ว THE HISTORY OF THE LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY 1795-1895 BY RICHARD LOVETT, M.A. AUTHOR OF 'JAMES GILMOUR OF MONGOLIA,' NORWEGIAN Pictures,' etc. WITH PORTRAITS AND MAPS IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I London HENRY FROWDE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE AMEN CORNER, E.C. 1949 Divanily Divinity SchooĽ PRINTED FOR THE LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY BY HORACE HART, M.A. AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, OXFORD BV .L.8 L9 1899a v. I PREFACE THE appearance of these volumes so long after the celebration of the Centenary of the London Missionary Society demands a word of explanation. As no complete record of the Society's origin and work was in existence, the Directors decided some years before 1895, that what, it is hoped, may by its merit commend itself as the Standard History, should be prepared. It was then the wish of all concerned - and the arrangement would have been idealthat the Rev. Ralph Wardlaw Thompson himself should undertake the duty. He at first entertained the idea and began to collect materials for such a work. No one regrets more keenly than the author that Mr. Thompson had finally, after cherishing the project for a considerable time, to give up all hope of being able to accomplish it. After one or two attempts in other directions, towards the end of the year 1893 the Directors, through their Home Secretary, the Rev. A. N. Johnson, M. A., approached the author to ascertain whether he could entertain the proposal to prepare a full and complete history of the first century of the Society's administration and achievements. The writer, not altogether unskilled in estimating literary tasks, thought he realized in some degree the difficulty, the laboriousness, and yet the importance of the burden which Mr. Johnson sought to impose upon him. He finally consented to undertake it from a sense of duty, and from the conviction that such a story might be told so as to become, not merely a record of noble achievement in the past, but also a stimulus, and a guide through the somewhat intricate problems of the present-day missionary administration. The task is now completed. How far these volumes fall short of what they should be none can more fully realize than the writer. They have taken nearly six years; partly because their preparation was an extra task, added to a not inconsiderable daily burden of work and responsibility; partly because they have somewhat rudely shocked the author's belief in his competency to judge the time and labour such an undertaking involved. Had he realized six years ago that the work would have demanded half the patient research, the weary plodding through letters, reports, books, and material of many kinds, and the prodigal expenditure of time it has required, he would never have dared to undertake it. But having put his hand to the plough he has not looked back. Friends of the Society have from time to time expressed to him their gladness in anticipation of the volumes. If their joy in studying them is but a tithe as keen as his in saying farewell to them he will be amply repaid for all his toil. The author gratefully acknowledges the interest the Directors have taken in the work, and the free and unreserved manner in which everything in their possession has been placed at his disposal. The letters, journals, manuscripts, minute-books, and material of every kind in the Society's possession have been entrusted to him to make what use of them he saw fit. And their use was rendered the more pleasant and serviceable by the ready and willing co-operation of every official at the Mission House whom he has found it needful to consult. The aim steadily kept in view has been to present to the reader an accurate and complete picture of the origin and the administration of the Society, and of the great results which have been achieved by the consecrated men and women who have, on the one hand, maintained the home administration, and on the other carried through the complex toil which the Society has undertaken in so many of the great mission-fields of the world. The author has striven to bring the reader to that point of vantage which he himself occupied only after studying vast masses of material, very little of which survives in the text. Not unfrequently the labour of a week survives only in a line; and sometimes the reading and research of a month has been compressed into a page. Nevertheless he has striven wherever possible to let the workers speak for themselves. Consequently men may be estimated by the letters they have written; the story of noble deeds has been given, where possible, in the words of those who lived them; the important facts have been so presented that it is hoped the reader may get at their inner as well as their outer meaning, and at the secret of the success or the failure of the work attempted. History possesses a charm as a narrative of thrilling episodes in the past, as a picture of movements which have powerfully affected life and thought in days that are gone. But missionary history is hardly worth the telling, unless it leads the reader to bring the experience of the past to bear upon the missionary problems of to-day, and enables him to solve the problems of to-day by the insight and the instinct, |