Let us, however, examine the missionary labours of the Protestant Church during this century from another point of view. Take the map of the world, look over its continents and islands, and contrast their condition, as to the means of grace, in 1800 and 1862.
In 1800; the only missions east of the Cape of Good Hope were in India. These were confined to the Baptist Mission, protected in the Danish settlement of Serampore; and the missions in Tanjore, in Southern India. The former was begun by Carey and Thomas, (in 1793,) who were joined by a few brethren in 1799. The first convert they made was in 1800. The latter mission had existed since 1705, and numbered about nine labourers at the commencement of the century.[A]
[Footnote A: The first Protestant missionary who visited India was Ziegenbalg, who was sent out by the Halle-Danish Missionary Society in 1705, to Tranquebar. He was joined by Plutschow in 1719. The mission was then adopted by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. Grundler followed in 1720, and Schultze in 1727. The mission, in 1736, had four stations, one being in Madras; 24 native assistants; and 3517 baptized members! The great Schwartz laboured in, and extended the mission from 1749 till 1798. According to Dr Carey, 40,000 had been converted to Christianity during the last century through this mission. Dr Claudius Buchanan reckons the number as high as 80,000!]
Of the East India Company's chaplains, Claudius Buchanan alone had the courage to advocate in India the missionary cause; and his sermon preached upon the subject in 1800, in Calcutta, was then generally deemed a bold and daring step. Hindustan was closed by the East India Company against the missionaries of the Christian Church. China, too, seemed hermetically sealed against the gospel. The Jesuit mission had failed. Christianity was proscribed by an imperial edict. Protestant missions had not commenced. The language of the nation, like its walls, seemed to forbid all access to the missionary. In Africa there were but few missionaries, and these had lately arrived at the Cape.[A] In the black midnight which brooded over that miserable land, the cry of tortured slaves alone was heard. New Zealand, Australia, and the scattered islands of the Southern Seas had not yet been visited by one herald of the gospel. A solitary beacon gleaming on the ocean from the missionary ship Duff had indeed been seen, but not yet welcomed by the savages of Tahiti. The mission was abandoned in 1809, and not a convert left behind! No Protestant missionary had preached to those Indian tribes beyond the Colonies, who wandered over the interminable plains which stretch from Behring's Straits to Cape Horn. Mohammedan States were all shut up against the gospel; and to forsake the Crescent for the Cross, was to die. In this thick darkness which covered heathendom, the only light to be seen—except in India—was in the far north, shed by the self-denying Moravians,—a light which streamed like a beautiful aurora over the wintry snow and ice-bound coasts of Greenland. To this gloomy picture we must add the indifference of the Protestant Church to God's ancient people. No society then existed for their conversion; and of them it might indeed be said, "This is Israel, whom no man seeketh after!"
[Footnote A: The first missionary to South Africa was George Schmidt, sent by the Moravian Brethren in 1736. He laboured alone with some success till 1743, when he was compelled by the Dutch East India Company to return to Europe. The mission was resumed in 1792, when three additional missionaries sailed for the Cape. A few others joined them in 1798. At the beginning of the century, the converts amounted to 304. The illustrious Dr Vanderkemp, along with three other missionaries, were sent to South Africa by the London Missionary Society in 1799. The only attempts made to Christianise Western Africa previous to 1800 were by the Moravians in Guinea, in 1737; but all the missionaries, eleven in number, dying, the attempt was abandoned; and by the Scottish Missionary Society, in 1797, who sent thither six missionaries. One (Greig) was murdered, another (Brunton) returned, and went to Tartary; the rest, we believe, went to oilier spheres of labour. The Church Missionary Society entered upon this field in 1801.]
How changed is the aspect of the world now! There is hardly a spot upon earth (if we except those enslaved by Popery) where the Protestant missionary may not preach the gospel without the fear of persecution. The door of the world has been thrown open, and the world's Lord and Master commands and invites His servants to enter, and, in His name, to take possession of the nations. Since 1812, India, chiefly through the exertions of Mr Wilberforce,[A] has been made accessible to the missionaries of every Church. Christian schools and chapels have been multiplied; colleges have been instituted; thousands have been converted to Christ; and tens of thousands instructed in Christianity. The cruelties of heathenism have been immensely lessened; infanticide prohibited; Sutteeism abolished; all Government support withdrawn from idolatry; and the Hindu law of inheritance has been altered to protect the native converts; while a new era seems to be heralded by the fact that a native Christian rajah has himself established a mission among his people.
[Footnote A: In 1812, we find from Mr Wilberforce's Life (vol. iv., p. 10) how he was "busily engaged in reading, thinking, consulting, and persuading," on the renewal of the East India Company's charter. He was fully alive to the importance of the crisis with reference to the interests of Christianity. He thus writes to his friend Mr Butterworth:—"I have been long looking forward to the period of the renewal of the East India Company's charter as to a great era, when I hoped that it would please God to enable the friends of Christianity to be the instruments of wiping away what I have long thought, next to the slave-trade, the foulest blot on the moral character of our countrymen—the suffering our fellow-subjects (nay, they even stand toward us in the closer relation of our tenants) in the East Indies to remain, without any effort on our part to enlighten and inform them, under the grossest, the darkest, and most depraving system of idolatrous superstition that almost ever existed on earth." The deepest anxiety was felt by all Christians for the issue of the debate. "I heard afterwards," he writes, "that many good men were praying for us all night." These prayers and efforts were crowned with success; and Mr Wilberforce, when communicating the joyful news to his wife, writes—"Blessed be God! we carried our question triumphantly, about three, or later, this morning!">[
All the islands in the Eastern Archipelago are now accessible to the missionary; most of them have been visited. Ceylon has flourishing congregations and schools; Madagascar has had her martyrs, and has still her indomitable confessors.
China, with its teeming millions, has also been opened to the gospel. The way had been marvellously prepared by Dr Morrison, who as early as 1807 had commenced the study of the language which he lived to master. Accordingly, when the conquests of Britain had obtained admission for, and secured protection to the missionaries as well as to the merchants of all nations, the previous indefatigable labours of Morrison had provided, for the immediate use of the Church of Christ, a dictionary of the language, and a translation of the Word of God. The Christian religion is tolerated by law since 1844, and may be professed freely by the natives. The gospel is now advancing in that thickly-peopled land of patience and industry, and native preachers are already proclaiming to their countrymen the tidings of salvation.
Africa has witnessed changes still more wonderful. The abolition of the British slave-trade in 1807, and of slavery in the British dominions in 1834, has removed immense barriers in the way of the gospel. The whole coasts of Africa are being girdled with the light of truth. It has penetrated throughout the south, where the French[A] and German Protestant Churches labour side by side with those of Britain to civilise the degraded Bushman, the low Hottentot, and warlike Kaffir. The chapel in Sierra Leone, built from the planks of condemned slavers, and containing 1000 worshippers, is a type of the blessings brought through Christianity to injured Africa.