3. The Present Mission Era

The modern missionary movement was not due solely to the religious revival just mentioned; a series of secular facts of historical importance contributed. Among these, four play the principal part: (1) the great geographical discoveries which began with Captain Cook and the extension of the world's commerce which ensued; (2) the struggles against the slavetrade and slavery; (3) the awakening of the national conscience of England against the arbitrary rule of the East India Company; and (4) the growth of colonial conquest.

To what a degree earnest Christians, especially in England, were aroused by the discoveries of Cook, appears clearly in a number of tracts, issued in the last decades of the eighteenth

1. Events century, which sought to arouse en Leading to thusiasm for the- missionary cause by Renewed reference to these discoveries; in the Effort. great influence which they exerted on William Carey (q.v.), the great pioneer of the missionary movement and. the founder of the first modern missionary society, and in the choice of a group of South Sea Islands (Tahiti) as the first field of labor of the second modern missionary society, that of London. The discoveries of Cook were followed by others which continually attained greater proportions, especially in Africa, and the fact always repeated itself that, as Livingstone said: " The end of the geographical act is the beginning of missionary enterprise." The agitation for the abolition of the slave-trade and of slavery, carried on in connection with the ideas of political liberty and philanthropy, also drew the attention of Christians to the heathen world. The leader in this agitation was William Wilberforce (q.v.). After a struggle of nineteen years, the slave-trade was at last, in 1807, declared illegal, and in 1834 slavery itself was abolished in the English colonies. Already in 1791, a philanthropic society was formed, which transported liberated English and American slaves to Sierra Leone and made their civilization its exclusive task. The experiment was unsuccessful, but it helped the foundation of the Missionary Society of the English Church (1799), in which Wilberforce took an active part. England had in the mean time become a great colonial power, but the old colonial history of England was full of bloodshed, treachery, injustice and harshness against the subject peoples, espe caally those of India. Since 1600 a company of merchant princes, who had little by little become a conquering power, had possessed a monopoly of the commerce with India. It had but one aim: to enrich itself. Besides this, its officials led godless lives, kept large harems, and looked upon it as an amusing spectacle when their concubines paid worship to their idols. The rule of this company lasted for more than eighty years in India without the erection of a single church for their officials, and of the few chaplains who from 1698 were sent out as a result of the renewal of the charter, a governorgeneral said: "Their black garb offers no protection against the general moral corruption." In the beginning the company was religiously indifferent, and afterward it was bitterly hostile to all missionary endeavor. Therefore, when the unjust wars which it waged, the violation of treaties which was a part of its policy, and the oppressive taxation which impoverished the people became known at home, there began a struggle in 1783 against this misgovernment, which lasted for thirty years and ended in the legally enforced opening of India to the missionaries. In these struggles, the recognition of the sins of omission of the government toward its heathen subjects grew in England, so that the missionary duty came to be regarded as a national obligation.

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It is true that the missionary idea bad at this time found entrance into a restricted circle. The primal impulse came from William

2. Carey Camy, a self-taught but gifted man of and the remarkable linguistic capacity. By English three different means he set in motion Missionary the missionary movement in 1792: (1) Societies. by a tract: An Enquiry into the Obli gations of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathen; (2) by a powerful sermon on Isa. liv. 2, 3; and (3) by the foundation of the Baptist Missionary Society, as whose first messenger he went himself to India, where he devel oped a powerful activity, especially of a literary sort, which opened up the way for the modern missions. This had a stimulating effect far beyond the Baptist denomination. Already in 1794 an appeal for mis sions was made to all Evangelical pedobaptist dis senters, and it was heartily approved, even by the bishops, of whom Dr. Haweis was the leader. As a result of this beginning, the London Missionary Society, in which great numbers participated, was founded, which in the course of time became essen tially an organ of the Independents. Partly shamed by these enterprises of the dissenters, and partly hindered by their Anglican conceptions from joining with them, such members of the Evangelical party in the Established Church as came together under the leadership of John Venn, Charles Simeon, William Wilberforce, and others, united for the founding of an Anglican missionary society, the Church Missionary Society for Africa and the East, in 1799. In the beginning, it had a thorny path to travel; the bishops held back and the first mission aries had to be drawn from Germany; but after, its great secretary Henry Venn succeeded, in 1841, in establishing a modus vivendi with the episcopate, and it was found that the society became more and more the backbone of the Evangelical tendency in the Established Church in its struggle against rit ualism, it developed little by little into the great est of all Evangelical missionary societies.

So, in the- course of scarcely seven years, three epoch-making missionary organizations were called into existence, and with them the missionary activity of Protestantism entered not only into an entirely new phase, but also obtained 8. Results the firm foundation which was an as- on the surance of healthy progress. This was Continent. at first apparent in the fact that the new missionary movement spread also on the continent of Europe and in North America. This had already been the case with the English revival movement, which had exercised a vivifying influence on Germany, Holland, France, and the United States, rejuvenating the older Pietism which had found a new guardian in the German Christian Society founded m 1780 and having its home in Basel. Between these circles and the English mis. sionary organizations an earnest accord was tablished, which resulted not only in awakening a lively interest in missions, but also led to the founding of independent missionary organizations, first in Holland, through the instrumentality of John van der Kemp (1747-1811), who at the age of fifty went to South Africa as the pioneer of the London Missionary Society. Then occurred the founding of the Dutch Missionary Society (1797); and later, in Germany, the establishment of the first missionary school by the Berlin Pastor Johann J3inicke (1800); this, however, confined itself to 'sending educated missionaries to the missions already established. In 1815 occurred the founding in Basel of what was also at first only a missionary school, but in 1822 became an independent missionary institution. Only in 1824 did France enter the modern missionary movement by the founding of missionary societies, while such organizations had been formed in North America as early as 1810.

4. Missionary Organizations: Not only in England but on the continent the State churches held aloof from the missionary movement 1. Eccles- iastical and even assumed an attitude of hos- tility. This trying situation left two Attitude alternatives open to the friends of mis- toward sions: either to refrain from mission- Missions. cry activity or to call into being or ganizations independent of the State churches, and they naturally decided upon the latter course; and since the new missions received no support from the colonial governments, but rather encountered open hostility, they were dependent upon the voluntary service of Christians. The in dependent societies were recognized as new corpo rate bodies which, through the organization of Christian endeavor, had brought about an intensi fied activity in the churches; so that, at the pres ent time, the most friendly relations of mutual as sistance exist between the State churches and the independent missionary organizations. Apart from the small Moravian church, it is only in the Scotch churches and in certain of the American denominations that missions were from the beginning the care of the churches as such. But even when they formed a part of the church activity, the expenses of maintenance were covered by voluntary con tributions. These have grown from very small sums to very considerable ones, and they now reach the amount of nearly =20,000,000 yearly in all Evan gelical Christendom.

When the State churches refused this task, a second difficulty arose; no theological graduates could be found for mission work. The old