Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 13.djvu/666

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MISSIONS. 594 MISSIONS. land in 1797 (called llio Xvthcilaiids ilissionary Society), to aid in the work of the London So- ciety, illustrates the solidarity of Cliristian feel- ing which underlies the modern missionary move- ment, and also the failure at lirst to appreciate the extent of the worli committed to a single board of directors by Christians of dill'ereut de- nominations and nationalities. The Netherlands Missionary Society furnished several missionaries to the L. M. fS., and afterwards chose its special held in the Dutch Kast Indies, where in 1900 it had 11 missionaries. From this beginning a score of other societies in Holland have sprung for di- rect and indirect foreign missionary work, ilean- while, the claims of freed slaves at the Sierra Leone colony were pressed upon the Church of England. Pious men in the eni]doy of the East India Company, like Brown and (Jrant, urged that Church to labor among the people of India. Nothing being done by the Church in 1799, twen- ty-six of its spiritually minded members, among whom were William Wilberforce, .John Venn, and Charles Simeon, organized the Church Misaionary Society (C. M. S. ), at lirst known as the Hociety for Mismons to Africa and the East. They at once encountered opposition on the ground that such enterprises should be directed by the bislKips, which made it difficult for them to find fit ministers to go out. Hence, the society drew its early missionaries from Germany. Altogether, more than a hundred of its missionaries have been Germans, many of them of the highest abil- ity, like Krapf, Rebmann. Rhenius, and Pfander. Nearly half a century passed before the C. il. S. won recognition from the episcopate. The fields of the C. yi. S. are in India, Ceylon, China, .Japan, West Africa, East Africa and Uganda, Mauritius. New Zealand, Persia, Palestine, Egypt, and the northcn aiul western parts of British North America. In 1901 it had in the fielil 123S missionaries, men and women, and 7915 native workers, of whom 375 are ordained clergymen. The growth of English interest in missions, com- bined with the successes of the Halle missionaries in India, led in 1800 to the establishment at Ber- lin of Jaimiche's Missionary School. This school during the next qviarter of a century furnished some eighty missionaries to the English and Dutch societies, and served to arouse furtlirr interest in missions in Germany. Meanwhile, the same ideas were working in .merica. They found expression in foreign missions through the devotion of Samuel J. Mills and other students at Williams College, who agreed together to give their lives to preaching to the heathen. The earnestness of these young men led to the I'orninticm. in l.Sll, of the Amrrican Hoard of l^omiiiisxiuiirrs for For- eiyii Missions (A. B. C. F. M. ), an interdenomi- national society. The first mis-;iniiarii'S of this society. Newell. .Tudson. Hall, Rice, and Nntt. were sent to India, and were instantly ordered out of the country by the Kast India Company. .lud- son and Rice joined the Baptists at Serampore, and the others after some trouble sueeeoded in getting a footing in Ceylon and at Bombay. Within ten years the soeiety had neeupied other fields in India, in Hawaii, and in Turkey, .fler .some forty years of existence as an interdenomi- national soeiety it rclinipii^hed some of its field-' (in Inilia. Persia. Syria, and West .fric.T) to the .inerican Dutch Reformed and Presbyterian churches, who wished to conduct separate mis- sions of their own. It is now chiefly .supported by Cougregationalists. The A. B. C. F. M. has missions in China, India, Ceylon, South Africa, West Africa, .Jai)an, Turkey, and Uceauica. In 1901 the number of its missionaries, men and women, was 549, with 35SI native workers. Jud- son and Rice, of the lirst group of missionaries sent to India by the A. B. C. F. SI., changed their views on baptism before entering upon their work, and chose Burma for their iieUl <jf labor. This occurrence led in LSI! to the formation of the American Baptist .Missiomiry i'nion (A. B. M. U.) to assume the support of the two pioneers in Burma. Its present fields are in Burma, Siam, Assam, India, China. .Japan, and the Congo Free State. In 1901 it had in the field 489 mission- aries of both se.xes, with 4til3 native workers. The success of the early missionaries of these English and American societies aroused an inter- est which extended to the Protestants of the Con- tinent of Europe, and led in IS 15 to the estab- lishment of a M issionary Institute at Basel, in Switzerland. The training school for mission- aries with which this institute began its opera- tions provided valuable men for the English so- cieties. A magazine for missionary intelligence, published by the Institute, deepened missionary interest in Germany and other Protestant coun- tries. In 1822 the Basel Institute began to send out missionaries, one of the earliest of whom, Zaremba. labored ellectively in Russian Armenia until expelled by the Russian Government in 1835. Its present fields are in West Africa, India, and China, and graduates of its school are pas tors of evangelical churches in Turkey. In 1900 it had in the field 381 missionaries, men and women, with 1190 native workers. The land of Luther had already contributed men and means for foreign missions during many years In^forc its first foreign missionary society was formed at Berlin in 1824 by ten men of mark, among whom were Neander and Tholuck. Following the conserva- tive usage of the Continental Protestants, the first work of the Berlin Missionary Society was to establish a training school for missionaries. It began to send men abroad in 1834. Its present fields are in South Africa. German East Africa, and China. It has also done much to draw Chris- tian colonists to the tierman colonies. In 1900 it maintained 100 men as missionaries in its va- rious fields. During the first part of the nine- teenth century a considerable number of little missionary a.ssociations had been formed in dif- ferent parts of (iermany to aid existing societies at Basel and elsewhere. Later these developed into the Rhenish, the Xorlh dermnn, the />ci/>;iV/, the (io.isner. and the llerniannKhiirg .Missionary Societies, and have finally won the support of the official representatives of the Church to what is now a large and important nii-'sionary I'litcrprise in .frica. India. China. Malaysia, and .ustral- asia. The foreign missions of the Protestants of France Ix'gan in 1818. with a missionary maga- zine intended to give information of the work of missionaries of other nations. This was followed in 1824 by the organization of the Fianyelical Mi.t.iinns Society of Paris, designed at first to aid existing missions. Since 1825 it has sent mis.;ionaries of its own to Central .frica and S('ni'V'anil)ia. besides replacing, in ennsequenec of T'n'neh national prejudices, missionaries of the I^. M. S. in Tahiti and Madagascar, and . ierican missionaries in the French Congo region. It now has 60 missionaries in its service. The roots of