Methodist missions may, however, be said to have had their origin long before the founding of a society for the specific purpose of spreading its doctrines in for- eign parts. "From its very beginning," says Stevens (//i.</. of Methodism, iii, 312), " jNIethodism was charac- terized by a zealous spirit of propagandism. It was es- sentially missionary. Its introduction into the West Indies by (Jilhert in 17G0, and into Nova Scotia by Cougblan in 17(55; the appointment of Pilmoor and Boardmau to America in 17G9, and its commencement at New York at least three years before this date; the formation successively of its Irish, Welsh, and English domestic missions, and the organization of a missionary 'institution' at least two years before the first of what are called modern missionary societies, attest its char- acter as an energetic system of evangelization." But these wide developments of missionary energy, grand as some of tlum are in their historical importance, were but initiatory to that denominalioii.nl missionary system which arose from Coke's project of an Asiatic mission (in 178t)), to be headed by himself in ]ierson, requiring his life as a sacrifice, and thus constituting him. above the mere fact of being first bisliop of Amer- ican Methodism, and the first Protestant bishop <.f the New World, as the representative character of jlcthod- ist missions.
METHODISM
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METHODISM
American Methodism has been aptly termed by Dr. Abel Stevens {Centenary of A mer. Meth. p. 187) " a mis- sionary scheme," for it was clearly "the great home mission enterprise of the North American continent." The independent establishment of the colonies as a re- public in 1776 largely altered the relation to England, and the missionary body gradually ripened into a Church organization, from which, in turn, went out enterprises. The year 1819 is memorable in the history of American Methodism as the epoch of the formal or- ganization of its missionary work. But these early la- bors were confined to the "home" fields, and aimed mainly at the conversion of the aborigines and slaves. It was some thirteen years later, during the session of the (General Conference of 1832, that foreign missions were decided upon, and American INIethodism commis- sioned its Gospel harbingers to carry the truth as it is in Jesus to the dark nations of South Africa, the Kom- ish adherents of Mexico, and of South America. We give below some of the details of this great work in particular fields. Besides its very extensive domestic work, the Methodist Episcopal Church has now missions in China, India, Africa, Bulgaria, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and South America. Its missions, foreign and domestic, in the centenary year (1866) numbered 1059 circuits and stations, 1128 paid laborers (preachers and assistants), and 105,675 commu- nicants. The funds contributed to its treasury, from the beginning down to 1865, amounted to about $6,000,000. About 350 of the missionaries were in 186(5 reported to preach in the German and Scandinavian languages, and more than 30,000 of the communicants of German and Scandinavian origin.
"American, like British Methodism," says Stevens (Centenary of A mer. Meth. p. 199), "has become thor- oughly imbued with the apostolic idea of foreign and universal evangelization. With both bodies it is no longer an incidental or secondary attribute, but is in- wrought into their organic ecclesiastical systems. It has deepened and widened till it has become the great characteristic of modern Methodism, raising it from a revival of vital Protestantism, chiefly among the Anglo- Saxon race, to a world-wide system of Christianization, which has reacted on all the great interests of its Anglo- Saxon field, has energized and ennobled most of its other characteristics, and would seem to pledge to it a miiver- ! sal and perpetual sway in the earth. Taken in connec- tion with the London and Church Missionary societies, the British and Foreign Bible Society, the London Tract Society, to all of which Methodism gave the originating impulse, and the Sunday-school institution, which it was the first to adopt as an agency of the Church, it is not too much to say that it has been transforming the character of English Protestantism and the moral pros- pects of the world. Its missionary development has preserved its primitive energy. According to the usual history of religious bodies, if not indeed by a law of the human mind, its early heroic character would have passed away by its domestic success and the cessation of the novelty and trials of its early circumstances; but by throwing itself out upon all the world, and especially upon the worst citadels of paganism, it has perpetuated its original militant spirit, and opened for itself a heroic career, which need end only with the universal triumph of Christianity. English Methodism was considered, at the death of its founder, a marvellous fact in British history; but to-day (1866) the Wesleyan missions alone comprise more than twice the number of the regular preachers enrolled in the English Minutes in the year of Wesley's death, and nearly twice as many communi- cants as the Minutes then reported from all parts of the world which had been reached by Methodism. The latest (1865) reported number of missionary communi- cants in the Jlethodist Episcopal Church equals nearly one half the whole membership of the Church in 1819, the year in which the Missionary Society was founded, and is nearly double the membership with which the VI.-L