CHAPTER XII.

MISSIONARY SOCIETIES.

ILLUSTRATING what we have said before, it remains to be noticed, that nearly all the great societies sprang into existence almost simultaneously. The foremost among these,* founded in 1792, was the Baptist Missionary Society. It appears to have arisen from a suggestion of William Carey, the celebrated Northamptonshire shoemaker, who proposed as an inquiry to an association of Northamptonshire ministers, "whether it were not practicable and obligatory to attempt the conversion of the heathen." It is certainly still a moot question whether Le Verrier or Adams first laid the hand of science on the planet Neptune; but it seems quite certain that, when one of God's great thoughts is throbbing in the heart of one of His apostles, the same impulse and passion is stirring

* It is not implied that these were the first modern missionary agencies. The Moravians had already sent the Gospel into many regions. There were Swedish and Danish Missionary Societies also at work. In 1649 a Society for Promoting and Propagating the Gospel of Jesus Christ in New England had been formed, and about 1697 the "Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge" and the "Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts were established. See page 256 and foot note.

another, perhaps others, in remote and faraway scenes. Altogether unknown to William Carey, that same year the great Claudius Buchanan was dreaming his divine dreams about the conquest of India for Christ, in St. Mary's College, Cambridge.* Undoubtedly the honour of the first consolidation of the thought into a missionary enterprise must be given to William Carey and his little band of obscure believers.

At the close of Carey's address, to which we have referred, a collection was made for the purpose of attempting a missionary crusade upon Hindostan, amounting to £13 2s. 6d.= $65.60. The wits made fine work of this: the reader may still turn to Sydney Smith's paper in the Edinburgh Review, in which the idea and the effort are satirised as that of "an army of maniacs setting forth to the conquest of India." But this humble effort resulted in magnificent achievements; Carey and his illustrious coadjutors, Ward and Marshman, set forth, and became stupendous Oriental scholars, translating the Word of Life into many Indian dialects. Then came tempests of abuse and scurrility at home from eminent pens. We experience a shame in reading them; but it shows the catholicity of spirit pervading the minds of Christ's real followers, that Lord * See Appendix.

Teignmouth, and William Wilberforce, and Dr. Buchanan, were amongst the ablest and most earnest defenders of the noble Baptist missionaries. We are able to see now that this mission may be said to have saved India to the British Empire. It not only created the scholars to whom we have referred, and the bands of holy labourers, but also the sagacity of Lord Lawrence, and the consecrated courage of Sir Henry Havelock. We are prepared, therefore, to maintain that England is indebted more to William Carey and his £13 2s. 6d. than to the cunning of Clive and the rapacity of Warren Hastings.

Another child of the Revival was born in 1795-the London Missionary Society. But it would be idle to attempt to enumerate the names either of its founders, its missionaries, or their fields of labour; let the reader turn to the names of the founders, and he will find they were nearly all enthusiasts who had been baptised into the spirit of the Revival-Rowland Hill, Matthew Wilks, Alexander Waugh, William Kingsbury, and, notably, Thomas Haweis, the Rector of Aldwinckle and chaplain to the Countess of Huntingdon. Nor must we omit the name of David Bogue,* that strong and eloquent intelligence, whose admirable and suggestive work on The Divine Authority of the * See Appendix.