Produced by John Bechard (JaBBechard@aol.com)
BOSTON:CONGREGATIONAL PUBLISHING SOCIETY.1872.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, byTHE AMERICAN BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS FOR FOREIGN MISSIONS,in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
Missions to the Oriental Churches occupy a large space in theforty-nine volumes of the Missionary Herald, and in as many AnnualReports of the Board; and in view of the multitude of facts, fromwhich selections must be made to do justice to the several missions,it will readily be seen, that their history cannot be compressedinto a single volume. The Missions may be regarded as seven or eightin number; considering the Palestine and Syria missions as reallybut one, and the several Armenian missions as also one. The historyof the Syria mission, in its connection with the American Board,covers a period of fifty-one years; that of the Nestorian,thirty-seven; that of the Greek mission, forty-three; of theAssyrian (as a separate mission), ten; of the Armenian mission, tothe present time, forty; and of the Bulgarian, twelve. The missionto the Jews, extending through thirty years, was so intimatelyconnected with these, as to demand a place in the series; and thefacts scattered through half a century, illustrating the influenceexerted on the Mohammedans, are such as to require a separateembodiment.
In writing the history, one of three methods was to be adopted;either to embrace all the missions in one continuous narrative; orto carry forward the narrative of each mission, separately andcontinuously, through its entire period; or, rejecting both theseplans, to keep the narratives of the several missions distinct, but,by suitable alternations from one to another, to secure for thewhole the substantial advantages of a contemporaneous history. Thefirst could not be done satisfactorily, so long as the severalmissions have a separate existence in the minds of so many readers,and while so many feel a strong personal interest in what is said oromitted. Even on the plan adopted, so much must necessarily beomitted, or stated very briefly, as to endanger a feeling, thatinjustice has been done to some excellent missionaries. As for thesecond, the author had not the courage to undertake consecutivejourneys through so many long periods; and he believed not a few ofhis readers would sympathize with him. If, however, any desire toread the history of any one mission through in course, the table ofcontents will make that easy. Each of the histories is complete, sofar as it goes.
No attempt has been made to write a philosophical history ofmissions. The book of the Acts of the Apostles is not such ahistory, nor has one yet been written. The time has not come forthat. There are not the necessary materials. The directors ofmissions, and missionaries themselves, have not yet come to a fullpractical agreement as to the principles that underlie the workingof missions, nor as to the results to be accomplished by them; andit must be left to competent writers in the future,—when the wholesubject shall be more generally and better understood,—afterpatiently examining the proceedings of missionary societies inAmerica, England, Scotland, and Germany, to state and apply the