Of the actual details of their Labours we have been permitted to know but little. Three only of the immediate followers of the Saviour have any conspicuous place in the apostolic records, and the most illustrious in the whole domain of missionary activity, St Paul, did not belong to the original twelve. His activity took the form of journeys and voyages, chiefly to large towns, where his message found a point of contact either with the Jewish synagogue or the aspirations of the Gentile world. The result of his labours and of those of his successors was that towards the middle of the 2d century the church had gradually extended its conquests through Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, southern Gaul, and northern Africa. Ecclesiastical history can tell but little of the church’s earliest teachers, and the infancy of many of the primitive congregations is wrapped in hopeless darkness. Whatever was effected was due to the evangelizing labours of individual bishops and clergy, who occupied themselves “in season and out of season,” and toiled zealously and effectively in the spread of the church, though leaving no record of their devotion. Amongst the most distinguished representatives of this individual activity in the 4th and 5th centuries may be mentioned Ulfila, the “apostle of the Goths,” about 325; Frumentius, a bishop of Abyssinia, about 327; Chrysostom, who founded at Constantinople in 404 A.D. an institution in which Goths might be trained to preach the gospel to their own people; Valentinus, the “apostle of Noricum,” about 440; and Honoratus, who from his monastic home in the islet of Lerins, about 410, sent forth numerous labourers to southern and western Gaul, to become the leading missionaries of their day among the masses of heathendom in the neighbourhood of Arles, Lyons, Troyes, Metz, and Nice.

2. The Mediaeval Period.

With the 5th century the church found a very different element proposed to her missionary energies and zeal. Her outposts of civilization had scarcely been planted when she was confronted with numberless hordes which had long been gathering afar off in their native wilds, and which were now precipitated over the entire face of Europe. Having for some time ceased to plead for toleration, and learnt to be aggressive, she not only stood the shock of change but girded herself for the difficult work of calming the agitated elements of society, of teaching the nations a higher faith than a savage form of nature worship, of purifying and refining their recklessness, independence, and uncontrollable love of liberty, and fitting them to become members of an enlightened Christendom.

(a) The Celtic Missionaries.— The first pioneers who went forth to engage in this difficult enterprise came from the secluded Celtic churches of Ireland and the Scottish Highlands, which, though almost forgotten amidst the desolating contest which was breaking up the Roman world, were no sooner founded than they sent forth “armies of Scots” to pour back upon the Continent the gifts of civilization and the gospel. Of many who deserve mention in connexion with this period, the most prominent were—Columba, the founder of the famous monastery of Iona, and the evangelizer of the Albanian Scots and northern Picts; Aidan, the apostle of Northumbria; Columbanus, the apostle of the Burgundians of the Vosges; Callich or Gallus, the evangelizer of north-eastern Switzerland and Alemannia; Kilian, the apostle of Thuringia; and Trudpert, the martyr of the Black Forest. The zeal of these singular men at the head of ardent disciples seemed to take the world by storm. Travelling generally in companies, and carrying a simple outfit, these Celtic pioneers flung themselves on the Continent of Europe, and, not content with reproducing at Annegray or Luxeuil the willow or brushwood huts, the chapel and the round tower, which they had left behind in Derry or in the island of Hy, they braved the dangers of the northern seas, and penetrated as far as the Faroes and even far distant Iceland.

(6) The English Missionaries.— Thus they laid the foundations, awing the heathen tribes by their indomitable spirit of self-sacrifice and the sternness of their rule of life.

But, marvellous as it was, their work lacked the element of permanence; and it became clear that if Europe was to be carried through the dissolution of the old society, and missionary operations consolidated, a more practical system must be devised and carried out. The men for this work were now ready. Restored to the commonwealth of nations by the labours of the followers of Augustine of Canterbury and the Celtic missionaries from Iona, the sons of the newly evangelized English churches were ready to go forth to the help of their Teutonic brothers in the German forests. The energy which warriors were accustomed to put forth in their efforts to conquer was now “exhibited in the enterprise of conversion and teaching” by Wilfrid on the coast of Friesland, by Willibrord in the neighbourhood of Utrecht, by the martyr-brothers Ewald or Hewald amongst the “old” or continental Saxons, by Swidbert the apostle of the tribes between the Ems and the Yssel, by Adelbert, a prince of the royal house of Northumbria, in the regions north of Holland, by Wursing, a native of Friesland, and one of the disciples of Willibrord, in the same region, and last, not least, by the famous Winfrid or Boniface, the “apostle of Germany,” who went forth first to assist Willibrord at Utrecht, then to labour in Thuringia and Upper Hessia, then, with the aid of his kinsmen Wunibald and Willibald, their sister Walpurga, and her thirty companions, to consolidate the work of earlier missionaries, and finally to die a martyr on the shore of the Zuyder Zee.

(c) Scandinavian Missions.— Devoted, however, as were the labours of Boniface and his disciples, the battle was not yet nearly won. All that he and they and the emperor Charlemagne after them achieved for the fierce untutored world of the 8th century seemed to have been done in vain when, in the 9th, “on the north and north-west the pagan Scandinavians were hanging about every coast, and pouring in at every inlet; when on the east the pagan Hungarians were swarming like locusts and devastating Europe from the Baltic to the Alps; when on the south and south-east the Saracens were pressing on and on with their victorious hosts. It seemed then as if every pore of life were choked, and Christendom must be stifled and smothered in the fatal embrace.” But it was even now that one of the most intrepid of missionary enterprises was undertaken, and the devoted Anskar went forth and proved himself a true apostle of Denmark and Sweden, sought out the Scandinavian viking in his native home and icy fiords, and, after persevering in the face of apparently insurmountable difficulties and hardships, handed on the torch of self-denying zeal to others, who “casting their bread on the waters” saw, after the lapse of many years, the close of the monotonous tale of burning churches and pillaged monasteries, and taught the fierce Northman to lay aside his old habits of piracy, and gradually learn respect for civilized institutions.

(d) Slavonic Missions.— Thus the “gospel of the kingdom” was successively proclaimed to the Roman, the Celtic, the Teutonic, and the Scandinavian world. A contest still more stubborn remained with the Slavonic tribes, with their triple and many-headed divinities, their powers of good and powers of evil, who could be approached only with fear and horror, and propitiated only with human sacrifices. Mission work commenced in Bulgaria during the latter part of the 9th century; thence it extended to Moravia, where two Greek missionaries—Cyril and Methodius—provided for the people a Slavonic Bible and a Slavonic Liturgy; thence to Bohemia, and so onwards to the Scythian wilds and level steppes, where arose the Russian kingdom of Ruric the Northman, and where about the close of the 10th century the Eastern Church “silently and almost unconsciously bore into the world her mightiest offspring.” But, though the baptism of Vladimir and the flinging of the triple and many-headed idols into the waters of the Dnieper was a heavy blow to Slavonic idolatry, mission work was carried on with but partial success; and it taxed all the energies of Albrecht, bishop of Bremen, of Vicilin, bishop of Oldenburg, of Bishop Otto of Bamberg the apostle of the Pomeranians, of Adalbert the martyr-apostle of Prussia, to spread the word in that country, in Lithuania, and in the territory of the Wends. It was not till 1168 that the gigantic fourheaded image of Swantevit was destroyed at Arcona, the capital of the island of Rügen, and this Mona of Slavonic superstition was included in the advancing circle of Christian civilization. As late as 1230 human sacrifices were still being offered up in Prussia and Lithuania, and, in spite of all the efforts of the Teutonic Knights to expel by force the last remains of heathenism from the face of Europe, idolatrous practices still lingered amongst the people, while in the districts inhabited by the Lapps, though successful missions had been inaugurated as early as 1335, Christianity cannot be said to have become the dominant religion till at least two centuries later.

(e) Moslem Missions. — The mention of the order of the Teutonic Knights reminds us how the crusading spirit had affected Christendom, and exchanged the patience of a Boniface or an Anskar for the fiery zeal of the warrior of the cross. Still it is refreshing to notice how even now there was found the famous Raymond Lully to protest against propagandism by the sword, to urge on pope after pope the necessity of missions amongst the Moslems, and to seal his testimony with his blood outside the gates of Bugiah in northern Africa (June 30, 1315). Out of the crusades, however, arose other efforts to bear the banner of the cross into the lands of the East, and to develop the work which Nestorian missionaries from Baghdad, Edessa, and Nisibis had already inaugurated along the Malabar coast, in the island of Ceylon, and in the neighbourhood of the Caspian Sea. In 1245 the Roman pontiff sent two embassies, one to charge the Mongol warriors to desist from their desolating inroads into Europe, the other to attempt to win them over to the Christian faith. The first, a party of four Dominicans, sought the commander-in-chief of the Mongol forces in Persia; the second, consisting of Franciscans, made their way into Tartary, and sought to convert the successor of Oktai-Khan. Their exertions were seconded in 1253 by the labours of another Franciscan whom Louis IX. of France sent forth from Cyprus, while in 1274 the celebrated traveller Marco Polo, accompanied by two learned Dominicans, visited the court of Kublai-Khan, and at the commencement of the 14th century two Franciscans penetrated as far as Peking, and kept alive a flickering spark of Christianity in the Tartar kingdom, even translating the New Testament and the Psalter into the Tartar language, and training youths for a native ministry. (∕) Missions to India and the New World. — These tentative missions in the East were now to be supplemented by others on a larger scale. In 1486 the Cape of Good Hope was rounded by Dias, and in 1508 the foundations of the

Portuguese Indian empire were laid by Albuquerov.e. Columbus also in 1492 had landed on San Salvador, and the voyages of the Venetian Cabot along the coast of North America opened up a new world to missionary enterprise. These bold discoverers had secured the countenance of the pope on the condition that wherever they might plant a flag they should be also zealous in promoting the extension of the Christian faith. Thus a grand opportunity was given to the churches of Portugal and Spain. But the zeal of the Portuguese, even when not choked by the rising lust of wealth and territorial power, took too often a one-sided direction, repressing the Syrian Christians on the Malabar coast, and interfering with the Abyssinian Church, while the fanatic temper of the Spaniard, maddened by his prolonged conflict with the infidel at home, betrayed him into methods of propagating his faith which we cannot contemplate without a shudder, consigning, in Mexico and Peru, multitudes who would not renounce their heathen errors to indiscriminate massacre or abject slavery. Their only defender for many years was the famous Las Casas, who, having sojourned amongst them till 1516, has drawn a terrible picture of the oppression he strove in vain to prevent. Some steps indeed were taken for disseminating Christian principles, and the pope in granting territory to the crowns of Spain and Portugal had specially urged this duty, and had been instrumental in inducing a band of missionaries, chiefly of the mendicant orders, to go forth to this new mission field. But the results were scanty. Only five bishoprics had been established by 1520, and the number of genuine converts was small. In settling, however, his realm the conqueror of Mexico evinced no little solicitude for the spiritual welfare of his charge; and the labours of the devoted men whom he begged the emperor to send out were successful in banishing every vestige of the Aztec worship from the Spanish settlements. (g) The Jesuit Missions.— It was during the period at which we have now arrived that the great organization of the Jesuits came into existence, and one of the first of Loyola’s associates, Francis Xavier, was also one of the greatest and most zealous missionaries of his or any other era. Encouraged by the joint co-operation of the pope and of John III. of Portugal, and strongly tinged like Loyola with ideas of chivalry and self-devotion, he disembarked at Goa on the 6th of May 1542, and before his death on the Isle of St John (Hiang-Shang), December 2, 1552, he had roused the European Christians of Goa to a new life, laboured with singular success amongst the Para-vars, a fisher caste near Cape Comorin, gathered many converts in the kingdom of Travancore, visited the island of Malacca, made his way to and founded a mission in Japan, thence revisited Goa, and impelled by the quenchless desire to unfurl the banner of the cross in China, had set out thither to fall a victim to malignant fever at the early age of forty-six, within sight of that vast empire whose conversion had been the object of his holy ambition.

The immediate successor of Xavier, Antonio Criminalis, was regarded by the Jesuits as the first martyr of their society (1562). Mattheo Ricci, an Italian by birth, was also an indefatigable missionary in China for twenty-seven years, while the peculiar methods of unholy compromise with Brahmanism in India followed by Robert de’ Nobili drew down the condemnatory briefs of pope after pope, and were fatal to the vitality of his own and other missions.

Other representatives of the same order worked with success in evangelizing the Spanish settlement of Paraguay in 1582, while their defeated foes the Huguenots sent forth under a French knight of Malta a body of devoted men to attempt the formation of a Christian colony at Rio Janeiro. By the close of the 16th century the unflagging zeal of the Jesuits led to a more complete development and organization of the missionary system of the Roman Church. To give unity and solidity to the work of missions, a committee of cardinals was appointed under the name of the “Congregatio de propaganda fide,” and to it was entrusted the entire management of the mission, conducted under the superintendence of the pope. The scheme originated with Gregory XIII., but was not fully organized till forty years afterwards, when Gregory XV. gave it plenary authority by a bull dated June 2, 1622. Gregory’s successor, Urban VIII., supplemented the establishment of the congregation by founding in connexion with it a great missionary college, where Europeans might be trained for foreign labours, and natives might be educated to undertake mission work wherever new colonies were settled. At this college is the missionary printing-press of the Roman Church, and its library contains an unrivalled collection of literary treasures bearing on the particular work. From its walls have gone forth numbers of devoted men, who have proved themselves able to promote in a singular degree the enlargement of the boundaries of the church by means of material as well as spiritual forces.

3. The, Modern Period.

This last period of missionary activity is distinguished in a special degree by the exertions of societies for the development of mission work.

As contrasted with the colossal display of power on the part of the Church of Rome, it must be allowed that the churches which in the 16th century broke off from their allegiance to the Latin centre at first presented a great lack of anxiety for the extension of the gospel and the salvation of the heathen. The causes of this, however, are not far to seek. The isolation of the Teutonic churches from the vast system with which they had been bound up, the conflicts and troubles among themselves, the necessity of fixing their own principles and defining their own rights, concentrated their attention upon themselves and their own home work, to the neglect of work abroad.

Still the development of the maritime power of England, which the Portuguese and Spanish monarchies noted with fear and jealousy, was distinguished by a singular anxiety for the spread of the Christian faith. Edward VI. in his instructions to the navigators in Willoughby’s fleet, Cabot in those for the direction of the intended voyage to Cathay, good old Hakluyt, who promoted many voyages of discovery in addition to writing their history, agree with Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s chronicler that “the sowing of Christianity must be the chief intent of such as shall make any attempt at foreign discovery, or else whatever is builded upon other foundation shall never obtain happy success or continuance.” When on the last day of the year 1600 Queen Elizabeth granted a charter to George, earl of Cumberland, and other “adventurers,” to be a bodycorporate by the name of “The Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading with the East Indies,” the expressed recognition of higher duties than those of commerce may by some be deemed a mere matter of form, and, to use the words of Bacon, “what was first in God’s providence was but second in man’s appetite and intention.” Yet a keen sense of missionary duty marks many of the chronicles of English mariners. Notably was this the case with the establishment of the first English colony in America, that of Virginia, by Sir Walter Raleigh. The philosopher Heriot, one of his colleagues, laboured for the conversion of the natives, amongst whom the first baptism is recorded to have taken place on August 13, 1587. Raleigh himself presented as a parting gift to the Virginian Company the sum of £100 “for the propagation of the Christian religion” in that settlement. When James I. granted letters patent for the occupation of Virginia it was directed that the “word and service of God be preached, planted, and used as well in the said colonies as also as much as might be among the savages bordering among them”; and the honoured names of Nicolas Ferrar, John Ferrar, Dr Donne, and Sir John Sandys, a pupil of Hooker, are all found on the council by which the home management of the colony was conducted.

In the year 1618 was published The True Honour of Navigation and Navigators, by John Wood, D.D., dedicated to Sir Thomas Smith, governor to the East India Company, and much about the same time appeared the well-known treatise of the famous Grotius, De Veritate Religionis Christianae, written for the express use of settlers in distant lands. The wants, moreover, of the North American colonies did...