who, though not personally acquainted with the mission fields,
become almost equal experts by continuous attendance and careful
study. In the case of the two leading Church of England
societies, the bishops (being members) are ex officio on all executive
committees; but their labours in other directions prevent
their ordinarily attending. The numerous non-denominational
missions previously referred to are differently worked. There
is no membership by subscription, nor any elected committee.
The “mission” consists of the missionaries themselves, and
they are governed by a “director,” with possibly small advisory
councils in the field and at home, the latter undertaking the duty
of engaging missionaries and raising funds.
On the other hand, there is a growing sense that missions should be the work of the Church in its corporate capacity, and not of voluntary associations. This is the system of the Presbyterian Churches, the missions of which are entirely controlled by the General Assemblies in Edinburgh, Belfast and London respectively. The Wesleyan Society also is under the authority of the Conference. In the Church of England the question was broached in Convocation, shortly after the revival of that body, in 1859; and during the next few years many suggestions were put forth for the establishment of a Board of Missions which should absorb the societies, or at least direct their work. It soon appeared, however, that neither the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel nor the Church Missionary Society was willing to be absorbed; and it was urged by some that in a great comprehensive national Church, comprising persons of widely different views, more zeal was likely to be thrown into voluntary than into official enterprises. Eventually, in 1887, the Canterbury Convocation and Archbishop Benson formed a Board of Missions; and York followed shortly afterwards. These boards, however, were not to supersede the societies, but to supplement their work, by collecting information, fostering interest, registering results and acting as referees when required. They have already done some useful work, and will probably do more. Their most active members are men who are also leaders in their respective societies, and have thus gained experience in missionary administration. But the Church of England has not yet put missions in the prominent place they occupy in the Nonconformist denominations.
The closing years of the 19th century were remarkable for the centenary commemorations of the older missionary societies. The Baptist Society celebrated its centenary in 1892; the London Missionary Society (Congregational) did the same in 1895; the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge kept its bicentenary in 1898; the Church Missionary Society its centenary in 1899; the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel its bicentenary in 1900–1901; and the British and Foreign Bible Society its centenary in 1904. Considerable special funds have been raised in connexion with these commemorations. A good deal of interest has also been awakened and maintained by missionary exhibitions, and by a more intelligent type of missionary literature.
Colonial missions next claim attention. By “colonial” is meant, not missions to the British colonial population, but missions from the colonial population to the heathen. The former have been very largely the work of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and, in a smaller degree, of the Colonial Church Society (Church of England) and2. Colonial. the Colonial Missionary Society (Congregational). Those missions, however, are more properly an outlying branch of home missions, being to the professing Christian settlers or their descendants. But these Christian settlers have their own missions to the heathen—both to the heathen at their doors and to the great heathen lands beyond.
In Canada and Australia, the Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist and other communities have regular organizations for foreign missions. The non-episcopal missions thus formed and supported are worked quite independently of the home societies of the denominations respectively. The Australian Presbyterians have important agencies in the South Seas and in Korea, the Australian Baptists in Bengal, the Canadians of various denominations in the Far North-West of the Dominion, and in India and China. The Anglican Church in Canada has its Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society, working in the North-West and in Japan; and in Australia it has a Board of Missions, working amongst the Australian aborigines and in New Guinea. The Melanesian Mission, associated with the names of Selwyn and Patteson, is officially connected with the Church of New Zealand, but is also largely supported in Australia. In New South Wales, Victoria, New Zealand and Canada there are also Church missionary associations which supply missionaries, and support them, for the mission fields of the Church Missionary Society.
The German societies are numerous and important, and have increased in number and in vigorous work. The Moravian Church, whose missions are the oldest (1732), is itself a missionary organization in a sense in which no other Christian community rivals it. Its total membership is under 100,000, and it has some 350 missionaries,3. Continental. labouring in the most unpromising fields—Greenland, Labrador, Alaska, Central America, Tibet, and among the Hottentots. The Basel Society, with its famous seminary at Basel, which formerly supplied many able German missionaries to the Church Missionary Society, has extensive work in India, West Africa and South China. The Berlin Society and the Rhenish Society labour in South Africa and China, the Hermannsburg Mission (Hanover) in South Africa and India; Gossner’s Mission (Berlin) and the Leipzig Lutherans in India. At least two of these societies, and other new associations formed for the purpose, and the Moravians, have taken up work in German East Africa. The principal organizations in Holland are the Netherlands Missionary Society and the Utrecht Missionary Society, working mainly in the Dutch colonies. A Danish society has a mission in South India. The old Swedish and Norwegian missionary societies work in South Africa, Madagascar and India; but large numbers of Scandinavians have been stirred up in missionary zeal, and have gone out to China in connexion with the China Inland Mission; several were massacred in the Boxer outbreaks. The French Protestants support the Société des Missions Évangeliques, founded in 1822. Its chief mission has been in Basutoland, since extended to the Zambesi; but it has also followed French colonial extension, establishing missions in Senegambia, the French Congo, Madagascar and Tahiti.
The newer American organizations are, as in England, non-denominational and “free-lance,” especially the Christian and Missionary Alliance (1897), developed from the International Missionary Alliance (1887), which has sent many missionaries to India and China. The older societies attribute to these new agencies more zeal than4. American. discretion, while the newer credit the older with a discretion that cripples zeal. The Student Volunteer Movement, already referred to, has had large influence in the United States, where it arose; and its leaders have proved themselves men of rare intellectual and practical capacity. In a journey round the world in 1895–1897, J. R. Mott succeeded in forming students’ associations in universities and colleges in several European countries, as well as in Turkey in Asia, Syria, India, Ceylon, China, Japan and Australia; and all these associations, over 150 in number, are now linked together in a great International Student Federation. The older American societies, especially the American Board (Congregational), the Presbyterian Boards, the Methodist Episcopal Church Society, the Baptist Missionary Union, and the Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church, have much extended their work. The “Ecumenical Missionary Conference,” held at New York in April 1900, was an astonishing revelation to the American public of the greatness of missions generally and of the missions of their own churches in particular. The Laymen’s Missionary movement is a significant outcome of the interest then awakened.
Missions to the Jews are worked by distinct organizations. There are several societies in England, Scotland, Germany and America. No special development has to be reported, except the great extension of John Wilkinson’s Mildway Mission to
