History Of Christian Missions

HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS BY CHARLES HENRY ROBINSON, D. D. HON. CANON OF RIPON CATHEDRAL AND EDITORIAL SECRETARY OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL IN FOREIGN PARTS NEW YORK CHARLES SCJlIBNKirS SONS 1915 PREFACE THE story of missions, which reaches back to the beginning of the Christian era, and embraces almost every country in the world, cannot be told within the limits of a single volume. The task which I have ventured to undertake is of a far less ambitious character, my object being to provide the intelligent reader with an outline sketch of Christian missions which may enable him to obtain a correct perspective, but which will need to be filled in for each several country and period of history by much careful study. This volume is not intended to serve as a diction ary nor as a commentary upon missions, but as a text-book to encourage and facilitate their study. Those who have devoted the largest amount of time to such study will be most ready to forgive its imperfections and shortcomings. A well-known authority on the subject of Foreign Missions, to whom the task of writing this book was originally assigned, but who failed to respond to the invitation, wrote to its present author, You have an almost impossible task I should absolutely quail at the work you are doing. 1 It would have been comparatively easy to fill the space allotted to me by the publisher with a discussion of the principles which have governed the activities of Christian missionaries, and it would have been still less difficult to compile a volume of statistics which would have shown, more or less accurately, the progress that has been made in bringing about the conversion of non-Chrifltianlands, but in neither case would the object with which this volume was planned have been fulfilled. Of vi PREFACE missionary statistics I have tried to avoid any extensive use, and have only given such when they appeared to be necessary in order to elucidate the relative progress that has been made in different sections of the mission field or at different epochs. In attempting to describe the work of hundreds of missionary societies it is obvious that no single individual, however good his opportunities for obtaining information may be, can estimate correctly the relative importance of that which has been done in each several country and by individual societies. If in some instances I have appeared to dwell at disproportionate length upon the work of Anglican missions, this has not been due to my ignorance of the relative insignificance of their results, if these are calculated on a numerical basis, but is due to the fact that I have tried to lay special emphasis upon the beginnings of missionary enterprises, and to the fact that in many countries, where a large amount of work is now being carried on by other societies, missionary enterprise was initiated by Anglican missionaries. I desire to tender my apologies in advance to the representatives of several American societies concerning whose work I have found it difficult to obtain adequate information. As the series of which this volume forms a part is published both in Great Britain and in America, I venture to hope that those who live on either side of the Atlantic may be helped by its perusal to appreciate better than they have previously done how much good work is being accom plished by those with whom they have not themselvesbeen brought into contact. In order to render my task a little less impossible than it would otherwise have been, I have, albeit with reluctance, omitted any account of the conversion of Europe and of the methods which were adopted by its early missionaries, I had hoped to have included at least one or two chapters which would have served as an introduction to later missionary efforts, but the limits of my space have rendered this impossible...