86 Kenneth S. Latourette, 



ing a missionary society 3 it said in its public appeal : &quot;Among 

 the numerous inducements to attempt this important object .... 

 we mention the uncommon success God has been graciously 

 pleased to grant to late undertakings of this kind in Great 

 Britain and the United States.&quot; The formation of the Philadel 

 phia Bible Society in 1808 was due to its founders &quot;contem 

 plating with unfeigned pleasure the extensive good doing by 

 such a society in Great Britain.&quot; 4 The American Bible Society 

 was so closely allied with the British and Foreign Bible Society 

 that the latter s annual reports included for a time accounts of 

 the work of the former. 



The first American missionary societies did their work on the 

 frontiers and among the Indians, and although foreign work was 

 among the objects of one of them, the Massachusetts Missionary 

 Society, 5 it was not undertaken until the formation of the Ameri 

 can Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, in 1810. 

 This organization, it is true, was the direct outgrowth of the 

 missionary purpose of a little band of students which existed 

 first in Williams College and later in Andover Theological 

 Seminary, and whose request to be sent out to the foreign field 

 led to the formation of a society for that purpose 6 ; but here 

 again British example prepared the way. Missionary papers had 

 been full of the work of the English societies, 7 and English mis 

 sionaries had corresponded with American church leaders. 8 The 



3 Address of the General Association of Connecticut to the District 

 Association on the subject of a Missionary Society, etc., Norwich, 1797. 



4 The Panoplist and Missionary Magazine, Boston, 1809-1817. N. S., 

 1:377 (1809). (For 1818, 1819, and 1820 this paper was called The 

 Panoplist and Missionary Herald; beginning with 1820 it was called the 

 Missionary Herald.) 



5 This society was formed in 1799, and had at once come into fellow 

 ship with the London Missionary Society. Worcester, Origin of Am. 

 For. Missions, p. 9. 



6 Worcester, Origin of Am. For. Missions, pp. 15-22. Panoplist, and 

 Missny. Mag., N. S., 5 : 228. 



7 Annual Report of the Director of the N. Y. Missny. Soc., 1804, speaks 

 of the work of the London Missionary Society. In the Panoplist, N. S., 

 2 : 568-571, May, 1810, some letters from William Carey from India were 

 published, and in the same, 3 : 277, some news from Otaheite were given. 



8 Letters from William Carey to Rev. Miller, N. Y., Nov. 30, 1809. 

 Panoplist and Missny. Mag., 2:568-571. 



