism and its Relations to Christianity.” 
 Dr Robson. 
 
 “ Carey, Marshman, and Ward.” John Marsh- 
 man, C. S. I. 
 
 An “ Outline Missionary Series” is published by 
 John Snow & Co., giving full geographical, ethno¬ 
 logical, and statistical information regarding each 
 field. 
 
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