\ STUDIA IN

THE LIBRARY

of VICTORIA UNIVERSITY

Toronto

A SHORT HISTORY OF WESLEYAN METHODIST FOREIGN MISSIONS

A SHORT HISTORY OF

WESLEYAN METHODIST

FOREIGN MISSIONS

BY

JOHN TELFORD, B.A.

AUTHOR OF ' MAKERS OF OUR MISSIONS,' ' WOMEN IN THE MISSION FIELD,' 'POPULAR HISTORY OF WESLEYAN METHODIST MISSIONS/ ETC.

CHARLES H. KELLY

2 CASTLE STREET, CITY ROAD, AND 26 PATERNOSTER ROW, B.C.

BY

K

PRINTED BY

HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD., LONDON AND AYLESBVRY.

3-37^3,

2£-*- 13.

PREFACE

THIS History appears at a moment when the mission ary spirit of Methodism has found memorable expression in the removal of a burdensome debt and a large addition to the annual income of the Society. The facts given in this volume abundantly justify the confidence of our Church, and show that the sacrifices it has made during the last century and a quarter for the spread of the gospel are bearing fruit for which we can never cease to be grateful to God.

If the History helps in any measure to supply fuller knowledge of the work and workers of the past and the tasks of the present, the writer will be well rewarded for the enormous labour involved in preparing such a record. The history of each mission can be traced chrono logically by following the references given in the Index. The penny History of Missions may also be of service for more general distribution.

The proof-sheets have been read by the Revs. J. Milton Brown, W. H. Findlay, M.A., and Henry Haigh, to whom the author is greatly indebted for many valuable corrections and suggestions. Miss Hellier has also kindly revised the passage about the Women's Auxiliary.

Any help towards making the volume more complete and reliable at any point will be welcomed.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. METHODIST MISSIONS IN WESLEY'S LIFETIME 3

ii. FROM WESLEY'S DEATH TO THE CEYLON

MISSION, 1790-1812 .... 25 III. THE FORMATION OF LOCAL MISSIONARY

SOCIETIES ...... 49

iv. FROM COKE'S DEATH TO RICHARD WATSON'S,

1814-1832 . . ... 69

V. THE SECRETARYSHIP OF JABEZ BUNTING,

1833-1851 • • I07

VI. TWENTY YEARS OF PROGRESS, 1852-1871 . 135 VII. OUR OWN TIMES 171

vin. A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF OUR MISSIONS . . 241

TABLES OF DATES AND INCOME STATISTICS, LISTS OF SECRETARIES AND TREASURERS, COST OF THE WORK, ETC. . . . 273

INDEX 279

' In this way our own work is helped by the missionaries' work even as we help theirs. The two works are vitally connected : and even afar off we may make our own in some sense the triumphant witness of the mission field. The Christian Life is one : the Christian Body is one. As we each strive to fulfil the function assigned to us, conse crating the resources which are offered for our use, we do in Christ all that Christ does here, or to the uttermost part of the earth.

' Thus the occasion of our service to-day brings us a great oppor tunity. It commends to us the full meaning of our witness. It presents the petition of the world, the solemn cry of heathenism, " Come over and help us," a cry in life if not in words, with constrain ing persuasiveness. It makes it easy for us, by the influence of common feeling, by the sense of other supplications joined with our own, by the foretaste of a spontaneous unity, by the energy of a catholic power hitherto faintly realized, to co-operate, as we have not yet done, with our foreign missionaries in that work, which presents to us in the most impressive form the true ideal of our calling. If each congregation among us were to claim for itself some fragment of the mighty field, however small ; if it made it its own by prayers and alms ; if we were bold to look to the ends of the world for lessons of patience and lessons of hope, the coming of Christ's kingdom, for which we pray with vague words, would not be far off.'

BISHOP WESTCOTT, Lessons from Work, p. 226.

viii

CHAPTER I

METHODIST MISSIONS IN WESLEY'S LIFETIME

CHAPTER I

METHODIST MISSIONS IN WESLEY'S LIFETIME

WESLEY came of a stock that loved missions, and would gladly have devoted their lives and

gifts to the uplifting and salvation of

Missionary the heathen. The first John Wesley Spirit of the

Weslevs (1636-1678), grandfather of the founder

of Methodism, felt a strong desire to labour in Surinam, a settlement founded in 1650 by Francis Lord Willoughby. When this purpose had to be abandoned, he wished to go to Maryland ; but his friends opposed the project, and the expense and difficulty of removing his family to America no doubt made the plan impossible. He had to be content with home missionary labour, into which he threw himself with apostolic devotion. His son, Samuel Wesley, when between thirty and forty years of age, cherished a scheme for missionary service in India, China, and Abyssinia, which was never realized, and in the last year of his life he regretted that he was not young enough to go to Georgia.

3

METHODIST MISSIONS

One incident of Susannah Wesley's life shows how missionary devotion enriches Christian work Susannah at home. In 1712, when her husband tne^Dani^h was attending Convocation in London, Missionaries. S^Q was greatly quickened by reading an account of the young Danish missionaries, Ziegenbalg and Plutscho, whom Frederick IV of Denmark had sent out to work among the heathen in Malabar. Emily Wesley, who was then nineteen, found the missionary narrative in her father's study. Mrs. Wesley had never seen it, and got her daughter to read it to her. She says : ' I was never, I think, more affected with anything than with the relation of their travels, and was exceedingly pleased with the noble design they were engaged in. Their labours refreshed my soul beyond measure, and I could not forbear spending good part of that evening in praising and adoring the divine goodness for inspiring those good men with such an ardent zeal for His glory, that they were willing to hazard their lives, and all that is esteemed dear to men in this world, to advance the honour of their Master, Jesus. For several days I could think or speak of little else. At last it came into my mind, though I am not a man nor a minister of the gospel, and so cannot be employed in such a worthy employment as they were, yet, if my heart were sincerely devoted to God, and if

4

IN WESLEY'S LIFETIME

I were inspired with a true zeal for His glory, and did really desire the salvation of souls, I might do somewhat more than I do. I thought I might live in a more exemplary manner in some things ; I might pray more for the people, and speak with more warmth to those with whom I have an opportunity of conversing. However, I resolved to begin with my own children, and, accordingly, I proposed and observed the following method : I take such proportion of time as I can best spare every night to discourse with each child by itself, on something that relates to its principal concerns.' How much that meant for Methodism is shown by Wesley's request to his mother when he was Fellow of Lincoln College : ' If you can spare me only that little part of Thursday evening which you formerly bestowed upon me in another manner, I doubt not but it would be as useful now for correcting my heart as it was then in forming my judgement.' Mrs. Wesley's services in the rectory kitchen also gained greatly by this spiritual quickening,

On January 16, 1736, the oldest English Missionary Society, ' The Society for the Pro pagation of the Gospel,' held a meeting Wesley a at which the Bishops of London, Lich- Missionary, field and Coventry, Rochester, and Gloucester, were present. A memorial was read from the trustees for the Colony of Georgia, who recom-

5

METHODIST MISSIONS

mended ' the Rev. Mr. John Wesley ' to take the place of the Rev. Samuel Quincy, who wished to leave the colony. It was agreed that 'the Society do approve of Mr. Wesley as a proper person to be a Missionary at Georgia, and that £50 per annum be allowed to Mr. Wesley from the time Mr. Quincy's salary shall cease.'

Wesley reached Savannah the month after this minute was adopted. He hoped that a way would open for labour among the Indians : ' But upon my informing Mr. Oglethorpe of our design, he objected, not only the danger of being inter cepted, or killed by the French there ; but much more, the inexpediency of leaving Savannah destitute of a minister.' His Journal bears witness to the eagerness with which the Oxford Fellow and Tutor sought to understand the beliefs of the Indian warriors who came to the settlement. ' All, except, perhaps, the Choctaws, were gluttons, drunkards, thieves, dissemblers, liars. They are implacable, unmerciful; murderers of fathers, murderers of mothers, murderers of their own children.'

Wesley thus stood on the verge of this mission field, but was not allowed to enter it. In view of such toil his mother said, ' Had I twenty sons, I should rejoice if they were all so employed.' providence led Wesley back from America that he might be a missionary to the heathen at home.

6

IN WESLEY'S LIFETIME

On Charles Wesley's return from Georgia in 1736, he dined with his uncle, Matthew Wesley, the London doctor, who bestowed abundance of wit on John Wesley and his apostolical work in Georgia. Charles says, ' He told me the French, if they had any remarkably dull fellow among them, sent him to convert the Indians. I checked his eloquence by those lines of my brother :

To distant realms the apostle need not roam, Darkness, alas ! and heathens are at home.

He made no reply, and I heard no more of my brother's apostleship.'

WTesley set in motion the missionary work of Methodism on January 17, 1758, when he preached at Wandsworth in the house of Nathaniel Mr Giibert Gilbert, Speaker of the House of As- of Antigua, sembly in Antigua. f Two negro servants of his and a mulatto appear to be much awakened. Shall not His saving health be made known to all nations ? ' The following November Wesley rode to Wandsworth and baptized two of Mr. Gil bert's negro servants. * One of these is deeply convinced of sin ; the other rejoices in God her Saviour, and is the first African Christian I have known. But shall not our Lord, in due time, have these heathens also "for His inheritance"?'

Mr. Gilbert returned to Antigua in 1760. He urged John Fletcher to go with him as a missionary, but Fletcher, who had only recently

7

METHODIST MISSIONS

been ordained, felt that he had neither ' sufficient zeal, grace, nor talents ' for such labours. He wished cto be certain that he was converted himself before he left his converted brethren, to convert heathens.' Failing other helpers, Mr. Gilbert himself became the first Methodist mis sionary to the negroes. When he died, in 1774, there were 200 Methodists in Antigua,

In 1768 Wesley was urged to send a preacher to New York. If the right man came ' such a First flame would soon be kindled as would M^Ca^fes, never st°P til! * reached the great 1768. South Sea.' Richard Boardman and Joseph Pilmoor were ( willing to go,' and became ' the first missionaries ' of Methodism. About this time Thomas Bell wrote from Charlestown : c Mr. Wesley says the first message of the preachers is to the lost sheep of England. And are there none in America ? They have strayed from England into the wild woods here, and they are running wild after this world. They are drinking their wine in bowls, and are jumping and dancing, and serving the devil, in the groves and under the green trees. And are not these lost sheep? And will none of the preachers come here? Where is Mr. Brownfield ? Where is John Pawson ? Where is Nicholas Manners ? Are they living, and will they not come?'

The providence that had allotted Wesley his 8

IN WESLEY'S LIFETIME

life-work in England now raised up his great missionary ally. In August, 1776, he met Dr. Coke at Kingston, near Taunton. Dr Coke 'I had much conversation with him,joinsWesley- and a union then began which I trust shall never end.' Coke was born at Brecon, where his father was a doctor, in 1747, and had been ordained priest in 1772. In the summer of 1777 he cast in his lot with Wesley. He was then twenty- nine. Methodism quickly took him to its heart. His earnest and simple preaching made a deep impression. Thousands flocked to hear him in London, Wesley rejoiced when he found that Dr. Coke was reluctant to confine his labours to one congregation. He clasped his hands and said ' Brother, go out, go out, and preach the gospel to all the world.'

Coke was soon as restless an evangelist as Wesley. But his heart was too big to be satisfied with any parish save the world.

In 1784 'A Plan of the Society for the Establishment of Missions among the Heathen '

was circulated. Members were to sub- Plan for

scribe two guineas a year, and a general Missionary

Socisty.

meeting was called for the last Tuesday

in January, 1784. A first list of contributions was given amounting to £66 $s.t and a letter was addressed to John Fletcher of Madeley asking for his support. The appeal ran thus :

9

METHODIST MISSIONS

'To ALL THE REAL LOVERS OF MANKIND ~ The present institution is so agreeable to the finest feelings of piety and benevolence that little need be added for its recommendation. The candid of every denomination (even those who are entirely unconnected with the Methodists, and are determined so to be) will acknowledge the amazing change which our preaching has wrought upon the ignorant and uncivilized, at least throughout these nations ; and they will admit that the spirit of a missionary must be of the most zealous, most devoted, and self-denying kind. Nor is anything more required to con stitute a missionary for the heathen nations than good sense, integrity, great piety, and amazing zeal. Men possessing all these qualifications in a high degree we have among us, and I doubt not but some of these will accept of the arduous undertaking, not counting their lives dear if they may but promote the kingdom of Christ and the present and eternal welfare of their fellow creatures. And we trust nothing shall be wanting, as far as time, strength, and abilities will admit, to give the fullest and highest satisfaction to the promoters of the plan, on the part of 1 Your devoted servants,

'THOMAS COKE, ' THOMAS PARKER.

' Those who are willing to promote the institu- 10

IN WESLEY'S LIFETIME

tion are desired to send their names, places of abode, and sum subscribed to the Rev. Dr. Coke, in London, or Thomas Parker, Esq., Barrister-at- Law, York.'

The following April Coke consulted with Wesley as to the needs of America. On September 10, 1784, Wesley ordained him Superin- Cokein tendent of American Methodism, with AiaQTiGa'- Francis Asbury as his colleague. Richard What- coat and Thomas Vasey were ordained elders, and the little band set out to care for the Methodists whom the separation from the mother country had left as ' poor sheep in the wilder ness.'

Whilst he was abroad on his historic errand Wesley wrote to Mr. John Stretton : ' Last autumn, Dr. Coke sailed from England, and is now visiting the flock in the midland provinces of America, and settling them on the New Testament plan, to which they all willingly and joyfully conform, being all united as by one Spirit so in one body. I trust they will no more want such Pastors as are after God's own heart. After he has gone through these parts, he intends, if God permits, to see the brethren in Nova Scotia, probably attended with one or two able Preachers who will be willing to abide there. A day or two ago, I wrote and desired him, before he returns to England, to call upon our brethren also in

ii

METHODIST MISSIONS

Newfoundland, and, perhaps, leave a Preacher there likewise. About food and raiment we take no thought. Our Heavenly Father knoweth that we need these things, and He will provide. Only let us be faithful and diligent in feeding His flock. Your Preacher will be ordained.'

Coke returned to England in the summer of 1785. He preached to crowded congregations in all parts of the kingdom, and ' endeavoured to awaken in their bosoms those sentiments of mercy for the world at large which were daily exerting a more powerful influence in his own. These appeals he followed up by personal application, in public and private, for gifts and offerings to create a fund to be devoted exclusively to the new missionary enterprise.'

Coke had for some time been weighing the possibility of a mission to Africa. He had still

larger visions. The Amninian Magazine Proposals for a Mission to for 1792 contains a 'copy of a letter to

the Rev. Dr. Coke, from a respectable gentleman in the East Indies (it is dated "Maldai, February 19, 1785 ") respecting a mission thither.' Coke had written Mr. Grant, of the East India Company, father of Lord Glenelg and Sir Robert Grant, in January, 1784, as to the ' conversion of the Gentoos to the faith of Christ.' Mr. Grant replied * that in the course of twenty years, during which we have possessed extensive territories here,

12

IN WESLEY'S LIFETIME

there should have been no public institution for carrying on such work, must doubtless have been matter of regret to many.' He was willing to support a mission if it were ' on principles entirely catholic.' To Coke's inquiry, ' What are the dis positions of the Hindoos, and the probability of their conversion ? ' he answered : c With respect to the probabilities of converting either the Hindoos or Mahometans, I am sorry to say that, humanly speaking, they appear to be very small.' An experienced Christian long familiar with the Danish Mission on the coast of Coromandel assures him * there is no hope of instructing, converting, and baptizing the natives, without a standing mission, that is, a fixed establishment, with some means belonging to it ; not only because as soon as a poor native resolves to turn Christian he is cast off by his dearest relations for ever, obliged to forsake wife and children, denied work, left to perish for want, if not killed by his own kinsmen ; but because they are the poor, the distressed, the disabled, those who are brought low through affliction that will first relish the gospel doctrine ; and such persons will need either employment, by which they may earn a maintenance, or charity whereon to subsist ; and from hence arises the necessity of some resources and funds which can only consist with a fixed establishment.'

Coke replied from Southampton, January 25, 13

METHODIST MISSIONS

1786: 'At present our openings in America, and the pressing invitations we have lately received from Nova Scotia, the West Indies, and the States, call for all the help we can possibly afford our brethren in that quarter of the world. . . . Mr. Wesley is of opinion that not less than half a dozen should be at first sent on such a mission/ Coke adds, ' As soon as the present extraordinary calls from America are answered, I trust we shall be able to turn our thoughts to Bengal.'

In March, 1786, Coke issued a letter to his English supporters :

' DEARLY BELOVED IN THE LORD, — Some time past I took the liberty of addressing you in behalf of a mission intended to be established in the British dominions in Asia ; and many of you very generously entered into that important plan. We have not, indeed, lost sight of it at present ; on the contrary, we have lately received a letter of encouragement from a principal gentleman in the province of Bengal. But the providence of God has lately opened to us so many doors nearer home that Mr. Wesley thinks it imprudent to hazard, at present, the lives of any of our preachers by sending them to so great a distance, and amidst so many uncertainties and difficulties, when so large a field of action is afforded us in countries to which we have so much easier admittance, and where the success, through the blessing of God, is more or less certain.'

14

IN WESLEY'S LIFETIME

Wesley expressed his warm approval of Dr. Coke's plans in a prefatory note. ' It is not easy/ he added, * to conceive the extreme want there is, in all these places, of men that will not count their lives dear unto themselves, so they may testify the gospel of the grace of God.'

The door to the East was closed as yet, but Coke was not idle. Emigrants from England and New York had planted Methodism in Nova Scotia, where there were now 300 white members and 200 negroes in the Methodist Society. In September, 1786, Coke sailed from Gravesend for Nova Scotia with three preachers — Messrs. Hammet, Warrener, and Clarke.

A series of gales drove their vessel to the West Indies, and on Christmas morning, 1786, the missionary party landed at Antigua, coke lands In the streets of St. John's, Coke met *» Antigua. John Baxter on his way to preach to his negro congregation. He had been sent out from Chat ham in 1778 as a naval shipwright, and had taken over the care of the society formed by Nathaniel Gilbert and kept together after his death by two female slaves.

In the chapel, which Baxter had largely built with his own hands, Coke says, * I read prayers, preached, and administered the sacrament. I had one of the cleanest audiences I ever saw. All the negro women were dressed in white linen gowns,

METHODIST MISSIONS

petticoats, handkerchiefs, and caps ; and the men as neatly. In the afternoon and evening I had very large congregations.'

Ten days later he reports, ' I have preached in this town twice a day ; the house full half an hour before the time. Our Society in this island is near 2,000; but the ladies and gentlemen of the town have so filled the house that the poor dear negroes who built it have been almost entirely shut out, except in the mornings.' Coke and his companions were invited by the company of merchants to dine with Prince William Henry (afterwards William IV) who was in command of a frigate on that station. A gentleman intimated that he would provide £500 a year if Coke would stay in the island, but, he says, ' God be praised, £500,000 a year would be to me a feather, when opposed to my usefulness in the Church of Christ.'

Coke was invited to visit the other islands. Messrs. Baxter, Hammet and Clarke went with him. Mr. Warrener was left at Antigua. Mr. Clarke was stationed at St. Vincent, where several of the chief residents promised their support. The negroes were overjoyed : ' These men have been imported for us.' Coke felt the call ' as clear as if it had been written with a sunbeam.' Mr. Hammet was fixed at St. Christopher's, where Coke had had a warm welcome from the principal inhabitants and the clergyman of the parish.

16

IN WESLEY'S LIFETIME

On the Dutch island of St. Eustatius some free negroes were waiting Coke's arrival. They had heard that he was coming and had fitted Black up a cottage for him at their own ex- Har]T- pense. A Methodist slave had recently come from the United States and had publicly preached to the coloured people. He attracted large congregations, and the Governor of the island himself came to hear Black Harry. At one meeting sixteen persons fell to the ground and lay for hours insensible through the agony of conviction. The planters took fright and the preacher was silenced. Only the inter vention of the chief judge saved him from being cruelly flogged. Dr. Coke arrived on the day that Black Harry was silenced. He was not allowed to preach, but he formed the persecuted flock into classes and strengthened their hands by his counsels and prayers. After a considerable interval the negro apostle ventured to pray openly with his brethren. For this offence he was publicly whipped imprisoned, and banished from the island. For ten years his fate was a mystery. In 1796 Dr. Coke was preaching in America, when a black man followed him to his room. He immediately recog nized him as Harry, of St. Eustatius. He had been shipped to the continent with a cargo of slaves, and had since escaped the brutal treatment he had suffered in former years. He was still an active member of the Methodist Society. ' Thus,' c 17

METHODIST MISSIONS

says Dr. Coke, ' an answer has been given from heaven to the petitions of many thousands in England, who at one time, with great fervour, spread his case before the Lord.'

On Coke's departure for Charlestown his black friends loaded him with * seed-cakes, sweet biscuits, oranges, bottles of jelly,' in such profusion that he and his seven fellow-passengers had not consumed half of them when they reached the mainland.

Coke remained in America till the end of April, 1787, astonished and delighted to find Methodism spreading through the States. He was able to give a glorious report to Wesley and the Irish Conference in Dublin. All recognized that the time had come to undertake missionary work in the West Indies. Coke begged subscriptions from door to door. He then went with Wesley and eleven Irish preachers to the Conference in Manchester, where he was able to announce a membership of 25,000 in America and 2,950 in the new missions. Dr. Coke had ' now begun that systematic course of application for pecuniary help to the cause of missions, in the fulfilment of which he stands unrivalled among the agents of Christianity.' The funds thus obtained enabled Mr. Wesley in 1788 to send preachers to Newfoundland and additional missionaries to the West Indies.

Coke was soon on the Atlantic with three recruits for the West Indies. After a delightful voyage he

18

IN WESLEY'S LIFETIME

landed at Bridgetown, Barbados, with Mr. Pearce. Mr. Lumb and Mr. Gamble went on to St. Vincent.

Some soldiers whom Mr. Pearce had

Second Visit

known in Ireland had secured a large to West

Indies, room for services. There Coke preached

to 300 people, about twice as many being unable to get in. The merchant who lent this place had frequently heard Coke preach in Maryland, and four of his black servants had been baptized by the Methodist bishop. They met friends everywhere who promised to support Mr. Pearce in his work.

Coke went on to St. Vincent, where he explored the Carib settlement with Mr. Baxter, Mr. Gamble, and Mr. Clarke. The narrow paths over the mountains were almost impassable. In one place some Caribs had to lend them cutlasses to cut a pathway. Below the great mountain was a beautiful plain, seven miles long and three wide, which was washed by the ocean. ' Here the Caribs chiefly dwell. They are a handsomer people than the negroes, but have a warlike appearance. The very women carry cutlasses, or naked knives, at their sides.' Mr. Baxter had already taken measures for the establishment of schools among them. He had won the affection of the people, and gained con siderable knowledge of their language. Coke urged him to spend two years among them. ' Great as the cross was to that good man, who expected to return to his beloved Antigua, he immediately

19

METHODIST MISSIONS

consented.' The chief entertained his visitors with a large dish of eggs, cassava-bread, and a bowl of punch. William Carey says, in his famous Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians, to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens (1792), 'The late Mr. Wesley lately made an effort in the West Indies, and some of their ministers are now labour ing among the Caribs and negroes, and I have seen pleasing accounts of their success.'

The fruits of the year's work were encouraging. There was an increase of a thousand members in Antigua, 700 at St. Christopher's. At St. Eustatius the Council had threatened any one who preached, or even offered prayer in public, with fines, imprisonment, flogging, and transporta tion. Coke ventured to baptize 140 members. There were 258 meeting in Society classes. Coke preached on the Sunday, but had to promise that he would not do so again. * Having nothing more at present to do in this place of tyranny, we returned to St. Kitts, blessing God for a British constitution and a British government.' Everywhere else he was received with the utmost kindness. Before he crossed to Charlestown, missionary agencies had been set in operation in ten of the islands, which had 260,000 inhabitants.

As he returned from America some weeks later, Captain Cook's Voyages to the Pacific Ocean and

20

IN WESLEY'S LIFETIME

Carver's Travels among the Indians in North America afforded Coke 'great entertainment.1 He thought much of the loss of life and injury to the morals of the natives through our voyages of discovery, but added that ' if missions for the establishment of the gospel were set on foot, and through the blessing of God succeeded,' there would be compensation indeed. Even Coke did not dream of the coming transforma tion of Fiji.

21

CHAPTER II

FROM WESLEY'S DEATH

TO THE

CEYLON MISSION, 1790-1812

CHAPTER II

FROM WESLEY'S DEATH TO THE CEYLON MISSION, 1790-1812

SOME facts as to other missionary effort of the eighteenth century may set Coke's work in its historical framework. The Society for the Pro pagation of the Gospel sent out its first missionary to North America in 1702. Its labours were almost exclusively confined to British settlements across the Atlantic, and it was in a very feeble state at the end of the eighteenth century. It was only able to keep up its grants to the Colonies by means of the interest on its invested funds, its voluntary income being then under ;£8oo a year. William Carey's Enquiry was written in 1788, and published in 1792. The Baptist Missionary Society was founded at Kettering on October 2, 1792. The contributions for that year were £13 2s. 6d. On June 13, 1793, Carey and his family sailed for Calcutta.

A letter from Carey to Dr. Ryland, of Bristol, giving the first news of his arrival in India, led to the formation of the London Missionary

25

FROM WESLEY'S DEATH TO

Society in September, 1795. The Board of Directors considered a message from Dr. Coke, Missions in an<^ wrote him that it was 'the pur- Eighteenth Pose °f tnis Society to act as brethren century, towards missionaries from other de nominations.' The first mission party sailed for Tahiti in 1796. On April 12, 1799, the Church Missionary Society was founded at a meeting of sixteen clergymen and nine laymen, at the Castle and Falcon, Aldersgate Street, London. John Venn, Rector of Clapham, was in the chair. The first agents were sent out in 1803.

The Methodist Missionary Society was not formed for some years after the great sister Societies, but Methodist Missions are much older than the Methodist Missionary Society. Dr. Coke made his first voyage across the Atlantic in 1784, eight years before the Baptist Missionary Society was born, eleven years before the London Missionary Society was founded, and fifteen years before the Church Missionary Society started on its course of blessing.

Up to 1790, the burden of the missions rested on Dr. Coke's shoulders. c The missionary enter prise began to stir the conscience of First

Missionary the Church ; and in the Methodist Committee.

communion it took this year some thing like an organic form, by the appointment of a corporate body who should be charged

26

THE CEYLON MISSION

with its administration — the first Methodist " Missionary Committee." The minute of Con ference appointing it reads : ' The Committee for the management of our affairs in the West Indies : Thomas Coke, Alexander Mather, Thomas Rankin, James Rogers, Henry Moore, Adam Clarke, John Baxter, William Warrener, Matthew Lumb.' There were nineteen missionaries at eleven stations in the West Indies, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland, with 5,350 members. Metho dism was the first church that regarded its missionary work as an integral part of its system, as directly under the rule of the Conference as its home work.

In October, 1790, Coke was again on his way to the West Indies. He had been sixteen months in England begging for the cause that The lay so near to his heart. Two new Caribs- helpers, Mr. Lyons and Mr. Worrell, sailed with him. Mr. Pearce had built a chapel in Bridge town to accommodate 700. Mr. Lyons was left there to help him. When Coke reached St. Vincent he visited the Societies, and rode to the borders of the Carib-land. Mr. Baxter had found the people so unresponsive that he had reluctantly withdrawn from the mission. * When Mrs. Baxter took her leave of some of them she wept bitterly, and prayed that they might have another call, and accept, and not reject it, as

27

FROM WESLEY'S DEATH TO

they did the late one.' Others were more enlightened. There was ' a prospect of a great flame throughout the island. Even many of the Roman Catholics prefer our missionaries to their own priests, and have sent for Mr. Baxter to baptize their children.'

Coke had visited Jamaica in January, 1789. Four or five families of some social distinction Religion in received him with much kindness, and Jamaica, promised a cordial reception to any missionaries who were sent out. The need was urgent. Sunday, the day of the public market, was spent in business and recreation. Out of a population of 400,000, scarcely 500 entered a place of worship. William Hammet was ap pointed to Kingston, but soon after his arrival violent opposition broke out. His life was endangered. The planters and white people, who were living in a state of open immorality, threatened to pull down the large chapel erected on the parade. Strong friends came forward to support Mr. Hammet, but when Coke arrived he lay ill with fever and ague, worn almost to a skeleton with labour and anxiety. Coke ventured to reopen the chapel on the evening of his arrival, and had a large audience. The only hope of Mr. Hammet's recovery was to get him to a cooler climate. Coke says : ' I determined to take him with me to America. He has been

28

THE CEYLON MISSION

employed in the most arduous undertakings in these islands. The two most flourishing Societies in the West Indies, Antigua excepted, were raised by his indefatigable labours ; and there are but few in the world with whom I have been acquainted that possess the proper apostolic spirit in an equal degree with him.'

Coke now proceeded to Charlestown, where he met Bishop Asbury. The news of Wesley's death made him hasten to England. pr0gressin The Conference of 1791 appointed West Indies- him its Secretary and delegate to the West Indies. The President and eight other ministers were ' the committee for examining accounts, letters, missionaries that are to be sent to the islands, &c.' Wilberforce had now come for ward as the champion of the slave, and the interest in the West Indies was growing. The Methodists had seized the providential moment, and their mission to the negroes excited general interest and sympathy.

The change in the negroes gave strong evidence of the reality of the work. Dr. Coke refers with great thankfulness to the ' happy deaths ' of some of the converts, and to their patience under suffer ing and trial. The missionaries exerted a whole some influence on the slaves. Formerly during their saturnalian holidays strong military guards had been needed to preserve the peace. Now such

29

FROM WESLEY'S DEATH TO

precautions were unnecessary. When the French threatened to invade Tortola, and the whites were too feeble to defend it, the Governor asked the missionary whether the negroes might be trusted. Mr. Turner pledged himself for their fidelity, and consented to go with them to the field. The French squadron was amazed at the show of force, and retired after cutting two vessels out of the bay. The Governor of the Leeward Islands was not slow to discern the value of this new arm of defence. He called upon our missionaries in St. Christopher's and Antigua to report the number of slaves who could bear arms, and they were promptly enrolled on the military force. In recognition of this service the English Government offered passages to our missionaries in the Falmouth packets for Bermuda and Jamaica ' without payment of the king's head money.'

Yet even the manifest service rendered by the Mission could not reconcile some of its enemies to its progress. Hardly had Mr. Stephenson, one of the preachers sent out by favour of the Government, arrived in Jamaica than the local authorities bestirred themselves. In 1800 a law was passed by the legislature of Jamaica for bidding any one to preach unless he belonged to the Church of England or the Church of Scot land. Mr. Stephenson was cast into prison for

30

THE CEYLON MISSION

disobeying this law. On Dr. Coke's appeal the law was disallowed by the king in council, and Mr. Stephenson released from prison, but he never recovered his strength. Seven years later a law was passed in Jamaica forbidding any ' Methodist missionary or other sectary to instruct slaves, or receive them into their houses, chapels, or conventicles of any sort.' This oppressive enactment was repealed after eighteen months, on appeal to the Home Government. Towards the end of 1815 the chapels, some of which had been closed by law for ten years, were allowed to be reopened, and the people, 'with joy sparkling in their eyes, and feelings of gratitude visibly portrayed on their counten ances, came up once more to the house of the Lord.'

On September i, 1792, Coke set out on his fifth voyage across the Atlantic. He attended the

General Conference at Baltimore, and

Persecution sailed for St. Eustatius on December 12. in the

There the little Methodist Society had almost dwindled to nothing. It had its heroines. Two negresses had been publicly flogged for attend ing a Methodist prayer-meeting. * While under the severe lashes of the common executioner, and when great furrows were made in their bleeding backs, they triumphantly told the multitude that they preferred their torments above all the gold

FROM WESLEY'S DEATH TO

and silver in the world. In short, they gave such proofs of the power of religion, of patient suffering and victorious faith, that some principal gentlemen who were present acknowledged it was a thousand pities they should suffer at all. But nothing could move the Governor.'

At St. Vincent also persecution had broken out. Coke found Mr. Lumb confined in the common jail for preaching. The legislature had passed an Act forbidding any one to preach without a licence, and as such a licence was only granted to those who had resided twelve months on the island, it struck a hard blow at the Methodist missions. There were now 1,000 negro members in St. Vincent. The work was spreading over the group. By February, 1793, there were twelve preachers in the West Indies, and 6,570 members, most of whom were negroes. After visiting Barbados and Jamaica, Coke sailed for England. His vessel had a narrow escape from a French privateer, which was gaining on it apace when Lord Hood's fleet, bound for the Mediterranean, appeared in sight ' Joyfully did we sail into the midst of our friends, while the privateer made off towards the coast of France. Thus did Providence deliver us. Then praise the Lord, O my soul.'

After due inquiry, the English Government dis annulled the Act of the Assembly of St. Vincent, and ' those Neros in miniature who had imprisoned

32

THE CEYLON MISSION

good Matthew Lumb ' really rendered service to the West Indian Missions. In 1794 Dr. Coke visited Holland on behalf of the sufferers in St. Eustatius, but found the jealousy of foreign agency among the negroes too great to be overcome. The Conference of 1793 faced a momentous question : ' The fund for the support of the

Missions in the West Indies being

General exhausted, yea, considerably in debt, Collection

f . 1. /• , -T-i for Missions,

what can be done for its relief ? The

answer was, ' A general collection shall be made for the missions in our congregations, for this year.' Coke published his accounts from August, 1787, to August, 1793. He had himself given £917 ifs. 2^d, and lent £1,200 for chapels in the West Indies. He cancelled these claims, and in August, 1 794, there was a clean balance-sheet. The Minutes for 1 794 say : ' There is to be no General Conference in the West Indies the ensuing year : i. Because the expense will be enormous on account of the war. 2dly, Because of the great dangers arising from the French privateers, which infest those seas. 3dly, Because the removals of preachers in the West Indies are very few.' In 1796 Conference directed : ' Let a general collection be made by the preachers in every town in England where Dr. Coke has not made application within six months before the meeting of the Conference ; and let the money so collected be deposited in the hands of Mr. D 33

FROM WESLEY'S DEATH TO

Whitfield.' Henceforth the collection was made every year.

Coke now planned an industrial mission to settle in the Foulah country, beyond Sierra Leone. He

took great pains in selecting its members, Sierra Leone

and the who sailed in February, 1796. Unfor- Clapham Sect.

tunately, they quarrelled, and the colony

had to be abandoned. Methodism was thus linked to Zachary Macaulay, William Wilberforce, and other members of the Clapham Sect. When Zachary Macaulay was on his way to Sierra Leone as Governor he wrote : ' I am pestered almost to death with Dr. Coke and his missionaries.' Coke also enlisted the help of Wilberforce, who was often amused by the oddities of the doctor. When the account of Coke's visit to America in Wesley's Life was read to him he said, ' Southey never could have seen the doctor. I wish I could forget his little round face and short figure. Any one who wished to take off a Methodist could not have done better than exactly copy his manner and appearance. He looked a mere boy when he was turned fifty, with such a smooth apple face, and little round mouth, that if it had been forgotten you might have made as good a one by thrusting in your thumb. He was waiting once to see me in a room, into which some accident brought Bankes. The doctor made, I suppose, some strange demon stration, for he sent Bankes to Milner's room,

34

THE CEYLON MISSION

saying in amazement, " What extraordinary people Wilberforce does get around him ! " Wilberforce gave £50 for the Foulah mission, and when things turned out badly he wrote to Zachary Macaulay on July 4, 1796 : * Yet we must not be discouraged. But this event confirms me in the wish to set up an institution for educating and training missionaries, of which a few of ourselves should be the managers.' On November 9, 1/97, he writes in his journal: ' Dined and slept at Battersea Rise for missionary meeting — Simeon, Charles Grant, Venn. Some thing, but not much, done. Simeon in earnest.'

In the Minutes of Conference for 1796, below the entry ' Missionaries for Africa, Archibald Murdoch, William Patten,' we find it noted that Dr. Coke reported his failure, ' and after prayer and mature consideration, the Conference unanimously judged that a trial should be made in that part of Africa on the proper missionary plan, The two brethren above-mentioned having voluntarily offered them selves for this important work, the Conference solemnly appointed them for it, and earnestly recommended them and their great enterprise to the public and private prayers of the Methodist Society.'

Dr. Coke's strength and time had been largely devoted to the home work during the anxious period that followed the death of Wesley. In August, 1796, he sailed for Baltimore to attend the

35

FROM WESLEY'S DEATH TO

General Conference. There he proposed to labour as Asbury's colleague, visiting the West Indies or France when he could be spared. Asbury was delighted, but the English Conference asked Coke to retain his relation to it, as he had often been a peacemaker in the anxious years that followed the death of Wesley, and was greatly needed in the disturbed state of the societies.

Coke returned to England in March, 1797, and was elected President of the Conference at Leeds.

America ^n August he crossed the Atlantic again, wants Coke. His vessd wag taken by a French

privateer, and the President of the Methodist Conference became a prisoner. He regained his liberty in time to attend the November Conference in Virginia. He reported that the English Con ference could not afford to give up its missionary bishop to America. There were then more than 1,000 travelling and local preachers in the States, so that Bishop Asbury sorely needed his colleague. No other helpers could be appointed till the General Conference of 1800. When that drew near the English Conference of 1799 wrote: ' We are satisfied that the work of God and the good of the Church, considered at large, call for his (Dr. Coke's) continuance in Europe. The West Indian missions have flourished under his super intendence beyond our most sanguine expectations. About 11,000 have been added to the Church

36

THE CEYLON MISSION

of God among the poor negroes in that part of the world. But there is no person, at present, to fill his place, and raise the necessary supplies. We, indeed, help him in a degree ; but are satisfied that the work of God in those islands would receive essential injury on his secession from it.'

One little incident belongs to this period. Mrs. Fletcher, in 1798, offered Coke the remaining copies of her husband's poem, La Grace et la Nature, with her wish that ' the profit should be personal.' The doctor asked her to send them to Mr. Bruce, the bookseller in City Road, ' my agent for all my little matters,' who would bind a hundred copies. He says: 'Whatever I can spare myself, as well as receive from others, I apply to the carrying on of the great work of God among the negroes, a work which particularly lies upon me.'

In 1799 Dr. Coke devoted much attention to a mission among the Irish peasantry. Charles Graham and Gideon Ouseley were two of Mi^km in the first missionaries. They wore velvet Ireland- caps, and preached on horseback in the fairs and markets. The 'Black Caps,' or 'Cavalry Preachers,' were soon well known in Ireland, and many of the ignorant and superstitious were led into the light of the gospel.

Mr. Etheridge says the work in the West Indies had now * attained such a massive importance as to involve a vast amount of pecuniary care. To

37

FROM WESLEY'S DEATH TO

meet these responsibilities, Dr. Coke not only drained his own private resources, but toiled coke finds fr°m day to day like a common a Wife, mendicant' At Bristol in 1805, he asked John Pawson, the superintendent of the circuit, to give him the names of any who were likely to help him. ' Why,' said Mr. Pawson, ' there is a lady now staying at the Hot Wells, who, I should not wonder, would give you some thing handsome ; and, if you like, I will show you myself where she is lodging.' To his delight and astonishment, Miss Smith promised that she would give him ;£ioo if he could call at her home in Bradford (Wilts). WThen the doctor went she made it £200. He had found a kindred spirit, and soon won her consent to share his life and labours.

Coke published no missionary balance-sheet

between 1794 and 1803. Whilst he was out of

Missionary England in 1803, his accounts were in

Accounts. the hands of the Book steward, who

got them hopelessly mixed with his own accounts. Jabez Bunting, then a young minister in London, was called in to help. He writes : ' All next week my places are to be supplied, that I may be at liberty to attend to the affairs of the missions and of the Book Committee.' In the middle of that week, December 28, 1803, he reports: ' I am quite tired of the cares of business, and should be glad

38

THE CEYLON MISSION

instantly to return to my accustomed duties. I find so bustling a life, spent in such employments, not very favourable to my spiritual interests. Pray for me. I never needed help more.' The London ministers formed a Committee of Finance and Advice, consisting of themselves and lay members of the Committee of Privileges. Mr. William Marriott was treasurer, Mr. Joseph Butterworth secretary. The Conference of 1804 dissolved this committee, as * they choose to manage the missions in future, only by their General Superintendent, and a committee chosen out of their own body.' A ministerial treasurer and secretary, Robert Loinas and Joseph Entwisle, were appointed, and rules were adopted for the management of the missions. It was arranged to publish annual accounts. Jabez Bunting greatly regretted that laymen were not allowed to sit on this committee, but he was regarded as a dangerous innovator.

Coke's letters still bear witness to his zeal as a collector. From Boston, on September 26, 1804, he sent £23 IDS. to the Rev. Coke as a R. Lomas, the Book Steward. On Collector- October 2 he forwards £100 from Hull : 'I have borrowed above £30 of this.' 'Oh, go on,' he pleads, ' I will beg hard for you, as far as is necessary. I will, if necessary, God willing, raise for you £1,500 the ensuing year.' At Hull he collected

39

FROM WESLEY'S DEATH TO

more than £200, and hoped to get as much at Bristol. He asks the committee to deal kindly with a missionary who had not obeyed instruc tions. ' Brother Shipley has done more in the way and spirit of martyrdom than, perhaps, any other man in the Connexion would have done. He nursed that blessed work in Dominica till the Society sprang up from 50 to 1,005. To do this, he endured the yellow fever four times, and his wife twice. When he was on the point of dying, his physicians urged him to set off instantly with the fleet to his native country, or he must die quickly. He went off, instead of going, to Nova Scotia. Very probably you would have done the same. We have no right to punish him. Do let him go to Nova Scotia. He may then go, when perfectly recovered, back to the dear negroes.'

Dr. Coke visited Paris in September, 1/91, in the hope of securing a foothold for Methodism Methodism *n tne French capital. The state of in France. ^ cjtv macje jt necessary to abandon that design. A modest beginning of mission work in Normandy was, however, made the same year. A Jersey layman, John Angel, visited that region, where he found some Protestants without a pastor. William Mahy was sent from Guern sey to care for them, and laboured here until 1808. In 1804 Jabez Bunting wrote : 'We have

40

THE CEYLON MISSION

pleasing accounts from Messrs. Mahy and Pontavice, in France. They are making silent progress in some country parishes of Normandy. But concealment is essential to their safety and success ; so that nothing must be published that would tend to make them objects of attention to the present execrable government of that country.'

For a few years the Methodists of France were without pastors. In 1814 a converted Breton, Armand de Kerpezdron, visited the little societies, and in 1815 Amice Ollivier became their minister. Jean de Quetteville, of Guernsey, visited Nor mandy in 1816, where he preached and formed a small society. In 1818 Charles Cook began his forty years' mission. In 1819 the Rev. John Hawtrey was appointed to Paris.

In March, 1792, some Methodist soldiers, who had just come to Gibraltar, began to hold services in that garrison. Two of them were leaders and two local preachers. People flocked around the door and asked permission to join them. The men went to the Governor, told him they were Methodists, and asked him to sanction their proceedings. He gladly gave con sent, a larger room was secured, then another twice as large. Before war broke out, in 1793, there were 120 members. General O'Hara was asked to stop the meetings ; but replied, ' Let

41

FROM WESLEY'S DEATH TO

them alone. I wish there were twenty for one of them ; we should have fewer court-martials in the garrison.' Persecution broke out a few years later, and on July n, 1803, five Methodist soldiers in Gibraltar were condemned by a court- martial to receive 500 lashes each for attending a Methodist service. The corporals were reduced, and received 200 lashes each ; the other three men were pardoned.

In 1804, in response to the request of some Methodist soldiers, the Rev. James M'Mullen was sent as our first missionary to Gibraltar. He arrived with his wife and child in September, when yellow fever had desolated every house hold. He only preached once. His child caught the fever, and the father, worn out with nursing, fell a victim to the disease on October 18. His wife died a few days later. Their child was spared to return to England, where she became the wife of the Rev. John Rigg, and the mother of the Rev. J. H. Rigg, D.D. The station was left without a pastor till 1808, when William Griffith came to take charge. Providence Chapel was built in 1811, and Gibraltar became the head quarters of Methodism in the British Army.

The Abolition Bill of 1807 brought to an end the legalized traffic in slaves. The Conference of that year determined ' that none of our preachers employed in the West Indies, shall be

42

THE CEYLON MISSION

at liberty to marry any person, who will not previously emancipate, in the legal methods, all the slaves of whom she may be Abolition of possessed : and if any of our brethren Slave Trade- there, already married, have, by such marriage, or in any other way, become proprietors of slaves, we require those brethren to take immediate and effectual steps for their emancipation.' A copy of this minute was to be sent to every preacher in the West Indies, with instructions that a report should be given next year of the way in which it had been obeyed. Most of the white people who were class-leaders in the West Indies were slave-holders. The missionaries were instructed to ' promote the moral and religious improvement of the slaves, without in the least degree, in public or in private, interfering with their civil condition.' They never taught the slaves to expect freedom, but trained them to be patient and faithful to duty.

In 1808 Dr. Coke issued an appeal for a mission to Africa. Some of the negroes who had helped to form the colony of Sierra Leone sierra in 1792 were Methodists from Nova Leone- Scotia. When they reached Africa two or three of them served as local preachers, and others as class-leaders. Congregations grew, and a chapel was erected to hold four hundred people. In the winter of 1810 Coke met George Warren, then

43

FROM WESLEY'S DEATH TO

a local preacher in the Helston Circuit, who felt himself called to work in Africa. * For a long season/ he told Coke, * his mind had been so deeply impressed that it was his duty to go, that he would prefer the station to any other.' At the same time Coke heard from Mr. Nelson, then superintendent at Dewsbury, of three young men, Messrs. Hadley, Hurst, and Rayner, who were willing to go out to Africa. They were examined by a committee of the Leeds District, and sent to an academy to prepare for educational work in Sierra Leone. The four missionaries sailed from Liverpool on September 21, 1811. The people of Liverpool gave 200 Bibles and Testaments, the Bible Society presented 25 Arabic Bibles, 25 English Bibles, and 25 English Testaments. Great was the rejoicing in Sierra Leone when the mission party arrived. Mr. Gordon, on whose shoulders the burden of the Methodist settlement had rested, was engaged in fishing, so that he was frequently absent from home. When he called at the house of the merchant where the missionaries were enter tained, and was introduced to them, 'his heart seemed to overflow with joy. Astonishment, for a few moments, suppressed every other feeling. At length, after recovering a little from the transport of his amazement, he exclaimed, with a degree of rapturous pathos which no art can

44

THE CEYLON MISSION

imitate, " This is what we have been praying for so long, and now the Lord has answered our prayers." ' Mr. Warren had expected to find 50 members, but there were 1 10 in the Society. His ministry was greatly blessed, but after eight months' labour he fell a victim to malignant fever on July 23, 1812. He was the first missionary martyr of West Africa. He had ' laboured even more than perhaps would have been prudent even in his own country/

The work at Sierra Leone was now left without a head, but in February, 1815, the Rev. William Davies and his wife arrived from England. Within ten months Mrs. Davies fell a victim to fever, the first of the missionaries' wives who have laid down their lives for West Africa. Death mowed down one worker after another. Six missionaries and two missionaries' wives died within six months, yet volunteers were always ready to fill the posts of danger. Native missionaries were being trained, schools established, chapels built, not only in Freetown, the capital, but in other parts of the colony.

Coke managed to raise more than ,£6,000 a year for missions by subscriptions and the general collection. He was unwearied in his Coke,8 Zeal ag efforts. On January I, 1810, he writes a Collector, from Wakefield : 'If my accounts be accurate, I have sent you ^784 13^. since the Conference.

45

THE CEYLON MISSION

I have no doubt I shall make up this sum to ^"2,000 before the Conference, if it please God that I live and am well. Then you will have the public collections throughout the kingdom ; so that we should not impede this glorious work in the least degree. Jehovah Jireh/

From Truro, January 28, 1812, he writes, ' I have sent by this post ,£200, which will be ^500 in all, and hope to send ,£200 more from Plymouth. I intend to be, D.V., at Pen- zance next Sunday, at Redruth the Sunday following, and at Plymouth the Sunday after. I am preparing a French sermon to preach to the prisoners. But nothing shall interrupt my labours in begging. When I received Mr. Blan- shard's last letter, informing me that the fund was above ^4,000 in debt, it robbed me of my rest for two nights. And I could not pacify myself till I had resolved to sacrifice all my literary labours, and to be nothing but a preacher and a beggar, and to beg morning and afternoon. I felt the sacrifice very great, because I am so foolish as to think I could do some good through the Press. But all is over. . . . I will never rest till I have liquidated all your debt.'

46

CHAPTER III

FORMATION OF

LOCAL MISSIONARY

SOCIETIES

47

CHAPTER III

FORMATION OF LOCAL MISSIONARY SOCIETIES

THE project for a mission to the East, which had been in Coke's mind for many years, was now taking definite shape. No pains had A Mission been spared to reach a wise decision. to the East

Colonel Sandys, Coke's friend and correspondent, visited the Sheffield Conference in 1805. A com mittee was formed to consult with him coke's about a mission to India. After hearing Advisers- its report the Conference instructed Coke to approach the Court of Directors of the East India Company. The colonel wrote several letters to Joseph Benson, and interviewed Lord Teignmouth, Mr. Wilberforce, and Mr. Grant (then chairman of the East India Company). Coke also visited Mr. Grant. Coke and the colonel concluded that * the Court of Directors would not consent to the establishment of a mission in India for the conver sion of the natives, whether instituted by us or by the Established Church itself. But we were also fully satisfied that neither the Court of Directors nor E 49

FORMATION OF LOCAL

the Government in India would prosecute us if we established a mission in India, but would connive at our proceedings.' The friends agreed that the best place for the mission would be among the Syrian-Hindu Christians on the coast of Malabar, who numbered 1 50,000. These particulars are given in a letter dated ' Helstone, December 18, 1806.' Colonel Sandys promised a handsome gift to start the mission and a liberal contribution afterwards. Coke and his wife offered £50 a year, ' and if this be not sufficient, we will lay out some of our principal on joint annuities, and give £100, or £200, per annum. I have no doubt many will join us liberally.' Colonel Sandys presided at the Society's anniversary in 1821, when the dreams of earlier days had been gloriously realized.

Coke took every opportunity of consulting men who knew India, such as Mr. Morton, father-in-law of Dr. Beaumont and Dr. Morrison of China, and Dr. Claudius Buchanan. His intercourse with Dr. Buchanan convinced him that Ceylon was the best field for an Eastern mission. There were 500,000 nominal Christian inhabitants, with only two ministers. English, Dutch, and Portuguese were spoken widely in the island, so that the missionaries might be usefully employed whilst they were learning the native tongues. The Hon. Sir Alexander Johnston, Chief Justice of Ceylon,

5°

MISSIONARY SOCIETIES

visited England in 1809. He told William Wilberforcc of the horrible condition of the heathen and the low state of religion among the nominal Christians. Wilberforce warmly commended the missionary work of the Methodists, and advised the Chief Justice to open negotiations with them as to a mission to Ceylon. Wilberforce mentioned this to Adam Clarke, but at that time the Con ference felt unable to incur fresh burdens.

Coke was so much bent on a mission to the East that he actually offered himself to the Government to fill the proposed bishopric for Tndia. He said he would resign all his prospects of usefulness at home if only that opportunity were granted. ' Could I but close my life in being the means of raising a spiritual Church in India, it would satisfy the utmost ambition of my soul here below.' His removal would, he thought, render others more zealous for the good of Methodism. He had a fortune of about £1,200 a year, and was ready to devote his whole strength to the work. Happily for himself and for Methodism, nothing came of this proposal.

Coke was now shut up to Methodism. On June 28, 1813, he wrote from Dublin to his friend Mr. Drew, who had urged him to give up the plan on account of his age and other difficulties: * I have laboured in the begging way since the last Con ference more arduously than ever, except about

51

FORMATION OF LOCAL

a month or six weeks, when I swam in waves of woe on account of my late precious wife. I am now dead to Europe and alive for India. God Himself has said to me, " Go to Ceylon ! " I am so fully convinced of the will of God that methinks I had rather be set naked on the coast of Ceylon, without clothes and without a friend, than not go there.' He was ardently learning Portuguese, which he was convinced that he should master before he reached Ceylon.

A month later he stood in the Liverpool Con ference pleading for Ceylon. The burdens of the

Connexion made its wisest counsellors Coke pleads

for Ceylon in hesitate. Joseph Benson declared, with Conference.

great vehemence, that the scheme would

be the ruin of Methodism. Jabez Bunting, Reece, and Atmore, however, pleaded warmly for Coke's proposals. The debate was adjourned. As Coke returned to his home, leaning on the arm of Mr. Clough, almost broken-hearted with his burden of uncertainty, he actually wept in the street. Next day, when Mr. Clough called, he found that the doctor had spent most of the night on the floor in prayer for India. That morning his thrilling speech and his munificent offer of ;£6,ooo for the commencement of the mission subdued all opposi tion. ' If you will not let me go,' he said, ' you will break my heart ! '

The Conference authorized and appointed Dr. 52

MISSIONARY SOCIETIES

Coke ' to undertake a mission to Ceylon and Java, and allowed him to take with him six missionaries, exclusive of one for the Cape of Good Hope.' Dr. Coke called Mr. dough out of the Conference, and said with a full heart, ' Did I not tell you that God would answer prayer ? ' He was soon wholly engrossed with preparation for his departure. In case of his death he left all his property to the Worn-out Ministers' Fund.

George Morley, then Superintendent in Leeds, had seen how ' many were discouraged, and some

absolutely terrified/ by any attempt to

Leeds forms send a mission to the East on account of a Missionary

the exhausted state of the funds. It had been resolved to diminish the number of ministers at home rather than let the opportunity slip. He determined, there and then, to propose some extra ordinary effort in his circuit. He consulted his colleagues, Jabez Bunting and Robert Filter, who warmly supported him. All to whom the matter was mentioned were ready to assist. A consulta tion was held at Bramley, and the ministers there heartily endorsed the scheme for a Leeds meeting. When James Buckley and Richard Watson, then travelling at Wakefield, were invited to the inaugural meeting, they offered to join in the effort. An address was issued proposing the formation of a Methodist Missionary Society for the Leeds District. It dwelt on ' increasing opportunities of

53

FORMATION OF LOCAL

evangelizing heathen nations, the excellent example of other Christian societies, and the loss of the personal exertions of Dr. Coke, who for years has stooped to the very drudgery of charity, and has gratuitously pleaded the cause of a perishing world from door to door. Whilst, therefore, he leads our little band of missionaries against the idolatry of the East, and whilst more than one hundred Methodist missionaries in different parts of the world are immediately engaged in the same contest with the powers of darkness, it devolves upon us who remain at home to give effect to the necessary financial arrangements, and to furnish the sinews of this holy war.'

On October 5, 1813, Mr. Buckley preached at Armley. The following morning, at Albion Street Chapel, Leeds, Richard Watson delivered his sermon on ' Ezekiel's Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones.' The same day, at two o'clock, a public meeting was held in the Old Boggard House, after wards replaced by St. Peter's Chapel. Here Richard Boardman and Joseph Pilmoor had volunteered for America. The gallery was filled by ladies ; Mr. Thomas Thompson, M.P., of Hull, presided. He said he was present at the Confer ence of 1778 held in that chapel, when a most interesting discussion took place on the propriety of sending missionaries to the coast of Guinea to preach the gospel to the debased and degraded

54

MISSIONARY SOCIETIES

Africans in the very face of the slave trade. After a debate which lasted several hours, a young man, apparently far advanced in consumption, rose and offered to spend the remainder of his days in that blessed work. This was probably James Gaffney, ' a young man of considerable abilities, wise above his years/ whose obituary appears in 1779. Eighteen resolutions were adopted. One of the speakers was William Warrener, who had returned from the West Indies, and was labouring in Selby. William Dawson's speech was electrical, and drew tears from the eyes of the chairman. Henceforth the missionary platform was another throne for Dawson. The most famous and effective of his speeches was the ' telescope ' speech, which Dr. Benjamin Gregory heard at Pontefract. Dawson coiled up his resolution into the shape of a spy-glass, and described in the most animated, energetic, vivid style, characteristic scenes of heathenism, asking before each description — 'What do I see ? ' Then, turning in another direction, he demanded, ' But what do I see in the distant prospect ? ' describing the most graphic scenes of millennial peace, and love, and glory. Jabez Bunting was thirty-first in the list of speakers. He only said a few words, but when one of the local secretaries of the London Missionary Society expressed a desire that all Christians should regard themselves as one body in missionary enterprise,

55

FORMATION OF LOCAL

Mr. Bunting felt it necessary to point out that, though the cause was one, it was promoted by distinct Societies, each of which had its distinct and separate fund.

Richard Reece preached in the evening to a crowded congregation. No collection was made at any of the services.

Richard Watson prepared ' An Address to the Public/ showing that the Connexion had about sixty missionaries labouring among the Irish papists and in foreign lands. The exact statistics were : 30 mission stations, 51 agents, and 17,025 members. Many thousand copies of Watson's address were circulated, and within twelve months ;£i,ooo was remitted from the District to the treasurer in London. Jabez Bunting wrote : ' I believe in this circuit we shall get annually more than even Dr. Coke has obtained by his occasional applications once in two or three years. And not only funds^ but missionaries will, I trust, be multiplied by the frequent appeals which the Society will make by its annual meetings, sermons, and reports, on behalf of the perishing heathen.'

Benson felt that the plans had been laid with great judgement as well as zeal. ' I agree with you that you had no alternative, to prevent our people's money being diverted in a line in which it is neither so much needed, nor will, as far as we can judge, do so much good. These missions to

56

MISSIONARY SOCIETIES

Ceylon, Java, &c., will bring a most enormous additional expense upon the fund.'

Dr. Coke was in a fever of delight and thanks giving. He wrote to Bunting on October 1 5 :

'VERY DEAR FRIEND, — The generality of our committee rejoice in the steps you Delight about have taken in behalf of the missions. As to myself, I shall go to Asia with a glad heart indeed, through the blessing of God. We have agreed on a circular letter to be sent to all the circuits. It will be put into the press in a few days, and sent with the next magazines ; but I will send you a copy by the post. It is the Lord who has put it into your hearts thus to step forth. There is nothing you have done which I do not most fully approve of.' A little later, when the flame was spreading, he wrote: ' I bless God that you are making such a pro gress in missionary matters in Yorkshire. This blessed plan will lighten my heart exceedingly, both at sea and in Asia.' When on board the Cabalva Indiaman, he found time to send a few lines of thanks to Bunting, by the pilot, for his zeal in the missionary cause : ' The Lord reward you a thousandfold for it!' Off Madeira he wrote again: 'Oh, remember Sierra Leone!' and sent his love to his missionary subscribers; 'and to my dear five-guinea, or ten- guinea (I forget which) subscriber who lives at his works in the Bramley Circuit.'

57

FORMATION OF LOCAL

James Lynch, William Ault, George Erskine, William M. Harvard, Thomas H. Squance, and

Benjamin Clough were Coke's com- The first

Missionaries panions. 1 hey were ordained at Lam beth, St. George's - in - the - East, and Great Queen Street. WThen they met at the Bush Hotel, Portsmouth, Coke rose from his chair. ' Here we all are before God, six missionaries and two dear sisters [Mrs. Ault and Mrs. Harvard], now embarked on the most important and most glorious work in the world. Glory be ascribed to His blessed name, that He has given you to be my companions and assist ants in carrying the gospel to the Asiatics, and that He has not suffered parents, nor brothers, nor sisters, nor the dearest friends, to stop any of you from going with me to India.' On December 30, 1813, the party sailed from Ports mouth. Coke preached his farewell sermon in St. Peter's Chapel, Portsmouth, from the text : 1 Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.' It was a summary of the deepest thoughts and yearnings of his heart. He said, £ It is of little consequence whether we take our flight to glory from the land of our nativity, from the trackless ocean, or the shores of Ceylon.' Strong in this confidence, he started on his last voyage.

Coke lost no time in resuming his studies. In his charming cabin, with two large windows opening

58

MISSIONARY SOCIETIES

out on the sea, he employed himself in reading and writing Portuguese. His heart was full of ' boundless charity divine.' The passion for missions has seldom glowed more fervently in any human breast. * I want/ he said, ' the wings of an eagle and the voice of a trumpet, that I may proclaim the gospel through the East and the West, the North and the South.' God seemed to have bidden him to go to Ceylon. A clergyman was not permitted to preach on a ship belonging to the East India Company ; but the passengers, who had heard of Coke's ' Com mentary,' asked him to give them some readings from it on Sunday evenings. He was as eager as ever to do good to all who sailed with him. The future was always in his thoughts, and he sent home from the Cape a detailed account of his plans of work.

Meanwhile his health alarmed his friends. Mr. Clough tried to make him take some relaxation, but it was difficult to draw coke's the eager student from his Portuguese. Death- On May 2 Mrs. Harvard was distressed by his wavering step and haggard look. That night he sang:

To me remains nor place nor time, My country is in every clime ; I can be calm and free from care On any shore, since God is there.

59

FORMATION OF LOCAL

0 Thou, by long experience tried, Near whom no grief can long abide ; My God, how full of sweet content

1 pass my years of banishment !

All scenes alike engaging prove To souls inspired with heavenly love ; Where'er they dwell they dwell in Thee, In heaven, in earth, or on the sea.

Could I be cast where Thou art not, That were indeed a dreadful lot ; But regions none remote I call, Secure of finding God in all.

Mr. Clough wished to sit up with him, but the doctor assured him it was unnecessary, and said he hoped to be better to-morrow. The morning came ; his faithful friend knocked at his door, but received no answer. Coke lay lifeless on the floor of his cabin. It was a sore stroke for the little band, thus suddenly to lose their head. They had scarcely a guinea among them, and when they landed, three weeks later, at Bombay, were unable to pay for their first meal at the inn. Their leader's death seemed to leave them utterly destitute. With aching hearts they committed the body of the missionary bishop to the mighty deep.

News of Dr. Coke's death reached London in November, 1814, in time for insertion in the Methodist Magazine for December, which carried the tidings over the Connexion. The Report for 1815 refers tenderly to 'our orphan

60

MISSIONARY SOCIETIES

missionaries/ ' Glorious intelligence ' soon came, however, which, Jabez Bunting thought, would convince even the most sceptical that Dr. Coke's zeal was ' not always enthusiastic, and that this mission had the sanction of God.' The old veteran, Thomas Taylor — immortalized in the Lives of the Early Methodist Preachers^ and in James Montgomery's

Servant of God, well done ! Rest from thy loved employ —

confessed, when the Birmingham Missionary Society was formed, that he had thought the mission to Ceylon * a hopeless scheme, and seemed justified in my opinion by the death of that indefatigable labourer in the great work, Dr. Coke ; but the success with which it has been crowned has silenced my fears.'

Coke, like another Moses, had gone when he seemed most sorely needed, snatched from his Pisgah vision to the heavenly rest. His feet never touched the shores of India ; his tongue never proclaimed there the message of life. This joy was not granted him ; yet surely his was a nobler lot. He died for India ; and dying, left the East as his legacy to the little band of companions who shared his own ardour, and to the Methodists of both worlds, who are pledged by Coke's heroic life and death to know no rest till India stretches out her hands to God. He

61

FORMATION OF LOCAL

had preached at Hinde Street, London, where his old host, Mr. Calder, lived, on the eve of his departure : ' Death ! ' he said, leaping up in the pulpit, ' death ! what is it to the Christian ? Why, it is only stepping out of time into eternity ! '

Dr. Smith pays a noble tribute to the missionary bishop : ' He organized and extended the Metho dism of America ; fostered, defended, and promoted the missions to British America and the West Indies ; gave a mighty impulse to the promulga tion of the gospel in the most destitute parts of England, Ireland, and Wales; laboured to introduce an evangelical agency into France and Gibraltar ; and, finally, inaugurated a great and effective missionary aggression on Asia ; and, besides all this, paid constant attention to the general interests of the Connexion and the religious condition of the world ; and laboured, in season and out of season, to promote the cause of his Saviour and the extension of the kingdom of Christ'

' The Annual Report of the state of the missions which are carried on both at home and abroad, Missionary ky the Society late in connexion with Report, isis. the Rev john Wesley; addressed in particular to those generous supporters who have contributed to their support, and to the benevolent public at large,' was published at the Conference

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MISSIONARY SOCIETIES

Office in 1813. It gives particulars of the missions in Antigua, St. Christopher, Nevis, St. Bartholomew, Tortola, St. Thomas, and the other Virgin Islands lately captured, St. Eustatius, Dominica, St. Vin cent, Barbados, Grenada, Trinidad, Jamaica, the Bahamas, Bermuda, Nova Scotia and New Bruns wick, Newfoundland, and Prince Edward's Island. It reports the growth of the work in Sierra Leone, and says, 'Lately we have learned, with the keenest sorrow, that Mr. Warren is dead.' Mr. Rayner was to take his place as Superintendent. The Society at Gibraltar had increased from 42 to 127, and the chapel erected only two years before was so crowded with respectable hearers that an enlargement was necessary. The Irish and Welsh missions were prospering, and Mr. Toase was doing a good work among the French prisoners in England. The total amount of subscriptions was £3,678 9-y. 6d., and of public collections £4,241 cx$\ nd. Fitting out missionaries cost £563; West Indies, £2,058 ; Nova Scotia, £126; Bahamas, £118 ; Bermuda, £143; Gibraltar, £482; work among French prisoners, £599 ; Sierra Leone, £1,510; Ireland (in the Irish language), £558; home missions, £3,053; miscellaneous ex penses, £687. It is noted that ' Dr. Coke makes no charge for his travelling expenses on account of the mission.' Total expenses £14,038, leaving £6,1 1 8 due to the treasurer.

63

FORMATION OF LOCAL

Whilst Dr. Coke was on his voyage the fire was spreading through English Methodism. The Missionary example set by Leeds was widely Enthusiasm. fonowed. Before the Conference of 1814, meetings were held and missionary societies formed in the York, Hull, Sheffield, Cornwall, and New castle Districts. The first missionary meeting for London was held at City Road Chapel in December, 1814. The Manchester Missionary Society was formed on February 22, 1815 ; that at Birmingham in June. Collectors offered their services in all directions, and the diffusion of missionary intelligence raised up friends and helpers everywhere. The first meeting at Hinde Street, on October 25, 1816, created such en thusiasm that the Leaders' Meeting feared that their scheme for grappling with circuit debts would be imperilled, and passed a resolution that no one should be allowed to subscribe to the missionary work who gave up his subscrip tion to the Chapel Fund. The following week, when Jabez Bunting was in the chair, this resolu tion was rescinded. Many timid people feared that missionary meetings would destroy the sim plicity of Methodism and lead to a fearful reaction. They were actually regarded as ' a device of the devil to mar Methodism in all its agency.' It was soon found that they spread abroad a knowledge of the world's needs and

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MISSIONARY SOCIETIES

of the power of Christ to save that filled the Church at home with new zeal and devotion. Some Districts and some leading ministers held back from the movement, but it was rapidly gaining ground, and the course of events gradually dispelled the fears of the most timorous. To Jabez Bunting's genius as an administrator, and Richard Watson's glorious gifts of mind and heart, the triumph was chiefly due. Thomas Jackson says that Watson ' wore out his life in this holy service, consumed by the quenchless ardour of his own spirit. More than any other individual, this distinguished minister for a time supplied the place of the lamented Dr. Coke.' Two other important steps were taken : The Conference of 1815 directed the Missionary Committee to take into consideration the best means of providing preachers and Missionary people with ( regular and early com- Notices- munication of missionary intelligence.' In obedi ence to this instruction the Missionary Notices were prepared. The first number was published in January, 1816, at the price of twopence.

In 1815 also Richard Watson, then stationed in Hull, drew up a plan for a Juvenile Missionary

Society. He urges the children * to teach

Juvenile

that sacred name you have lisped in Missionary

Societies.

your infant prayers to them who never

heard it, and by your contributions to increase F 65

LOCAL MISSIONARY SOCIETIES

the number of missionaries who may commend the guide of your youth and the hope of your future years to myriads who wander without a guide and without a God. Join hands with your elder brethren, your fathers, your ministers, with the whole Christian world, in extending the kingdom of your Lord and Saviour.' The young men at Hull paid in ,£8 45. at their first monthly meeting, the young ladies £21 12s. §d. The Missionary Notices for May, 1816, announce that a Juvenile Missionary Society had been formed for the Leeds Circuit at the request and suggestion of a few pious young men. The Old Methodist Chapel was crowded for the first meeting on April 16. Next month a similar society was formed at City Road, London, and others soon sprang up in all parts of the country, to the great help and encouragement of all the workers.

66

CHAPTER IV

FROM COKE'S DEATH

TO RICHARD WATSON'S

1814 1832

67

CHAPTER IV

FROM COKE'S DEATH TO RICHARD WATSON'S, 1814-1832

THE time was now ripe for further organization. The Conference of 1817 directed that a missionary

society should be formed in every Dis-

7 General

trict. A scheme for a General Missionary Missionary

Society. Society, in which laymen should have

their place, was drawn up by Richard Watson, and approved. Premises were to be secured in London for a mission house. In September, 1816, Jabez Bunting writes : ' Yesterday we agreed to take for one year two rooms on the first floor of Mr. Bruce's house (4, City Road) for our mis sionary office. We are to pay £24 per annum. A clerk is engaged, who is to assist the secre taries for five hours every day for 1 $s. per week.'

Mr. Thomas Thompson, M.P., the first lay treasurer, presided at the first annual meeting of the Society, held on May 4, 1818, in City Road Chapel. It lasted six hours, and then had to be adjourned to the following Thursday. Jabez Bunting delivered a statesmanlike plea for

69

FROM COKE'S DEATH TO

the extension of Methodist missions in continental India.

Whilst the meeting was in progress Dr. Clarke received a note from Sir Alexander Johnston, who

had just arrived in England with two Arrival of two Buddhist young Buddhist priests who wished to

be instructed by the Methodists. That announcement made a profound impression. The collections at the public services and meeting amounted to more than ,£800, ' with a profusion of ear-rings, finger-rings, silver and gold trinkets thrown into the box beside.'

Next day Dr. Clarke met Sir Alexander Johnston, who offered to pay half the cost of the training of the priests. A committee, held at the new mission house, arranged that they should be placed under the care of Dr. Clarke, and for two years they lived with him at Millbrook, near Liver pool. The doctor found them delightful pupils, and in due course they were baptized at Brunswick Chapel, Liverpool. On their return to Ceylon they joined the Church Mission, but they remained faithful to their Christian profession.

Thomas Thompson, of Hull, member of Parlia ment for Midhurst, the lay treasurer of the

The first Society, was an intimate friend of Joseph

Treasurer. gensori) who owec] much to his sagacious

counsel in many important connexional matters,

and also in the conduct of the Methodist Magazine^

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RICHARD WATSON'S

of which Benson was editor. Richard Watson says that Mr. Thompson had been greatly indebted to Benson's ministry at an early period of life, and was largely imbued with his fervent piety and zeal for the salvation of men. He published a volume in 1798 entitled FrencJi Philosophy, giving par ticulars of the lives of French infidels, which showed that their principles did not support them in facing death. This was of considerable service in those anxious times. Mr. Thompson also stoutly opposed Lord Sidmouth's Bill for restricting the religious liberty of Dissenters, and took an active part in supporting William Wilberforce's effort to obtain permission for Christian work in India. He asked Mr. Benson to notice Wilberforce's published speeches in the Methodist Magazine. He was very anxious for the success of the magazine, and wrote ' many of the controversial articles in it during the earlier period of Mr. Benson's editorship.'

After the Conference of 1817, 77 Hatton Garden became the first Mission House. The region took its name from Queen Elizabeth's Mission Chancellor and favourite, Sir Christopher fatten* Hatton. It had formed part of the Garden- garden of Hatton House. Evelyn tells us, in his Diary, that he went on June 7, 1659, 'to London, to take leave of my brother, and see the foundations now laying for a long streete and buildings in

FROM COKE'S DEATH TO

Hatton Garden, designed for a little town, lately an ample garden.'

In the days of the old Mission House Methodism spread from Ceylon to continental India. William Shaw started thence on his way to lay the foundation-stone of Methodism in Grahamstown and in Kaffraria. Barnabas Shaw had landed in Cape Town in August, 1814, and his early labours among Bushmen and Hottentots, and his work in Cape Town, brought great rejoicing to Hatton Garden. When Samuel Leigh came home with his story of the Maoris, in 1820, the Mission House was soon crowded with ploughs, saws, axes, and other material needed for the Maori Mission, New Zealand.

From Hatton Garden the first Methodist mis sionaries were sent to Australia, and, in 1824, John Thomas sailed, amid fervent prayer, to begin his apostolic labours in Tonga. Six years after he reached the Friendly Islands eight to ten thousand savages had renounced idolatry ; fifteen hundred of them were members of the Methodist Society. In 1834 four thousand members were gathered in. King George had become a local preacher. The pioneer missionaries landed at Fiji in October, 1835, and the Rev. James Watkin's appeal, Pity Poor Fiji, soon laid hold of Methodism. John Hunt, James Calvert, and T. J. Jaggar sailed for the Pacific on April 29, 1838.

72

RICHARD WATSON'S

Mr. Thomas Hayes says the old Mission House was filled up to the last cupboard, and the back garden was used for a warehouse, packing, and store-rooms. ' It was with difficulty sometimes that we could make our way through the passage to the back of the house, so crowded was it with missionaries' luggage — homeward or outward bound/

John Edwards, who afterwards laboured in South Africa, gives an interesting account in his Remi niscences (pp. 17-37) of his visits to

A Young

the Mission House. He came up from Missionary's

Experience. Teignmouth, in 1828, to be examined by

the Missionary Committee, travelling on the out side of a stage coach for a hundred and ninety miles along rough roads. The Rev. George Morley had charge of the young men going out to the mission field or returning home, and gave Edwards a very cordial welcome. When he stepped into the committee room a few days later to be examined, Dr. Townley, the President, was in the chair, with Richard Watson sitting next him as examiner. Edwards was asked, ' What is your opinion as to the Eternal Sonship of Christ ? ' and says, ' I looked at him and thought, " You ought not to have put tJiat question," knowing as I did of the controversy between him and Dr. Clarke on that subject.' His answer to the question was approved, and all the questions were so clear and straightforward that

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FROM COKE'S DEATH TO

there was no difficulty in understanding them. He had to preach at Wilderness Row that evening, and as he was giving out the hymn he saw one after another of the secretaries and committee walk in. Next morning he was asked whether he had an affection of the chest, but the Rev. John James, ( who was always a friend of young men, said : ' Brother Edwards's chest is as sound as a bell. In his rapid utterances he does not give himself time to bring out distinctly the last words of his sentences; he will get cured of that.'" He was offered a single man's station in North America, but, as he was engaged to be married, he preferred to wait until there was an opening for a married man. In 1831 he returned to London, staying with Mr. James at 62, Hatton Garden, till a ship was ready to sail for Algoa Bay. It was the custom for all the young missionaries to be at Hatton Garden at eleven o'clock every morning, to see if they had to preach that evening. One morn ing Dr. Townley told him he did not know of any work, adding : ' We are all going to the Zoological Gardens, and you can go also, and have a holiday.' Mr. Edwards was leaving the gardens, tired out with sight-seeing, when he met the Rev. Thomas Edwards, one of the missionary secretaries, who told him that he was expected to preach at South- wark Chapel that night. He drove off in a cab at breakneck speed, and managed to get into the

74

RICHARD WATSON'S

pulpit in time. Mr. Edwards took lessons in print ing at the offices of Mr. Roche and Mr. Nichols. On December 31, 1831, when 'burking' was the nightmare of London, Mr. Edwards went to help Joseph Entwisle in the Watchnight Service at City Road. When Mr. Entwisle found that he was alone, he arranged that Mr. Edwards should speak first, and provided two men to take him home to 62, Hatton Garden. As soon as Mr. Tames got

J o

back from the service he had been attending and found that Mr. Edwards was safely in bed he exclaimed, ' Good Mr. Entwisle ! No doubt he has saved Mr. Edwards's life.' Some part of the route was * dangerous,' and Mr. Entwisle saw that the young man ran great risk of being ' burked.'

Its efforts for the spread of the gospel in heathen lands gave Methodism new dignity in the eyes of all thoughtful men. When President interest of of the Conference in 1821, Jabez Bunting Dr-Chalmers- met Dr. Chalmers in Scotland, who seemed dis posed, if a fit opportunity occurred, to preach for the Methodist Missionary Society. ' He said he would vastly like to do us justice, by showing that we deserve as much credit for our missionary operations as the Moravians, whom everybody panegyrizes, while we are comparatively over looked. I was glad to hear this sentiment from him, as he has himself eulogized the Moravians very highly.'

75

FROM COKE'S DEATH TO

Laymen now took their fitting place in the

management of the Society. Joseph Entwisle had

Laymen written to Jabez Bunting in 1814:

MiSiSSry ' l don>t see that any dan8er would Committee. arjse from a few respectable laymen in

our Committee of Management, as it respects receipts and expenditure ALONE ! ! Think of this.1 Bunting had long thought of it. He says in 1816 : 'I still think we might safely, and must ultimately, admit laymen into the Executive Com mittee under certain modifications.' The same year he adds : ' We want nothing but more missionaries, a few laymen to add greater weight and spirit to our Managing Committee, and more of the blessing of God, to render our missionary system a praise in the earth. I more decidedly than ever think we ought to have some laymen at least in our managing Missionary Committee. I am sure both the temporals and spirituals of that cause would be better for their active co-operation.'

At the Conference of 1818 it was resolved that ( it is expedient to adopt some plan by which the piety, talents, information, and influence of some of our respectable friends, members of the Wesleyan Society not being travelling preachers, may be brought into co-operation with the exertions of the preachers as members of the Executive Missionary Committee in London.' The Laws and Regulations

76

RICHARD WATSON'S

of the General Weslcyan Methodist Missionary Society, in which the principle of lay co-operation was contained, were adopted, and Joseph Taylor was appointed as the first secretary who gave his whole time to the Society.

He was one of three young men who had stood in Carlisle market waiting to be hired as

farm servants. All became Methodist

Joseph preachers. Taylor was a convert of Taylor,

Mary Barritt's, as were Robert Newton, William Dawson, and Thomas Jackson. Mr, P. W. Bunting says that he strongly resembled Napoleon in appearance, and had the same untameable energy of will. Dr. Clarke compared his preaching to a tailor's goose, hot and heavy ; but it was both spiritual and instructive. He had been eight years a missionary in the West Indies. Taylor proved just the man the young Society needed for its early struggles, and laboured at Hatton Garden for six years with unceasing devotion.

Joseph Butterworth, M.P., became lay treasurer in 1819. He was Adam Clarke's brother-in-law,

and a prosperous law bookseller in

Joseph

Fleet Street. He belonged to the Great Butterworth

. Treasurer. Queen Street Society. His social

position, and his zeal in the cause of missions, made him a model treasurer, and he rendered inestimable service at this formative stage of the Society.

77

FROM COKE'S DEATH TO

Whilst these events were taking place at home the missionaries were toiling bravely in Ceylon.

When they examined Coke's papers at Beginning of

the Ceylon their hotel in Bombay, they found Mission.

nothing that would enable them to

draw money in his name or that of the Missionary Society. They prayed together as only men in such an extremity could pray. When they stated their case to Captain Birch, the commander of the vessel in which Coke sailed, he introduced them to Mr. Mony, a banker, who generously advanced whatever they needed.

When they reached Ceylon Sir Robert Brownrigg set the Government House at Point de Galle at their service, and Lord Molesworth, who com manded the garrison, met them at the jetty. He grasped Mr. Squance by the hand, and said he had long been praying that missionaries might be sent to India. He showed them great hospitality. On the first Sunday services were held in the Dutch church. Most of the English residents attended, the soldiers were marched in, and Mr. Squance's sermon was the means of Lord Molesworth's con version. He stole away that evening from a party at his house and asked the missionaries to spend a little time with him in prayer. Before they rose from their knees he found a clear sense of God's forgiving love and poured out his soul in thanksgiving. The vessel in which he left India in May, 1815,

78

RICHARD WATSON'S

was wrecked on the coast of South Africa. He marched about the decks pointing all to the Lamb of God, then he and Lady Molesworth sank, locked in each other's arms.

Three stations were occupied in the south — Colombo, Galle, and Matara ; one at Jaffna in the north; another in the east at Batticaloa. James Lynch and T. H. Squance went to Jaffna ; William Ault to Batticaloa; George Erskine to Matara; Benjamin Clough to Point de Galle. The Governor, General Sir Robert Brownrigg, G.C.B., offered each missionary a certain stipend for teaching the English language to the children of the principal natives in some of the most important towns, and this offer was gratefully accepted. Thus God raised up friends and helpers for His servants in necessity.

Mr. Harvard took charge of Colombo, where he found a zealous helper in the Government school master, Mr. Armour. The missionary soon won the confidence of the soldiers and civilians, and before long was able to preach both in Sinhalese and Portuguese. Before the close of 1815 he had a class of fifteen members, and next year a comfortable chapel was erected. Schools were formed, and a printing-press set up.

At Galle Mr. Clough conducted services in the Dutch church and formed a Methodist Society. When he moved to Colombo to assist Mr. Harvard,

79

FROM COKE'S DEATH TO

John McKenny took his place, and built the first Methodist chapel there. At Jaffna Mr. Lynch and Mr. Squance were deeply moved by the super stition and degradation of all classes. The descendants of the Dutch and Portuguese seemed to need the missionary as much as the natives. Services were held at a Dutch church in the fort, then a chapel and school were built. Native assistants were trained, and the work rapidly extended into the adjacent villages. The Rev. T. H. Squance began services at Point Pedro, which soon became the head of a separate mission

William Ault was stationed at Batticaloa, beauti fully situated on the borders of a lake. His wife had died on the voyage to India six weeks after leaving Portsmouth. He was prostrated by attacks of fever, and died on April i, 1815, the first victim of the climate in our Indian missions. The bass- viol brought out by Dr. Coke, ' for our common recreation,' was sold after Mr. Ault's death, and the proceeds given as a subscription to the Galle Chapel.

The first ten years of the Ceylon mission were a time of much activity, but as the difficulty of winning India for Christ was realized the ardour at home somewhat cooled, and the work languished. Yet great things were done. Robert Spence Hardy, who reached Ceylon in 1825, found Christianity rooted in the south of the island,

80

RICHARD WATSON'S

though in some places ' Satan reigns triumphant.' Peter Percival, who went out to Ceylon in 1825, had a broad and comprehensive grasp of mission policy, and gave a great impetus to our educational work. Ralph Stott (1829) laboured with apostolic zeal among the Tamils and Veddahs. He won a rich harvest in the bazaars and in the villages. The chapel at Batticaloa was crowded, classes formed, and the number of members rose from 40 in 1840 to 41 1 in 1845 ; 230 of the wild people who lived under the shelving rocks of the mountains renounced their devil-worship and settled down to village life.

Two notable men were now working in Ceylon. Daniel John Gogerly, a London printer, went out in 1818 to take charge of the mission DanieU. press in Colombo. He became a mis- G°£erly- sionary in 1823, and laboured with unceasing devotion till 1862. He found at Negombo, in 1825, that most of the people were Roman Catholics ; but, as the priest had failed to establish a school of his own, he allowed the parents to send their children where they wished. Many came to the English school, where the masters were Methodists. The village children often had to search for roots in the jungle to satisfy their hunger. At Seven Korles heathenism was seen in its most repulsive forms. Women were in the most degraded con dition, and were treated worse than oxen. One G 81

FROM COKE'S DEATH TO

woman was married to seven brothers. Gambling, drunkenness,and other vices abounded. Mr. Gogerly found the people eager to be taught, but it was not possible to visit places twenty-six miles or more from his mission station when the bridges were broken down and the roads infested by wild elephants. The gospel won a notable triumph at Negombo. The converts who were too poor to give money set apart more than fifty cocoanut- trees for the benefit of the mission.

In 1828 Mr. Gogerly was stationed at Kaltura. He got the masters of five of our Sinhalese schools to stay with him for a month, and taught them arithmetic, as even a slight knowledge of that sub ject would do something to undermine Buddhism, which was inseparably connected with an erroneous system of geography and astronomy. The people worshipped demons, and vice of every kind was almost uncontrolled. In the whole of the Rygam- Korle there was scarcely a single Bible. Mr. Gogerly soon had a congregation of from thirty to a hundred adults. He laboured with great success throughout his long ministry. He remodelled the schools, trained teachers, evangelized the villages, preached fluently in Sinhalese and Portuguese, and made himself a master of Pali and the Buddhist writings. His Institutes of Christianity in Sinhalese made such an impression that the Buddhist priests began a bitter agitation to prevent the progress of the gospel.

82

RICHARD WATSON'S

Another noted Ceylon missionary was Robert Spence Hardy, grandson of Robert Spence, the famous York bookseller. Coke once Robert met him when he visited York, and Bpence Hardy, was greatly interested in the boy. He placed his hands on his head and prayed that he might become a missionary. In 1825 he sailed for Ceylon. The work in the south of the island was then making steady progress. Chapels had been opened, and as you travelled through the lovely scenery the slow tolling of some distant bell, or the busy hum of some village school, showed that the new religion was making itself felt. There was much yet to do. When stationed in 1829 at Kornegalle, twenty-two miles from Kandy, Mr. Hardy wrote : c Satan here reigns triumphant. By the power of his crafty wiles he has lulled a whole nation into a state of carnal security, and the apathy and ignorance of the people are only equalled by the depth of their moral degradation.' After eight years' labour Mr. Hardy visited England. Then he spent twelve more years in Ceylon. When Mr. Gogerly died he went out for the third time as Chairman of the South Ceylon District, and continued in office for three years. His fame as an orientalist was wide spread. The Royal Asiatic Society made him an honorary member, and his books on Buddhism and Eastern Monachism took rank as standard works.

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Methodism gained a footing in India in 1817, when James Lynch went to Madras in response Madras and to tne request of some English Metho- Bangaiore. ^ists who were living in the city. He had mastered Tamil at Jaffna, and his faithful preaching made a deep impression in Madras, where he erected a chapel at Royapettah, and another three 4ttiles away in Black Town, the chief centre of population. Elijah Hoole joined Mr. Lynch in 1822. The work was growing steadily. When Tamil services were held at Black Town on Friday evenings, the doors and windows were filled by Hindus who were eager to hear the message, though unwilling to enter the chapel. Mr. Hoole made preaching excur sions into the Tamil country, and everywhere found the people courteous, and anxious to listen to the gospel. He translated some of our hymns into Tamil, and soon had the pleasure of hearing the natives sing them to the tunes used in England. The Hindu festivals gave many oppor tunities to preach and distribute tracts. In December, 1825, a bungalow was secured in Black Town for Tamil preaching. Hundreds of heathen of all classes heard the Word, and the native converts were roused to increased zeal.

The Rev. W. M. Harvard, who was detained at Bombay after Dr. Coke's death, made the best use of his enforced stay in that city, and

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his preaching led to an earnest request for a missionary. In 1818 the Rev. John Homer and his wife landed there, and next year Joseph Fletcher joined him, but failure of health and other difficulties led to the mission being relin quished in 1821.

Negapatam, where Methodist work began in 1821, was a busy seaport, 200 miles south of Madras, with 50,000 inhabitants. The Rev. T. H. Squance soon gathered a good English congregation, and held Portuguese services at the mission house, and Tamil services in the villages. Elijah Hoole was here for a few months after his arrival in the East in 1820. He and Mr. and Mrs. Mowat began the mission at Bangalore, the most populous and important city of the Mysore, in July, 1821. Heathen horrors met them at every turn. Fanatics had iron or wooden spikes bored through their cheeks and tongues, carried lighted fires on their heads, and had iron frames riveted round the neck, and spikes thickly set in the soles of their sandals to tear the wearer's feet. Seringapatam, once the great stronghold of Tippoo Sahib, was visited by Titus Close in May, 1821. A little chapel had been built by some Christian natives who were eager to have a missionary. Mr. Hoole visited them once a quarter, and several converts were baptized. Mr. Hoole and Mr. Mowat

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FROM COKE'S DEATH TO

were unfortunately called away to supply vacancies at Madras and Negapatam, and these great cities could only receive occasional visits. In 1826 John F. England was stationed at Bangalore, where he established schools and formed a church. He bought, in 1829, the site in East Parade, on which a Methodist chapel was built in 1863, which is one of the finest in India. Thomas Cryer spent here three of the happiest and most successful years of his life.

Dr. Coke had been urged, as early as 1792,

and again in 1806, to begin work in Bengal,

A Mission but it was not till 1828 that Peter

in Calcutta. perciva] was sent from Trincomalee

to Calcutta. Here he was joined by Thomas Hodson, a young missionary from England. They gathered an English congregation, and built a chapel and school for the natives, but financial reasons led to the withdrawal of our agents in 1831.

Methodism had begun its work in South Africa. On August 7, 1814, three months after Dr. Coke's First work in death, John McKenny landed in Cape south Africa. xown> He had gone out at the earnest request of a large number of British soldiers stationed there, and, besides labouring for them and the settlers, it was hoped that he might give special attention to the slaves, among whom Muhammadan priests were winning many pro-

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RICHARD WATSON'S

selytes ; but the Governor, Lord Charles Somerset, refused to let him preach. ' The soldiers,' he said, 'have their chaplains, provided by Govern ment, and if you preach to the slaves the ministers of the Dutch Church may be offended.' Mr. McKenny was only able to hold a few private meetings for conversation and prayer. Under these circumstances he was instructed to proceed to Ceylon. Further information showed, however, that there was a pressing call for missionary work in South Africa, and in April, 1816, the Rev. Barnabas Shaw landed at Cape Town. The Governor refused to allow him to preach, but the follow ing Sunday he began without permission. His congregation consisted mainly of soldiers, and for a few months he acted almost as a military chaplain.

In September, 1816, he set out for Namaqualand, where he was assured that he would be warmly welcomed by the natives. On the way he met the chief of the Little Namaquas coming to seek a teacher, and agreed to accompany him to his mountain home, Lilyfontein, on Kamiesberg. This was the first Methodist mission station in South Africa. Mr. Shaw and his wife lived in a native hut shaped like a beehive, and covered with rush mats. He had been brought up on a Yorkshire farm, so that

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he was well equipped for his work. He taught the people the use of the plough, which did ' as much work as ten wives/ and set himself to evangelize and civilize the tribe. He had to preach through an interpreter, as he did not understand the Hottentot language. A modest chapel and mission house were built, and when the Rev. E. Edwards arrived from England Mr. Shaw visited the Bushmen, and steadily kept in view the extension of the mission. For ten years he lived at Kamiesberg. The murder of his young colleague, Mr. Threlfall, and two native teachers in 1825 by some thievish Bushmen, who killed them as they slept, was a great blow to the infant mission. In 1832 Great Namaqualand, from which the agents of the London Missionary Society had been compelled to retire, through tribal wars, was occupied by our society.

Barnabas Shaw visited England in 1827, and raised £700 for the erection of a chapel in Cape Town, where Mr. Edwards had begun services for the coloured people in an upper room in 1820. The chapel in Bury Street was built in 1830, a chapel for the natives in Sidney Street in 1837, a third in Hope Street in 1857, and the Metropolitan Church in 1878, at a cost of ;£i 5,000. Mr. Shaw died in 1857, having been spared to see Methodism firmly rooted in the colony.

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South Africa was fortunate enough to have another master missionary in William Shaw,

who went out with a band of settlers

William

to Algoa Bay in 1820. He was an Shawand

the Kaffirs, ideal chaplain for such a settlement,

He went from post to post ministering to the white people, and held services in tents, or under the shade of trees and rocks. The first chapel was opened at Grahamstown in 1822. A chapel at Salem was built the same year. Next year Mr. Shaw was able to begin his mission to the Kaffirs. Four important missions were started, links in the chain by which he hoped to connect Cape Colony and Natal. He won the entire confidence of the natives, amongst whom he became a wandering apostle. His zeal for the settlers was shown by his word to Mr. Boyce as they looked down on Grahamstown : * It is a great comfort to me that there is not a house in that town in which I have not had the oppor tunity of offering prayer.' Methodism also took firm root in Port Elizabeth, where a substantial chapel was opened in 1840. Thirteen chapels were built in various parts of the colony during William Shaw's first thirteen years' service. Methodism was firmly rooted in the Eastern Province, and a flourishing line of mission stations was established in Kaffraria. Mr. Shaw became one of the chief authorities on South

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African affairs, and his advice was eagerly sought by the colonial authorities. One of his colleagues, William Shepstone, the mission ary to the Kaffirs, erected mission stations and schools, translated the Scriptures, and gained an unrivalled knowledge of the natives and their customs. He died in 1873, at Kamastone, the station where he had spent half a century.

William B. Boyce began his missionary life in November, 1830, at Buntingville, one of William Shaw's Kaffir stations. Four years later the Kaffir war broke out. Three of our missionaries, Shepstone, Boyce, and Palmer, who hazarded their own lives in the attempt, were largely instrumental in gaining favourable terms for the Kaffirs. Mr. Boyce had set himself to master the language, and compiled the first Kaffir grammar, which laid the foundation for future grammarians and writers. He spent thirteen years in South Africa.

This mission to the Kaffirs was a great favourite with Richard Watson, who told Mr. Kay, with deep feeling, when he started for Little Namaqualand, 'Were 1 as young as you, Africa should be the field of my service.'

In 1821 the Rev. S. Broadbent set out from Lilyfontein to form a mission in Bechuanaland. He was joined by Rev. T. L. Hodgson. They crossed the Vaal together on rafts, and tried

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to form a mission among the Barolongs. It had to be abandoned, but in 1825 it was re established at Plaatberg, where a school Barolongs was started, and a good work done. and When the Barolongs moved their settlement in 1833 to Thaba Nchu to secure a better water supply, the Methodist missionary went with his people. Mr. Hodgson had begun work among the Griquas at Boetsap in 1828, and when they moved to Lishuani, his successor, Mr. Edwards, went with them. They did not settle at Lishuani, but Mr. Edwards devoted himself to the Basutos and Mantatees, where fruitful work was done till the need for retrench ment compelled the withdrawal of the missionaries about 1859.

A mission on the Gambia was begun by the Rev. John Morgan in 1821, five years after an English settlement for the suppression The Qambia of the slave trade and the encourage- Mission- ment of commerce had been formed on the island of St. Mary, near the mouth of the great river. Its chief town was Bathurst. The mission prospered from the beginning, though fever made havoc among the agents. The Rev. William Moister, who took charge of the work in 1831, found himself the only minister in the colony, and his wife was the only European lady. Mr. Moister visited the interior and planted a 91

FROM COKE'S DEATH TO

station at McCarthy's Island, 200 miles up the river. It was hoped that this would prove a valuable centre for a mission to the Foulahs and Mandingoes, and much good was done, though at a heavy cost of life. A chapel was erected at Bathurst in 1835, and, as time passed, out-stations were formed in the villages of St. Mary's and on the mainland. McCarthy's Island was afterwards abandoned, but has been recently reoccupied. A large number of escaped slaves find their way to the island, and from these Christian workers might be raised up, whose familiarity with the language and customs of the interior would be of great service in pioneer work.

West Indian Methodism continued to make rapid progress. When Wesley died in 1791 there were

Progress in I2 missionaries and 5,645 communicants ; West indies. in lSl^ at the time of Coke>s deathj

there were 31 missionaries and 17,000 communicants. The transformation in Jamaica was little short of a miracle. When the mission began a clergyman expressed his conviction that the difficulties in the way of making the natives Christians were insur mountable. By degrees, however, the savage orgies in which the blacks delighted were abandoned. Methodist hymns took the place of negro songs. The Sunday carnivals, with their riots and obscene processions, became a thing of the past ; Sunday markets were abolished ; the whole population

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streamed to worship. Such results were not won in a day. In Jamaica two missionaries, who had 2,600 members under their care, were not allowed to preach a single sermon, and became liable to a fine of £100 and three months' imprisonment if they met a class. Two laymen formed a Methodist class at Demerara in 1811. A missionary was sent in 1814. Next year a chapel was built, and the 70 members soon grew into 370. Then troubles arose. ' The whole colony was in a blaze.' The chapel was attacked, its doors broken in, its benches torn up and thrown into the street. Richard Watson wrote : 'If the anti-mission party should be elated by the intelligence of this riot, their feel ings will probably be moderated by the statement that the mission there was never in circumstances so prosperous ; that the Society has within a year increased more than a third, and now amounts to seven hundred ; and that the increase of members has demanded an enlargement of the chapel by the erection of a gallery. Thus does God " make the wrath of man to praise Him." '

Sometimes it was found necessary to retire before the storm. At Hayti the prosperous mission begun in 1817 had to be abandoned through the fierce persecution stirred up by the Romish priests. In Barbados the Methodist chapel was demolished and the missionary driven from the island. In Jamaica, about 1829, a slave

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was almost flogged to death for being a Methodist and for praying.

The Rev. William Turton was stationed at New Providence, in the Bahamas, in 1803. Methodism The spread till every island, settlement, village, Bahamas. ancj town of any importance had its chapel. A general reformation followed. Arch deacon Wakefield bore witness long afterwards that, had it not been for these ministrations, ' almost the entire colony beyond Nassau would have been wrapped in heathen darkness, superstition, and savagery.'

Mr. Buttervvorth had to announce at the Mis sionary Anniversary in 1826 a great disaster which

had befallen our West Indian mission Loss of the

'Maria' the previous February. A party of

Mail-boat. . . . .

rive missionaries, with their wives and

three children, sailed from St. Christopher after the District Meeting. Stormy weather drove them to Montserrat, where they spent a happy Sunday. Next day they took passage in the Maria mail- boat for Antigua, but when in sight of that island, their vessel struck on the reefs. All the mission party were lost save Mrs. Jones, who had spent one year of happy toil with her husband at Parham. She returned to England and married Mr. Hincks- man, of Preston. Her son, Major Hincksman, was one of the most attached supporters of the Society.

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This meeting at City Road was the last Mr. Butterworth attended. He died on June 30, 1826.

Lancelot Haslope succeeded him as Treasurer. He was converted as a young man 'through the

agency of Methodism.' He took an

Lancelot

active part in the formation of the Haslope, , ,,. . Treasurer.

General Missionary Society. In preach ing his funeral sermon Dr. Bunting said that ' but for the unwearied kindness and perseverance and influence employed by Mr. Haslope in aid of the accomplishment of that object, it would not have been effected ; at least, at that time, nor perhaps for many years afterwards.' He had served in the West Indies as a soldier, and took a keen interest in Methodism there. In every department of mission work he proved a wise counsellor. He lived at Highbury Lodge, and was Treasurer for the trustees of City Road Chapel.

In 1824 the Rev. W. Dodwell, Vicar of Welby, Lincolnshire, left the Society a legacy of £10,000. He was a personal friend of John Wesley and a liberal helper of Dr. Coke and of the Society after his death.

The spiritual destitution of our colonies early awoke the sympathy of Methodists in England. In Newfoundland there were 20,000 colonial people without religious instruction, and Mlsslons- other colonies were in a similar state. Lawrence Coughlan seems to have introduced Methodism to

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Newfoundland in 1765. In 1790 John McGeary was sent by Wesley. The mission prospered greatly. Godly emigrants introduced Methodism into Nova Scotia in 1772, and, in response to their appeals, Wesley asked Asbury to send two preachers from America. Freeborn Garretson and James Cromwell were the pioneers. Dr. Coke sailed with a party of three missionaries in the autumn of 1786, but a tremendous gale drove them to Antigua.

In 1829 the work extended to Cape Breton. A missionary was sent to New Brunswick in September, 1791 ; to Prince Edward Island in 1807.

Methodism was introduced into Canada by the coming of Paul and Barbara Heck from New York in 1774. Bishop Asbury sent a minister to labour around the Bay of Quinte. In 1814 the Rev. John Strong was appointed to Quebec as the first English missionary.

In 1840 three missionaries were sent from England to labour among the stations of the Hudson's Bay Company. Two others joined them from the Canadian Conference. The mission won many converts, and a general improvement in the condition of the Indians followed. It was sub sequently handed over to the care of the Canadian Conference. The colonies which are now federated as the Dominion of Canada all had the Methodist

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preacher in the forefront of the immigrant tide, and the story of the successes among the Red Indians ' is full of the elements of pathos and of joy.'

When work was begun in British Columbia by the Methodists of Canada, our Society gave a grant of ^500 towards the mission.

The Upper Canada Conference was formed in 1834, and the missions in East Canada were transferred to its care in 1853, the East British American Conference including Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.

The Methodist Church of Canada was formed in 1875, arjd the various Methodist bodies in the Dominion amalgamated in 1883.

The first British settlement in Australia was formed in 1788, when 1,000 persons, 750 of whom were convicts, were brought into Port Methodism ta Jackson. The colony grew, but religion Australia- was neglected. Only two or three chaplains and schoolmasters were sent out to care for the officers and their families. In 1814 two of the teachers were Methodists, and their description of the drunkenness and crime in New South Wales led to the appointment of the Rev. Samuel Leigh as the first Methodist missionary. He arrived at Sydney in 1815, and found a little class of about nine persons, including the two teachers and their wives. He reports that in many districts people were ' crying H 97

FROM COKE'S DEATH TO

out for the gospel.' He preached in the homes of the settlers with the happiest results. The work spread, places of worship were built, and Methodism began its great mission in the colonies. The Rev. John Watsford went to labour in Brisbane, Queensland, in 1850.

The first meeting ever held for public worship in Victoria was conducted by the Rev. John Orton on April 26, 1836, under an oak-tree on Bateman's Hill, where the city of Melbourne now stands. He had been instructed by the Missionary Society to care for the aborigines. Two missionaries were appointed, but the work had to be abandoned after ten years of almost fruitless toil. In 1841 the Rev. S. Wilkinson was appointed to Melbourne, and the call for workers became louder and more urgent.

A local preacher delivered the first sermon at Adelaide, in January, 1837. When the little colony was feeling keenly the need of a Christian minister, the Rev. W. Longbottom was shipwrecked on the passage from Tasmania to Swan River, in 1838, and found such eager congregations that he made arrangements to stay and build up Methodism in the colony.

Mr. Longbottom had been on his way to Perth, in response to a request made by the settlers for a Wesleyan minister. His place was taken next year by the Rev. J. Smithies, who laboured there

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for sixteen years. Methodism kept pace with the formation of new colonies, though that involved a constant strain on its resources. The first Australian Conference met at Sydney, in 1855, and the missions in Fiji and the Friendly Islands were transferred to its care.

The Rev. B. Carvosso, who visited Tasmania on his way to New South Wales in 1820, found the

people spiritually destitute, He preached

Tasmania, often during his stay at Hobart Town,

and his report led the Committee in London to send the Rev. W. Horton to labour there in 1821. Some Methodist soldiers of the 48th Regiment had meanwhile formed a class, and a chapel was built in 1822. Mr. Carvosso became its pastor, and laboured here for five years with great success. Methodism spread through the island, and a blessed work was done among the convicts sent to Van Diemen's Land, as the island was then called.

Our first mission in New Zealand was begun among the Maoris at Wangaroa by the Rev. Samuel Leigh. He came to England in The Maori 1820, after visiting the islands, and per- Mission- suaded the missionary committee to undertake a Maori mission. There was a debt of ;£ 10,000 on the Society, but Mr. Leigh's appeals for funds met with a generous response. The Mission House in Hatton Garden was crowded with ploughs, saws,

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FROM COKE'S DEATH TO

axes, and other implements. Two Maori chiefs, who arrived while Mr. Leigh was in England, added greatly to the interest. The Missionary Committee made each of them a present of a chest of carpenter's tools, and a dress for his wife. One of them, 'Hongi, took up his residence with Mr. Leigh, whom he had met in New Zealand. In February 22, 1822, Mr. Leigh arrived in New Zealand, but war broke out and spoiled the mission. The chief whom Mr. Leigh had befriended proved revengeful and ambitious. The tribes were scattered and devastated by the war, but there was one com pensation : the captives sent to the Bay of Islands attended the mission schools, and on their return home spread the truth among their neighbours. Mr. Leigh and his wife passed through many dangers until the failure of her health compelled their return to New South Wales.

Nathaniel Turner took charge of the mission, but in 1827 'Hongi destroyed the station, and the work had to be abandoned. It was resumed in 1828 at Wangungu, forty miles from the first station. The first class of five members was formed in 1831. Then the spirit of inquiry spread. One Sunday in 1834, 81 converts were baptized. In 1837 sixteen chapels were built, and when the Australian Conference was formed, in 1855, there were 3,070 Maori members, 7,590 adherents, 4,418 Sunday scholars.

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A mission was started in Sweden by the Rev. Joseph R. Shepherd in 1826, and Dr. George Scott

was appointed to Stockholm in 1830,

0 Dr. George where he laboured with much success scottin

Stockholm.

for twelve years, until a storm of per secution and intolerance led to the withdrawal of our missionary.

On Richard Watson's appointment to City Road Circuit in 1816, he and his colleague, George

Marsden, became Missionary Secretaries.

Richard

Mr. Marsden took the oversight of the Watson as

Secretary, foreign department and the finance,

Mr. Watson of the home department, ' Both by lip and pen he became the foremost champion of the cause.' He was not relieved of circuit duties, so that the strain was constant and terrible. In 1817 he defended the West Indian missionaries from the misrepresentation and calumny which were set on foot by the slave holders and their party. His powerful pamphlet was extensively read by members of Parliament and public men. William Wilberforce greatly appreciated it. It materially assisted in the battle for freedom. England began to under stand the ignorance of the negro and the miseries of slavery. Watson received * the warmest thanks' of the Conference for his 'able and triumphant pamphlet.'

He continued to act as Secretary and circuit 101

FROM COKE'S DEATH TO

minister till 1821. Then he was wholly set apart for six years to the missionary work. His home was in Wellington Street, Pentonville. Joseph Taylor lived at the Mission House in Hatton Garden. Jabez Bunting was editor and Missionary Secretary.

Mr. Brailsford says {Richard Watson, p. 73) : ' In his relation to the missionaries in the field, the brotherliness of Watson's nature revealed itself. He knew them all, and the vineyards in which they toiled were ever before his eye. Their names and needs were on the breastplate of his daily intercession ; and it is in his regular, free, and copious correspondence with them that we see most clearly the features of his saintly and lovable character. He toiled incessantly and with all his might, and not in vain.'

One passage from a letter to Elijah Hoole will show Watson's zeal for missions. It is dated January 29, 1823. After some fatherly advice about mingling exercise with study, he says : ' You feel, I doubt not, the pleasure and profit of Madras ; but, when Mr. England arrives, we really think you ought to lay hold, fully and finally, of Seringapatam ; and let it no longer be trifled with. It is certainly to be preferred to Bangalore ; because the missionary may be work ing while he is gaining the language ; and, when Bangalore can be occupied by another, a regular 102

RICHARD WATSON'S

exchange may take place. Suppose a good native assistant could be got from the north of Ceylon to go with you, it might be of service ; unless that kind of help can be more usefully employed at Negapatam, to push out the work into the neighbourhood. The people of the old Danish mission, who are in some state of pre paration, will, I hope, be gathered in by us : I mean, those of them who are as sheep having no shepherd.'

Another letter to the Rev. D. M'Allum, M.D., in September, 1823, speaks of a mission to Jerusalem, which was under the consideration of the Committee. ' It is forced upon us by the prayers of the pious, and the contributions of the generous. We have never put it forward to excite interest ; and yet we are constantly getting money with this designation.' The idea was to have a mission house in Jerusalem, with a married and an unmarried missionary. Watson wanted M'Allum to ' lead this great work, looking forward to Syria and Lesser Asia, and backward upon the Euphrates and Armenia, as scenes to which his labours may extend.' He would have to train agents. The Rev. Charles Cook was sent to see what hope there was of a successful mission, but it was never established. Watson looked on all the world as the parish of the Missionary Society.

103

CHAPTER V

THE SECRETARYSHIP

OF JABEZ BUNTING

1833-1851

105

CHAPTER V

THE SECRETARYSHIP OF JABEZ BUNTING, 1833-1851

A FEW months after the Conference of 1832, the Missionary Society lost two of its secretaries. John James died suddenly on November6,

1832, at the age of forty-six, ' in the James and

Watson, prime of his gifted manhood.' Richard

Watson, who had been for five years in circuit work, and was reappointed Missionary Secretary 1832, closed his noble life on January 8, 1833, at the age of fifty-one. Mr. Brailsford says : ' He lived long enough to see the tentative thread of a first missionary society spread its networlc\ of organization all over the land. Instead of a hired room for the first General Committee Meeting, there was a Mission House in Hatton Garden. The sixty missionaries of the first report had multiplied to two hundred. The £6,000 of income had increased to £50,000, and there were 44,000 converts speaking in their own tongues the wonderful works of God.' 1

1 Richard Watson, p. 73. 107

THE SECRETARYSHIP OF

This double calamity made all eyes turn to Dr. Bunting. He preached his friend's funeral sermon at City Road. Next morning at ten, he says, ' a deputation came to me, consisting of Messrs. Haslope, Ranee, Marsden, Lessey, and Beecham, to inform me that, at a very full meeting of the Missionary Committee on Thursday, they were unanimously appointed to solicit my consent to their requesting the Conference to place me in the office vacant by Mr. Watson's death. They were very kind, very urgent, and made out a case which certainly had much weight. They stayed with me an hour or more, and we had, of course, a serious conversation.' He told them frankly that he should prefer to go to Leeds as he had promised, but that he would consider the matter, consult with his friends, and return an answer in a few weeks.

The Conference of 1833 appointed Bunting to the Mission House. He had already rendered

constant service to the cause for twenty Bunting

made years while actively engaged in circuit Secretary. J

work, r'or the next eighteen years the

Mission House had the inestimable benefit of Jabez Bunting's service. He might be called the ' child of missions.' His mother had been converted at Monyash, in 1769, under a sermon of Richard Boardman's, who was making his way from his circuit in the dales of Yorkshire to Bristol, where

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he was to take ship for America. His text was the prayer of Jabez, and in memory of that service Mary Bunting called her first child Jabez. When stationed in London, Jabez Bunting attended meetings of the London Missionary Society, held in Haberdashers' Hall, and at the Castle and Falcon, Aldersgate Street. At the Jubilee Meet ing of the London Missionary Society, in 1844, he said : ' For all my pleasures in connexion with the missionary service, I am mainly and essentially indebted, under the providence of God, to the London Missionary Society. It was my great privilege, from an early period, to have the opportunity of attending most of its meetings. It was what I heard at those meetings, and the statements to which I listened from the lips of excellent ministers, who, from time to time, preached your annual sermons, that, under the blessing of God, kindled in my heart whatever of a missionary spirit I have enjoyed.'

He wished to join Coke's mission to India ; but it was already clear that his duty lay in England. Coke, it is believed, discouraged him from going to India, and other advisers saw that he could render greater service to the cause of missions at home than abroad. Before he left Leeds he had arranged some literary work with a friend, but on his appointment to London he 109

THE SECRETARYSHIP OF

was compelled to lay it aside. ' The die is cast,' he wrote ; ' if I give to our missions the attention they require, I shall not have any time hereafter for literature.'

Jabez Bunting had a great zeal for the exten sion of the work. When the income reached £37,000 he suggested that it should be raised to £50,000. A gentleman who sat on the City Road platform, a true friend of missions, was so much staggered by this proposal that he turned to a neighbour, and said : ( I do think you ought to check that man's impudence. I never heard so impudent a proposal!' Dr. Bunting lived to hear it proposed that the income should be raised to £150,000.

Jabez Bunting came into office on the eve of the emancipation of the slaves. Methodism had

had a glorious share in securing that Emancipa- tionofthe triumph. Out of 352,404 Nonconformist

Slaves. . . .

signatures to petitions to Parliament in its favour 229,426 were those of Methodists. In May, 1833, it was resolved that slavery should be for ever abolished throughout the British colonies on August I, 1834. £7,000 was now raised to send out eighteen new missionaries, and make good losses sustained in Jamaica during the recent riots. Our Church had reason to be proud of its black children whom it had trained in the graces of forbearance and Christian patience.

no

JABEZ BUNTING

' No Methodist slave was ever proved guilty of incendiarism or rebellion for more than seventy years,' 1760-1834. Despite their prudent be haviour the missionaries did not escape per secution. Chapels were destroyed by the mob, preachers were tarred and feathered, and attempts were even made to set them on fire.

The negroes laboured faithfully at their tasks till the usual hour of rest on July 31, 1834. At ten o'clock they streamed to the chapels. All of them were not Christians, but all came to the services. A few minutes before midnight the congregations knelt in silent prayer, then, as the hour of freedom struck, 800,000 free men poured out their souls in the doxology :

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow.

Friends and relatives fondly embraced each other and returned home thanking God that they had lived to see the day of liberty. The people now enjoyed full religious freedom. The congrega tions largely increased. New chapels had to be built, and old ones enlarged on almost every station. In one circuit 1,000 new members were gathered in during a single year.

The glorious work in the Pacific, which was to fill the Christian world with joy and amazement, had begun before Richard Watson's death. In June, 1822, the Rev. Walter Lawry, who was

in

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stationed in New South Wales, sailed from Sydney with his family to see what prospect

Light in there was of success in Tonga. He

Tonga, landed in August, and was received with great heartiness by the chiefs and people, who promised to send thousands of children to the schools. The prospect was so encouraging that Mr. Lawry wrote home for helpers and supplies. After fourteen months' labour the delicate state of Mrs. Lawry's health led her husband to return to New South Wales. Two European artisans who had come with Mr. Lawry remained on the island, but the work languished until the arrival of the Revs. John Thomas and John Hutchinson and their wives from England in June, 1826.

The first station was at Hihifo, but after a while the fickle people turned against the mission, and did all they could to hinder its success. In 1827 light began to break. Tubou, chief of Nukualofa, gave up his gods and built a chapel for Christian worship. In 1828 Nathaniel Turner and William Cross came to work among Tubou's people. It was impossible to meet the demand for missionaries.

A notable chief, afterwards famous as King

George, of the Friendly Islands, came in person

to Tonga to seek a teacher. His urgent request

could not be granted for some time, but he at

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JABEZ BUNTING

once abandoned his idols, and began to keep the Christian Sabbath.

The work at Hihifo proved very discouraging, and in January, 1830, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas removed to the Haabai Islands. A native teacher had been doing a great work here, and out of eighteen islands all but three had embraced Christianity. King George proved a true helper, and before Mr. Thomas had been a year at Lifuka he and 150 of his people became mem bers of the church. King George's influence led Finau, the chief of Vavau, to renounce idolatry. He burned eighteen idol temples with their gods, and so eager were he and his people for instruction, that one of the Christian teachers was unable to get rest for four nights, from his delightful labour of reading, praying, and teaching the people.

A great trouble befell the mission in 1832. Mr. and Mrs. Cross sailed for Vavau in a vessel lent to them by one of the chiefs. About seventy natives were also on board with supplies for the mission and building materials for the new station. They encountered severe weather, and after thirty hours of storms the canoe struck upon a reef and was dashed to pieces. Mrs. Cross was drowned, with fourteen men, one woman, and five children. The survivors were rescued from the lonely island on which they had been cast by a canoe from Tonga. i 113

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In July, 1834, whilst a native local preacher was speaking at Utui on Christ's compassion for Jeru salem, the whole congregation was moved to cry for mercy. Next Sunday, at another village, 500 of the natives joined in seeking salvation. The in fluence spread from island to island. The school had to be given up, and six prayer-meetings a day were held for inquirers. In Vavau 2,262 members were added to the 800 already meeting in class. King George and his queen, who had long renounced idolatry, were now truly con verted. Similar scenes were witnessed at Lifuka and at Tonga. King George became a local preacher, and exerted himself to raise the moral and social status of his subjects. He issued a code of laws, and his clemency to the Tongan rebels whom he conquered made a deep impression on his enemies.

During the great revival in the Friendly Islands, a vessel arrived there from Fiji. A chief was on board, who gave an appalling account of a recent cannibal feast, at which 200 men and 100 women had been killed and eaten.

The work in the Friendly Islands was taxing

the mission staff to the utmost ; but ever}7 one

The Mission ^e^ that the awful heathenism of Fiji

to Fiji. made a loud call on their pity and help. The District Meeting at Lifuka in December, 1834, arranged that William Cross 114

JABEZ BUNTING

and David Cargill should begin a mission in Fiji.

On Monday, October 12, 1835, the mission party arrived off Lakemba, one of the most easterly islands of the group. The captain of the Black bird was afraid to sail through the narrow opening in the coral reef, but sent the two missionaries ashore in a boat. Two hundred armed natives stood near the landing-place. Their faces were painted black or red, and all were nearly naked. The king received his visitors at his own house, and promised to give them land for a settlement, erect mission houses, and protect their lives and property. Before night fell the mission party were in their temporary home, a canoe house on the shore. On Sunday Mr. Cross preached to seventy Fijians and as many Tongans. Services were held at first in the open air ; then a little chapel was erected ; and on March 20, 1836, thirty-two adults, who all gave evidence of change of heart, were baptized.

The king and his brother tried to stop the work in Lakemba by fierce persecution, but it daily took deeper root. Before the first year closed 138 adults and 53 children had been baptized, and 250 boys and girls were attending school. In December, 1837, Mr. Cross formed a *ew mission at Rewa. At Ono 120 adults embraced the new religion, though they had never seen a missionary.

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The native teachers from Tonga had a large share in the conversion of Fiji. In May, 1838, a party of six, among whom was the noble Joeli Bulu, came to reinforce the mission. These men counted not their lives dear to them and spared no toil or sacrifice to spread the light. Miss Gordon-Gumming was introduced to this fine old Tongan chief when she visited Bau. She says : ' His features are beautiful, his colour clear olive, and he has grey hair, and a long silky grey beard. He is just my ideal of what Abraham must have been, and would be worth a fortune to an artist as a patriarchal study.' She had rarely met any man so perfectly simple, or so unmistakably in earnest. He was once attacked by a shark whilst bathing ; but as the monster opened its jaws he seized its tongue by the root and struck out for shore, dragging the shark after him. When he reached the bank he fell down utterly exhausted. He bore the scars of that encounter to the grave. He died in May, 1877, and was buried beside his old friend, John Hunt. Thakombau and his family, whose special chaplain he had been, followed the veteran to his resting-place.

A powerful and pathetic appeal by the Rev.

James Watkin, entitled Pity Poor Fiji, produced

a profound impression on English Methodism,

and in April, 1838, John Hunt, James Calvert,

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and Thomas J. Jaggar were sent out to strengthen the mission. John Hunt is the chief saint of

the Methodist mission field. He had

The Trans- been a Lincolnshire ploughboy, but formation of

grace seemed almost to give him a new nature. Thomas Jaggar had been trained at Kingswood, and James Calvert was compositor, printer, and bookbinder, and had gained much experience, which proved of great service to the mission, as bookseller, postmaster, and sub-editor of a local newspaper. Hunt began the translation of the Scriptures, and the printing-press was soon busily at work printing the Gospel of St. Mark in Fijian.

For years the missionaries lived in a world of horrors. At Rewa, where Mr. Cargill was stationed, a great chief died and his thirty wives were strangled. When war broke out twenty bodies were sent to the king and queen, but they had abandoned cannibalism, and the flesh was distributed among the neighbouring towns ; 260 persons were killed in an attack on a fortress, and the bodies were brought off to be roasted and eaten. Here is Mr. Cargill's description : ' The scene appeared to the imagination as if a legion of demons had been unchained and let loose among the people, to revel in their degradation and misery, and to lash their passions into a storm of imbruted or diabolical barbarity, The

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children amused themselves with mutilating the dead body of a little girl. Human entrails were floating down the river in front of the mission premises. Mutilated limbs, heads, and trunks of human corpses were seen in many places on the banks of the river between Bau and Rewa.'

About this time a canoe was wrecked on an uninhabited island near Lakemba. The men were six hours in the water ; they managed to float near each other for prayer, and when one of their comrades was tired, the rest put the pieces of wood, by which they supported them selves, nc.ar together so that the exhausted man might rest awhile. The chief and his nine companions were Christians, but they knew the fate of shipwrecked sailors, and durst not approach Lakemba. At last, pressed by hunger, one of them swam to that island. He invented some story to account for his state, but after a time ventured to tell the truth. Three canoes were immediately sent out to rescue the men. They had entrenched themselves on a hill top, and were armed with clubs. Great was their joy when they found that they had fallen among Christians. Grace was working mightily among these savages.

The gospel meanwhile made steady progress. Ono was a new world. Lakemba and all its dependencies welcomed Christianity, The chief

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barrier to the complete victory of the truth was Thakombau, king of Bau. Mr. Calvert set his heart on winning this redoubtable chief, but Thakombau refused to listen to his pleadings. When his father died he took an active part in strangling the old chiefs five wives. Yet two years later he was brought by personal troubles and perils to see that he must lead a new life. He became a convert in 1854, and three years later was publicly baptized. The natives thus felt that the new faith was victorious. They had waited for Thakombau's decision, and now that he had lost faith in the old gods they were eager to abandon them.

The cannibal tyrant became a pillar and an ornament to the Methodist Church. He was a stately and imposing man, with clear penetrating eyes. Those who heard him pray in his last days in the church at Bau remembered it as long as they lived.

Methodism has won no more glorious triumph than that among the cannibals of Fiji. Miss Gordon-Gumming says : ' Every family in the length and breadth of the eighty inhabited islands begins and ends each day with the singing of Christian hymns, reading the Scriptures in their own tongue, and devout prayer offered by the head of each household, and concluding with the Lord's Prayer, in which all audibly unite.

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I doubt if there be any other corner of the world from which the outgoings of morning and evening waft to heaven so united a voice of prayer and praise.'

In 1824 the Rev. John Keeling was appointed

to Malta, where the work was continued till

1844, when numerous changes among

the European residents and the military

led to the withdrawal of our agent. In 1869

the place was reoccupied as a military station.

Methodism was not yet in a position to do much for the continent of Europe, but a bold effort was made to spread gospel light in Spain. Dr. Rule's work in Gibraltar, from 1832 to 1842, was specially fruitful. He was able to Dr. Rule in secure an order from General Lord Spain. Hill> Commander-in-Chief in 1839, that every soldier should have full liberty ' to attend the worship of Almighty God according to the forms prescribed of his own religion, when military duty does not interfere.' Dr. Rule had a sharp struggle to get this order observed ; but his boldness and pertinacity conquered, and the Methodist soldiers were regularly marched to their own church.

In 1835 and 1836 he visited various towns in Spain. The principal schoolmaster at Gibraltar was sent, at the end of 1836, to open a mission in Cadiz. He visited the English ships, taught

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school, and held services ; but in January, 1838, the school had to be closed. A favourable feeling had grown up towards the mission, and good seed was lodged in many minds, so that the year's work was not in vain. Dr. Rule journeyed to Madrid, and gained permission to set up his school again under restrictions. For some time he lived in Cadiz himself, and formed a society of twenty-five members ; but the Roman Catholics were determined to stop his work. On a given Sunday all the pulpits of the city denounced the Methodist preacher. The newspaper led the opposition to his school. Dr. Rule was compelled to leave Cadiz on April 24, 1839. He kept possession of his house for a time, and occasionally paid a visit to the place, but in April, 1840, the opposition became so severe that he had to return to Gibraltar, and content himself with sending a weekly pastoral to the little flock until he sailed for England, in 1842. George Borrow says, in his Bible in Spain : { So much success attended the efforts of these two brave disciples of the immortal Wesley (Messrs. Rule and Lyon) that there is every reason for supposing that, had they not been silenced and eventually banished from the country by the pseudo-Liberal faction of the Moderados, not only Cadiz, but the greater part of Andalusia would by this time have confessed the pure doctrines of the gospel, and have

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discarded for ever the last relics of Popish superstition.'

Memorable work was being done 'in Western Africa. The Gold Coast mission owed its origin

The Gold to a ^ew native youths who had learned Coast. to read the Bible at the Government

School at Cape Coast Castle. They formed a Bible Club, and asked Captain Potter, the master of a Bristol ship, to procure them copies of the Scriptures in England. He was himself a Wes- leyan, and not only fulfilled his commission, but called at the Mission House and offered to take out a missionary free of cost. The Rev. Joseph Dunwell arrived at the new station on January I, 1835, and laboured with much success till June, when he died of malignant fever. Other workers followed, and, despite the fatal climate, Methodism became firmly rooted. Mr. Hayes remembers the anxiety in the Mission House when the West African mails arrived with news of our agents stricken down by fever.

Thomas Birch Freeman took charge of our mission at Cape Coast in January, 1838. He set out a year later with the hope of planting Methodism at Kumasi, 142 miles distant. He entered * the city of blood ' on April i, and had an interview with the king. The horrors which he witnessed with his own eyes made him the more eager to introduce Christianity without

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delay. The Missionary Committee regarded his scheme with much favour, and he was called to England in 1840 to make arrangements. The deepest interest was felt in his story. Five thousand pounds were raised. Dr. Beecham wrote : ' Never was a missionary party dismissed from the shores of England with a more intense feeling of interest and sympathy.' On December 13, 1841, Freeman was again in Kumasi. He won special favour from the king, and after a few weeks left Mr. Bracking in charge of the station. But the king proved jealous of the mission, and it never gained strength in the capital, though it did good service in the country around. The Ashanti War of 1874 brought it to an end for more than twenty years.

The work in Abeokuta was begun by Mr. Freeman in 1842, in response to the urgent request of the liberated African Christians. He received a warm greeting from the enlightened ruler and his people. Shouts of welcome greeted him as he passed through the streets. He also visited the king of Dahomey in his capital, and secured permission to open a mission in that country. The fetish priests became jealous, and a great persecution broke out. The mis sionaries were banished for ten years, but the fire did not die out, and our workers were at last able to return to this great town.

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Across the Atlantic a notable work was also carried on among the Cree Indians in the Hudson's Bay territory. Five missionaries were appointed to labour in this immense region.

The work in Ceylon made steady progress during Dr. Bunting's secretariat. Mr. Gogerly Progress in was training teachers, preaching in Ceylon. the heathen villages, translating and printing the Scriptures, and winning all hearts. Robert Spence Hardy was rapidly gaining a repu tation as an oriental scholar. Dr. Kessen, who had been trained at the University of Glasgow, went out in 1840, and gave himself to educa tional work. He rendered valuable service to the Government as principal of the training college for native Christian schoolmasters, to which post he was appointed in 1845, anc* as head master of Colombo Central School. There thousands of the brightest youths of Ceylon came under his care, and the hour spent each morning in Bible teaching and prayer leavened their minds with Christian truth. When his health compelled him to leave Ceylon in 1857, all classes regretted his departure, and the Government conferred on him a pension in recognition of his services.

The Bishop of Colombo visited Batticaloa in 1846. He found a heathen temple there left unfinished. f Its supporters were reduced, by the efforts of the Wesleyan missionaries, to one

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JABEZ BUNTING

individual of any importance or influence in the station. Provoked by the success of the mis sionaries, he ordered the idol to be made at his own expense. He went himself to bring it in solemn procession. On the way, conscience struck him; he asked himself, "What am I doing? Am I going to worship that which I have myself seen made?" He suddenly left it, and returned, and from that day became a consistent Christian. Not a stone has been added since.' A great awakening was reported among the jungle Veddahs in 1841.

The work in India was spreading. It gained a notable recruit in 1829, when Thomas Hodson went to join Peter Percival in Calcutta. He south gave thirty-nine fruitful years to India. India- In 1833 ne began his work in Bangalore, where he introduced Kanarese preaching with great effect, and raised the mission to a high state of efficiency. He secured a large plot of ground from the Govern ment for mission premises, and in 1836 opened the first English school for natives, which is now one of the most efficient in South India, with more than five hundred pupils.

Mr. Hodson began the mission at Gubbi, fifty- six miles north-west of Bangalore, in 1837. After he had built a house, he went to form a new station in the city of Mysore in 1838, leaving the Rev. John Jenkins in charge. He had been

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about a year at Gubbi when William Arthur joined him, in October, 1839. There were about twenty places in the circuit, including Tumkur, about twelve miles away. Mr. Arthur rapidly acquired a knowledge of Kanarese, and preached in the streets and at the doors of the temples. His study door was always open to inquirers, and his whole soul was in his work ; but his sight failed, and he was compelled, with breaking heart, to embark for England on April 20, 1841. In 1835 a mission was started in Mannargudi, thirty miles to the west of Negapatam. Thomas Cryer and his wife found themselves, on January 26, 1843, surrounded by heathen temples and by idol and devil worship. The town then had 19,000 inhabitants, of whom 5,000 were Brahmans. The eight towers of the great temple to Vishnu were plainly visible from the mission compound. Idol processions disturbed the services in the little chapel, and the congregation would run out to see any fresh sight, yet the people had never been so eager to hear the gospel. Mrs. Cryer, the saint of our Indian mission-field, wrote : ' British Christians have no idea what idolatry is ; what it does for, in, and by, its votaries. Oh, it is an awful masterpiece of Satan's policy, by which he is holding millions spell-bound ! ' Her life in India only lasted a few months, then, at the age of thirty-one, she fell a victim to cholera. 126

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In Cape Colony Methodism was steadily growing. The mission to the Kaffirs was much hindered

by tribal wars. A notable addition

Cape Colony

was made to the staff in November, and tne

Kaffirs. 1830, when William B. Boyce arrived

at Buntingville, one of William Shaw's Kaffir stations. He compiled the first Kaffir grammar, and for thirteen years rendered invaluable service. James Archbell went from Kaffraria with a mili tary expedition in 1841, and formed a mission at Durban, in the newly annexed colony of Natal, in 1842. Four years later an entrance was gained to Maritzburg. The Rev. W. C. Holden began his fruitful work at Durban in 1847. A chapel was built there in 1858.

Ralph Stott, who formerly was a missionary among the Tamils and Veddahs of North Ceylon, did good work among the Indian coolies settled in the colony and among the Zulus.

Elijah Hoole was appointed assistant Missionary Secretary in 1834, and two years later became one of the General Secretaries. He had Elijah spent eight years as a missionary in Hoole- India, and now gave thirty-eight years' service at the Mission House. He gained a high reputation as an oriental scholar, and was an honoured member of the Royal Asiatic Society and other learned bodies. He worked on to the end of his life with his old enthusiasm, and died in 1872.

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William Arthur served the Mission House as

Secretary from 1851 to 1867. He had aroused

William great enthusiasm as a missionary advo-

MiSixmary cate on nis return fr°m India, when Advocate, for ^nree years he was under the direc tion of the Missionary Society.

The Gledhow Breakfast at Leeds, which was first held in connexion with the Missionary Anniversary in 1849, was a noble effort, made by a party of laymen, to stand by the Society in time of misrepresentation. On the evening of October 29, 1849, t-ne day on which it was first held, Mr. Arthur delivered an impassioned address in Brunswick Chapel. It dealt with the watch word of the extremists of the day, ' Stop the supplies.' He spoke of Dr. Bunting's sacrifices and service for Methodism, and of Dr. Hoole's refusal to accept a Professorship of Tamil from the East India Company worth £800 to ^"1,000 per annum. ' What/ he asked, ' would the faithful toiling missionaries on the foreign field say to the cry of "Stop the supplies"? William Shaw, of South Africa, what say you ? Shall we stop the supplies? Thomas Freeman, do you say, " Stop the supplies ); ? No, but as you value the salvation of human souls, and the peace of human hearts, increase the supplies. . . . And the spirit of John Hunt? He was my fellow-student, and if he were now listening to my voice— -perhaps

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he is listening— -and heard me asking, "Shall we Methodists of England stop the supplies ? " I can hear his well-known voice, with a new angel tone in it, repeating the text, which was so much his favourite while on earth, " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." And the spirit of John Waterhouse, would he not repeat from within the veil the words which he uttered just as he was passing within it, " Missionaries ! Mis sionaries ! Missionaries ! " No, we will not stop the supplies.'

The growth of our missions in all parts of the world now made it essential to train the agents for their responsible and difficult work.

In 1834 a large private house was taken in Hoxton as a theological institution. This was soon crowded, and Abney Park, where Hoxton and Dr. Watts was once an honoured guest, Ricnmond- was secured. Men intended for the mission field and for home work were trained together. The site at Richmond was bought by the Centenary Fund, and the College was opened on Sep tember 15, 1843. The outlay was £24,000.

The Methodist people responded nobly to the claims of the mission field. The Centenary Fund in 1839 reached a total of £221,939, of

which £10,640 was raised on foreign Centenary , .. - * Fund, 1839.

stations. £70,000 was set apart for missions. A missionary ship, The Triton, was K 129

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provided for the South Pacific at a cost of £6,000, and about £34,000 was used for payment of debt and providing mission premises ; £30,000 was spent in the purchase and alteration of the City of London Tavern, which, after undergoing extensive improvements and additions, was opened in January, 1841, with religious services — in which Dr. Bunting, Dr. Newton, and Richard Reece took part. The Hatton Garden premises had long been found inadequate for the growing business of the Society. The new premises, the Wesleyan Centenary Hall and Mission House, at last gave ample room for a work which had become world-wide. Provision was also made for Methodist committees of every kind. The Upper Room at Bishopsgate, at which public meetings had been held, proved a splendid hall for mis sionary ordinations and farewell services. The President's missionary sermon used to be a great event, which drew together the chief families of our Church. The Methodists of the Centenary time proved their fine business instinct when they secured such a site. Their property is now worth a quarter of a million sterling.

In 1841, when there was fear of a new debt being added to the burdens of the Society, Dr. Bunting suggested that each child of Wes leyan parents should give or collect one shilling as a juvenile Christmas offering. It was hoped

130

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to raise £3,000, but £4,890 was sent in, and a new source of income discovered.

On Dr. Bunting's retirement, in 1851, unbounded gratitude was expressed for his noble service. The Committee recognized that the public Retirement of confidence reposed in the Society, and Dr> Buntin£- the liberal pecuniary help it had received, were largely due to his ' unrestrained disinterested ness and zeal.' They felt that his name and influence had been of the highest service in critical negotiations with the Government, and rejoiced ' in the triumph of Christianity exhibited in the maintenance of the missions in the West Indies during the trying period of negro slavery ; the abolition of that iniquitous system, and the subsequent enlargement of the Society's operations in the West Indies ; the extension of the missions in India, in western and southern Africa, in the vast regions of Australia and Polynesia, and in other parts of the world.'

In the promotion of all these noble tasks, Dr. Bunting had taken an active and prominent part for forty years. The income of the Society was more than doubled between 1832 and 1851.

CHAPTER VI

TWENTY YEARS

OF PROGRESS

1852-1871

CHAPTER VI

TWENTY YEARS OF PROGRESS 1852-1871

THE toil of many years was now bearing fruit. Missions that had been nursed with loving care were becoming ripe for self-support and Results of self-government. In 1852 the French the Work> Conference was formed ; in the next two or three years our missions in East Canada and in the North-West Territories were handed over to the Canadian Conference. Robert Young brought a glorious report on his return from the South Seas in April, 1854, and before that year closed came news that heathenism in Fiji had lost its chief prop by the conversion of Thakombau. The first Austra lian Conference met at Sydney in 1855. Fiji and the Friendly Islands were transferred to its care. The Friendly Islands work was no longer a mission to the heathen. The report for 1858 rejoices that the day of visitation has come to Fiji. ' About one- fourth of the entire estimated population of the group have abandoned heathenism, and earnestly desire to be instructed in the saving truths of J35

TWENTY YEARS OF PROGRESS

Christianity.' Thirty-six chapels had been built during the year.

These were glorious results. The report for 1853 speaks of 'peace in Tonga; extensive pros perity in Fiji ; hopeful efforts in Australia ; new openings on the Gold Coast ; the extensive re nunciation of idols at Sierra Leone ; the gracious revivals in Canada and New Brunswick.' Greater tasks were in store. China, Italy, and a new district in India were within the next few years added to the Society's area of operation.

In 1851 the John Wesley brought a shipload of shells, corals, clubs and weapons given by native converts in the South Seas, and £498 was raised by their sale. In 1852 Mr. Thomas Marriott left £10,000 to the Society.

Between 1835 and 1843 the number of our missionaries increased by 101. The report for 1853

Rapid says : ' This rapid extension — without Extension. exampiej we believe, among Protestant missionary societies — caused an additional outlay which greatly exceeded the additional income, and debts accumulated upon the Committee, which notwithstanding many instances of truly Christian liberality, have up to the present time hindered extension, beyond that necessary to keep what had already been gained ; yet even thus the missionaries of the Society are this year 101 more than in 1844.' The Society's missions in

136

TWENTY YEARS OF PROGRESS

India 'were weak to a degree actually humbling; yet many yearned for China.' Money was offered freely. One branch Society held a meeting to promote some scheme, but the Committee still hesitated.

George Piercy went out to Hong Kong on January 30, 1851, at his own charge. He had expected to find a Christian sergeant George Piercy and a little class of Methodist soldiers in CWna" in Hong Kong, but was told on his arrival that Sergeant Ross was dead. He was a young Methodist, the centre of a praying band of six or seven comrades, who met in his room. They were now scattered or dead. The man who told Mr. Piercy of this loss was the only member of the band left to welcome him. Dr. Legge of the London Missionary Society entertained Mr. Piercy for three weeks until he hired a room that would hold sixty persons. Dr. Herschberg, also of the London Missionary Society, gave him some medical training. A Society of twenty soldiers and soldiers' wives was soon formed. Their offerings and help from friends in England enabled Mr. Piercy to give his whole time to the mission without taking secular work, as he had intended to do. After some months he moved to Canton, where he was able to visit the houses and shops freely. He then offered himself to our Society as an agent.

TWENTY YEARS OF PROGRESS

A paper in the Missionary Notices for October, 1852, describes the spirit in which the great

mission to China was undertaken. In The

opportunity 1836 the Emperor of China forbade in China.

the profession of Christianity under the

severest penalties. The Government of China gave permission, however, in 1845, that every form of Christianity might be professed, and by later orders the term of travel into the interior for a missionary was extended from twenty-four hours to several months. Agents of the London Missionary Society visited places fifty miles from the five treaty ports, preaching and distributing books freely.

Figures were quoted that 'our friends may, at leisure, familiarize their minds with the immensity of human want represented by the word " China." ' The population was estimated at 450 millions. The London Missionary Society had been at work since 1807, when Dr. Morrison went out. Before Methodism began to take its share in the vast task 150 men had been sent out by various Societies ; 88 were Americans, 47 Englishmen, 15 from the Continent of Europe. 73 missionaries were now at work. Just at the time the door was opened into China ( our Society had been making exertions of an extraordinary kind for Africa, the West Indies, and the South Seas. After the emancipation of the slaves, the 138

TWENTY YEARS OF PROGRESS

missionaries were largely increased in the West Indies, the new and costly mission to the Gold Coast and Ashanti was established, and the cry from Fiji was responded to, with, at the same time, considerable extension in New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, and India/

But it was no longer possible to hold back. Many hearts were greatly stirred by the vast opportunity of winning China for Christ. Zeal for One Richmond student was so anxious Clnna- to join Mr. Piercy 'that he would gladly have done so, without promise of sustenance, in the hope of finding some situation whereby to support himself. Another young minister had for years had his heart set upon China.' Both begged the mission authorities to let them go out. Mr. Farmer had already offered £100 a year for ten years for a mission to China. He had paid six instal ments, and said that the day the two missionaries sailed he would give the other £4.00 and £100 a year. The Committee felt this a providential call. They accepted Mr. Piercy as a probationer, and on January 20, 1853, sent out tne ^wo young ministers, William R. Beach and Josiah Cox, with Miss Wannop, a trained teacher from our Westminster College. Mr. Piercy had opened a school in Canton, and in June, 1853, began to hold public services in English and Chinese in his own house. Dr. Hobson, of the London Missionary

TWENTY YEARS OF PROGRESS

Society, allowed Leang Afa, the first convert of Protestant missions in China, who had been baptized in 1816, to preach once every Sunday in the Methodist chapel. The little society at Hong Kong had been much reduced by removals and various causes, so that the work was left to the charge of other missionaries who were on the spot. Three additional missionaries — Samuel Hutton, Samuel J. Smith, and John Preston- were sent out in February, 1855. They made the voyage from Gravesend to Hong Kong in eighty- nine days. Meanwhile, Mr. Beach had joined the Church Missionary Society. A member of the English Episcopal Church offered a donation of £500 if two more men were sent out, and the offer was accepted. Between 1847 and 1850 .£884 143. had been subscribed for China, and in 1851-3 £2,388. During the Crimean War £20 was received from Methodist soldiers in Balaclava.

In March, 1856, Mr. Cox and others visited

three considerable cities and several villages

JosiahCox within fifty miles of Canton. They

in canton, distributed hundreds of tracts, and 1,590

New Testaments. When war broke out with

England the mission party removed to Macao.

Mr. Cox stayed for a while in Canton. When it

was no longer safe to remain there he visited the

Chinese settlers in the British possessions in

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TWENTY YEARS OF PROGRESS

the Straits of Malacca. Before war broke out the two day schools had 24 boys and 14 girls, and three of the Chinese attendants were almost ready for baptism. These and two others were baptized at Macao. The time there was not wasted, and when peace was restored work was resumed in Canton. The old preaching-place was reopened on February 6, 1859, an^ that day four adults and two infants were baptized. In 1859 four day schools were opened, with 138 children. At the beginning of 1861 there were fifteen members, with five on trial. Two good houses had been built, and a boys' school in the rear of one of them. In the same year Mr. Piercy reported that a preaching-place had been erected at a cost of £400, and three places for preach ing, all of which were the freehold property of the Society.

This was the outcome of a legacy of £10,000 left to the Society in 1860 by Mr. Pooll, of Road, in Somerset.

In 1862 a house in a good street was rented for the mission which had been begun in Fatshan. In 1862, also, Mr. Cox began the mission Advance in in Hankow, five hundred miles north Cnma- of Canton. He wrote : ' The whole heathen world cannot produce a field whose population is so great, accessible, and intelligent ; nor one where the marked providence of God so loudly demands

141

TWENTY YEARS OF PROGRESS

our co-operation.' A plot of ground was secured for mission premises. Mr. Cox had visited the Tai-Ping ( revolutionists/ but found that it was not wise to begin a mission among them.

Dr. J. Porter Smith sailed on December 10, 1863, to start a medical mission in Hankow. Addresses were given to the patients before Dr. Smith saw them, and whilst he was busy in his dispensary those who waited in the chapel were spoken to by Mr. Cox and his helpers. William Scarborough and David Hill were stationed at Hankow in 1864. In 1866 F. P. Napier joined the Canton Mission, and Silvester Whitehead was appointed to Fatshan. In March, 1867, a native house was rented in Wuchang. A hall which held about thirty persons occupied the centre, with two rooms on either side for the two missionaries. There was also a small dispensary.

A description of the region by Dr. Mullins, of the London Missionary Society, is quoted in

the Report for 1868 : ' Hankow is indeed Hankow. . .

a noble city. It is, m name and reality,

the " Heart of the Empire." Its streets are well made, well paved, and full of good shops, exhibiting excellent goods ; the population is closely packed, and the streets, great and small, are always crowded. A beautiful view of both cities is obtained from the hills of Wuchang. Wuchang 142

TWENTY YEARS OF PROGRESS

lies at one's feet, divided by the ridge into two parts, and clear to the eye are the wide parade- ground, the public offices, the long street for business, the rows of dwelling-houses, the ruins of temples, and the city walls, ten miles in circuit, which even now enclose 200,000 people. Across the river on the south is the little walled city of Hanyang. Next is a lofty bluff which overhangs the stream, and by its side, running far into the interior, is seen the narrow stream of the Han, covered with a crowd of junks and river-boats, which have brought down the produce of distant provinces, and are transmitting it to the seaports. To the north of the little river the crowd of white roofs, densely packed, and stretching for three miles along the bank of the Yang-tse, forms the town of Hankow. Numerous steamers lie at the wharves, and at the northern end is seen the English settlement, with its substantial, handsome houses, and its wide, level road. The Yang-tse itself, broad, placid, yet alive with moving boats, and stretching far away both north and south, divides the two great towns.' Dr. Smith left Hankow in 1870, his place being taken by Dr. E. J. Hardey. During his first year 6,067 out- and 93 in-patients were relieved. In 1871 there were 122 members, 348 scholars, 10 missionaries and assistant missionaries, and 17 other agents. The work was firmly established, and, though the

TWENTY YEARS OF PROGRESS

harvest as yet was small, there was much to encourage the workers.

Dr. Coke's wisdom in venturing on work in Ceylon had long been justified by results. The

Progress in ReP°rt f°r l&51 draws attention to the ceyion. fact that Dr Kessen had returned to

Colombo as Principal of the Government College for training natives as teachers. 'Whilst he devotes his energies to this sacred object, he is laying wide the foundations of the Christian Church in that heathen country, and deepening the impression which has already been made on many professed followers of Buddha and worship pers of the devil. These systems of superstition are now shaken, and are tottering to their fall.' At the mission press Mr. Gogerly was busy in getting out an edition of 5,000 New Testaments and 2,000 Old Testaments. The young converts of the mission showed great zeal. ' They go from house to house, speaking of a Saviour able and willing to save, and stating their own experience of His abounding love.'

The Tamil work in North Ceylon was steadily growing. Seventeen teachers were studying at the Training Institute in 1854, and the girls' schools were prospering. The Rev. John Walton began a Tamil service on Sunday evenings, and built a High School in Trincomalee in 1853. Mr. Kilner reported that nine adults were being prepared

144

TWENTY YEARS OF PROGRESS

for baptism at Batticaloa. Mr. Walton became General Superintendent of the North Ceylon Mission in 1855. Two years later he was able to report that the people began to manifest something like a personal interest in the work. They con tributed more generously, and attended class better. In South Ceylon the same spirit was growing. It was agreed ' to hold a missionary meeting in every circuit, and to work out the principle of a self- supporting native ministry, in order not only to relieve the Society's funds, but to lead the people to feel that the work of God is their work, and that the pastor has a scriptural claim to be supported by the people.'

The Rev. William Barber spent the first seven years of his ministry in North Ceylon, where he was chiefly occupied in educational work. The Report for 1857 says that ninety-five boys were learning English, and five of them had been baptized during the year. Mr. Barber's health compelled him to leave Ceylon in 1858, and for twelve years he laboured at the Cape of Good Hope. When he left there were 496 scholars in the North Ceylon schools. Mr. Walton had to return to England in 1859, Mr. Kilner succeeded him as Chairman. The population was now becoming leavened with Christian truth. The Report for 1860 says: 'Whereas, formerly, every adult and every stripling stood for the defence of Hinduism, and was ready L 145

TWENTY YEARS OF PROGRESS

to pour unmingled curses and contempt on the mis sionary and his message, the marvel is, nowadays, to meet with a man who will set himself seriously to maintain heathenism or refute Christianity.' In Jaffna symptoms of the decay of heathenism ' as a religion, or as a system commanding the respect of the intellect and the confidence of the heart' were plain for all to see. The religious element had vanished from the feasts.

On September 6, 1862, Daniel J. Gogerly, the

venerable Chairman of the South Ceylon District,

D j died after more than forty years of

Gogeriy. service. The Report for 1863 says: * The annals of this Society contain not a few illustrious names, but not one that will call forth more sincere admiration and regret than his. His great powers of mind, his vast acquirements, his unwearied diligence, his diversified services, and his life-long devotion to missionary work, have secured for Mr. Gogerly that amount of esteem and respect which was their due not only within, but around, and beyond the limits of, his own community ; while his labours for the spread of Christianity and the overthrow of the Buddhist superstition present a striking and instructive instance of the power of concentrated and persevering effort.'

The Buddhist priests had shaken off their lethargy and formed a society to carry their 146

TWENTY YEARS OF PROGRESS

message from house to house. It was a great relief to the Committee when Robert Spence Hardy consented to take charge of the south South Ceylon District for a time. The Ceylon- Buddhists had attacked Christianity in the Press and at public meetings, but this controversy had led to a clearer separation between Christians and heathen, and wise discipline had given a healthier tone to our work. Mr. Wijesingha, the first native preacher of pure Sinhalese descent, and one of the early converts in Ceylon, died in 1864. He became an assistant missionary in 1819, and his consistent life made a deep impression on his heathen neighbours. Mr. Parys, another veteran, died about the same time. He was a Romanist of French descent, and a solicitor, but he gave up his profession to become a catechist in our mission. He preached with great power and acceptance both in Sinhalese and Portuguese, and under his ministry all his family were converted ' to Protestant Christianity.'

Mr. Hardy returned to England in 1865. The more searching discipline which he had introduced had borne fruit in growing vigour, intelligence, and liberality. The native preachers and laymen now realized their responsibility and did excellent service. John Scott (B) became General Super intendent. He found there had been many con versions at Colombo, Galle, Morotto, and Matara

TWENTY YEARS OF PROGRESS

during the year. In 1866 a missionary was appointed to Kandy, the ancient capital of Ceylon.

In 1865 Edmund Rigg went out to North Ceylon. When Mr. Kilner came to England on furlough he acted as Chairman, and maintained and developed the work on every side.

On Mr. Kilner's return to Ceylon in 1867 he reported that there were 29 day schools, with 55 teachers and 1,163 scholars. He arranged a 'dis trict meeting of the native pastors/ at which the various agencies and spheres of labour were reviewed and adapted to the needs of the mission. A memorable sentence in this report shows how wisely the mission was being con ducted : ' By degrees the financial responsibility of the pastorate, the schools, and the chapels, is being placed upon the native churches ; circuit stewards and poor stewards have been appointed, and leaders' meetings regularly held.' An impression was being made on the population, and the zeal for heathenism was manifestly waning.

In South Ceylon the contributions of the members for their own circuits rose from £367 to ,£441 ; £220 was also contributed by those who were not members. In 1871 there were 1,574 members, an increase of 218, with 617 on trial ; 2,742 children were in the day schools,

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TWENTY YEARS OF PROGRESS

At Kandy, where a new chapel was now being built, more than a hundred converts were gathered in during the visit of William Taylor, the American evangelist. The Theological Institution at Galle was prospering.

When the period under consideration opened two important localities in Madras were occupied : Royapettah, in the midst of the muni- Advance in cipal area of the city, and Black Town, Madras- where our missionaries had been labouring for more than thirty years. Some other stations had been left to workers of various societies. It was hoped that concentration on a more limited area would bear fuller fruit. A substantial brick-and- tiled building for a Tamil girls' school had been erected in Royapettah, and thanks were given in the Report of 1851 to Mr. John Lidgett for the free conveyance of twelve large iron pillars for the native chapel there. A new chapel was also being built at Trichinopoly, but its completion was delayed by lack of funds. The work at Negapatam was growing. Attention was being concentrated on Bangalore. John Garrett, Chair man of the Mysore District, issued in Kanarese and English nearly 50,000 religious tracts and school books, amounting to nearly two million pages. Dr. Duff spoke at our Exeter Hall Anniversary in 1851, and urged that every station occupied by the Society in India should be strengthened.

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TWENTY YEARS OF PROGRESS

Funds were not available for carrying out such a policy, but the Committee hoped that as know ledge about India ' as the largest open field for missions among the heathen in the whole world ' grew, there would be larger liberality and more devoted enterprise. Meanwhile the Report for 1852 refers to the growing favour enjoyed by the girls' school at Royapettah and the opening in the same city of a superior boys' school. ' On this station, and on all the other stations in India, the mis sionaries are turning their attention from merely elementary schools for young children to the formation of institutions in which a higher edu cation can be given to pupils of more advanced age. It is hoped by this means more immediately to influence their character when they enter on the business and duties of life.' The Report of 1852 states that the Rev. E. J. Hardey had moved from Bangalore to open a station in the city of Mysore, and pleads for three additional mis sionaries in order that proper attention might be given to that important station, with its population of 80,000, and to Seringapatam and Ganjam, nine miles away, which had fifty or sixty thousand inhabitants.

Thomas Cryer died of cholera in Madras on October 5, 1852. He had been twenty-two years in India. ' Few of his fellow missionaries ex celled him in power of utterance, in the adroitness

TWENTY YEARS OF PROGRESS

and effect with which he exposed the sophisms of a Brahman, in the hearty indignation of his invectives against the corruptions of Thomas heathenism, or in searching and per- Cl>yer- suasive appeals to the conscience.' He had made himself one with the natives, and came into constant and close contact with their daily life.

In 1854 the directors of the East India Com pany began to pursue a more enlightened policy towards ' the noble exertions of societies g^oia in of Christians to guide the natives of Mysore- India into the way of religious truth,' and ex pressed their satisfaction at the success of mis sionary education among the Tamil people of Mysore. Our schools were growing more efficient. The education given in physical science did much to expand the mind and correct innumerable false notions derived by the Hindus from their sacred books. Mr. E. J. Hardey brought to England in 1853 a petition for the establishment of a school in Mysore City signed by 3,300 persons. £200 was given him for the purpose in England. On his return to India he arranged for a meeting of Mysore gentlemen, Hindu and Muhammadan, at which £120 was raised. One rich merchant rose and offered ,£400 if the Bible were not intro duced into the school, but Mr. Hardey said he ' would not touch a farthing of their money without a clear and distinct understanding that the school

TWENTY YEARS OF PROGRESS

should be conducted as all other missionary schools.' A hot discussion arose, but the merchant was defeated, and left the room.

William O. Simpson spent the first part of his

missionary life at Royapettah in 1855. The chapel

w 0 was in the mission compound, and

Simpson. aimost ciose to jt stoocj a mud-Walled

structure thatched with cocoa-nut leaves, used for the school. Behind the mission house was a large garden, and beyond it the girls' boarding and day school. Dr. arid Mrs. Jenkins lived in the house, also the Rev. Arminius Burgess, who had special charge of the boys' school. The English chapel at Black Town was three miles distant. On the ground floor were the Sunday schoolroom and vestries, above was a lofty chapel seating 400 to 500. Mr Simpson's first sermon made a great impression, and he was much moved when he attended the Tamil service in the Royapettah chapel by the hymns sung to English tunes. About two hundred persons were present. Mr. Simpson moved to Negapatam in February, 1856. He had also to superintend the work at Mannargudi, thirty-six miles away. Before the year was out he was appointed to Trichinopoly, where he spent the next four years, working with great devotion in his school and as a Tamil preacher. When the Mutiny broke out Trichinopoly was a post of special danger. It had 2,000 native troops and

152

TWENTY YEARS OF PROGRESS

200 European, but the latter were artillery. ' One regiment had received a letter from the mutineers calling on the sepoys to rise on a certain night. The officers, however, were forewarned ; the Euro pean soldiers were kept in constant readiness, the guards doubled, and other precautions taken.' By God's mercy the crisis was soon passed. Mr. Simpson's next station was Mannargudi. After two years there he was appointed to Madras, where he spent two more years, before domestic affliction compelled him to return to England.

The Report for 1857 contains an appeal made by fifty missionaries of various societies who had recently met in conference at Calcutta. Appeal for To them ' India was in every way the most striking field of Christian missions amongst all the countries in the world. We look on our converts, and on other fruits of missions, with pleasure ; but the more we know India the more we are overwhelmed by the consideration that millions upon millions never hear the gospel, and that millions upon millions die unconverted.' This appeal was presented in Exeter Hall in May. Be fore the month closed news of the Indian Mutiny reached England. All hearts and minds were soon full of its horrors. The Report for 1858 says, ' They have made India's need of the gospel patent and notorious. That which might have been to many a matter of faith has now become a

TWENTY YEARS OF PROGRESS

matter of sense ; Muhammadanism and Brah- manasm stand out before the world in their true characters.' Our missions in the Madras Presi dency were outside the circle of the great tornado. The report of our Madras Missionary Auxiliary for February, 1858, says, * Perhaps there is not a single Protestant Society, except our own, that is not called upon, at the present season, to mourn over some of its agents, victims to Hindu and Mussulman barbarity. But we, confined to Southern India, where happily licentiousness and cruelty have been restrained and moderated through the benign influence of Christianity, have laboured on in uninterrupted security. Not one of our stations has been, even for a moment, dis turbed ; not one of our brethren has been cut off, nor has any unusual opposition been manifested to the preaching of the Cross.' The Committee had long felt that, amid the claims of other parts of the world, India had not received its proper share of attention. It resolved to send out ten additional missionaries as soon as funds would allow. Meanwhile Methodist people took their part in helping the Indian Relief Fund, for which upwards of £5,000 was collected in Methodist chapels, in addition to large amounts contributed in other ways.

Dr. Jenkins was now Chairman of the Madras District. He had gone out to India in 1845,

154

TWENTY YEARS OF PROGRESS

after three years at Mannargudi and Negapatam had been stationed at Madras in 1848. He worked zealously as a Tamil evangelist, Dr jenkins and made a great reputation at Black in Madras. Town as an English preacher. On Sunday even ings the chapel was frequently crowded. Arminius Burgess, who joined him at Madras in 1853, Sa7s that he almost revolutionized their missionary policy. One man was made pastor of the English congregation, and the rest were set free for work among the heathen. It was resolved at the District Meeting in January, 1859, to give increased attention to itinerant preaching. Several places within forty miles of Madras were visited repeatedly. Five additional mis sionaries were sent to the Mysore District in 1859, so that some fresh fields were entered. There were openings on every side for new stations. The Bangalore press issued 7,379,134 pages during the year 1859, including 5,250,000 pages of the Scriptures and a new and enlarged edition of Reeves' Kanarese Dictionary, edited by the Rev. Daniel Sanderson.

John Shaw Banks was stationed in the city of Mysore in 1860. He sent an interesting account of his evangelistic work. The opposition had not been so bitter as he expected, though the Brahmans were famed for their subtlety. ' We always find that the great truths on which it is I55

TWENTY YEARS OF PROGRESS

our work to insist — sin and atonement, repent ance and holiness, commend themselves to reason and conscience. Many listen to this with interest, as to new, undoubted truth ; some with emotion, and many express their assent.'

After the Mutiny the Society turned to Bengal. The Rev. Daniel Pearson reached Calcutta in Calcutta and February, 1860, and began work among

Bombay. the soidiers at Barrackpur. He strongly urged that the mission in Calcutta should be begun again, both for the sake of civilians and soldiers. He was warmly supported by the military authorities, and the room taken for services, which held 300, was soon crowded to the door. Genuine conversions were frequent, and much interest was awakened in religious things. 'The result is visible not only in frequent meetings for prayer, and in the demand for profitable reading, but in the marked diminution of crime.' One colonel said that the change in his men since they came to Barrackpur was almost incredible ; instead of forty or fifty soldiers in the guard-room, there were scarcely any. There was a growing conviction that the con version of India was almost hopeless unless something were done for the soldiers and Europeans. The requests for missionaries for Calcutta were importunately repeated.

In September, 1862, James H. Broadbent, B.A., 156

TWENTY YEARS OF PROGRESS

and Henry G. Highfield, B.A., arrived in Calcutta to begin a mission there. On October 12 Ebenezer E. Jenkins and Daniel Pearson preached Calcutta and to crowded congregations in the Free- Lucknow- masons' Hall. A room was afterwards hired, and in October, 1866, a commodious chapel and mission house were erected in Sudder Street, at a cost of ;£ 10,000. Native congregations were formed at Taltala and Chitpur, and special attention given to soldiers, sailors and European residents.

In 1864 the Methodist Episcopal Church transferred its English congregation at Lucknow to our care, and Mr. Pearson became its pastor. A new chapel seating three to four hundred per sons was built in 1865, at a cost of ,£1,000, of which members of various churches in the neigh-

o

bourhood contributed £400. It was pleasing to see the chapel well filled with soldiers at morning service, and the mixed congregation in the even ing was scarcely any smaller.

Mr. Broadley, who was stationed at Poona, visited Bombay and held three services with the 28th Regiment. Twenty-eight of its men gave in their names as members of our Society. He also formed a soldiers' class at Ahmednagar. The work was afterwards transferred from Poona to Karachi, but had to be abandoned when Mr. Broadley returned to England in 1865. 157

TWENTY YEARS OF PROGRESS

In 1871 there was one English circuit in the Madras District, and nine native circuits, with six- Madras and teen preaching places. The attendants

Mysore. on puk}{c worship were about 2,300. There were 2,250 children in the schools. The schools and the open-air preaching largely occupied the attention of the missionaries. In Trichinopoly more than 800 services a year were held in the streets. The Mysore District had eight circuits, with 28 preaching-places, and 2,137 boys and 728 girls in its 36 schools. The Report for 1871 says that above 5,000 sermons had been preached to the heathen during that year.

A substantial and well-built chapel was opened at Bangalore in January, 1866. It cost £3,000, and most of the money was raised at once. Ground was purchased for a wayside preaching-room and vernacular school in one of the most important thoroughfares, and two sites for mission buildings were given by the Government. Faithful work in all departments was bearing fruit.

On the west coast of Africa there was continu ous advance. At Sierra Leone a great revival

Sierra to°^ P^ace m l&53) and many abandoned

Leone. tjiejr idols. Native ministers had now been trained, so that fewer English missionaries were required for this deadly coast. Thomas Champness went to Sierra Leone in 1857. He worked there and in Abeokuta till 1863, when he

'58

TWENTY YEARS OF PROGRESS

was driven home by repeated attacks of fever. The love of Africa was a passion in his soul to the end. Chapels and schools were built in Sierra Leone, and in 1871 there were nine missionaries, 4,959 members, and 3,174 day scholars.

In 1852 England made a treaty with the king of Lagos, who promised to put down the slave trade, abolish human sacrifices, and receive Christian teachers. Many slaves returned from Sierra Leone to their old homes in Lagos. Wesleyan missionaries were sent in 1854, and gradually established stations in almost every village. Thomas Birch Freeman, who had been in Africa since 1838, greatly helped the young mission. His father had been a slave, and he himself married a Gold Coast woman. He used to say, ' I am a child of the sun,' and the climate, which proved fatal to others, never seemed to sap his energy. He retired from the ministry for a time and cultivated a large tract of land near Accra; but in 1873 ne returned to the work, and for thirteen years rendered valuable service to the whole district.

During this period the work in the West Indies was prospering greatly. Mark B. Bird laboured for forty years in Hayti among revolu- West tions, hurricanes, and fires with heroic Indies. devotion, retiring to Jersey in 1879. During the civil war of 1869 half of the city of Port-au-Prince 159

TWENTY YEARS OF PROGRESS

was burned down. Our chapel, school, and par sonage, which had cost ^"4,000, were destroyed. But the mission had a warm place in the hearts of English Methodists, who nobly came to its help.

In South Africa there were serious difficulties.

After the native wars Mr. Whiteside says a chill

South °f discouragement fell on missionary

Africa, effort jn the eastern districts of Cape Colony. ' Morley, Shawbury, and Butterworth were left without pastors. Butterworth was deserted for years, and the church, schoolroom, and mission house were heaps of blackened ruins. The church at Clarkebury, for want of repairs, fell into decay. Converts were scattered, savageism once more ruled the land, and cruel superstitions regained their former power.' l In 1854 there were two mis sionaries with an assistant and a catechist where there had been seven missionaries and seven lay helpers. These faithful men worked on till a better day began to dawn. In 1866 a great revival broke out. William Taylor, then famed for his work in California, landed at Cape Town in March. He held evangelistic services there, and gradually worked his way to the mission stations, where thousands of the natives were brought to Christ. The labours of the past now bore fruit. ' The wall of heathenism went down at a blow.' The missionaries took new heart. They also saw 1 History of Wesleyan Methodist Church in South Africa. 1 60

TWENTY YEARS OF PROGRESS

that native ministers must be more largely used if South Africa was to become Christian.

The first Methodist missionary to settle in Natal was the Rev. James Archbell. This was in 1842. The Rev. W. C. Holden went in 1847 to Durban, then a cluster of thatched cottages surrounded by grass and thickets. He worked among the Kaffirs in the district with great success, and ministered to the British settlers who began to pour into Natal after 1849. Ladysmith became the head of a circuit in 1866, and from that centre the Rev. George Blencowe made long preaching journeys into the Transvaal. A church was built at Bloem- fontein in 1868.

Christopher Gottlob Miiller, a native of Win- nenden, in Wiirtemberg, was converted on a

visit to England, and introduced

Germany. Methodism into Germany in 1830.

In a few years he gathered twenty-three helpers, held services in twenty-six places, and had 326 members. The laws of the country made it undesirable to send English agents, but Mr. Miiller was guided in his work, and supplied with funds. In 1852 he had sixty-seven preaching-places under his care. A friend of the Society who visited Winnenden wrote : ' The earnest zeal of the missionary, and the devout attention of his hearers, whose countenances literally beamed with delight, will never be obliterated from our memory.' Mr. M 161

TWENTY YEARS OF PROGRESS

M tiller died in 1858. Dr. W. B. Pope and Mr. Boyce visited the mission, and found that a good work was going on, though it * suffers greatly, both as to depth and extension, through the disuse of our ordinances, and the lack of pastoral supervision.' The evangelists only need the ( supervision of a recognized ministerial head to become agents in a great and prosperous work.' The Rev. John Lyth, D.D., offered his services, and was appointed in 1859. He fixed his residence at Stetten, near Cannstadt, and set himself to form classes and secure a band of local preachers. He wrote : ' I am in the centre of a fine field of labour, and the clergy around me are not only friendly, but visit me as a brother. The plans we have set in operation seem to be working beyond my expectations.'

Dr. Lyth had sixty places under his care, scattered over an area of fifty miles by forty. A commodious room was rented for services in Stuttgart in 1860. Dr. Lyth rented suitable premises at Waiblingen, and in 1863 was able to report that in every circuit there had been con versions and crowded meetings. The increase on the year was 300 members and 600 hearers. If the chapel had been twice as large it would have filled. In one quarter there were 150 conversions.

Dr. Lyth did splendid service in Germany for six years. In 1865 John C. Barratt, formerly 162

TWENTY YEARS OF PROGRESS

missionary in St. Vincent, was appointed as his successor. There were then 1,061 members, and 225 candidates for membership. Five additional preaching-places had been occupied during the year.

When the French Conference was formed in 1852 the English church in the Rue Royale, Paris, remained under the care of our Mis sionary Society. In 1862 the present church was built in the Rue Roquepine, and William Gibson began his memorable work in France as its pastor. Methodism entered Switzer land in 1867, and a handsome chapel and college for training ministers were erected in Lausanne as a memorial of John Fletcher.

At Gibraltar the English work and the day schools made special progress. When the Rev. George Alton returned to this country gpainand in 1858 his place was taken by Joseph portugaL Webster. He found the commodious chapel filled with soldiers, and his weekly Soldiers' Bible Class was well attended. Spanish services and a Spanish class-meeting were held in Gibraltar. There were 169 children in the schools, mostly Spanish, and of Roman Catholic parentage. Mr. Alton went to Cadiz, but found that evangelistic work was severely repressed by the authorities. When Mr. Webster had to return to England in 1863, Mr. Alton resumed his work in Gibraltar. 163

TWENTY YEARS OF PROGRESS

Robert H. Moreton was appointed to Oporto in 1870, to minister to the congregations formed by Mr. Cassells. He had 350 hearers and 28 members.

In 1859 Mr. Allen reports that fifty-four soldier members had been taken from his class at Malta by the removal of three regiments, but there were sixteen left, and forty to fifty attendants at the public services.

Garibaldi's triumph opened the door for Pro testant missions to Italy. Methodism eagerly First work embraced this opportunity. The Rev.

in Italy. Richard Green began the mission in 1860, and next year he was joined by the Rev. H. J. Piggott. Milan was chosen as head quarters, and the work spread to Florence and other towns. In Milan premises were secured for a girls' boarding-school, and a chapel was built. Mr. Piggott sent an ex-priest to labour at Intra among the workmen employed by the cotton manufacturers, and secured the upper half of a disused convent church at Parma for services, which had a regular attendance of 250.

The work was surrounded with difficulties, but Mr. Piggott wrote in 1868: * We have churches of truly converted men and women ; we have ministers called of God to their work and office ; we have the beginning of that organization which we love best and believe most scriptural.' Padua had become the head quarters in the north, and 164

TWENTY YEARS OF PROGRESS

public opinion there was very favourable to Methodism. In 1869 there were 14 stations, 709 members, and 698 day scholars.

The Rev. W. S. Jones began his work in Naples in 1863.

In 1870 Rome was added to our list of stations. The first home of Methodism was a small dark

room in Signer Sciarelli's house in a

. Rome,

by-street. Spacious premises were

secured on a main thoroughfare opposite to the palace of the Cardinal Vicar. Mr. Fernley gave £5,000 towards the new church, and Mr. Heald £5,000 for that and the missionary debt. Mr. James S. Budgett took an active share in the movement. The apartments and shops of the mission block are a valuable source of income. We have a graceful Gothic church, seating 300 people, schoolroom, ministers' residences, Bible depot, and rooms for the mission to Italian soldiers. The death of Thomas Farmer in 1861 seemed to close an era. He was a member of the first London Missionary Auxiliary in 1815, Thomas and three years later served on the Farmer- General Committee. His deep interest in the Society and his generous support made him the fitting successor to Lancelot Haslope as General Treasurer in 1836. He devoted his time and wealth to the affairs of the Society, and be came known all over the foreign field as a generous

165

TWENTY YEARS OF PROGRESS

and unfailing friend. In James Heald, of Parr's Wood, who was appointed Lay Treasurer in 1862, our missions found another princely supporter and wise counsellor.

Dr. Beecham died on April 22, 1856. He became Secretary in 1831, and his quiet energy Dr and perseverance were of untold Beecbam. worth to the Society. ' In the course of years the value of his services became more and more apparent as new occasions arose to test his peculiar powers. He was careful to inform himself correctly before he committed himself to an opinion, quick to discern the leading points of a question, discriminating in his judgement, calm in his temper, but tenacious in his grasp of great principles. His corre spondence with missionaries was extensive and laborious, and, in order to make it useful, he took pains to make himself acquainted with the circumstances and duties of his correspondents. So successful was he in this respect, that a highly esteemed and intelligent missionary once declared that " he believed Dr. Beecham knew his circuit almost as well as as he did." ' He was President of the Conference in 1850.

When David Livingstone returned from Africa in 1857 our Committee voted £2$ towards the public subscription raised to mark the national gratitude to the man who had opened up

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new fields of enterprise in Africa to the Christian Church.

The Rev. W. B. Boyce was appointed to the Mission House in 1858, and for eighteen years his vigilance and business skill did much to secure the growing success of our missions. He spent his last years in Sydney, where he died in 1889.

The Blake System, introduced about 1860, now began to bear a rich harvest for our missions, and enlisted an army of young friends and helpers.

The Missionary Jubilee in 1863, fifty years after the historic meeting in Leeds, yielded £188,925 for missions. £7,070 came Missionary from the mission field; Ireland con- JubUee« 1863- tributed £8,952, which was expended by its own Jubilee Committee. Richmond College became the property of the Missionary Society on pay ment of £37,500 to the Theological Institution funds, and £20,000 was invested for its main tenance ; £30,000 was reserved as a capital fund, the yearly interest being appropriated in aid of mission workers and their families. Grants were made as follows : West Indies, £30,000 ; India, £i 1,575; France and Switzerland, £7,000 ; Italy, £5,250; Southern and Western Africa, £5,000; China, £5,000. The Missionary debt of £6,500 was cleared off, and £15,235 set apart as a Missionary capital fund. 167

CHAPTER VII OUR OWN TIMES

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THE Report for 1872 refers to the purchase of a large building in the heart of Rome, form ing an angle to two great thoroughfares, and the building of a chapel and school in Naples. It adds : ' Our Italian mission was commenced in fear and trembling : its success has far exceeded our anticipations. Italians preaching the gospel, the valuable educational establishments at Padua, and the progress of the preaching and educational work, are reasons for thankfulness and hope. Three years ago the expression of a determination to place a mission ary at Rome was struck out of the rough draft of the Report of the Society as too sanguine, and as savouring of presumption ! But what hath God wrought ! Rome is now open to the teachings of Protestantism, the Bible Society has held its first public meeting, and questions never mooted before have been discussed by the sanction of the authorities themselves.'

The services in Rome were greatly blessed from 171

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the beginning. In our hall in Via de' Barbieri, the first Protestant baptism in Rome and the first Protestant marriage took place. Success attracted opposition, and a bottle filled with gunpowder and pieces of iron was exploded in the vestibule of the hall at the close of the first celebration of the Lord's Supper. The extension of the work led to the formation of two Districts —Rome and Naples, in 1874. The new church and schools in Naples were opened in May, 1874, and though ( various and most iniquitous attempts were made to endanger those working ' on them, there was no serious accident during the course of the building. One of the opening services was taken by the Rev. Luke H. Wiseman, ' whose brief visit left an indelible impression.'

The new church in Rome was opened in 1877, and at once attracted good congregations. Signor Sciarelli's Thursday lectures attracted from 150 to 200 persons, and Signor Capellini had 120 communicants among the troops quartered in Rome. At his Easter Communion in 1880 at least 150 soldiers were present. Christian soldiers were continually passing from Rome to all parts of the country. The work was undenomina tional, though conducted by a Wesleyan minister. He maintained an active correspondence with each company through one or other of the most trust worthy of the converts belonging to it. Mrs. and

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Miss Piggott had in their mothers' meeting 120 to 150 poor women who rarely saw the inside of any church.

The schools in Spezia, the arsenal of Italy, attracted great attention. Two hundred and fifty children were taught in the rooms over the chapel, and if the premises had been larger double the number might have been received. The Romanists started opposition schools, but these turned out a complete failure. The Government supported our schools, and the most distinguished families in the place were delighted to help them. Three of our ministers received the title of Chevalier of the Crown of Italy for the service rendered to the country by these schools. At Milan only half of the preaching-hall had been used, but in 1879 Signor Rosa attracted such large con gregations that the division had to be removed, and 'an assembly packed to the door, and more than one-half of it standing for lack of chairs, remained attentive and applausive to the end of a protracted and thoroughly evangelical discourse.' The services conducted by Signor Barbieri in the Simplon Valley were attended not infrequently by men and women who had journeyed on foot for three to five hours, and did not reach their mountain homes again until darkness had fallen on the steep and dangerous roads. A suitable hall was opened in Florence in June, 1881, but

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this had to be given up in 1886. The union of 1905 has, however, given us a footing in Florence.

Much fruitful work was done on the shores of Lake Maggiore. A new chapel was opened at Intra in 1893. The Report for 1894 says that it completed the set of mission premises, which included minister's residence, schoolrooms, an orphanage for forty to fifty children, porter's lodge, recreation ground, and stable for the circuit horse.

The Papal revival, which set in before 1896, made our work in Italy appreciably harder in some places, but patient and steady toil has not failed to bear fruit.

Signer Capellini died on July 27, 1898. The last great gathering of the Military Church was held on the day before Good Friday. It was the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Soldiers' Church. ' The service had been one of great solemnity and joy. The evangelical soldiers had assembled in force ; the number of new com municants was encouraging ; even of the veterans of that first celebration, half a jubilee ago, a few had come to break bread with the new recruits of to-day. Capellini himself was radiant ; many foreign friends of the work were there to rejoice with him.' He was out of health, but persisted in visiting the soldiers at the summer encamp ments. Then he returned to Rome to die. The

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Military Church has increased in prosperity under the care of his successors, though the popular newspaper, Vera Roma, has made it a target for its weekly attacks.

At Bologna in 1898 a beautiful ex-Roman Catholic oratory was secured, fronting one of the principal thoroughfares. The Swiss Protes tants of the city have been faithful adherents of our cause.

Naples had twice the population of Rome. Mr. Jones and his helpers were ministering to the spiritual awakening of nearly one half of the Italian people, and the half which had been * most terribly cursed in the past by most debasing superstition, and by the 'most fearful political and religious tyranny that Europe has ever known. . . . The city, stretching along an unbroken house-line that girds the bay from ten to eleven miles, embraces within easy reach 750,000 souls.' Our church was within a stone's- throw of the old Bourbon palace. About half an hour's walk from the palace, in the centre of the old city, the corridor of an infamous convent had been turned into a Methodist preaching-place, and four cells once used by the nuns became class rooms, &c. A children's home was opened at Montesanto, the schools prospered, and Methodist services were held in five parts of the city. In the mountain region round Aquila and the coast

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towns, good work has been done despite bitter opposition from the priests. The most important station in Sicily is that at Palermo, which had two centres — one in the principal street, the other in an important suburb. New premises were opened in 1898, and by the union with the ' Italian Evangelical Church ' our position has been greatly strengthened.

Signor Grisafi laboured with much success among the Italian colonists in Alexandria.

The Revs. H. J. Piggott, B.A., and T. W. S. Jones, who had been in charge of North and South Italy for nearly forty years, became super numeraries in 1902. Great changes had come over Italy during their term of service. ' The darkness of a dominant Romanism was giving place to the dawning light of a gospel day,' and they had the joy of feeling that their work had largely contributed to this result.

The Rev. William Burgess was appointed General Superintendent of the work in Italy in 1902. In 1905 a union with the Italian Evangelical Church was happily accomplished. It has given Methodism not merely an increase in members and in property, but a position and influence in Italy such as it has never had before.

During the war of 1870-1 the French Societies suffered much distress : ^"4,000 was subscribed in England for their relief. The Rev. William

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Gibson returned to this country in 1872 and worked in English circuits till 1878, when he resumed his labours in France. His weekly Con ferences in the Boulevard des Capucines made a deep impression in Paris, and he and his family devoted their best strength and influence to spread the gospel in France. A number of mission-halls were opened in various parts of the city, and Chantilly, St. Cloud, Rouen, Rheims, Calais, and Boulogne were reached. Evangelistic work among all classes was pursued with un ceasing zeal. It was already bearing fruit, not only in Methodist churches but also in the increased spiritual life of the Reformed Church. The Report for 1887 says : < The fruits of Methodism in France have been largely garnered by the Reformed Church, and to this is due, in part at least, the revival in that Church of evangelistic truth and fervour which now gladdens the hearts of all who witness it.'

The Rev. George Whelpton's devoted work in Havre led to the opening of a new central chapel in 1892. The people came eagerly to hear the gospel, and many became regular attendants.

Mr. Gibson died in 1894. He had chosen each mission hall, each evangelist, each helper, had been a father to all the workers and members, and by his untiring energy had provided funds for carrying on the work. His own devotion

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inspired all his fellow labourers. The Rev. George Whelpton became his successor, and our French work, together with some stations started by the French Conference, was in 1894 placed under the direction of a committee representing the Mission House, the French Conference, and the District itself.

In 1871 there were regular Methodist services in 156 towns and villages of Germany and Germany and Austria. The Toleration Act of Wiir-

Austria. temberg in 1872 secured religious liberty for all Nonconformist Societies, now recognized by the State as legal corporations. Methodists were no longer compelled to go to the Lutheran churches for the sacraments. We had 1,895 members and 854 scholars under our care. There was much opposition from those who regarded Methodism as an interloper, but this led to more intelligent and earnest attach ment on the part of the German Methodists. The new chapel in Cannstadt was opened by Dr. Osborn on August 24, 1873. The head quarters of the mission were transferred from Waiblingen in 1875, and a commodious house was secured for the recently established Training Institution, with its seven students. Every year there was steady growth. In 1876 nearly 10,000 persons were attending our services. Methodist periodicals and tracts did much to leaven the

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empire with evangelical truth. On September 7, 1879, an attractive new church was opened in the centre of Stuttgart, and the congregations steadily increased. The Rev. J. . G. Tasker was appointed in 1880 to take charge of the Theo logical Institution and the English work in Cannstadt and Stuttgart. The opposition of the Lutheran clergy now became more bitter. The Report fa? 1 88 1 says: 'We have been denounced from the pulpits and through the Press; the prestige and the authority of the clergy in many individual cases, and also in formal deliberative assemblies specially summoned for the purpose, have been unsparingly used against us ; children of our members have been threatened and warned against us ; local preachers and hearers have been amerced for uniting to worship God according to their conscience and their preference, and some who were engaged in collecting for our foreign missions have been fined and the money they had collected taken away.' It needed no little moral courage for any one to declare himself a Methodist, but our people stood firm, and in 1881 345 new members were received.

The conversion of the Baroness von Langenau in 1890 was a notable event in the history of Methodism in Vienna. She lent her BaroneSs von saloon for meetings, which were at- Lan£enau- tended by more than 100 persons, including

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many of the nobility. Then the baroness opened her house for a Sunday school, which had an average attendance of over 120 children. She also established a Children's Home and Deacon esses' Institution. Persecution soon arose. The ordinary services were prohibited, and the Society had to meet for devotional exercises in the house of one of its members.

The Rev. John C. Barratt died at Cannstadt on November 4, 1892. ' At the close of a busy day he Rev. John c. sat down to prepare for the pulpit.

Barratt. After writing a few pages he laid aside the pen, sank back in his chair, and passed away, leaving upon his desk an unfinished sermon from the words " Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord." ' During the twenty -seven years that he spent in Germany the seven chapels increased to twenty-two, most of them with parsonages attached ; the number of preaching-places grew from 89 to 197, members increased from 1,061 to 2,308, Sunday scholars from 738 to 2,573.

The Rev. Edmund Rigg was appointed Super intendent of the mission after Mr. Barratt's death, and laboured with great devotion till 1897, when our churches were united with the flourishing missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church^ Thirty-one ministers and 2,306 members were thus transferred. Some natural regret was felt, both in England and Germany, at the severance

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of this link, but the work has gained in every way by the amalgamation.

In 1869, more than half a century after Dr. Rule's attempt to evangelize Spain, the Rev. W. T. Brown was sent to Barcelona, Spainand where he soon gained a footing for P03^3-1- Methodism. The work made quiet progress, and though the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty in 1875 rendered evangelistic work exceedingly difficult, the mission continued to grow. For twenty-two years we occupied a large flat in Calle Abaixadors, but in February, 1892, a warehouse was secured in a main street in the heart of the town. Half the front was occupied as a depot for the British and Foreign Bible Society, and the spacious hall at once began to attract strangers. The * Conferencias ' held by our Spanish minister arouse great atten tion, and the educational work was never so flourishing. Night classes for young business men are doing excellent service.

Mr. Brown succeeded in introducing Methodism into the Balearic Isles, one hundred and twenty miles south of Barcelona, where the Rev. Franklyn G. Smith did great service. Despite severe persecution in 1893, and much opposition, a light has been kindled amid the darkness of the islands.

A little chapel was built at Oporto in 1868 181

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by a few pious Methodists, who had to face much persecution. The day schools are besieged by applicants, more than 300 of whom are waiting their turn to enter, yet we cannot afford to hire larger premises or employ more teachers.

The mission-hall in Lisbon is a transformed warehouse, seating 400, low-roofed and incon venient, but the people crowd the place on Friday and Sunday evenings. It was opened on February 11, 1899, an^ the Rev. A. H. Wilks, the first minister, reached the city in December. The day school and Sunday school prospered greatly. In January, 1901, the Papal authorities tried to stop Methodist preaching. The services had to be held with closed doors, and no notices could be put in the newspapers, but the Pro testants of the city stood firm and the storm blew over.

The Report for 1872 showed that in South Ceylon, which included nearly four-fifths of the population, we had 22 circuits, with about 80 preaching-places. The greater number of stations were among the cocoa-nut groves on the west and south coasts. A few were in inland villages surrounded by rice-fields, and four or five on the central mountain ranges. The local con tributions for 1871 were £2,432. The contribu tions for the support of the native ministry had 182

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risen from £218 in 1861 to £1,012 in 1871. The Tamil District of North Ceylon had a similar story to tell.

The needs of the heathen population around were not overlooked, and in 1874 six new stations were formed in South Ceylon. south Wesley College was established at Ceylon- Colombo in 1874 in addition to the Institution at Richmond Hill, Galle. The object was to bring the best scholars under Christian influence. A few students for the native ministry were trained there. Every year has seen it grow, and it now has more than 550 pupils, about half of whom are Christians. It has been hampered by its location in the old mission premises adjoining the Pettah church, but suitable buildings are now being provided, and it will become a ' Leys School for Ceylon Methodists.'

A new chapel was opened on November 29, 1871, at Kandy, the old royal capital, which has a large English-speaking congregation.

In 1885 the Rev. W. H. Rigby began a mission in the central province of Uva, in the midst of a group of large villages. Not a thousand women in this district of 3,155 square miles could read or write. The Rev. S. Langdon took up his residence in the region in 1887. Villages were visited where Christ had never been known, and two industrial homes were

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established, with day and Sunday schools, which did excellent work. A hospital was built for women and children at Welimada. A Mission Extension Fund was started. * Persistent and wisely worked schemes of local extension ' bore witness to the zeal of our people both in North and South Ceylon, and in some cases half and two-thirds of the outlay was raised locally. In 1885 South Ceylon was divided into three Dis tricts — Colombo, Kandy and Negombo, Galle and Matara ; but these are now reunited into one South Ceylon District.

John Kilner's work in North Ceylon laid a strong and broad foundation for future pros- North perity. He was able to report, in 1875, Ceylon. tjiat there were twenty-six circuits in the District, an increase of twenty within ten years. The local contributions were rising every year. Mr. Kilner trained the people to rely on their own efforts and to support their own ministry. The schools trained above 5,000 children and had a staff of 125 teachers. A remarkable letter from Mr. Kilner appeared in the Report for 1876. 'Year after year the old body of the people's life seems to become more and more feeble. Caste has less of authority ; the priesthood less of power ; the Brahmanic anathema less of terror ; excision from family and home less of awe. A process of

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disintegration is advancing. Heathenism, in its grosser forms at least, is being battered from a thousand guns, and must crumble before per severing effort.' The schools, especially the girls' schools, were effecting a revolution. The mis sionary enjoyed general confidence, and was looked up to as a model of virtue and con sistency. Mr. Kilner trained the native ministers, and raised every part of the work to the highest efficiency. When he returned to England the Rev. Edmund Rigg became Chair man of the District. His twenty-six years of service will always be memorable. The members increased, the Tamil ministry grew larger and more efficient, and every institution prospered. Ceylon is now our most advanced Eastern mission, and Jaffna is its best-developed station. Here and at Batticaloa and Point Pedro we have prosperous central churches flanked by vigorous outlying work, reliable laymen, and a strong, good native ministry.

The Veddahs at Kalavenkerni, about fourteen miles from Batticaloa, were visited by the Rev. Ralph Stott in 1842. He baptized TheVeddab many of them, and John Kilner went Mission- out in 1847 to continue his work, but the mission had got into other hands before he arrived in Ceylon. The Rev. A. E. Restarick formed a mission settlement in 1896, and good work was

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done amongst them. The Veddahs believe in evil spirits, and several devil-priests were settled in their village. The boys and girls have been taught in the mission schools. The huts have been improved, and good water supplied from the mission well. A stable, intelligent church is being built up, and the progress of the work astonishes all who know it. The Rock Veddahs at Kalodai were saved from starvation by the efforts of the Rev. Joseph West in 1898, and a mission settlement was formed among them with a resident catechist and a Christian Veddah from Kalavenkerni.

In 1871 the three Districts in India — Madras, Mysore, and Calcutta — had 29 missionaries, 670 members, and 5,373 children in the schools.

In Madras, with its population of half a million, four Methodist circuits were now flourishing. Large, and not infrequently noisy, con- gregations were addressed in the public thoroughfares, and house-to-house visitation was carried on with success in some of the circuits. Many high-caste Brahmans received these visits cordially. The Royapettah High School had 352 scholars in 1880. The Rev. G. M. Cobban was appointed to Madras in 1876. On leaving Head- ingley College he became a colleague of the Rev. W. O. Simpson at Bradford, and was led by him to offer for missionary service. He soon 186

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attained a remarkable influence over the Hindus. His chief delight was in open-air preaching, and for this he was peculiarly fitted. 'With a fine voice, a bold and manly bearing, a ready wit, great tact and patience, and an even, happy temperament, he was a singularly effective open-air evangelist. The natives, educated and uneducated alike, were greatly attracted by his preaching. He had a genius for dealing with large crowds composed of representatives of many sects.' He saw a great ingathering in North Madras in 1884. Whole villages were won for Christ. His energies were taxed to the utmost to provide pastors and teachers. He returned to England in 1892, and died in 1905.

The Rev. George Patterson, then on the staff of the Madras Christian College, exposed the trickery of the Theosophists by the publication of a series of letters written by Madame Blavatsky, which proved that the so-called phenomena were nothing more than cunningly devised and skilfully executed tricks.

During the severe famine of 1877-8 the Rev. Henry Little founded the orphanage at Karur, forty miles west of Trichinopoly. It has grown till its buildings cover an acre and a quarter of ground, and the number of industries taught is greater than at any similar institution in the Presidency. A strong church was also formed.

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An Industrial Hostel was opened in February, 1898. In 1901 as many as 150 workers were sometimes employed.

In Mannargudi the Findlay College for higher education has attracted many Brahman students ;

some of its converts have become native Mannargudi

and ministers. The Report for 1901 states Negapatam. , . , . ,, ,

that in the previous year the numbers on

the roll of the college had risen from 298 to 426. The new buildings had only been in existence two years, but were already found utterly inadequate. The compound was crowded with thatched sheds hastily run up to meet the emergency. The Inspector said that the college promised to become one of the foremost in Southern India. ' Only those who have seen for themselves can realize what a large place in the life of the town and neighbourhood the college is already filling, and how inspiring and hopeful is the promise for the future.' On the spiritual side also its influence was becoming more deeply felt.

The high school at Negapatam is proving a great success, and the medical mission at Mannargudi founded by the Rev. Dr. Hudson in 1893 has done splendid service. He had a branch dispensary at Tiruvallur worked by an efficient assistant. In 1894 8,473 cases were dealt with, and the most bigoted homes were thus opened to the Bible women. In 1901 Mr. Hudson's successor, the Rev. Elias Daniel,

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treated 32,314 cases. Sometimes he had as many as 200 patients in a single day.

The Rev. A. F. Barley rendered eminent service for fifteen years as principal of the Negapatam High School, and when his health gave way the Rev. W. H. Findlay became his successor in January, 1883. The school became a college, and attracted advanced scholars from the whole province.

The growth of our missions in South India was such that, in 1885, the Madras District was limited to seven circuits — four in the The Madras city and three in the surrounding District- country within a radius of sixty miles. The population was about 150,000. Negapatam and Trichinopoly, in the south, were formed into a separate District. Mr. Cooling became Chairman of the Madras District ; Mr. Cobban concentrated his attention on Choolay, a neglected quarter of the city. * Evening after evening the preaching- place has been crowded with orderly, attentive hearers. There have been some who would not miss a service, and who have been loth to leave the longest meeting till the close. Once and again our brethren have seen what many have desired and died without seeing — a Hindu audience moved to tears at the preaching of Christ.'

The Jenkins High School at Royapettah, now Wesley College, was greatly enlarged in 1885-6, at

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a cost of about £2,300. The premises provided for 700 pupils. Mr. Cooling was principal, but in 1887 the Rev. A. S. Geden, M.A., became his successor, and did valuable service for three years.

The Rev. William Goudie, who landed at Madras in March, 1882, after some time in English work there, devoted his energies to

the pariah villages around Tiruvallur. Mr. Qoudie's T

work among In 1889 he became resident European the Pariahs. . . ^. ,. _, _

missionary at Tiruvallur. The first

baptisms had taken place eleven years before at Ikkadu and two adjoining villages. The mis sionaries had visited the region, but it was felt that it needed closer attention. The wisdom of the appointment was shown by the fact that, in about a year, the number of baptized adherents rose from 200 to 330, and of members from 53 to 87. There were 19 members on trial in 1888, 94 in 1 889. More than a hundred converts were baptized, five new schools opened, and four new stations occupied. Mr. Goudie's circuit had eight small indigenous societies, of extremely poor, non-caste people, and four smaller groups of Christians belonging to the families of agents. ' About ten families hold small plots of land in their own names, and pay their taxes direct to the Government. In most cases, however, the land is quite inadequate to the demands of the

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family. Next below these are the families who cultivate land as tenants-at-will to caste men. These make a very uncertain livelihood, and are often thrown out of land and living for the sole crime of being Christians. At the bottom of the scale are the servants, or serfs, who are labourers to the caste-men, employed by the day or the month, and always paid in kind. These, as well as members of the class above, are often mortgaged for some small advance of money, and serve as slaves for many long years without hope of redemption.' The Rev. Marshall Hartley found, in 1899, ^ew sights more touching or more hopeful than these pariah congregations, assembled in the plainest of buildings, or beneath the stars, and bringing their humble offerings to God's treasury. One of these village churches, measuring 28 feet by 14, with mud walls 8 feet high, and roof of bamboo and thatch, costs about £10. By the generosity of Mr. Solomon Jevons, a new ward was added in 1901 to the hospital at Ikkadu, but even then Dr. Wood found there was not room enough for her patients ; and two wings have since been added as a gift in memory of Lady Stephenson, by her daughters. A lace class was formed at Ikkadu, for which Mr. May, of Bristol, and his family provided a beautiful and commodious home in 1901.

One name will always be lovingly remembered 191

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in Madras. The Rev. F. W. Kellett arrived in

India in February, 1892, to take up his work

F w as Professor of History in the Madras

Keiiett. Christian College. Into twelve years 'he compressed labours and achievements that would have given distinction to a long lifetime, and won a position of unrivalled influence and usefulness. The unassuming simplicity and un sparing devotion of his character contributed to this result even more than his scholarship and brilliant gifts.' He died of malarial fever when on furlough in England on June 29, 1904, saying : * I have given my life for India, and I do not regret it.'

The Hyderabad Mission, in the territory of the Nizam (area 82,698 square miles, population TheHydera- n,537,O4o), was begun by the Rev. W. bad Mission. Burgess at the close of 1879 in a district of villages. Work was at once started among the soldiers at Secunderabad, which was the largest military depot in South India. There were about 1 50 declared Wesleyans in the depot, and Wesley Church was opened in 1883 in the middle of the cantonment, and a Soldier's Home adjoining it in 1886. This was enlarged to three times its original dimensions in 1890. It is self-supporting.

The first Telugu congregation was formed at Chudderghaut, a suburb of Hyderabad City, in 1879, and the first Methodist chapel in the 192

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Nizam's territory was opened there on July n, 1880. The Muhammadan Government was re luctant to allow missionaries to settle in the country, but in 1884 Karim Nagar was occupied and soon became the centre of village work. Land was obtained at Siddipett in 1886, at Medak and Sircilla in 1887. The Indian Christian community numbers about 10,000. In the densely populated district of Medak we have thirty-three preaching-places, eighty-six evangelists and teachers, and a Christian community of 2,814. Caste feel ing is very strong in this district, and has made our work exceedingly difficult In sixteen years Methodism was introduced into 121 towns and villages. The circuits comprise seventeen to fifty- two villages. A girls' school was erected in 1882 in Hyderabad, on a site given by the Govern ment. There are three high-caste girls' schools in Hyderabad, and five in Secunderabad. The Hyderabad District was separated from the Madras District in 1886.

Children's Homes have been formed in the Karim Nagar, Medak and Siddipett Circuits, in which more than 200 boys and girls are now being trained. The Theological Institution at Medak, founded in 1899, is training native workers of the best sort ; and the hospital in Medak, with its two branch dispensaries at Sarjana and Ramayanapett, has a constant stream of patients, o 193

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'The lady doctors,' some one said to Mr. Pratt, 'hold the heart of Medak in the hollow of their hands.' Lace-making workshops have been es tablished at Secunderabad, and carpentry shops at Indur. In this District ' is the great oppor tunity of the Society.' Methodism has to itself this field of 13,000 square miles and 2,000,000 people, all of them readily accessible, and willing, often eager, to hear the truth. In 1900 2,125 converts were baptized.

The tragedy of the Hyderabad Mission was the loss of Mrs. Burgess and the Rev. Joseph LOSS of the Edge Malkin, a devoted and well-trained ' Roumama/ young minister, who had just volun teered for Hyderabad, in the steamship Roumania^ which went on the rocks off Peniche, near Lisbon, on October 27, 1892. Mrs. Burgess had done a great work among the soldiers at Secunderabad, and could speak fluently Tamil, Telugu, and Hindustani. Her little boy and a Christian ayah perished with her. The Hyderabad District Synod paid this tribute to her memory : ' Her rare gifts, marvellous energy, and intense enthu siasm were all consecrated to the service of Christ. Some departments of missionary toil Mrs. Burgess has made peculiarly her own. She was the pioneer of female education in these dominions, and was foremost in every effort to ameliorate the lot of Indian women. By her charm of

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manner she won all hearts, and was known and loved alike in the palaces of nobles and the hovels of the poor. British soldiers have lost in her a devoted friend, and in British canton ments throughout the world her name will be held in grateful remembrance.'

Thomas Hodson laboured in the Mysore till 1878, when he became a supernumerary, and settled at Mansfield, where he died in The Mysore 1882. These are the chief facts of his District- missionary life. He landed at Calcutta in 1829, and was appointed to begin Kanarese work in Bangalore in 1833. In 1838 he removed to the city of Mysore, where he enjoyed the friendship of the Maharajah. His health failed in 1843, and compelled him to come to England ; but in 1853 ne returned to the Mysore. Mr. Hodson was now the ' Nestor ' of our missions in the East. ' As a pioneer he commenced mission work at various stations in the province, inaugurated the great work of English education amongst the natives, rendered valuable contributions to the literature of the country, assisted in the establish ment of the first press, and has been a regular and systematic preacher of the Cross to the people amongst whom he has lived.' He had been nobly supported by Mrs. Hodson, whose efforts on behalf of female education were unceasing.

A worthy successor was ready. Josiah Hudson,

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who had been in Bangalore since 1864, had already won the confidence of his brethren by his faithful and efficient service. He became Chairman of the District in 1878. His educational work brought under his influence large numbers of men who subsequently held high positions in Government service. To his students he seemed ' the most impressive embodiment they had ever seen of strong, pure, and symmetrical manhood, and he acquired a position of unique influence in the State, which succeeding years confirmed and enhanced.' He administered the affairs of the District with conspicuous and unbroken success till his death in 1896.

The Rev. Henry Haigh established a mission press in Mysore City, and the newspapers issued were eagerly read in the villages. The Vrittanta Patrike was a constant ally in introducing the evangelist to the people, and in providing suit able subjects of conversation. When any false statements were published about the work it formed a valuable medium for confuting them. The Hindu Tract Society, through its publications and preachers, abused the missionaries and their religion, but Mr. Haigh was able to make effective reply in his paper. During the Dasara festivities of 1891 people came into Mysore from all parts, and some most interesting and amusing visits were received from natives who wished to see the press where

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( their ' paper was published. Some came to pay their subscriptions or order the journal. Others wished to talk to the man who spoke to them in their villages every week. Mr. Haigh wrote : ' These visits helped us to realize something of the influence which is being exerted. Three represen tatives from one neighbourhood spent an hour in talking on Christ and His claims. They said they would not on any account miss the teaching of the paper. They said it was there they had made their first acquaintance with Christian doctrine. Their talk proved they had read to purpose.' One Brahman had paid for thirty copies to introduce the journal to his neighbours, and secured thirty sub scribers. Its weekly circulation in 1900 was nearly 4,000. At a later stage Mr. Haigh took the chief share in the revision of the Kanarese New Testa ment for the British and Foreign Bible Society.

In Bangalore there were three circuits — Kanarese, Tamil, and English. The Soldiers' Home, at the side of East Parade Church, was opened in 1889, and enlarged in 1892.

In 1887 a mission was started at the Kolar Goldfields for the benefit of the workmen engaged in the fourteen gold mines. This mission is about fifty miles from Bangalore, and is connected with the Tamil circuit in that city. A school-chapel was built at Marikuppam, on the south side of the goldfield, in 1889.

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The Rev. G. W. Sawday's work at Tumkur, forty- three miles from Bangalore, laid hold on every side

of the life of the people, A large native Tumkur.

church was formed, with flourishing

schools. During the famine of 1876-8 a boys' orphanage was established, which has extensive workshops, and three village settlements. Mr. Saw- day returned to England on furlough in 1887. He had spent nine years in Tumkur working * breathlessly all through, but neither hurriedly nor impatiently. Results surround him. The membership of his church has more than doubled ; the chapel has been greatly enlarged, and even so is often filled with worshippers, and the native pastor is now almost supported by his flock.' The Orphanage, with its 130 boys, proved a great strain on Mr. Sawday's resources. He was ' farmer, builder, mechanic, ropemaker, and school master by turns, and elder brother always to his boys.' He formed two villages surrounded by lands tilled by young Christian farmers. Mrs. Saw- day cared for the women and for the girls' schools, and was a constant helper in her husband's work. Mr. Sawday returned to the District in 1900.

A girls' orphanage was opened at Hassan by the Rev. A. P. Riddett in 1876. The Rev. Ernest

W. Redfern spent six years of abound- Hassan. TT 111

ing activity in Hassan, and when he

came home on furlough in 1902 the needs of the

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District filled his heart and brain. He wished to build a hospital for women and children at Hassan, and the necessary funds were given him, but he died in the Bangalore City Hospital on March 28, 1904, at the age of thirty-four.

In 1871 a mission was begun in Banawar, a village of converts from the Koramas, a gipsy tribe

who bore an evil name for theft and

Work among

crimes of violence, and were not allowed Indian

. Gipsies,

to move their encampment without a

police permit. In 1897 Mr. Dumbarton reported the baptism of fifteen persons and the building, near Tarikere, of another Christian village, which was named Satyapura, ' the city of truth.' There was much sickness in the settlement in 1898. This was ascribed by the Hindus in the neighbouring villages to the malignity of a demon who resided in a banyan-tree which was cut down when the village was formed. Such an explanation appealed strongly to a people naturally credulous, but they maintained their Christian faith. The colony was due to the labours of the first converts at Banawar, and they next set themselves to visit and teach their relatives at Soralamavu. Four of them were baptized, and it was said that the rest were only held back by the opposition of one of their number.

Barrackpur, sixteen miles north of Calcutta, is the ' cleanest, most beautiful, and most English- like cantonment in North India.' It is our oldest 199

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station in Bengal. The Rev. George Baugh pur chased the mission house in 1878, and from that The Calcutta ^me tne wor^ nas prospered and ex- District. tended. The English chapel in Station Road was erected in 1884. Many mills have been built at Barrackpur in recent years, and have attracted a large Hindu population. Caste is yielding, and there is a fine field for the preaching of the gospel.

The Zenana Mission in Calcutta was started in 1878, and the lady worker was courteously welcomed. The Report for 1879 says that she already had access to thirteen zenanas. 'She never disguises her evangelical purpose, and yet has more invitations from Hindu families than she can possibly accept.' The missionaries on the ground at this time were all young, and were zealous vernacular preachers, who lived for weeks among the people, ' dwelling in tents, moving from village to village, to command market days and fairs.' They found a ready hearing, and a good sale for their books.

In 1876 two men were appointed to vernacular work in Bengal, and the following year a station was opened at Raniganj, a coalfield, railway, and manufacturing centre. A leper asylum and orphanage were established here at a later date, and are doing good service. Our mission in Calcutta owes much to the eighteen years' over-

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sight of the Rev. J. Milton Brown, who was sent there in 1882, after sixteen years in North Ceylon. He purchased the mission house at Dum Dum, in Calcutta, in 1883, and enlarged it to provide a training institution for female teachers. The English church is self-supporting ; the Bengali and Hindustani missions are pros perous. The Indian Methodist Times has been a strength to the mission.

The Rev. G. W. Olver was appointed in 1887 to evangelize the Santals on the western frontier of Lower Bengal, among whom work had been begun in 1884 by the Rev. J. R. Broadhead. They are an aboriginal tribe. Caste is unknown. They are * manly, independent, truth-loving, and truth-speaking/ save where they have been tainted by contact with their Hindu neighbours. The people are short in stature, well built, with thick lips and high cheek-bones, and live in little hamlets, clearing the forest, cutting wood, and gathering the cocoons of the wild silk-worm. They have no priesthood, no temples, no idols, but worship the sun and moon.

Lucknow, Faizabad, and Benares were formed into a Mission District in 1879. The only pro perty was the English church and parsonage at Dilkusha, Lucknow.

A Soldiers' Home was opened at Lucknow on November i, 1900, through the exertions of

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Mr. Frater. Native work was begun by the Rev. A. Fentiman in 1873. ^n l%%3 a substantial The Lucknow building was acquired for a middle- District. class boys> school in the Sudder Bazaar;

in 1885 a District Training Institution was opened, also a substantial church for the Hindustani con gregation. In 1891 a boarding and day school was provided for Christian boys.

Faizabad, with a population of 80,000, was occupied as a military station in 1876. Two years later Mr. Carmichael built a small Soldiers' Church, and also began vernacular preaching. The Rev. Joseph A. Elliott took up the work in October, 1883. He was 'an Irishman, born in India,' and was received into our ministry in 1876. His unrivalled knowledge of Indian dialects gave him enormous power in dealing with the natives. Gradually he came to be known as Padri Elliott of Faizabad. That place was his home for twenty-two years. He died when on furlough in England in 1905. He was a prince of vernacular preachers, who won the hearts of the people wherever he went. He built at Faizabad one of the finest churches in North India, two bungalows for the missionaries, and a girls' boarding-school. Twelve flourishing village centres were formed, and a large staff of workers drawn together. A school for native Christian girls was opened in 1890, and has supplied a 202

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great need. The orphanages at Jabalpur, Benares, and Akbarpur are doing admirable service.

The Rev. A. Fentiman began work in 1879 at Benares, the sacred city of the Hindus, which has a quarter of a million inhabitants. The native church is fairly healthy, and the boys' orphanage and industrial school promises well. The chapel was built in 1884. The Rev. Edward Solomon's work in the city, where he preached daily in the streets, and received the natives of all ranks into his house, made a deep impression. A bigoted Hindu said : ' Mr. Solomon, ah ! that man ; oh, if you had a hundred such missionaries in our big cities, the conversion of India would be near at hand.'

The Rev. G. W. Clutterbuck worked in Bombay from 1887 to 1890, with much courage and enter prise. He lost his life in the wreck of the Stella, March 30, 1899, when on his way to Guernsey as missionary deputation. The English work in Bombay and the Marathi church are both prospering. A new church was built in Bombay in 1894, at a cost of Rs. 23,000, largely through the persistent efforts of the Rev. G. C. and Mrs. Walker.

When the Rev. G. W. Olver visited India as one of the Secretaries of the Society, he found that missionary methods were far more numerous and complex than the Church at home

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supposed. They employed every kind of evan gelistic, philanthropic, and educational agency used Mr. Diver's *n England, together with methods Visit to India, adapted to the special circumstances of India. * The gospel is preached in churches and halls, in streets and bazaars, in villages and by the roadside ; to Christian congregations, to inquirers, and to the utterly careless and ignorant ; to keen, quick-witted hearers, and to the all but hopelessly dull ; to the Brahman and the pariah ; to old India in its superstition, and to young India in its scepticism and conceit.' The school and the press were also used to influence the life of the country and leaven it with Christian truth, whilst medical missions, industrial settlements, and visits to the Hindu and Muhammadan homes were breaking down the prejudice against Christianity.

The work of native Bible-women in India was rapidly developed about the year 1894. The Indian Bible- Report for 1895 says that seventeen of

women, these agents were employed in the Mysore District. Six of them were in the Banga lore (Kanarese) Circuit. They paid 2,848 visits during the year and read and explained the gospel to more than 12,000 women. There were twenty-six Bible-women at work in the Negapatam District. In 1899 there were thirty-eight.

Meanwhile the conviction was growing that 204

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the entire scale of our Indian missions was inadequate. The work was under-staffed, the claims of India were urgent, and the Tlie claims grants were felt to be deplorably in- oflndia- sufficient. The Mysore Synod wrote : ' We are grieved beyond measure when we hear of those who desire to enter the Christian Church, but, because our stations are undermanned, are yet unvisited. Men have moved towards the Christian Church, and stand to-day puzzled and pained at its apparently apathetic attitude. We cannot wonder if they fall back into the heathenism from which they might have parted finally if the Church had moved towards them. Twelve months ago we asked that a man should be sent out for the absolutely essential work of itinerating in the villages, but the Committee has been unable to grant our request. There are indications that such a worker might have the joy of gathering even whole communities into the Church of Christ.'

Upper Burma was annexed to the British Empire on January I, 1886. Twelve months later the Rev. W. R. Winston set out from work in Calcutta to open a Methodist mission. Burma- The Rev. J. M. Brown accompanied Mr. Winston to advise and assist in the new enterprise. They found 985 monastic houses and 5,968 Buddhist priests in Mandalay alone. The Rev. J. H. Bateson 205

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had reached Mandalay three weeks previously as Wesleyan military chaplain. A fine site, five and a half acres in extent, was bought, and a substantial mission house of teak erected. In September two Sinhalese youths, trained in Ceylon, came to Mr. Winston's help. A school was opened and a modest beginning made in vernacular preaching. The Rev. A. H. Bestall arrived as Mr. Winston's colleague in 1887, and has laboured in Burma with growing success. He opened a new station at Pakokku, with a population of 25,000, in the latter part of 1888, and won the confidence of the people. Here a chapel was erected. A good chapel was built at Mandalay in 1890, and another at Kyaukse, twenty-nine miles south of Mandalay, which is the centre of the most fertile district in the country. It was a neat brick building two storeys high, measuring 60 by 30 feet, with a porch at the north end. It had also to be used as a school, and it was not till 1897 that a church used solely for public worship was built in the South Mount Road. Evangelistic work was carried on in the streets and the homes of the people. Mr. Winston said, in 1889 : ' Our principal problem is how best to create an interest in the true religion. The Burmans are not accustomed to enter any building regularly for worship or in struction, and only by house-to-house visitation 206

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can we reach them.' The preachers could always get fifty to a hundred people together by singing a Burman hymn at a street corner, and all listened attentively.

When the mission was somewhat established Mr. Winston turned his attention towards the lepers. The Chief Commissioner welcomed the scheme. He said there was nothing like it in all Burma, and he not only gave the site but started the subscription list with a hundred rupees. King Edward VII, then Prince of Wales, was appealed to as President of the National Leprosy Fund, which made a grant of £80. The first ward of the home was erected in January, 1891. It had teak posts, a floor of boards, walls made of bamboo matting, and a thatched roof. The bungalow had accommodation for fifteen inmates, and on the first day seven lepers were admitted. Other buildings were added. Before the year closed there were 50 patients. Daily worship was conducted in the home. The attendance was voluntary. For more than three years there was little response to the appeals, but at length a leper was so grateful for the skill with which his diseased leg was amputated that on his recovery he embraced Christianity and began to speak to the patients about religion. In 1895 forty of them were Christians, and had a daily service of their own. A medical visitor from

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Scotland in 1896 gave £150 to provide increased accommodation for women in the Home for Lepers. The ' Perth Ward ' is an abiding memo rial of this generous deed. A lady in England also sent ,£120, which enabled Mr. Bestall to open a separate orphanage where the healthy children of lepers might be saved from contamination by leprous surroundings. In 1898 there were 115 leper inmates, and the list of baptisms in seven years had reached 104.

A site was purchased at Monywa in 1893 an<^ on this a temporary mission house and school- chapel were erected.

In 1894-5 Mr. Bestall translated The Old and New Testament Stories, which were published by the Christian Literature Society of India.

In China there has been steady advance. On his visit to Canton in 1898, the Rev. Marshall

Work in Hartley found that catechists and

China. teachers could not be trained quickly enough in the Theological Institution to supply the demand. There are four day schools, and the Soldiers' and Sailors' Home, opened in 1900 in Hong Kong, is doing well.

In 1 88 1 Dr. Wenyon opened a hospital in a rented building in Fatshan, the Birmingham of China, about fifteen miles above Canton, with half a million people. In 1890 a new building, on the opposite side of the river, was bought. More than 208

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5,000 patients are cared for every year in its four wards. It became self-supporting in 1892. At Wuchau, in the province of Kwang-si, the hospital is a monument to the zeal of the Rev. Roderick Macdonald, M.D., who was murdered by river pirates in 1906. He had to live for weeks in a boat on the river before he could secure a site, and then in a tiny wooden hut for six months, with his wife and little son, till his premises — chapel, dispensary, dwelling-house, all in one — were built

In the county of Heung Shan, on the delta of the Canton River, mission work was begun in a large village by a Chinaman who had been converted in San Francisco and brought back the light to his native place. He built a house for himself, with rooms for mission purposes, Shiu Kwan is the headquarters of a mission among the Hakkas. Colporteurs were the pioneers, and in 1878 the first preaching-room was opened by the Rev. T. G. Selby. There are three self-supporting churches, and more than a score of preaching-places.

The China Breakfast Meeting, originated by Sir Francis Lycett, kept the cause well before the Methodists of England.

David Hill spent five years in Wuchang, where a church of sixteen members was formed and a mission house and chapel built on the P 209

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main street. He made evangelistic tours among the villages near the Yangtse, and in 1873 was David mil's sent to Kuang Chi and Wusueh to care Work. for ^g work jn that region. Wusueh is a hundred and twenty miles farther down the river than Hankow. For six years Mr. Hill lived here in two rooms and preached in the villages around. When famine broke out in Shansi he made his way to the province to minister to the starving inhabitants. Prejudice was conquered by these deeds of love, and a great door was opened for the gospel.

After a visit to England, which sensibly quickened Methodist interest in China, David Hill was reappointed to Wuchang in 1882. Whilst he was in England a colporteur had begun work in Teh Ngan, a hundred and twenty miles north-west of Hankow. The purchase of land there at a later stage caused a riot, in which the missionaries were driven out. Mr. Hill went to their help, and the work took firm root. Dr. Morley opened a hospital in the city in 1888, which has rendered great service. Dr. Barber began the high school at Wuchang in 1884. Dr. James Wood, of Southport, gave £500 for a chapel, day school, and native preacher's house in Hankow. David Hill devoted himself and his fortune to China, and long before his death on April 18, 1896, had been recognized

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as the saint and hero of the China mission. The Blind School at Hankow is his abiding memorial. The Central China Lay Mission, which he instituted in 1883, proved a powerful agency for evangelizing the inland provinces. The Joyful News agents shared these dangers and triumphs. William Argent, their first martyr, was killed by the mob at Wusueh on June 5, 1891.

In 1895 Mr. Hill effected a settlement at Kung Tien, a densely populated part of Hankow. ' There Hill immersed himself in the ocean of native life which flowed in full tide around him, and more than ever sought, by personal inter course and conversation, to win those with whom he came in contact.'

In 1902 the great military province of Hunan, where hatred of the missionary had been most intense, was entered.

The South African Conference was formed in 1883. Its stations cover Cape Colony, Natal,

what was known as the Orange Free

South

State, Tembuland, Pondoland, and Gri- African con ference, 1883. qualand. It has missions to the natives

within its boundaries. The work north of the Vaal is carried on by our Society. The Rev. John Walton was the first President of the South African Conference, and was elected again in 1884. He and the Rev. J. Smith Spencer went out to the Cape in 1878 and rendered 211

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conspicuous service. The Wesleyan High School at Grahamstown, founded in 1880, is a monu ment to Mr. Walton's energy and skill. Methodist children had previously been sent to Anglican and Romanist schools, where their loyalty to their own Church was seriously endangered. Mr. Spencer was President of the South African Conference in 1889.

The first Methodist worker in what has now become the Transvaal and Swaziland District was

Dayid David Magatta. He was a native of Mp<ftchteaf-at the Megaliesberg, but was taken captive

stroom. kv the Matabele, and became a personal attendant of their chief, Moselekatse. When the Boers attacked his master David fled to Thaba Nchu, where he was converted at the Wesleyan church. He returned to the Megaliesberg to tell them of Christ, but could not find any of his kinsmen. He settled at Potchefstroom, and allowed no native to leave the town without making the gospel known to him The Boers were indignant that a ( nigger ' should presume to preach, and, by order of the landdrost, he was flogged and banished. He met Mr. Kriiger on the frontier, who listened to his story, and gave him a written permit to return. He laboured in Potchefstroom for many years, holding prayer-meetings and class-meetings regularly. Mr. Blencowe visited him in 1871, and saw that the place was ripe for mission work.

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Next year he left Ladysmith with two young ministers to begin the Vaal River mission. Mr. Blencowe clearly saw that there was vaal River a prosperous future for the Transvaal. Mission- ' This country will one day be the most densely populated in South Africa. Its mineral wealth is great : iron, copper, lead, coal, and gold abound. And this increase of population will be mainly persons of English parentage.' He began to build a church in Potchefstroom, but was called to other work, and the church was not finished till James Calvert arrived in 1874.

The Rev. George Weavind reached Pretoria, then only a village, in 1872. There was one Methodist family, and services were Eariywork begun in an inconvenient schoolroom mpretoria- lent by the Government. A large site was pur chased in the principal street for £130, which is now valued at £60,000. A small chapel and a cottage for the minister were built, and the church grew steadily to influence and power. Native work was begun around Pretoria and in the more distant district of Waterberg. When the Rev. John Kilner, one of the missionary secretaries, visited South Africa in 1880 he recognized the almost unlimited pos sibilities for extension. He and the Rev. Owen Watkins, who had been working in Natal since 1876, visited the Transvaal, and it was arranged that a new District should be formed, of which 213

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Mr. Watkins was to be the first Chairman. The war which broke out in December delayed opera tions, but as soon as it closed Mr. Watkins came to Pretoria in 1881. Little churches, founded by devoted natives, who had been converted at Wes- leyan services in Natal or Cape Colony, were dis covered in various parts of the country, and a chain of stations was formed stretching from Lyden- burg on the south-east almost to the Limpopo on the north-west. Daniel 'Msimang, who fifty years before had gone as a boy with one of the Natal missionaries to form a mission among the warlike Swazis, offered himself as a missionary to his own people at the time Mr. Watkins came to Pretoria. His faithful work was blessed with abundant fruit. Mafeking and Bechuanaland were added to the District, and soon showed large increase. The Potchefstroom native circuit grew and extended till it had 1,200 members, and its farthest outpost was a hundred miles distant from the circuit town.

When gold was discovered on the Witwatersrand in 1884 emigrants flocked in. A colonial local Johannes- preacher among them held the first burg. Methodist service, and the work spread from end to end of the gold-bearing reef. Johannes burg leaped to life in 1886, but our Church kept pace with its growth, and sent minister after minister to labour among the people. The huge 214

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circuit was divided into three, and a great impetus was thus given to aggressive effort. Meanwhile evangelistic work was zealously carried on among the natives attracted to the mines, many of whom heard the gospel for the first time. The District had 35,000 adherents in 1896. The Boer War, 1899-1902, gave a serious check to the mission, but it has since more than regained its hold on the population. The Rev. Amos Burnet went out as Chairman of the Transvaal District in 1902, and a wonderful era of expansion began. Method ism is finding its way into every place in the region, and the natives welcome it as earnestly as the European settlers. The Rev. Marshall Hartley visited the District in 1903.

Early in 1891 the Hon. Cecil Rhodes, on behalf of the British South Africa Company, offered our Missionary Society ,£100 a year towards Mashona- the expense of a mission station in the land area over which that company had jurisdiction. In June, 1891, Owen Watkins and Isaac Shimmin started from the north of the Transvaal on a tour of inspection. They reached Fort Salisbury, now the capital of Rhodesia, on July 29, where land was selected for a mission station ; a farm was also pegged out at Umtali, and on December 15 Mr. Shimmin marked out a new mission farm, Hartleyton, within ninety miles of the Zambesi. On June 5, 1892, a comfortable brick chapel was 215

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opened at Fort Salisbury, the first place of worship in Mashonaland. It cost ,£300, and all the money was given by the residents. The Rev. G. H. Eva took pastoral charge, and soon erected a second chapel, the first built for the natives in Mashona land. Eight native teachers came up from the Transvaal, and three important stations were occupied — Epworth, six miles from Salisbury, where a church was built in 1893, Hartley ton, and Lo Magundi's.

In 1893 war broke out with the Matabele. All our stations in Mashonaland were wrecked, and we had to begin work anew. For a year or two there was much restlessness ; but gradually old stations were reoccupied, new stations established, churches and schools built. Mr. Shimmin secured a fine site in Buluwayo, once the capital of Lobengula, for ,£900, in 1895, and built on this the first Wesleyan church in Matabeleland, which was opened on October 13, 1895. The Mashona rebellion in 1896 put an end to our work at Lo Magundi's for a time. Two native evangelists and a local preacher were murdered. After a year or two old stations were reoccupied, new stations established, churches and schools built. The diffi culties of pioneer work have now been surmounted, and despite the trouble caused by natives of doubtful character from Cape Colony who resort to these up-country towns there is steady progress.

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A mission among the Matabele was begun in 1898. It is a few days' journey from the Zambesi and the Victoria Falls, a key to that vast territory where untold labours and triumphs await the gospel messenger.

Our largest West African mission, that on the Gold Coast, now has seventeen circuits, eleven on the coast line, and three outposts amid The Gold the heathen darkness of the interior. Coast Every town on the coast is occupied by a Wesleyan mission station. The Rev. J. T. F. Halligey, who spent the first three years of his ministry at Sierra Leone, also gave six years to the Gold Coast, and the Rev. Dennis Kemp was able to labour there for nine years (1887-1896). During those years the mission area was extended on all sides, the chapels increased from 56 to in, the open-air centres for evangelistic work were trebled, native missionaries increased from 14 to 23, catechists and day-school teachers from 84 to 263, church members from 5,610 to 7,674, junior members from 1,136 to 5,410, catechumens from 557 to 3,387, Sunday scholars from 1,760 to 11,984, day scholars from 1,505 to 5,743. The ordinary income rose to £7,000, double the amount raised in 1887. The Book Room and Printing Press are flourishing institutions. The Girls' Boarding School and Training Home, opened in July, 1900, has met a great need, and promises to make

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its pupils capable and domesticated Christian women.

The visits of the Rev. W. H. Findlay to West Africa in 1903 and 1904 have been of untold benefit in regard to the health of our missionaries and the oversight of the work. Since 1903 Wesley deaconesses have been employed in West Africa. Three are at work in the Sierra Leone and Gambia District and two in the Gold Coast District.

Mr. Freeman, who had retired from the ministry for a time, and cultivated a large tract of land near Accra, resumed his ministry in 1873, an^ for thirteen years rendered valuable service to the whole District.

In 1877 the stations near to Lagos were formed

into the Yoruba and Popo District, under the

Lagos and charge of the Rev. John Milum. The

the District. natives showed great zeal and generosity,

and the work in Lagos spread rapidly. Lagos is

a fine centre for evangelizing the interior. Yoruba,

with 3,000,000 inhabitants, stretches from the

Bight of Benin to within forty miles of the

Niger. Caste is absent, open-air services are

unmolested, compounds may be freely entered.

In some parts of the country Muhammadanism

is evidently and ominously spreading. Ibadan,

with 200,000 inhabitants, among whom David

Hinderer, of the Church Missionary Society, and

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his wife laboured with such devotion from 1853 to 1869, is one of the largest towns of Yoruba, and indeed ,of Africa, but we have only one native minister and teacher at work. Oyo has 40,000 people, and there we have a substantial church. At Ilesha the king has helped to build the Methodist chapel, and young and old have vied with each other in learning to write, so that they may study the Gospels for themselves. Ijebu is one of our youngest fields, into which Methodism was introduced by Prince Ademuyiwa, who sent two native agents there at his own cost in July, 1892. At Ago there has been quite a hunger for the truth. A native evangelist began the work, and, though stoutly opposed at first, the young men were gradually interested, and some of them have been sent out to visit the villages, in more than forty of which services are held. The people may be seen in streets and market-places trying to spell out the Bible message. Bryan Roe, who gave nearly ten years' heroic service to West Africa, died at Quitta on February 22, 1896.

In 1885 our oldest missions in the West Indies seemed strong enough to claim inde pendence. Two Conferences were The west formed. The Western Conference Indies- had three Districts in Jamaica, together with the Hayti and Santo Domingo District ; the Eastern Conference was composed of the St. Vincent, 219

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British Guiana, Barbados, Trinidad, Antigua, and St. Kitts Districts. A Coke Memorial College was founded at St. John's, Antigua, for the higher education of boys and the training of West Indian ministers.

The work was carried on with great spirit. Methodist newspapers were started, the member ship grew, and in all departments faithful service was done. The Centenary of Methodism in the West Indies was kept in 1886 with much rejoicing. The meetings were well attended and showed that, notwithstanding the change in the circumstances of the people, there was no decline in their attach ment and loyalty to their Church. The visit of the Rev. Alexander M'Aulay and Mr. Sampson in 1888 was highly appreciated, and the evan gelistic services they held resulted in the awaken ing and conversion of many. New missions were begun in St. Lucia, and at Arinca, a town with 8,000 inhabitants, in Trinidad.

Earthquakes, tornadoes, and commercial depres sion made it expedient for the West Indies to return to the care of the Missionary Society in January, 1904. A special fund of ^"60,000 to relieve the trust property from its burdens was started, half to be raised at home and half in the West Indies. The Rev. J. M. Brown visited the islands in 1905 and inspected the circuit and trust accounts. He expressed his admiration for

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the way in which the missionaries had remained at their posts amid all discouragements. ' Though their full salary has not been forthcoming, and though the indications of decay have well-nigh broken their hearts, yet have they proved them selves worthy of a place in the Methodist brother hood, and true successors of the men who, amid much persecution and many difficulties, established the churches in these islands.' The difficulties in the West Indies were purely administrative and financial. They came back with 40,000 members and 3,000 members on trial, and had added nearly 1,000 members in the previous twelve months.

Our mission in Honduras was begun in 1825 by the Rev. Thomas Wilkinson, who settled in

Belize, but fell a victim to the

P r Honduras,

unhealthy climate after a few months.

His successor died before the close of his first year. But the work was not allowed to drop. A substantial chapel was erected in Belize, and when this was destroyed by fire a handsome building took its place. The population is com posed of Europeans, Spanish Creoles, negroes, East Indian coolies, Maya Indians and Caribs. Preaching and teaching is carried on in Spanish, English, and Maya. The Rev. Richard Fletcher, when appointed to Corozal, the second town of the colony, in the extreme north of British Hon duras, was able to secure the abolition of the

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bull fights which were then in vogue. He mastered Spanish, and translated the Gospels and other books into Maya, the language of the Indians of Yucatan. The neighbourhood is a stronghold of Romanism, and the priests endeavour to keep the people away from the light, but Methodist services are held in English and Spanish in Corozal and three Indian villages. The work among the Caribs at Stann Creek, on the coast, thirty-six miles south of Belize, has lifted many from deepest heathen darkness into the light of God. The visit of the Rev. W. Perkins in 1899 did much to en courage the people and increase the influence of Methodism in Honduras.

The Bahamas District, like Honduras, remained

under the charge of our Missionary Committee

The after the West Indian Conference had

Bahamas. been formed, as communication between those islands and the West Indian group is very difficult. The islands, which lie in a crescent of about six hundred miles in extent to the east of Florida and Cuba, were ceded to England by treaty in 1783. Half the population were slaves, and Methodist work had to face much opposition in early days. The only means of passing from island to island is by small schooner or sloop, and a journey of thirty miles sometimes takes five days. Methodism has 223

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three good churches in Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas. The coloured people there are the most intelligent of their race. The Rev. Henry Bleby, who was Chairman of the District from 1868 to 1878, transformed the Methodist pro perty, building or improving at every place. The Rev. George Lester went out as Chairman in 1891, and spent six years in building up Methodist work with happy results. The Rev. W. H. F. Bleby, grandson of the Rev. H. Bleby, who wrote many books on the West Indies, is now Chairman.

Missions in other parts of the world which have now passed from the care of the parent Society are still prospering.

When the Australian Conference was formed, in 1855, the missions in Fiji passed to its charge, and right nobly has the work been carried on. The Rev. F. Langham was for some years Superintendent of the mission, and, since he left the islands, has done valuable translation work. A gentleman in Adelaide has presented a steam launch to the mission, which has been christened The Langham. There are now 34,497 church members in Fiji, with 6,336 on trial. The college at Navuloa furnishes a good supply of trained men for Fiji and New Guinea. A high school established in 1900 is a great success, and similar schools ought to be provided in other 223

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centres. There are 16,000 Indian coolies in Fiji, and a great effort is being made to win them for Christ.

Fijian Christians have shown a noble zeal for the conversion of the savages of New Guinea. Fijiansas When the Rev. George Brown was Missionaries, undertaking his perilous mission to that island in June, 1875, nine native teachers volunteered to join him. They were reminded of the dangers, but replied, ' We are all of one mind ; we know what these islands are. We have given ourselves to this work. If we get killed, well ; if we live, well. We have had everything explained to us, and we know the danger. We are willing to go.' They did not forget the debt they owed to those who had brought light to them in their darkness, and they were eager to make some return. Other parties of Fijians followed in 1877 and 1891, and they have had no small share in the victory the gospel has won in New Guinea. When the Rev. James Calvert visited Fiji in 1886 he was greatly pleased with the native students. ' They are very true, ready to go forth and brave the hardships and exposures of New Guinea, where some of them have perished in the work ; but others are baptized for the dead, and cheerfully ready to fill their places.'

The Rev. P. Turner began a mission in Samoa 224

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in 1835, and gathered in some hundreds of natives, but in 1839 the field was left to the London Missionary Society. In 1856 a new beginning was made under the direction of the Australian Conference.

From the first Methodism has freely given its best men to the service of the Mission House. The list of Secretaries from the days of Missionary Richard Watson and Jabez Bunting is Secretaries, one of which our Church is justly proud. The anxieties and responsibilities inevitable to mis sionary administration have severely taxed all who have been responsible for it. Dr. Jenkins spoke of the travail of Dr. Punshon's soul when anything threatened to impede the glorious work. At the Mission House he says that he ( learned to perfect the image of one of the greatest men it has been my privilege to know. As his powers were equally at home in the survey of general principles, and in the laborious inspection and adjustment of details, so his fidelity was alike conspicuous in the duties that are hidden from the public eye and in those more attractive engagements that secure a wide notice and an instant applause. He lived in the work of his missionary brethren. A far-reaching sympathy made him the companion of men he had never known, and a partaker in labours he had never seen. He watched the good fight of Christ on the fields of heathenism not only with enthu- Q 225

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siasm and anxiety, but with a sense of conflict as if himself in the battle. He was thus in the midst of two struggles. He was in the distant and glorious strife of the faith, and he was in the near and worrying strife of administration, and the double contest exhausted and hastened the fall of this great and noble soldier.' That is a passage which describes the experience through which the long succession of missionary secretaries has passed. In our own time the problems caused by Indian famines, Chinese outrages, West Indian disasters, and the Boer War have sorely taxed the friends and officers of the Society.

The Mission House has had a succession of eminent missionaries on its staff who were able to

bring their personal experience to bear on Official Visits

to the the work of administration. The policy Mission Field. . . ...

of personal inspection of the mission field

by one of the General Secretaries has also been a marked feature of recent years. The Continent of Europe has been constantly visited by the Rev. F. W. Macdonald and others responsible for the work. The Rev. G. T. Perks paid a visit to South Africa in 1876, and the Rev. John Kilner in 1880; the Rev. G. W. Olver made a tour in India and Ceylon in 1892 ; the Rev. Marshall Hartley visited China, Ceylon, and India in 1898-9, and South Africa in 1903 ; the Rev. W. Perkins visited Honduras in 1899; the Rev. W. H. Findlay made 226

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two journeys to the West Coast of Africa in 1900 and 1901, and a tour of inspection in India and Ceylon in 1904-5, in company with Mr. J. Vanner Early and Mr. R. W. Booth. The Rev. J. M. Brown rendered special service to the West Indies by his visit in 1905. The Report for 1893 tnus refers to Mr. Giver's visit to the East. ' Some of the greatest difficulties in the way of successful administration in the mission field arise from mutual misunderstanding caused by differ ences of race, education, and national sentiment It is not to be supposed that great chasms are bridged over by the amenities of a single visit, or by brief intercourse, however profitable and pleasant. But something is accomplished when one of Mr. Giver's experience and weight of character, able at once to teach and to learn, can go among the infant churches of heathen lands, strengthening them by his counsels and his prayers, and adding bonds of personal sympathy and goodwill to the links which already unite the East with the Christianity of the West.'

In his account of his tour in the East, Mr. Hartley says : ( It is my honest conviction that, as a body, our missionaries, both for ability andMr .Hartleys piety, stand at a high average ; while as ^"th? to their methods of work, though I have Missionaries sought, I have found nothing to complain of, nothing that I would abandon, nothing that I would alter. 227

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In this I speak of principles^ of methods. Here and there in detail some modification may be advisable ; but our missions rest upon broad and solid founda tions, and are being wisely built upon right lines by men and women whom the Church may fully trust/

The Treasurers of the Society have worked with as keen a devotion as the Secretaries. Since 1837 Missionary there have been only three ministerial Treasurers. Treasurers— John Scott, Dr. Jobson, and Dr. Rigg — each of them a tower of strength to the Mission House. James S. Budgett, who succeeded James Heald as Lay Treasurer in 1874, remained throughout life a princely supporter. He died in 1906. Sir William M'Arthur took office in 1883, and held it with great advantage to the Society till his death on November 6, 1887. The Report for 1888 says: 'A hand has vanished that knew no stint in giving ; a voice is stilled that never faltered when it pleaded the cause of the distressed or bore testimony for the Master.' Mr. T. Morgan Harvey was appointed Treasurer in 1888, and for ten years devoted time and wealth to promoting the work of the Society. The Minutes of 1 898 contain this reso lution : ' The Conference receives with sincere regret the resignation of the Lay Treasurer of the Society, Mr. T. Morgan Harvey, who is compelled by the state of his health to relinquish his office. For ten years Mr. Harvey has rilled with conspicuous 228

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ability the position from which he now retires, giving close attention to the business of the Society, and devoting time and strength without stint to its service. He has also been foremost in generous gifts, and the improved financial position of the Missionary Society to-day is due in large measure to his sagacity and liberality.' Mr. Williamson Lamplough, the present Treasurer, has given him self to the cause with unwearying devotion. Only those who are in daily contact with our missions know the value of his services.

Work and Workers in the Mission Field, an illustrated missionary monthly started by the Rev. F. W. Macdonald in 1892, was the Missionary means of diffusing a vast mass of Lit<*ature. information about the missions and the missionaries of the Church. It prepared the way for Tlie Foreign Field, an illustrated penny monthly, the first number of which appeared in September, 1904, under the editorship of Miss Klickmann. It is recognized as the most attractive missionary magazine issued, and has reached a circulation of about 50,000. At Home and Abroad, the. missionary magazine for young people, is not less attractive. The annuals form an encyclopaedia of Methodist missions.

Valuable maps of the various districts, with historical and descriptive notes, have been pre pared, and the Mission House is increasingly alive 229

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to the power of the Press in awakening interest and spreading information.

From the Thanksgiving Fund (1878-1883)

£63,869 was given to foreign missions. The

Missionary 'Special Effort' of 1895-7 cleared the

Funds. cje|3t. Of .£30,000, ancj provided £10,000

for buildings in various parts of the mission field. £25,000 was raised for the Indian Famine Fund in 1899-1900. The Twentieth Century Fund of 1900 yielded £100,000 for missions, of which half was at once spent on the erection of buildings and the rest set apart as a Plant Fund.

In 1898 sixteen additional men were sent to various parts of the field, but the Missionary Days of Synods of 1900 sent no fewer than Advance, eighteen requests for additional men. The missionary fire was burning more brightly, and in 1900, for the first time since 1884, the home contributions for foreign work reached six figures. The deficit for 1900, due to loss of income during war-time in the Transvaal and to troubles in China, was met by generous friends of the Society. The income for 1901 showed a decline, and this fact, together with the publication of a searching paper by the Rev. John H. Greeves, led to much heart- searching. The May Anniversary of 1902 ' was quick with the throbbings of new aspiration and consecration.' The Manchester Conference pledged itself to a more energetic and aggressive missionary 230

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policy. Twelve conventions were held in various centres for the deepening of the missionary spirit during the presidency of Dr. Banks, and the districts not then visited had their conventions during Mr. Hartley's presidency the following year.

The following programme of advance was adopted :

' I. To respond to an appeal of the North Ceylon mission that has been six years repeated, to enable them to set free an experienced man for itinerant evangelistic work around their stations.

2. To add to the staff of the Hyderabad mission, where the rapid ingatherings are overtaxing the powers of our missionaries.

3. To provide for the appointment of a man, if the right man can be found, for evangelistic work among the educated classes in Madras, among whom there is splendid opportunity for bringing to fruition by special agency the missionary influence of our schools and colleges.

4. To provide a Principal (if, again, the right man can be found) for a Theological Institution designed for the service of all our churches in West Africa.

5. and 6. To reply to the cruelties inflicted on Christians in China, and to the hopes of the Dowager-Empress to suppress Christianity, by increasing the missionary staff in both our Chinese missions.

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7. To enable the Bahamas mission, which has fought a good fight for God in those sequestered islands with little money help from us, to occupy in force another important island of the group.

8. To reoccupy San Pedro Sula in the Honduras District, the scene of one of the most beautiful and most tragic stories of heroism in our recent missionary history.

9. To strengthen the meagre force which in Rhodesia is longing to push its campaign towards the Zambesi and gather the natives of that great region into the kingdom of Christ. If the Trans vaal does not appear on this list, it is because the time is not yet ripe for planning the great extension of our operations for which we confidently expect to find opportunity, when order is restored in that distracted land.'

The Mission House was pulled down in 1901. The new building was opened in 1903. By letting

the largest part of the basement, the The new Mission ground floor and first floor, the entire

cost of rebuilding, £75,899, will be met within twenty years, and a handsome yearly income provided for the Society in 1924. This notable result is largely due totheskilful management of the Lay Treasurer, Mr. Williamson Lamplough. At the first floor handsome iron gates shut off the missionary premises from the business part 232

OUR OWN TIMES

of the house. The entrance hall is lined with Devonshire marble, and has a marble floor. From this hall we step into the Centenary Room, where the General Committee meets. It is lined with oak panelling, and has a floor of oak parquet. Another good committee-room opens out of this, in which the Women's Auxiliary holds its com mittee. Rooms for the Deputy-Treasurer and clerks are on this floor. On the story above are the offices of the three other Secretaries and a good committee-room. On the top floor are the caretaker's rooms and the museum. The nucleus of the Missionary Museum was a collection, which fills five large cases, made by Mr. Thomas Farmer, and presented by his daughter, Mrs. Farmer-Atkinson. Treasures and trophies from all parts of the field have been gathered here. The shipping, packing, storing, and for warding business is done at Carlisle Avenue, a few minutes' walk distant.

The need of trained female teachers in the East became more manifest as our work broadened out. In 1858, at the request of the Missionary The Women's Committee, a small committee of ladies Auxiliary- was formed to choose teachers, and provide money for their support. The Report for 1859 says: ' Christian women have always been among the warmest and most generous supporters of the Society ; but this year they have been zealously 233

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endeavouring to enhance the value of their services by combination and system. A Ladies' Com mittee has been organized for the purpose of more effectually promoting the work of the Society in reference to female education, to the supply of clothing to stations where it may be needed, and to many other subsidiary matters by which the comfort and usefulness of missionaries and their wives may be largely enhanced. To those friends who have originated this organization, as well as to those who in various parts of the country have promised it their co-operation and support, the Committee beg to offer this expression of their sincere gratitude.' This was the modest origin of the Women's Auxiliary. It was soon found that doors of usefulness are open to women in the East, which are rigidly closed to men. The Auxiliary thus began to find a glorious sphere of service. Its chief work has been in India, Ceylon, and China, where more than fifty English ladies are employed in teaching and superintending schools, and in zenana visitation. Others are village evangelists, and seventeen are engaged in medical work at eleven centres. About 250 Eurasians and natives are employed as Bible- women, zenana visitors, and hospital assistants. There are also many school teachers. The medical work is becoming more and more important. The Women's Auxiliary was one of the earliest 234

OUR OWN TIMES

societies to undertake medical work which it began in India in 1883.

In Italy help has been given to the Intra Orphanage, the day school at Spezia, and that at Iselle for the children of the Italian navvies working at the Simplon tunnel. Schools in Spain and Africa are supported. The first worker was sent to Burma in 1900. Help was given to Mrs. Piercy in Canton, and in 1885 Miss Sugden went to Hankow as a lady doctor. The Hospital there was opened in 1888. Dr. Margaret Bennet went out at her own cost in 1899 for medical work in Wuchang, and other ladies have followed in her steps. The medical work in Medak and Ikkadu has been of unspeakable value. The Women's Auxiliary helps to support 480 schools, for 20,000 girls. More than half of the schools are in Ceylon. Above forty of them are boarding- schools. Methodism has more schools in that island than all other Protestant Missionary Societies together, yet out of 13,000 villages only 700 have a Protestant school. Mrs. Wiseman's appointment as Foreign Secretary of the Auxiliary in 1877 led to great developments. She enlisted the help of others, and every year has seen further extension and consolidation. Her visit to India in 1889 led to the development of the Orphanages, which are training-places for Christians and for Christian workers. There are

235

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now thirty-six orphanages and boarding-schools for the children of native Christians. In 1902 Mrs. Wiseman visited China, and on her out ward journey opened the new hospitals at Indur and Medak, and laid the foundation-stone of Wiseman Hall, an enlargement of the Girls' Boarding-school at Secunderabad. In 1906 seventy lady missionaries from England were at work, of whom seventeen were engaged in medical service. Fourteen other ladies were local helpers, and of these two were qualified doctors. At Hassan and Mysore hospitals were built, and a Rescue Home for widows was established in Bangalore. Mr. Solomon Jevons provided hospital and orphanage buildings at Welimada, Batti- caloa, Ikkadu, Trichinopoly, Medak, Hassan, and Jabalpur. Other friends of like spirit have nobly helped the Auxiliary. The urgent demand for girls' schools in China, India, and Ceylon, and the call for Bible-women, which far exceeds the supply, are increasing the opportunities and responsibilities of the Women's Auxiliary at an alarming rate.

Some of the most important work on the mission field can only be done by women. The way in which the zenanas of the East are open to Christian ladies gives unbounded opportunity for influencing the wives and mothers of the future, whilst the lady doctor is one of the most precious gifts of God to multitudes of the sick and suffering. 236

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It was arranged in 1906 that the Missionary Committee should contribute £4,200 a year for ten years for mission work in Ireland. After that time the missionary grant will be withdrawn. This will be a sensible relief to the funds of the Society, and in the meantime steps will be taken that mission work in Ireland shall not suffer.

The Nottingham Conference of 1906 will be memorable for a great outburst of practical enthusiasm for foreign missions. In the course of a few hours the debt of £\ 5,000 was extinguished and a large addition to the annual income was secured. That day made it manifest that the old passion for the conversion of the world was still burning brightly in Methodist hearts, and that a new era, marked by a deeper sense of respon sibility for the extension of Christ's kingdom and a nobler spirit of self-sacrifice, had dawned. That day was a glorious recompense for the travail and patience of the years that had preceded it. Methodism is joyfully pledged to lay its growing wealth and influence on the missionary altar, and never to relax effort till the whole world enjoys the fullest light of gospel grace and salvation.

The Missionary Centenary is to be kept in 1913, and a standard History will be prepared. A great advance ought to be made in every field before the Centenary year dawns, and Methodism is manifestly determined to rise to the height of its vocation.

237

CHAPTER VIII

A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF OUR MISSIONS

239

CHAPTER VIII

A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF OUR MISSIONS

WE may close this brief history of Wesleyan Methodist missions with a survey of the field at present occupied by the Society.

The missions it began in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the South Seas are now independent of any financial aid from England, and are under the charge of colonial Conferences. Those in Ireland, France, Cape Colony, Natal, and the Orange River Colony are under the direction of their own Conferences, and receive aid from the Missionary Society. The missions under the immediate control of the British Con ference are in Europe, Ceylon, India, China, the Transvaal and Swaziland, West Africa, and the Western hemisphere.

Methodism in Italy has gained greatly by the recent amalgamation with the Free Church of Italy. We have acquired pro perty worth £12,000, and churches and workers that will add materially to our R 241

A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW

strength. Churches in Florence, Milan, Palermo, and some smaller stations chiefly in the manufac turing district north of Milan have been taken over. The work stretches from the Simplon tunnel to Palermo. In Rome we have a good church, and a strong hold on the military.

The schools in Spezia, the Italian arsenal, have long been regarded as a national benefit. A new church was opened at Intra in 1903. It seats 200, and its tower shows up well as you cross Lake Maggiore. There is a day school and an orphanage, liberally supported by the Protestant public. Many of the cotton operatives at Intra are attached Methodists. In Milan we have a chapel in a thickly populated suburb, and a large church in one of the principal thoroughfares. This is a splendid evangelistic centre.

In Naples our fine church is the centre of a growing work. In the villages of the Abruzzi, Basilicata, and the mountainous regions of Calabria we have met with extraordinary opposition from the priests, but this has only given force to the reform movement.

In Aquila there is a central chapel, and nine other preaching-places are scattered over the mountainous district. Every month our agent travels a thousand miles, visits thirty places, and holds seventy meetings, attended by 1,300 to i, 600 persons.

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OF OUR MISSIONS

Palermo is a prosperous station. Since the union with the Free Church of Italy, three different congregations have been united, and form the largest Methodist congregation in the Italian Mission, for which a new church is greatly needed.

Barcelona is the most important manufacturing centre in Spain. A plain doorway leads from the busy street to our chapel. The gpainand schools are the finest in the country. Portu£al- In 1903 they had 900 scholars, and an income of £568 from fees. At Clot, an industrial suburb, premises were purchased in 1905, and the school has 350 scholars. At Rubi, a manufacturing village, twelve miles away, premises were also bought in 1905. We have promising stations in the Balearic Isles. That at Palma, the capital of Majorca, is flourishing, and there are two stations in Minorca.

Oporto has a population of 160,000. We have been here thirty-five years, and it is hard to find room for the people who wish to attend our services. Even the stairs are crowded. It is among the best Protestant work done in Portugal. In Lisbon our services are held in a rented hall, and the schools are so full that children have to be refused.

Ceylon is our oldest Eastern mission. The three Sinhalese districts were reunited in 1905

243

A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW

into the South Ceylon District. The Colombo section was never so flourishing. It includes an south area °f T'122 square miles, with a Ceylon, population of nearly a million, of whom 1 6 per cent, are Christians, 72 per cent. Buddhists, 4 per cent. Hindus, 6 per cent. Muhammadans. Ten years ago the Sinhalese church in Colombo decided to undertake the support of its own minister, and has continued to do this ever since. It is a self-supporting circuit. It maintains and manages all its schools, and pays a catechist. The laymen take a lively interest in the affairs of the church. Three other circuits in the District support all the . work administered by their Quarterly Meetings.

Kandy has one of the largest English-speaking Methodist congregations in Ceylon. The Kandy Section includes Kandy, the Uva mission in the centre of Ceylon, and the Negombo Section. The day and Sunday schools in the Uva Mission have done good service, and the hospital at Welimada is a blessing to the whole region. ' The conditions under which work is carried on in the three sections vary considerably. There is as great a difference between the character and habits of the " low country " Sinhalese of the Negombo Section and the " Kandyan " of the other two as there usually is between the dwellers in two different countries. Then, too, the problems to be solved differ. In 244

OF OUR MISSIONS

the Negombo Section and Kandy Town the question is how to get our own people to help us to reach masses of heathen people surrounding our churches. In parts of the Kandy Section and the whole of the Uva mission the question is how to carry the gospel to a densely ignorant and scattered population, living in a country in which travelling is very difficult.'

Three out of the four circuits in the Negombo Section are self-supporting. This enables the dis trict to give more help to the Uva mission. It is also anxious to begin work in the north-west province, where there is a large population un touched by any Protestant mission.

The Galle Section is doing well, but houses, schools, chapels, boarding-schools, enlargements, and improvements are needed throughout the section. In Galle a new chapel was built on the old site in 1902. Richmond Hill College stands on an estate purchased by the Rev. Joseph Rippon in 1851 for an industrial farm. This was not a success, but the educational establish ment here, the college, girls' boarding-school, training-school, and other institutions, trains more than 500 young people. Seventy-five per cent, of the children on the station are taught in our schools.

The girls' school at Matara is doing splendid service. George Erskine began the mission at 245

A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW

Matara in 1814, but it is one of the strongholds of Buddhism, and in the section of country round it, out of 800 villages, there are more than 700 where there is not a single Christian. Methodism is trying to reach these places, and in 1894 twelve new stations were opened.

The North Ceylon District has 1,584 members, with 800 on trial. Trincomalee has become self- North supporting, and Point Pedro has Ceylon, almost reached the same position. The generosity of the people gives abundant proof of their sincere devotion. There is a complete net work of schools, in which more than 12,000 boys and girls are taught. The Wesley Deaconess Institute at Puttur is being developed, and the Soldiers' and Sailors' Home at Trincomalee does valuable service. The Medical Mission at Batticaloa and the Kalmunai Industrial School are prosperous. The mission to the Veddahs is doing well.

Madras covers twenty-seven square miles and

has a population of about half a million. It is our

Madras oldest mission in continental India.

District. james Lynch ianded there in 1817. He

built the first chapel at Royapettah. The municipal

area stretches for nine miles along the coast and for

three miles inland. Royapettah is near the centre.

The Rev. Robert Stephenson says : ' It includes

a large native village, with busy streets and

246

OF OUR MISSIONS

bazaars, and many English residences, each sur rounded by its own compound — an Indian term conveying the idea of something more than a garden and less than a park. Scattered through out the district are clusters of native cottages hidden among overhanging foliage. A little distance to the south-west is St. George's Cathe dral, a noble building, famous for its interior walls of polished chunam, and for the beautiful statues of Bishops Heber and Corrie.' Wesley College, Royapettah, has more than 700 pupils and a home for Christian boys studying there, which was enlarged in 1903.

Between Royapettah and the sea is the district of Triplicane, inhabited largely by Muhammadans. Mr. Findlay says : ' Nowhere in India, perhaps, is clustered a community with so high an average of education and of brains as in this official and university quarter of Madras. Our High School is a warren of native houses in which 500 students, mostly Brahmans, are crowded, even the flat roofs holding classes, only screened by palm-leaves from the blazing sun or drenching rain.' In 1905 a suitable block of property was purchased in the heart of Triplicane, and a missionary appointed to work among the students and educated men. The ' Institute for Educated Hindus,' for which Mr. F. W. Kellett did so much, has already got buildings and started on 247

A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW

its 'task of unsurpassed importance for the kingdom of Christ.'

Mr. Subramanian, brought to Christ as a lad by W. O. Simpson, has built a women's hospital in Madras, in memory ;of the debt he owes to Methodism. A school for Indian Chris tian girls was opened at Black Town in 1902, and a new church erected in 1904 at Egmore, to take the place of the old Black Town chapel, At Madurantakam, a country town fifty miles south of Madras, we have a school for boys and girls and a little Children's Home, where thirty-five small pariahs are cared for. There are converts in twenty villages and preaching in eighty others, but 400 villages in the circuit are untouched. The mass movement among the pariahs is bearing much fruit in the country circuits round Madras.

At Guindy, six miles out of Madras, we have a training institute for Tamil evangelists, where about twenty-four men are in residence.

Ikkadu and its offshoot, Nagari, are thirty and sixty miles west of Madras. The two circuits cover 1,000 square miles, with half a million villagers. A mud-and-thatch hut in Ikkadu was the earliest place of worship when Mr. Goudic began his work in 1888. This was followed by a brick shed in the mission compound, with thatched roof, which did duty for many years. In 1903 a beautiful red-brick church was erected 248

OF OUR MISSIONS

to complete the set of buildings, consisting of mission house, a large hospital for women and children, with three lady doctors, two children's homes for 100 boys and girls, and the Lace Hall. The Southern Cross Boys' Home, some little distance behind the chapel, was given by Methodist friends in Australia.

Around Tiruvallur the Rev. William Goudie has spread the gospel through a wide area. A new girls' school was built in the main street in 1904, for which 120 pupils were ready. There are 220 pupils in the boys' high school.

Tiruvallur is a circuit which covers thirty miles of country, and at Tiruturaipundi we have one of the finest Hindu girls' schools in the district, but we have not been able to work it adequately, and the mission house is empty. A new school for 250 girls is being built.

At the military station of St. Thomas's Mount, seven miles south of Madras, we have a good Gothic chapel. W. O. Simpson describes the road to it from Royapcttah as ' picturesque throughout : bordered on each side by banyan-trees, with their dark foliage, and by plantations of palmyras and palms, with now and then an area of fresh green rice-fields. The natives in white, red, blue, pink — all colours, but none out of taste — talking under the shade, or walking leisurely along, the bandies drawn by bullocks with bells, the coolies 249

A BIRD'S-EYE 'VIEW

carrying water and toddy chatties (earthenware vessels), all in the light of a setting sun, har monizing with the red surface of the road, the dark foliage, and the varied costumes, furnished my vision with a perfectly Oriental scene, and fulfilled many preconceived pictures.'

Negapatam is a busy seaport, 200 miles south

of Madras, with 60,000 inhabitants. The South

Indian Railway workshops are here.

Negapatam It was our second station in India, District. . . . . TTr .

and was occupied in 1821. We have

a flourishing high school. Nearly thirteen hundred children are taught in seventeen schools, and eight Bible-women and seven evangelists are at work.

Mannargudi, thirty miles west of Negapatam, is a purely Hindu town, pleasantly situated in a very rich agricultural district. A fine street extends from the bridge across the Pamani to the temple. The Medical Mission, for which Dr. Hudson did a great work, is very strong. The Findlay College is one of the chief educa tional establishments of South India. It began in Negapatam in 1883, when Mr. Findlay was its first principal. It was transferred to Mannar gudi in 1898. It now has 543 pupils. Our missionaries first visited the town in 1834. Two years later Mr. Kindersley gave the mission a bungalow about a mile and a half from the town. 250

OF OUR MISSIONS

Mrs. Cryer died here, and it was W. O. Simpson's home in 1861-2. Here the spirit of the work laid hold on Dr. Jenkins : ' Mannargudi made me a missionary.' The large temple, with eight massive towers, attracts 30,000 visitors to its annual carnival.

Trichinopoly, where Schwartz began a mission in 1767 and laboured for twelve years, and Bishop Heber died, is the largest city in the Presidency next to Madras, with 90,000 inhabitants. The rock of hard granite which rises 273 feet above the surrounding plain, attracts all eyes, and a Hindu temple clings to its slope, with a large artificial lake at the foot of the rock. In a house by the lake Clive once lived. There are 478 girls in our schools. A new girls' boarding-school was opened in 1905.

The mission in the Konganad country round Karur is also doing good service. A network of schools and evangelism is being spread over the whole area.

Karur, forty miles west of Trichinopoly, is perhaps the largest and most advanced industrial settlement connected with any Indian mission. It grew out of the Orphanage established during the famine of 1877-8. Its workshops cover an acre and a quarter, and provide a splendid training for about a hundred Christian lads. Its church is a tasteful red-brick building.

251

A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW

In 1879 the Rev. William Burgess went to

Secunderabad with one lay agent. In 1905 there

Hyderabad were seven circuits in the Hyderabad

District. District, with nine English missionaries, eleven lady workers, three medical missions, five Indian ministers, 86 native evangelists, 42 Bible women, 97 schools, 112 teachers, 2,012 Christian scholars, 232 Christian villages, 1,928 members, and a Christian community numbering 9,321, of whom 3,056 are children under fourteen. The converts are chiefly agricultural labourers. From ten to twenty per cent, farm their own small holdings, the rest are day labourers. The area of the District, which includes three out of the eighteen divisions of the Nizam's territories, is about 14,550 square miles ; more than 2,000,000 souls are eager for instruction.

Hyderabad and Secunderabad practically form one city, with a population of 560,000. One missionary has the oversight of the three head quarters' circuits. ' Our operations are carried on in two languages, Telugu and Tamil, and from two centres, one in Secunderabad and the other in Chadarghat, a suburb of Hyderabad. The institutions served include a most efficient boarding-school for Christian girls, a hostel for Christian boys, seven schools for Hindu girls and three for boys, and vigorous native churches at each centre.' The strong and healthy church in 252

OF OUR MISSIONS

Secunderabad is influencing the surrounding popu lation far and wide.

There are six village circuits among the low- caste Malas or pariahs. That of Karim Nagar comprises fifty-eight villages, with nineteen catechists, who are each responsible for about three villages and 2,500 Christians. These Mala hamlets are made of low mud huts, with a rough charpoy and a few coarse, unglazed pots.

The Medak Dispensary forms a daily illustration of the fact that medical work is the most potent evangelistic force. In 1905 its patients in Medak alone were 18,031. Some 500 surgical opera tions are performed in a year, and the medical staff visit the villages around on their errands of mercy. ' Long miles over switch-backs of dried rice-fields, burning sands, boulders, fallen trees, dried-up river-beds, up and down we go from village to village.'

At Karim Nagar there is a little hospital with six beds. Outhouses and dispensary have some times to be utilized for the patients. The advance made has been such as the workers never con templated.

At Indur Mr. Findlay opened a striking new church in 1904 on a conspicuous hill. There is a dispensary given by a native gentleman, which was enlarged in 1905. There and at Kamareddy the 'attendances' for 1905 were 253

A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW

15,000. Indur has an industrial school for training artisans.

The missionary force is ( utterly out of pro portion to the needs ' of such centres as Secundera- bad and Hyderabad. There and in the villages the chief bar to progress is the inadequate staff.

The Mysore Province is an elevated plateau, two or three thousand feet above the sea, with

Mysore rocky hills divided by deep ravines. District. Many of these hills are crowned wfth

ruined fortresses once regarded as impregnable.

In Bangalore, with 200,000 inhabitants, there are three circuits — Kanarese, Tamil, and English — all strong and growing. The Tamil circuit is especially prosperous. East Parade Chapel is an imposing building, with the Soldiers' Home at its side. There is a high school in the mission compound. A handsome church, to seat 300, was built at St. John's Hill in 1889. There is also a beautiful Hudson Memorial Church. Two or three evange lists are at work in the Kolar gold-fields, fifty miles distant, where more than 100,000 natives are exposed to the most powerful temptations to drunkenness and immorality. Over 50.000 Tamil coolies have emigrated there in the last ten years.

In Mysore City, eighty-seven miles south-west of

Bangalore, we have an old church and a fine new

building near to the handsome Hardwicke College.

Young men and boys from all parts of the

254

OF OUR MISSIONS

province are trained here. A hospital, in memory of Mrs. Holdsworth, was opened in the city in August, 1906.

The mission press is a source of strength to the whole district, and was never more prosperous. In 1904 new plant was obtained, and the half-tone block apparatus is used to illustrate books and newspapers.

Tumkur, forty-three miles north-west of Banga lore, has twenty-four day schools, with 1,590 boys and girls. The orphanage for boys, founded in 1 876, is one of the finest industrial settlements in India. An orphanage for girls was founded at Hassan at the same time. The Rev. E. W. Redfern secured a fine site for a women's hospital in Hassan, and the foundation stones of this Redfern Memorial Hospital were laid in December, 1905.

At Gubbi, twelve miles west of Tumkur, a church was erected in 1903 in memory of William Arthur, who laboured here in 1839-41.

Calcutta, the city of palaces and the metropolis of India, lies on the banks of the Hugli. It has one million inhabitants. Our English The Calcutta church, with its school-hall, parsonage, District- and school-house in Sudder Street, is in a central position about three-quarters of a mile from Fort William. The ' Osmond ' memorial chapel for the use of the Bengalis is our handsomest native chapel in India. It cost £2,000. There

255

A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW

are four elementary schools and growing Bengali and Hindustani churches at Dum Dum, the military station seven miles north of Calcutta. Our work there is chiefly among the soldiers and those employed at the Small Arms factory. The present mission house was secured by the Rev. J. M. Brown. The missions in the outlying villages are very encouraging.

Barrackpur, sixteen miles north of Calcutta, is our oldest station in Bengal. Daniel Pearson began work here in 1859. The mission house was bought in 1878 by the Rev. G. Baugh. The English chapel in Station Road, which is an ornament to the town, was built in 1884. We have an excellent girls' boarding-school. Calcutta, Dum Dum, and Barrackpur form the eastern section of the District ; Bankura, Raniganj, and Saringa the western.

Raniganj, 120 miles from Calcutta, has a great coal-field and many industries. The English church is strong. The leper asylum has 150 inmates. Most of the expense is born by the Mission to Lepers in the East. The orphanage has 60 children, who are taught trades. There is another leper asylum at Bankura, thirty miles south of Raniganj. Its 80 inmates are lodged in blocks of cottages ranged over the field, four lepers in each block. In the midst stands their own chapel. The money for their support

256

OF OUR MISSIONS

is provided by the Mission to Lepers. The mis sion house, with four acres of land, was bought in 1883 by the Rev. J. M. Brown. The college has 60 students, and the high school 300 boys. The educational work is wonderfully efficient. There is also a settlement for families with no means of support, who live in mud cottages, and are provided with employment.

The Rev. G. W. Olver began the Santal Mission, on the western frontier of Lower Bengal, in 1887. The church there is growing more rapidly than the funds. Seringa is the chief centre of this mission. In a great many of the surrounding villages there are new converts. In Seringa itself the chapel is filled by a large and earnest congre gation, many of whom walk long distances to be present. Both among Santals and Hindus the gospel wins its way, and the boarding-schools are full to overflowing. There were no fewer than 130 baptisms from heathenism in 1905.

The Lucknow and Benares District is densely populated by Muhammadans and Hindus. The main part of its area is the 150 miles LUCknOW between Lucknow and Benares. In District- Lucknow a handsome English and military church was opened in April, 1905, and a good boys' school. The soldiers' home is prospering. The boarding-school is doing well, and the native church is growing strong, reliable, and self-supporting. s 257

A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW

At Jhansi, 183 miles from Lucknovv, we have a growing work among the civil and military popula tion. Faizabad has a fine set of mission premises — a bungalow, a church, and a good boarding-school. It is one of the most densely populated parts of India, with 2,000,000 inhabitants in the circuit area which lies between Bombay and Calcutta. The population is rural, and schools have been opened in the villages. Jabalpur has a population of 85,000, and stands in a picturesque position on the river Nerbudda. Cotton, tents, and carpets are manu factured in the city, which has a trade of two million sterling a year. It is a great railway centre. The orphanage is laying the foundations for a strong Christian community. The property is large and well situated, within convenient reach of the city, with its teeming population and many industries. The mission house is a good building, and the many out-buildings in the compound have been turned to excellent use. The orphanage buildings are well adapted to their purpose, and the schools are effective. The weaving industry is practically self-supporting, and its dusters are sent all over India. The Rev. Joseph Parson began the work ; the Revs. E. Mortimer, J. Reed, and A. T. Cape have carried it forward to its present success.

Benares is the sacred city of India. It extends along the bank of the Ganges, and presents 258

OF OUR MISSIONS

a magnificent panorama of palaces, temples, mosques, minarets, and other buildings, of every variety of oriental architecture. The ghats, a mile and a half of stone steps leading from the temples and palaces down into the bed of the river, are covered with fakirs, naked ascetics, and thousands of Hindu bathers. The streets are crowded, and the temples and shrines, which number many thousands, are filled with pilgrims who come to the sacred city from all parts of India.

The pretty chapel in the cantonment was built in 1884 by Mr. Fentiman, who also erected a preaching-hall and school-chapel in the city. The native church is healthy, and the Boys' Orphan age and Industrial School are doing well. The Doms of Benares, one of the lowest castes, engaged chiefly in bearing and burning the dead, began to turn towards Christianity in 1905, and many of them have been baptized. In the united provinces of Agra and Oudh there are more than 100,000 villages, with average populations of 400. Repre sentatives from these places are constantly coming to Benares, and a strong evangelistic work in that city would go far to leaven India with gospel teaching.

The Marathi church at Bombay is growing. The rest of the work is English, and in the main military, with nine chaplains Bombay engaged in it. In 1903 a new church Di8trict- was built in Byculla, two at Rawal Pindi, and 259

A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW

one at Ferozepore. Next year churches were built at Umballa and Jhansi. Lahore was also occupied, and the church there bought from the Methodist Episcopal Church. There are nine soldiers' homes in the District.

Upper Burma is one of the great seats of Bud dhism, and as you sail up the Irrawaddy almost every hill or knoll has its dazzling white, bell-shaped, brick-work pagoda, with its iron umbrella. Methodism has taken firm root. We have a good chapel in Mandalay (population 200,000) with a mission house built of teak. The leper home has about 120 inmates. The girls' boarding-school at Mandalay is attended by young people of all classes, who are trained for teachers, nurses, &c. The second station opened in Burma was at Pakokku, 130 miles below Mandalay. At Monywa, eighty miles from Mandalay, we have a high school, a girls' school, elementary day schools and a neat wooden church, presented by worshippers who are not Methodists. There are also village causes and schools. Kyaukse, the fourth station, has a prosperous high school.

The province of Canton has an area equal to

that of Great Britain, and a population of

canton 29,ooo,ooo. The people are energetic,

District. anc[ foncj Of roving and adventure.

Daily services are held in all our mission-halls, 260

OF OUR MISSIONS

and much itinerant evangelism is carried on with the help of native ministers and catechists. The catechist colporteurs travel widely in all directions. In Canton, which is the second city of China, there is a girls' boarding-school. One for boys was erected in 1904. We have four chapels. The Tsang Sha compound, with its theological training institution, middle school, girls' boarding school, and training home for Chinese women workers, is a hive of industry.

The Medical Mission in the town of Fatshan, which has a population of half a million, began in 1 88 1. The native church is self-supporting, and there are now two circuits in the city. At one of the preaching-halls about 50,000 natives hear the gospel in the course of a year.

The Medical Mission at Wuchow has many paying patients. In 1905 it had 3,368 out patients, 90 in-patients, five medical students. A catechist and six subsidized colporteurs are at work in the town and the country.

In Hong Kong our garrison church is well attended, not only by soldiers but by civilians. The Soldiers' and Sailors' Home is a great boon. We have a good Chinese congregation and several Chinese day schools.

The North River Hakka Mission now has a mission compound, with two mission houses.

The three towns at the juncture of the Han 261

A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW

and Yang-tse — Wuchang, Hankow, Hanyang — have a population of a million. Business men Wuchang fr°m every corner of the empire visit District. Hankow, whilst all mandarins who are expecting office reside in Wuchang. In Wuchang, the seat of the Viceroy of Hupeh, we have a theological institution and a high school. A doorway leads into an open square, round which are a number of improved native houses. Some of the best families in the city send their sons here, and it has become a centre for young literati. The income from fees in 1904 was ^400, and the boarders might be increased threefold if there was room. A women's hospital was opened in 1902.

In Hankow, the trading centre, there is a large chapel, which can be packed on any week- night when a missionary preaches. Across the main street is a row of almshouses for old men on a large plot of ground. The men's hospital, of which new wards and operating rooms were opened in 1902, and the blind school, are here. The women's hospital is on the same side as the chapel, and is much cramped for room.

At Hanyang there is a thriving girls' boarding- school, and a dispensary.

At Teh Ngan, 120 miles north of Hankow, where work began in 1884, we have a men's 262

OF OUR MISSIONS

hospital, and at the prosperous market town of Wusueh, 1 20 miles south of Hankow, there is a good mission station.

The great military province of Hunan was long hermetically sealed against missionaries, but in 1901 we were able to enter Chang-Sha, the capital. We now have missionaries in five of the seventy-four counties and agents in thirteen others. The area of the province is 83,380 square miles, the population 22,000,000.

The Transvaal and Swaziland District, which is three times the size of England, stretches

from Mafeking to Delagoa Bay, and

Transvaal

from Pietersberg to the Vaal River. It and

Swaziland.

includes Pretoria, Johannesburg, and

many important district towns. There are 14,076 members and 6,756 members on trial, 11,958 scholars, 1,017 local preachers, 42,000 attendants at public worship. A Wesleyan missionary is placed within fifty miles of every European settlement. The Training Institution at Kilnerton, Pretoria, has more than sixty students. There is also a college for teachers and a boys' boarding-school. We have five churches in Pretoria, besides sites for several more and fifteen in Johannesburg, eight of which have been built since the war and three enlarged. There are twelve more English churches along the Rand, and seventeen other preaching-places. The Methodist churches

263

A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW

on the Rand almost equal in number those of all other bodies combined. In the remote parts of the country Methodist churches are springing up everywhere.

For the natives 226 churches have been provided, and 400 other preaching-places. 134,000 native labourers, drawn from all parts of South and Central Africa, are employed in the Transvaal mines. Among these Methodism is doing a great work. There are thirty native churches along the Rand, and by open-air preaching, and preaching in the compounds, about 14,000 are reached every Sunday.

Our missionaries in the wide-stretching colony of Rhodesia travel over vast circuits. A church

Bhodesia to cost ^2,OOO is to be built at

District Salisbury for the English settlers. The native work is extending on every side. The mining camps are also being evangelized. The Mashonaland section is strong and progressive. The Mashonas were slaves to a merciless witch craft, but its hold on them is being broken. The Mangubo Training Institution is doing the best service, and ought to be enlarged. The Matabele section is also healthy. At Buluwayo (the place of slaughter) a fine native church, seating 700 to 800, was erected in 1904. Every Sunday 500 people meet there for worship.

Effort is being concentrated on the central 264

OF OUR MISSIONS

stations, from which it is intended to branch out in every direction as means will allow. The native work in Buluwayo and Salisbury was never so flourishing as it is to-day, and connected with Buluwayo are a number of prosperous out-stations.

The three Districts on the West Coast of Africa are Sierra Leone, Gold Coast, and Lagos.

A great church has risen in Sierra Leone, and though the undeveloped interior is a British pro tectorate covering 33,000 square miles, sierra with 1,100,000 inhabitants, and calls Leone- loudly for help, the claims of the work at Freetown, with its 30,000 inhabitants, are too absorbing to allow of any response. There is a growing desire to reach the aborigines in the colony proper. We have 33 day schools, 38 Sunday schools, a boys' and a girls' school, with an income from fees of more than £400, and Richmond College, where a theological training is given to ministerial students.

The Limbah mission is bearing fruit among the heathen, and suitable centres might be found here and in the Sherbro hinterland and adjoining countries for fifty more agents, who would be eagerly welcomed by the natives. Even the Muhammadan sections of the community show a growing appreciation of Christian work, and when a paramount Muhammadan chief succeeded

265

A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW

to power in the Bandajuma District, he and his chiefs expressed a desire that part of the coronation service should take place in our church, and asked our missionary to set the crown on the king's head.

The Gambia is the oldest and smallest of our

West African Colonies. At Bathurst, with 6,138

Gambia inhabitants, ours is the only Protestant

District. mission> We have a strong hold on the

place, despite the activity of the Muhammadans.

The Technical and Industrial School is doing well.

Outside Bathurst are four stations, but the work is

difficult At Macarthy Island one-third of the

children in the day school have non-Christian

parents.

The Gold Coast District makes steady pro gress. The area of the colony is 74,500 square Gold Coast miles, the population 1,500,000. Every Distnct. town on the coast is occupied by a Methodist mission. Accra, the administrative capital, has 16,000 inhabitants, and we have 1,100 members, including those on trial, and 1,000 cate chumens and junior members. Wesley Church seats 1,000, the 'Wharton' and 'Freeman' memorial churches 500 each. The day school has 650 scholars. Cape Coast is the chief Methodist centre, where the Book Room and printing offices are established. A girls' boarding-school and training home, opened in 1900, has met a real

266

OF OUR MISSIONS

need. The women are being helped to realize a nobler and fuller ideal of life, and this means the uplifting of the race.

Kumasi was reoccupied in 1904, a new church and mission have been built, and the mining centres near it are being visited. The Ashantis eagerly invite us to occupy their towns.

In Lagos the two circuits are self-supporting, with a large membership, and many home mission stations attached. The boys' high school Lagos is doing well. The population is 42,000. Distnct-

There are three circuits in the Yoruba interior, of which Abeokuta (100,000 inhabitants) is the strongest. Several healthy causes have been established in the city, and a number of farm stations outside. A dispensary was opened in 1904. At Ilesa there is a flourishing native church, and at Ago, in the Ijebu Circuit, scores have given up their idols and been baptized. In 1903 a training institution for twenty students was begun at Ibadan, the largest town in Yoruba, with 200,000 inhabitants. Ibadan was made a circuit in 1904. It is 1 20 miles by rail from Lagos. The cotton plantation there employs more than 500 men. Centres for successful operations are being established, and the results are encouraging. At Oyo, with its 50,000 inhabitants, there is a church of sixty members and adherents. We have a medical mission at Igboora, and hope to extend

267

A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW

that work to Oyo, where it may help to break down the indifference of the people. The difficulties are serious. At Igboora the Muhammadans have frightened many of the people into submission, while fetichism has tremendous power here, and at Dahomey, where we have also to contend against the opposition of the Romish priesthood. The scope for itinerating evangelists among the almost innumerable towns and villages in the district is very great. The Rev. H. Arnett surveyed the region on his bicycle and found that the Roman Catholics are occupying some of the important stations of the interior. The more the state of the country is known the greater our obligations and respon sibilities become. Northern Nigeria, with its millions of Fulanis, Hausas, and Gambarris, remains almost untouched. Dahomey and Togo- land, except for the coast towns, are in like condition.

Our oldest missions are those in the West Indies, which were separated from us in 1885, but came back

The West to tne control of our Conference in 1905. indies. Besides the five West India Districts thus restored to our care there are the Honduras and Bahamas Districts. In Belize, the capital of Honduras, we have two good chapels, which are well filled, two Sunday schools, and three day schools, which are almost self-supporting. At Corozal, the second town of the colony, in the

268

OF OUR MISSIONS

extreme north of British Honduras, both Indian and Spanish work is carried on. A new chapel was opened in 1905 at Orange Walk. Places on the coasts of Mexico and Yucatan are also visited. At Stann Creek, thirty-six miles south of Belize, there is a mission among the Caribs which would have rejoiced the heart of Dr. Coke. At Ruatan, a group of islands belonging to Spanish Honduras, we have a flourishing mission among the coloured people who speak English. At San Pedro Sula, forty miles in the interior of Spanish Honduras, Mr. Ridge has built a beautiful little chapel, a schoolroom, and a mission house. There are other good openings in the villages around. Yellow fever is a terrible scourge in this region.

The Bahama Islands lie between Cuba and the coast of Florida. The Bahamas District remained under the British Conference after the West Indies were separated from us. We have three good churches in Nassau, the pleasant little capital, with 12,000 inhabitants. Trinity, built in 1867, is an attractive building ; Ebenezer is on the eastern side, and Wesley Chapel in Grant's Town, where people of colour are settled. Queen's College and Victoria Hall at Nassau are doing excellent educational work.

In Jamaica there are 139 chapels, 58 other preaching-places, 20,666 members, 60,000 adherents,

269

A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW

and 94 day schools, with 12,000 scholars. One- tenth of the population is under our care. The trust property destroyed or damaged by the hurricane of 1903 is being restored, and successful missions carried on at Panama and Colon.

In Hayti the great majority of the people are Roman Catholics. Of 112 members received into our church last year nearly half were converts from Romanism. The ' Bird College' for girls has 140 scholars with a staff of seven teachers under the direction of Mrs. Picot, wife of the Chairman of the District.

The eleven circuits of the Antigua and St. Kitts Districts were amalgamated in 1904 into the Leeward Islands District, so called from its geographical position. Methodism suffers because some of our most intelligent members emigrate in search of better work. In Antigua, where Dr. Coke first landed, we have ten chapels. Dominica has three large and important stations, and enjoys the benefit of property given by Mrs. Caffin, and an estate left in 1904 by Mr. Bullen. St. Kitts is the largest circuit in the West Indies, with two thousand members.

Methodism is strong in St. Vincent, where there are three circuits, and in Barbados, where there are four. At Port of Spain, Trinidad, a new chapel is to be built. No circuit in the West Indies has such a hold of the young people. At St. Lucia,

270

OF OUR MISSIONS

an important naval and military station, a new school was built in 1904, which is an ornament to the place. Grenada is one of the most flourishing islands in the West Indies, and its Methodism is very prosperous. There are eight stations on the island of Tobago.

British Guiana was formed in 1831 by the union of Berbice, Demarara, and Essequibo. There are two circuits in Georgetown, its thriving capital, with 60,000 inhabitants. The Essequibo Circuit carries on a Pomeroon mission and Capoey Indian mission, which show pleasing signs of growth and development

The District has 43 preaching-places, with about 17,000 regular worshippers and nearly 5,000 members. The Catechists are doing good service among the East Indian coolies, of whom there are more than 125,000 in British Guiana, but much more ought to be done if these heathen settlers are to be led into the light of the gospel.

The fields where our missions are established furnish glorious opportunities of helping on Christ's conquest of the world. The hoary civilizations and religions of the East have to be faced in Ceylon, India, and China. The coloured races are looking to us for guidance in South and West Africa and the West Indies. Our

271

A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF OUR MISSIONS

colonists in the Transvaal and Rhodesia con fidently expect from us those religious influences which are essential to their best interests. On the Continent of Europe we are in contact with ignorance and superstition, which loudly call for that pure gospel teaching which our Church is eager to give. The opportunity is great, and if we rise to the height of our vocation God will use us mightily to spread the knowledge of His grace and salvation in all parts of the world.

272

DATES WHEN MISSIONS WERE BEGUN

DATES WHEN THE MISSIONS WERE BEGUN

Canadian Colonies .... 1775 West Indian Isles . . . .1786

Gibraltar 1804

Sierra Leone 1811

Cape Colony 1814

Ceylon 1814

Australia 1815

Madras 1817

France 1818

Mysore . . . . . .1821

Gambia 1821

New Zealand 1822

Friendly Isles 1822

Sweden 1826-42

Calcutta .... 1829-33, 1862

Fiji 1835

Gold Coast 1835

Canton 1852

Lagos 1854

Germany 1859

Italy 1860

Wuchang 1861

Lucknow and Benares . . . 1864 Spain and Portugal . . . .1868

Transvaal 1876

Hyderabad . . , . .1879

Burma 1887

Mashonaland 1892

273

TREASURERS AND SECRETARIES

TREASURERS

CLERICAL.

1817. James Wood.

1818. George Marsden. 1821. George Morley. 1824. Joseph Taylor. 1830. George Marsden. 1834. Joseph Taylor. 1837. John Scott. 1869. F. J. Jobson, D.D. 1882. James H. Rigg, D.D.

LAY.

1817. Thomas Thompson,

M.P. 1819. Joseph Butterworth,

M.P.

1826. Lancelot Haslope. 1837. Thomas Farmer. 1862. James Heald, M.P. 1874. James S. Budgett. 1884. Sir W. M 'Arthur,

K.C.M.G., M.P. 1889. T. Morgan Harvey. 1899. Williamson Lamplough

SECRETARIES

1818-23. Joseph Taylor.

1816-25, 1832-3. Richard , Watson.

1821-3, 1833-51. Jabez Bunt ing, D.D.

1824-9. George Morley.

1824-6. John Mason.

1826. Robert Newstead.

1827-31. James Tovvnley.

1827-32. John James.

1830. Thomas Edwards.

1831-49. John Beecham, D.D.

1833-50. Robert Alder, D.D.

1834-65. Elijah Hoole, D.D.

1851-67. George Osborn, D.D.

1851-67. William Arthur.

1859-75. William B. Boyce.

1867-77. George T. Perks.

1868-74. Luke H. Wiseman.

1875-80. W. Morley Punshon, LL.D.

1876-88. John Kilner.

1877-88. Ebenezer E.Jenkins, LL.D.

1877-90. Marmaduke C. Os born.

1881-1900. George W. Olver.

1888. Marshall Hartley.

1888-91. John Walton.

1891-1905. F. W. Macdonald.

1896-8. W.T. A. Barber, D.D,

1898. William Perkins.

1900. William H. Findlay.

1905. John Milton Brown.

274

INCOME FROM ALL SOURCES

INCOME FROM ALL SOURCES NOT INCLUDING THE BALANCE IN HAND OF PREVIOUS YEAR

Coke's accounts,	1840. £ 90,182	1873.	£167,895
1787-1793. see	1841.	101,688	1874.	184,039
P. 33-	1842.	95,611	1875.	159,106
1810, see p. 45-6.	1843-	99,281	1876.	146,234
1803. £ 2,212	1844-	103,326	1877.	146,022
1811. 4,668	1845.	112,823	1878.	I35.HO
1813. 7,919	1846.	115,762	1879-	165,498
1814. 9,554	1847.	101,639	I880.	130,093
1815. 11,042	1848.	104,126	1881.	147,862
(part of year) l8l7. 17,227 1818. 18,602 1819. 23,010 1820 ^,4.^1	1849- 1850. 1851. 1852.	111,685 104,661 102,730 105,381	1882. 1883. 1884. 1885.	136,581 150,106 146,308 138,165
A, U^fVSfc OO. HO (18 months)	1853.	114,498	1886.	135.259
l82I. 26,883	1854-	111,048	1887.	131,867
1822. 30,898	1855.	119,122	1888.	149,540
1823. 34.650	1856.	119,205	1889.	139,688
1824. 38,046 1	I857.	123,062	1890.	121,719
1825. 45,766	1858.	129,076	1891.	148,254
1826. 45,380	1859.	140,005	1892.	127,078
1827. 43,235	1860.	140,678	1893.	121,103
1828. 50,005	1861.	137,280	1894.	125,458
1829. 56,063	1862.	141,628	1895.	123,673
1830. 49,838	1863.	134,258	1896.	127,796
1831. 48,290	1864.	148,329	1897.	132,227
1832. 47.716	1865.	145,885	1898.	129,573
1833. 55,467	1866.	144,785	1899.	133.690
1834. 60,866	1867.	147,414	1900.	135.474
1835. 62,041	1868.	146,249	1901.	136,528
1836. 75,527	1869.	145.750	1902.	156,273
1837. 89,117	1870.	149,767	1903.	155,174
1838. 84,819	1871.	170,965	1904.	169,536
1839. 89,614	1872.	161,833	1905.	171,663
1 Also legacy ,£10,000, from Rev. W. Dodwell.
SPECIAL MISSIONARY FUNDS
1863. Jubilee Fund . . ^188,925	1899-1900. Indian Famine
1878-83. Thanksgiving	Fund . .	. . £ 25,000
Fund . . . . 63,869	1900. Twentieth (	Jen-
1895-7. Special Effort . . 40,000	tury Fund	100,000
275

GENERAL SUMMARY

		Missionaries
	Members.	and Native	Other Paid Agents.	Scholars.	Chapels.
		Ministers.
1817	23,473	_	_	_	_
1818	25,150	—	—	—	—
1819	27,452	—	—	—	—
1820	28,699	—	—	—	—
1830	39,660	—	—	—	—
1840	84,234	367	—	56,849	—
1850	104,235 !	432	864	80,070	3,106
1860	63,540	251	695	46,434	1,022
1870	70,468	303	935	59'327	1,864
1880	88,132	459	2,049	95,203	2,573
1890	34,722	338	2,163	65,803	1,572
1900	48,748	364	3,241	96,363	2,404
1905	104,397 1	569	4,309	145,303	3,373

1 The formation of affiliated Conferences, &c., must be borne in mind in studying these figures.

GENERAL SUMMARY, 1905

Circuits 387

Chapels and other Preaching-places . . . . 3,373

Missionaries, Ordained and Lay .... 284

Ministers, Native and other, called out Locally 285 Women Missionaries sent out by the Women's

Auxiliary .... f ... 68 Other paid Agents, Catechists, Interpreters, Day- school Teachers, &c 4,309

Unpaid Agents : Local Preachers, Sunday-school

Teachers, &c i°»399

Full and accredited Church Members . . - 104,397

On trial for Church Membership .... 24,905 Scholars attending either Sunday or Day school, or

both .... * ... I45,303 276

GENERAL STATISTICS

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277

COST OF THE WORK

COST OF THE WORK, 1905

	vjT£in.ts«	Raised
		Locally.
French Evangelistic Mission	,£3,912	,£2,451
Italy	7,965	1,961
Spain	1,637	1,164
Portugal ......	j *j/ 772	387
Ceylon, Colombo District .	4,022	3,597
,, Kandy District	2,874	2,437
„ Galle District	2,836	3,948
„ Jaffna District	5,521	7,401
South India Provincial Synod .	790
Madras District .....	5,854	6,099
Negapatam and Trichinopoly District	4,887	5,406
Hyderabad District ....	4,652	3,078
Mysore District	6,803	4,742
Calcutta District ....	3,779	4,335
Lucknow District ....	3,563	4,378
Bombay and Punjab District .	1,019	4,156
Burma District .....	2,434	3,676
China, Canton District	4,647	2,618
,, Wuchang District .	7,841	2,963
Central China Lay Mission	738
Transvaal and Swaziland District	8,296	40,549
Rhodesia District ....	3,180	2,129
Sierra Leone Section	1,722	8,697
Gambia Section ....	445	1,230
Gold Coast District ....	3,oo4	9,947
Lagos District	4,410	2,893
Honduras District ....	i,448	3,156
Bahamas District ....	1,119	2,666
Jamaica District ....	2,889	17,751
Hayti and Santo Domingo District .	382	1,740
Leeward Islands District .	226	4,860
Barbados and Trinidad District	312	12,656
British Guiana	187	6,835

278

INDEX

Abeokuta, 123

Abney Park, 129

Africa, South, 86-91, 127,

160-1, 211-17, 263-4 Africa, West, 91, 217-19. 265-8 Alton, George, 163 America, 8. u, 18 Antigua, 7, 15, 16 Arthur, William, 126, 128 Ault, William, 58, 80 Australia, 96-9

Bahamas, 94, 222, 269

Bangalore, 158, 197, 254

Banks, John S., 155

Barratt, John C., 162, 180

Baxter, John, 15, 19, 27

Beecham, Dr., 166

Benares, 203, 258-9

Benson, Joseph, 52, 56

Black Harry, 17

Blake system, 167

Bombay, 60, 78, 84, 203, 259

Boyce, W. B., 90, 127, 167

Brown, J. M., 201, 205, 227

Brownrigg, Sir R., 78, 79

Bruce, Mr., 37

Buckley, James, 54

Buddhist priests from Ceylon, 70

Bulu, Joeli, 116

Bunting, Jabez, 38, 52-7, 61,

64, 107-10, 130-31 Burgess, Mrs., 194

Burgess, William, 176, 192,

252

Burma, 205-208, 260 Butterworth, Joseph, 39, 77,

94-5

Calcutta, 86, 156-7, 200, 255-6

Calvert, James, 116-19

Canada, 95-6

Canton, 140, 208-9, 260-1

Capellini, Signer, 172, 174

Caribs, 19-20, 27

Centenary Fund, 129

Ceylon, mission proposed, 50-3 ; first missionaries, 58 ; arrival and work, 78, 80, 81-3, 124-5, 144-8, 182-6, 243-6

Chalmers, Dr., 75

China, 137-43, 208-11, 260-3

Clarke, Adam, 70, 77

Clough, Benjamin, 52, 58-60

Cobban, G. M., 186

Coke, Dr., joins Wesley, 9 ; missionary plans, 9-10 ; in America, 11, 18, 35-6; West Indies, 15, 27-32; marriage, 38 ; wife's death, 52 ; mission to East, 49-52 ; description of, 34 ; collects for missions, 33, 38, 39» 45-6; about Leeds meeting, 57 ; sails for Ceylon, 58 ; death, 60

Collection for missions, 33

279

INDEX

Conventions, 231 Cox, Josiah, 139-42 Cross, William, 112-15 Cryer, Thomas, 126, 150

Dates of missions, 273 Dawson, William, 55

Edwards, John, 73-5 Elliott, J. A., 202 Emancipation of slaves, lio-n

Faizabad, 202, 258 Farmer, Thomas, 165 Fatshan, 208, 261 Fiji, 114-20, 135, 223-4 Findlay, W. H., 218, 253 Fletcher, Mrs., 37 Foreign Field> 229 Foulah Mission, 34-5 France, 40-41, 163, 176-8 Freeman, T. B., 122-3, 159 Friendly Islands, 114

George, King of Friendly

Islands, 112-14 Germany, 161-2, 178-80 Gibraltar, 41-2, 63, 120-1, 163 Gibson, William, 163, 177 Gilbert, Nathaniel, 7, 15 Gogerly, D. J., 81, 124, 144-6 Gold Coast, 122, 217, 266 Goudie, W., 190, 249 Grant, Charles, 12

Haigh, Henry, 196 Hankow, 142, 21 1, 262 Hardy, R. S., 83, 147 Hartley, Marshall, 191, 227

Harvard, W. M., 58, 79, 84 Haslope, Lancelot, 95 Hassan, 198 Hayti, 93, 270 Hill, David, 209-11 Hodson, Thomas, 125, 194 Holden, W. C., 161 Honduras, 221, 268 Hoole, Elijah, 84, 102, 127 Hoxton College, 129 Hudson, Josiah, 195 Hunt, John, 116-17 Hyderabad, 192-5. 252-4

Income, Missionary, 230, 275 India, plan for mission, 12-14; 49, 149^54, 186-205, 246-60 Irish Missions, 37, 237 Italy, 164-5, I7I-6, 241-2

Jamaica, 28-31, 92-4, 219 James, John, 107 Jenkins, Dr., 152-4, 251 Jerusalem, 103 Johnston, Sir A., 70 Jubilee, Missionary, 230 Juvenile Missionary Society, 65-6

Kellett, F. W., 192, 247 Kessen, Dr., 124, 144 Kilner, John, 144-5, 148, 184 Kolar Goldfields, 197 Koramas, 199 Kumasi, 122

Lagos, 159, 218, 267-8 Langenau, Baroness von, 179 Lausanne, 163

280

INDEX

Laymen on Missionary Com mittee, 39, 76

Leeds forms Missionary Society, 53-6, 128

Leigh, Samuel, 99

Lisbon, 182, 243

Livingstone, David, 166

Lucknow, 157, 201, 257-8

Lynch, James, 58, 84

Lyth, Dr. John, 162

Macaulay, Zachary, 34-5 Macdonald, F. W., 226, 229 Madras, 84, 149-54, 186-92,

246-50 Malta, 164

Mannargudi, 126, 250 Maori Mission, 99-100 Maria mail-boat, 95 Mashonaland, 215-16, 264 Mission House, 69, 71-5, 130,

132-3

Missionary Committee, 39 Missionary Jubilee, 167 Missionary Notices, 65 Missionary Secretaries, 225-6,

274 Missionary Societies, Other,

25-6

Missionary Society, General, 69 Morley, George, 53 Miiller, C. G., 161 Mullins, Dr., 142 Mysore, 155, 254-5

Naples, 165, 172, 175 Negapatam, 85, 250 Newfoundland, 95 New Guinea, 224

Nottingham Conference, 1906,

237 Nova Scotia, 15, 95

Patterson, George, 187 Pearson, Daniel, 156-7 Perkins, William, 226 Perks, G. T., 226 Piercy, George, 137-9 Piggott, H. J., 164 Portugal, 163, 182, 243 Punshon, Dr., 225

Redfern, E. W., 198 Reports, Early, 60, 62 Rhodes, Hon. C., 215 Rhodesia, 264

Richmond College, 129, 167 Rigg, Edmund, 148, 180, 185 Rigg, Dr., 42 Rome, 164, 171-2 Roumania^ Loss of, 194 Rule, Dr., 120-21

Samoa, 224

Sandys, Colonel, 49-50

Santals, 201, 257

Sawday, G. W., 198

Sciarelli, Signor, 165, 172

Secretaries, 225, 274

Shaw, Barnabas, 87-8

Shaw, William, 89

Shipley, Mr., 40

Sierra Leone, 43-6, 158-9, 265

Simpson, W. O., 152, 186,

248-9 Slave Trade, Abolition of, 43,

iio-n

281

INDEX

Spain, 163, 181, 243 Squance, T. H., 58 Statistics, 275-8 Sweden, 101

Tasmania, 99 Taylor, Joseph, 77 Taylor, William, 160 Thakombau, 119, 135 Thompson, Thomas,

70-71

Tonga, 112-13 Transvaal, 212-15, 26 Treasurers, 228, 274 Tumkur, 198

Uva, 183

54, 69,

Veddahs, 185

Walton, John, 144-5 Warren, George, 43-5, 63 Watkins, Owen, 213-15 Watson, Richard, 53-6, 101-7 Wesley family and missions, 3-7 Wesley, John, mission ship, 136 West Indies, 7-8 ; Coke's visits, 15-33; funds, &c., 33, 36; slave-holders, 43 ; general, 92-4, 159,219-23, 268-71 Wilberforce, William, 34-5 Wiseman, Luke H., 172 Women's Auxiliary, 233-6 Work and Workers, 229

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