70S 



MISSIONS. 



MISSIONS. 



706 



confirmed a decree prohibiting the building of churches, and Europeans 

 were in future only allowed to remain in China on condition of their 

 promising never to return to Europe. In 1723 the throne was filled 

 by an emperor who at first was rather favourably disposed towards the 

 missionaries ; but he afterwards issued an edict under which they were 

 driven from the churches and only tolerated at Pekin and Canton. 

 Duhalde says that above 300 churches and more than 300,000 

 Christian converts were deprived of religious instruction by this act. 

 Several families of rank were degraded or exiled by the emperor on 

 account of professing Christianity. In 1732 the missionaries, 30 in 

 number, were banished to Macao, having from motives of conscience 

 disobeyed the edict which forbade the propagation of the Christian 

 religion. Converts were at this period kept together by native cate- 

 chists, and a few of the missionaries remained in China in concealment 

 or re entered the country by stealth. The mission is still carried on, in 

 spite of the occasional attempts of the Chinese to put it down ; the 

 mission of Father Hue and his companions is the most recent, and the 

 missionaries were expelled. There are still believed to be many 

 Christian congregations served by native priests, but the numbers 

 stated are by no means to be depended on, and the congregations are 

 always liable to persecution. 



In the 1 7th century the Jesuits sent many missionaries to the East 

 Indies, to Tonquin, Bengal, Madura, the coast of Coromandel, and to 

 Surat, with but moderate success. Of their efforts in South America, 

 a notice will be found under PARAGUAY, in the GEOO. Div. 



In 1700 the three orders of Capuchins, Jesuits, and Carmelites were 

 the most active missionaries. The Capuchins had 25 missions in 

 Turkey, and missionary stations were established in Persia, Georgia, 

 and Africa. The Jesuits had ten missions in Turkey, and the 

 Carmelites three. Many of these missionaries had acquired a know- 

 ledge of medicine, and obtained access to families as physicians. In 

 1717 the Jesuits supported missions in the islands and continent of 

 America, in Greece, Asia Minor, and the Archipelago, and in Egypt, 

 Syria, and Persia, besides those in India. Louis XIV. made grants of 

 land to the missionaries in Canada, and to them we are indebted for 

 some of the earliest descriptions of North America. 



In 1822 the cause of missions was revived in France by the Insti- 

 tution for the Propagation of the Faith, which has committees at 

 Paris and Lyon. Several popes have granted to its members certain 

 indulgences. The ' Annals of the Propagation of the Faith ' are pub- 

 lished by the society. The funds are placed at the disposal of the 

 Seminary for Foreign Missions, and the superiors of the Lazarite 

 Missions and the Jesuit Missions. There is no part of the world in 

 which Catholic missionaries are not supported. 



The first Protestant mission of which we have any notice was 

 founded by the church of Geneva, which sent missionaries to America 

 iul.'.IO; but it is believed to have existed only a short time. Early in 

 the 17th century the Dutch, who had taken Ceylon from the Portu- 

 guese, admitted the natives to employments under their government 

 i mly on condition of subscribing to the Helvetic Confession, and 

 becoming members of the Reformed church. Large numbers made a 

 profession of Christianity, but comparatively few were real converts ; 

 and there was a consequent relapse when the coercion was removed by 

 the cession of the island to Great Britain. In Java, Formosa, and 

 Amboyna, the Dutch made attempts to gain converts. Transla- 

 tions from the Scriptures were made in the Cingalese and Malay 

 languages. 



It was some time after the English had begun to form settlements in 

 North America before attention was directed to the religious condition 

 of the natives. In 144 a petition was presented to parliament from a 

 minister of the Church of England, supported by many English and 

 Scotch divines, which urged the duty of attempting to convert the 

 natives of America to Christianity. Soon afterwards an ordinance of 

 the Lords and Commons appointed the Earl of Warwick governor of the 

 islands and plantations of North America; and a committee was 

 appointed to assist him in several matters, " but chiefly for the advance- 

 ment of the true Protestant religion, and for the spreading of the 

 gospel of Christ among those that yet remain there in great and miser- 

 able blindness and ignorance." 



In 146 the General Court of Massachusetts passed the first act " for 

 encouraging the propagation of the gospel amongst the Indians." In 

 1649 an incorporated body was established with the authority of par- 

 liament, under the title of the " President and Society for the Propa- 

 gation of the Gospel in New England." In 1661 Charles II. renewed 

 the Society's charter, on the ground that it was now fit to lay a founda- 

 tion for " educating, clothing, civilising, and instructing the poor 

 V The design of the Society was to support and maintain 

 ministers and schoolmasters to instruct the natives in the English lan- 

 guage, and to teach them useful trades. Eliot, called the " apostle of 

 the Indians," and Mayhew, had already laboured for several .years in 

 the conversion of the native tribes of New England. In a narrative of 

 their exertions, published in lt>53, and dedicated to Cromwell, an 

 account is given of the conversion of several chiefs. In "A Later and 

 Further Account," published in 1655, Eliot states that a great desire 

 for baptism had arisen amongst the Indians ; but never was there a 

 missionary so conscientiously scrupulous as to trusting to professions 

 i.f thU kind. He told the Indians " how necessary it was that they 

 nNiuild first be civilised by being brought from their scattered and wild 



ABT ANI> SCT. Dry. vol.. v. 



course of life ; " and he began the formation of a village, in which they 

 might learn the advantages of living in a community. The Indians 

 were taught various useful arts, and after several \ ears were admitted 

 as church communicants, previous to which they were required to give 

 an account of their conversion and faith at a public examination. 



In "A Further Account," published in I(i59, there are sermons or 

 short discourses of several converted Indians. Five Indian youths 

 were receiving an education at the Cambridge grammar-school in 

 Massachusetts, two of whom had been examined in Latin before the 

 magistrates and elders of the place. In 1670 several " praying towns," 

 as the villages of the converted Indians were called, had been erected 

 under Eliot's auspices. In 1674 there were four " praying-towns ' in 

 Massachusetts. Eliot died in 1690, at the age of eighty-six. Mather, 

 Bourne, Sergeant, and Braiuerd succeeded each other in the work of 

 bringing the Indians to a knowledge of Christianity, but none of them 

 laboured so successfully as Eliot. Brainerd was an ardent and 

 enthusiastic labourer, and exhausted himself by his extraordinary 

 exertions. He was sent to America in 1742, by the ' Honourable 

 Society in Scotland for promoting Christian Knowledge," and died 

 in 1747: 



By the end of the 17th century the population of the English settle- 

 ments in America had greatly increased, while the means of spiritual 

 instruction had not been proportionally extended, and the small num- 

 ber of Episcopal churches which existed roused the friends of the 

 Church of England at home to make exertions to supply the defici- 

 ency. While the conversion of the natives had chiefly attracted 

 the attention of pious persons, it was found, in 1675, that " there were 

 scarce four ministers of the Church of .England in all the vast tracts 

 of North America." Comptou, bishop of London, prevailed upon 

 Charles II. to allow 20/. for passage-money to ministers and school- 

 masters who should go out to supply the deficiency ; and a royal gift 

 of 1200/. was procured to purchase a Bible, Prayer-Book, and the 

 Homilies, for each parish. In 1679 it was stated that there was not a 

 minister of the Church of England either in Pennsylvania, the Jerseys, 

 or New England, and that these settlements were only occasionally 

 visited by the chaplain to the fort at New York. Many families had 

 never attended any public religious service since they left England. 

 The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts origi- 

 nated in the desire to supply the spiritual destitution of these and 

 other settlements, and received a charter of incorporation on the Itith 

 of June, 1701. The Society was composed, by charter, of the chief 

 prelates and dignitaries of the Church, and several of the most eminent 

 persons in the state. Archbishop Tennison was the first president. 

 The amount received by the Society in the first four years after its 

 incorporation was first year, 45'2l. ; second, 5751. ; third, 864?. ; 

 fourth, 1343/. The efforts of the Society were at first directed to 

 building churches and sending out orthodox clergymen to the colonies. 

 At the same time, and also before the Society was chartered, strong 

 representations were made to the government of the important poli- 

 tical influence which the French Jesuit missionaries exercised in 

 Canada in keeping tribes neutral or in alliance with France ; and at a 

 court held at St. James's, April 3rd, 1700, representations being made 

 to the effect that the five nations of Indians bordering on New York 

 might probably be seduced by the French, the council came to the 

 opinion, that two Protestant ministers, with a competent allowance, 

 should dwell amongst them, in order to instruct them in the true 

 religion and confirm them in their duty to her majesty. The state of 

 the Indians was one of the objects to which the charter directed the 

 attention of the Society, but its funds were for some time expended in 

 maintaining ministers within our own settlements. 



About the year 1680 the condition of the negro slaves in our settle- 

 ments began to excite attention. In 1680 Morgan Godwyn, " some 

 time student of Christ Church, Oxon," wrote a ' Persuasive to the 

 Instructing and Baptising of the Negroes and Indians in our Planta- 

 tions.' Towards the close of his life, Eliot had begun to instruct the 

 negroes in New York; and in 1704 the Society for the Propagation of 

 the Gospel established catechising schools in New York for the negroes, 

 the number of negroes and Indians in the city being then 1500. In 

 17'27, Gibson, bishop of London, addressed the missionaries in the 

 English plantations, exhorting them to assist in instructing the negroes. 

 In a sermon preached by Beilby, bishop of Chester, in 1783, before the 

 above Society, the civilisation and conversion of the negroes were 

 announced as one of the great objects of the Society. 



The Danish and Moravian missions were the first two in which the 

 chief object was the conversion of the heathen ; for the Society 

 for Propagating the Gospel was for some time limited in its 

 operations, and may be regarded in the early part of its existence 

 rather as a " Pastoral Aid" Society. The Danish Missions owed their 

 existence to Frederick IV., who about 1705, became anxious that the 

 gospel should be preached in the Danish settlements in the East 

 Indies. Ziegenbalgh and Plutscho, who had been educated at Berlin, 

 were the first missionaries sent out ; they proceeded to Tranquebar, 

 on the Coromandel coast. The Danish missionaries immediately 

 established schools, and prepared tracts and small works in the Malabar 

 language. In 1707 their first church was consecrated. In 1708 the 

 translation of the Testament was begun, and completed in 1711 : but 

 they had no press, and were obliged to employ transcribers. The 

 Society for the Propagation of the Gospel opportunely forwarded a 



