THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
It is true that the missionary idea had at this time found entrance into a restricted circle. The primal impulse came from William 2. Carey Carey, a self-taught but gifted man of and the remarkable linguistic capacity. By English three different means he set in motion
Missionary the missionary movement in 1792: (1) Societies, by a tract: An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathen; (2) by a powerful sermon on Isa. liv. 2, 3; and (3) by the foundation of the Baptist Missionary Society, as whose first messenger he went himself to India, where he developed a powerful activity, especially of a literary sort, which opened up the way for the modern missions. This had a stimulating effect far beyond the Baptist denomination. Already in 1794 an appeal for missions was made to all Evangelical pedobaptist dissenters, and it was heartily approved, even by the bishops, of whom Dr. Haweis was the leader. As a result of this beginning, the London Missionary Society, in which great numbers participated, was founded, which in the course of time became essentially an organ of the Independents. Partly shamed by these enterprises of the dissenters, and partly hindered by their Anglican conceptions from joining with them, such members of the Evangelical party in the Established Church as came together under the leadership of John Venn, Charles Simeon, William Wilberf orce, and others, united for the founding of an Anglican missionary society, the Church Missionary Society for Africa and the East, in 1799. In the beginning, it had a thorny path to travel; the bishops held back and the first missionaries had to be drawn from Germany; but after its great secretary Henry Venn succeeded, in 1841, in establishing a modus vivendi with the episcopate, and it was found that the society became more and more the backbone of the Evangelical tendency in the Established Church in its struggle against ritualism, it developed little by little into the greatest of all Evangelical missionary societies.
So, in the course of scarcely seven years, three epoch-making missionary organizations were called into existence, and with them the missionary activity of Protestantism entered not only into an entirely new phase, but also obtained
3. Results the firm foundation which was an ason the surance of healthy progress. This was
Continent. at first apparent in the fact that the new missionary movement spread also on the continent of Europe and in North America. This had already been the case with the English revival movement, which had exercised a vivifying influence on Germany, Holland, France, and the United States, rejuvenating the older Pietism which had found a new guardian in the German Christian Society founded in 1780 and having its home in Basel. Between these circles and the English missionary organizations an earnest accord was established, which resulted not only in awakening a lively interest in missions, but also led to the founding of independent missionary organizations, first in Holland, through the instrumentality of John van der Kemp (1747-1811), who at the age of fifty went to South Africa as the pioneer of the London Mis-
sionary Society. Then occurred the founding of the Dutch Missionary Society (1797); and later, in Germany, the establishment of the first missionary school by the Berlin Pastor Johann Janicke (1800); this, however, confined itself to sending educated missionaries to the missions already established. In 1815 occurred the founding in Basel of what was also at first only a missionary school, but in 1822 became an independent missionary institution. Only in 1824 did France enter the modern missionary movement by the founding of missionary societies, while such organizations had been formed in North America as early as 1810.
4. Missionary Organizations: Not only in England but on the continent the State churches held aloof from the missionary movement 1. Eoclesi- and even assumed an attitude of hosastioal tility. This trying situation left two Attitude alternatives open to the friends of mistoward sions: either to refrain from mission- Missions. ary activity or to call into being organizations independent of the State churches, and they naturally decided upon the latter course; and since the new missions received no support from the colonial governments, but rather encountered open hostility, they were dependent upon the voluntary service of Christians. The independent societies were recognized as new corporate bodies which, through the organization of Christian endeavor, had brought about an intensified activity in the churches; so that, at the present time, the most friendly relations of mutual assistance exist between the State churches and the independent missionary organizations. Apart from the small Moravian church, it is only in the Scotch churches and in certain of the American denominations that missions were from the beginning the care of the churches as such. But even when they formed a pact of the church activity, the expenses of maintenance were covered by voluntary contributions. These have grown from very small sums to very considerable ones, and they now reach the amount of nearly $20,000,000 yearly in all Evangelical Christendom.
When the State churches refused this task, a second difficulty arose; no theological graduates could be found for mission work. The old 2. The Dutch and the Danish-Halle missions Training of had employed only theological grad- Mission- uates in the missionary service; when aries. these were lacking, it became necessary to follow the example of the United Brethren and to send out lay missionaries. At first but little stress was laid upon education; soon, however, missionary schools were established whose course of four to six years became gradually more thorough and systematic. Excepting in America and Scotland, where it was from the beginning the rule to draw the missionaries from the theological seminaries or from the universities, the missionary societies in Protestant countries have founded schools for their missionaries. Only from the last third of the nineteenth century has the percentage of theological graduates who have entered the missionary field become considerable, especially in England; on the continent it is still