A COMPENDIOUS HISTORY OF THE PRINCIPAL PROTESTANT MISSIONS TO The Heathen, SELECTED AND COMPILED FROM THE BEST AUTHORITIES, By E. LORD. IN TWO VOLUMES_VOL. II. BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY SAMUEL T. ARMSTRONG, No 50, Cornhill....... 1813. HISTORY, &c. ORIGIN AND OPERATIONS OF THE LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY. A GREAT variety of circumstances contributed their influ. ence, in preparing the way for the formation of the London Missionary Society. The attention of many pious and evan. gelical ministers, and private Christians in London and its vicinity, had for a considerable time been called to the subject of Missions to the Heathen. Mutual consultations, prayer-meetings, and the spread of information relative to the state of the Heathen, and the duty and desireableness of missions to them were the principal things which led to that cordial and permanent union of men and measures, realized at the formation and at every subsequent period of this Society. Information having been widely circulated, some animating addresses made to the public through the medium of the Evangelical Magazine, and circular letters directed to individual ministcrs; notice was given early in 1795, that a general meeting would be held in London in the following September, for the purpose of forming a Missionary Society. Not long before the time fixed on for a general meeting, a number of ininisters of different denominations, who had associated together in order to effectuate the formation of a Society, dispersed a circular letter among ministers and laymen in London and throughout the country, soliciting their aid, and in viting them to attend the proposed meeting. At the time appointed, great numbers of different denominations assembled, a plan for a society “to spread the knowledge of Christ among heathen and other unenlightened nations," was adopted, and to promote the object nearly 8001. were subscribed immediately. After the Society was organized, much information exhibited on the state of the Heathen world, and several questions discussed relative to the places where, and the manner in which, the first efforts should be Vol. II. 2 |