MISSIONS 255 MISSIONS The Roman Catholics after the discovery of the new world founded several mis- sionary orders, chief among which were the Jesuits, Capuchins, Dominicans, and Franciscans. Their object was the ex- tension of the Church among the Mussul- mans of Spain, north Africa, and west- ern Asia. Francis Xavier was sent as an apostolic nuncio for India, and worked with wonderful success in all parts of India and the islands of the Chinese ar- chipelago. He labored for years with success in Japan. In 1622 Pope Gregory XV. established a society for the propa- gation of the Gospel, and that has ever since controlled the mission enterprises of the Church. It has its seat in Rome where there is a college for the train- ing of missionary priests. Protestant Missions. — In 1555 a com- pany of men including several mission- aries sailed for Brazil with a hope of establishing there an asylum for the Huguenots, but it was unsuccessful. In 1559 Gustavus Vasa sent a missionary to Lapland, but it was more than half a century before the country was Christianized. In 1612 a college for the training of missionaries was es- tablished at the University of Leyden and a few years later the Dutch intro- duced Christianity into Java. Their suc- cess was so great that 100,000 Christians were counted there in 1721 and a single missionary in Formosa had baptized nearly 6,000 adults and taught 600 of the natives to read. In Ceylon alone the Dutch Church in 1722 reckoned over 240,000 members. John Eliot, "the apos- tle of the Indians," came to America early in the 17th century under the auspices of the Corporation for the Spread of the Gospel in New England. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was founded in 1701 for work among the British col- onies rather than among pagans. Early in^ the 18th century the first Protestant mission was sent to India. It was pro- jected by the King of Denmark, and con- tinued throughout the greater part of the 18th century. At first, and for a long time, Germany supplied the mis- sionaries; but the pecuniary support of the mission soon devolved on England, Prince George of Denmark, the husband of Queen Anne, having recommended the object of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. In 1847 the entire mission passed into the hands of the Leipsic Society. In 1781 Count Zinzen- dorf, the patron of the United Brethren called the Moravians, visited Copenhagen and there saw two Eskimos and a negn^o boy from the Danish West Indies. When he returned he tald the story and two of the Moravians resolved to go to St. Thomas and teach the slaves the Gospel. This was the beginning of the mission- ary enterprises of the Moravians. Their work from their first beginnings in St. Thomas and Greenland in 1732 to their latest undertaking in the Tibetan Hima- layas is most interesting. In 1786 Thomas Coke, the Methodist who had been sent to Nova Scotia, was driven to the West Indies by a storm. The story which he brought hack of heathen conditions was the foundation of the Methodist missions. William Carey was the first English Protestant to en- gage personally in the work, which led to the foundation of the Calvinist Baptist Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Heathen and in 1793 he, with his family, set sail for India and landed at Calcutta where he laid the foundations of the later missions in Asia. In 1794 an address to professors of the Gospel call- ing for the support of at least 20 or 30 missionaries among the heathen was pub- lished. This led to the foundation of the London Missionary Society which began its work by the dispatch to the South Seas of 29 missionaries. In 1818 the mission in Madagascar was established. The Church of England felt the impulse of missions and in 1799 started a society for missions to Africa and the East which was afterward called the Church Missionary Society for Africa and the East. Henry Martyn, the pioneer mis- sionary, had intended to go out under their auspices but he went out as a Brit- ish chaplain. Their first expedition was to west Africa. They went to New Zea- land in 1814, the Levant in 1815, India in 1816, and Ceylon in 1817. Work among the Indians of northwest Amer- ica in 1826, work in equatorial Africa in 1844, in China in 1845 and in Japan in 1869 was carried on by this remarkable society. The Wesleyan Missionary So- ciety was formed in 1814 and entered the field in south Africa. Missions in New South Wales were established in 1815, in Tasmania in 1821, among the Maoris of New Zealand in 1822, in the Friendly Islands in 1826. in 'the Fiji Is- lands in 1834, in Victoria in 1838, in Queensland in 1850, and in China in 1853. The American Board of Missions was organized at Bradford, Mass., June 29, 1810. In January, 1812, the first mis- sionaries sailed to India, but when they reached Calcutta they were ordered home by the British East India Com- pany, on the ground that commercial in- terests would be jeopardized if any at- tempt were made to interfere with the religious faith of the Hindus. Two of
