The Story From Carey's Bench to Edinburgh
The sendings and the first churches in order, from their own records.
Carey worked as a shoemaker from sixteen to twenty-eight, as George Smith tells his life.
Its fourth section answers five objections to going, among them the "barbarous and savage manner of living" and the languages.
How then can they call on the One in whom they have not believed? And how can they believe in the One of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone to preach?
Carey set these verses at the head of his book.
Romans 10:14BSB
Carey preached to the Northamptonshire ministers at Nottingham on Isaiah 54:2 to 3 in May of the year the Enquiry appeared.
At Kettering on 2 October twelve ministers resolved "to act in society together" and subscribed thirteen pounds, two shillings and sixpence between them, by their own minute.
And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”
The society was formed to do the sending this verse asks for.
Romans 10:15BSB
Carey and John Thomas landed at Calcutta on 11 November 1793. On 28 December 1800 Carey baptized Krishna Pal, the mission's first Hindu convert, in the Hooghly with his own son Felix.
At Serampore the brethren agreed a Form of Agreement on 7 October 1805. Its eighth head says, "It is only by means of native preachers that we can hope for the universal spread of the Gospel throughout this immense continent."
And the things that you have heard me say among many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be qualified to teach others as well.
The Form asked what Paul asked of Timothy, men trained to teach others.
The London Missionary Society was founded at the Castle and Falcon inn on 21 September 1795. Its rule of 1796 was "not to send Presbyterianism, Independency, Episcopacy, or any other form of Church Order and Government".
The Church Missionary Society was founded in the same inn on 12 April 1799, and the British and Foreign Bible Society at the London Tavern on 7 March 1804, before about three hundred people by Owen's count.
Declare His glory among the nations, His wonderful deeds among all peoples.
The Anglican society's first resolution made spreading the gospel every Christian's duty.
Psalm 96:3BSB
Gardiner Spring's memoir of Samuel Mills (1829) tells of a day of prayer at Williams College "by the side of a large stack of hay". The American Board was formed at Bradford on 29 June 1810.
Adoniram and Ann Judson sailed from Salem on 19 February 1812 and reached Rangoon on 13 July 1813. On 27 June 1819 Judson baptized Moung Nau, "the first Burman convert".
Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest.”
The students gave a day to prayer on missions, the prayer Jesus asks for here.
Matthew 9:38BSB
Ann Judson's letter tells how officers came for her husband at Ava on 8 June 1824 with a man "we knew to be an executioner".
She died at Amherst before the Bible was finished. Judson finished the Burmese Bible on 31 January 1834 and sent the last sheet of its revision to press in 1840.
Truly, truly, I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a seed; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
Jesus promised that a seed which dies bears much fruit, the hope of a mission that buried its own.
John 12:24BSB
Samuel Ajayi Crowther was taken from a slave ship on 7 April 1822 and landed at Sierra Leone that June. He was baptized on 11 December 1825.
On St Peter's Day 1864 he was consecrated in Canterbury Cathedral, in Jesse Page's words "the first Bishop of the Niger".
for the sexually immoral, for homosexuals, for slave traders and liars and perjurers, and for anyone else who is averse to sound teaching
Paul names slave traders among those the law condemns, and Crowther was taken from their ship.
Robert Morrison of the London society reached Macao on 4 September 1807. He baptized his first Chinese convert on 16 July 1814, and with William Milne he finished a Chinese Bible on 25 November 1819.
Before he sailed for England in 1823 Morrison set the printer Liang A-fa apart "to the office of Evangelist".
Rather, as it is written: “Those who were not told about Him will see, and those who have not heard will understand.”
Paul aimed at those who had never been told, as the first Chinese translators did.
Romans 15:21BSB
Taylor landed at Shanghai on 1 March 1854. At Brighton he asked God for "twenty-four fellow-workers, two for each of eleven inland provinces which were without a missionary, and two for Mongolia".
The China Inland Mission's people wore Chinese dress and went inland.
To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.
Taylor's people dressed as those they served, as Paul became all things to all people.
Livingstone baptized Sechele on 1 October 1848, by his journal as Blaikie prints it. At Cambridge on 4 December 1857 he said, "I go back to Africa to try to make an open path for commerce and Christianity".
Waller puts his death early on 1 May 1873. Susi, Chuma and the others buried his heart at Chitambo's village and carried his body to the coast.
In this way I have aspired to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation.
Livingstone asked Cambridge to open a path for Christianity, as Paul sought ground where Christ was not known.
Romans 15:20BSB
Mary Slessor sailed for Calabar on 5 August 1876. Her biographer records that twins there "were done to death", and in May 1905 the government offered her a seat on the native court at Itu.
Helen Barrett Montgomery counted 4,710 unmarried women missionaries in the field in 1909. Lottie Moon's article in the Foreign Mission Journal asked for a week of prayer and an offering before Christmas.
The Lord gives the command; a great company of women proclaim it:
Women missionaries carried the word as the psalm's company of women did.
Psalm 68:11BSB
The Cambridge Seven, C. T. Studd among them, left London for China on 5 February 1885.
The Student Volunteer Movement took "The Evangelization of the World in this Generation" as its watchword in 1888, as John R. Mott tells it.
And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
The watchword made this command the work of one generation.
Mark 16:15BSB
In the Boxer rising of 1900, Marshall Broomhall counted 127 Protestant missionary adults and 44 children known killed by January 1901. Forsyth counted about 400 Protestant converts killed in Shansi alone, besides "thousands of Catholic Christians".
Taylor advised that his mission claim nothing, and accept nothing, for "injury to life or person".
And when the Lamb opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony they had upheld.
John's vision honours those slain for the word of God, as the Boxer year's dead were.
At Edinburgh Lord Balfour of Burleigh spoke of "about 1200 members, representing 160 different Churches and organisations".
On 20 June V. S. Azariah of India ended his address, "We also ask for love. Give us FRIENDS!"
No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not understand what his master is doing. But I have called you friends, because everything I have learned from My Father I have made known to you.
Azariah asked for the friendship Jesus gave His disciples.
John 15:15BSB
2 Timothy 2:2, Psalm 96:3, Matthew 9:38, John 12:24, 1 Timothy 1:10, Romans 15:21, 1 Corinthians 9:22, Romans 15:20 and 4 more