Southern India. The former was begun by Carey and Thomas, (in 1793,)
who were joined by a few brethren in 1799. The first convert they made
was in 1800. The latter mission had existed since 1705, and numbered
about nine labourers at the commencement of the century.[A]

[Footnote A: The first Protestant missionary who visited India was
Ziegenbalg, who was sent out by the Halle-Danish Missionary Society in
1705, to Tranquebar. He was joined by Plutschow in 1719. The mission
was then adopted by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.
Grundler followed in 1720, and Schultze in 1727. The mission, in 1736,
had four stations, one being in Madras; 24 native assistants; and 3517
baptized members! The great Schwartz laboured in, and extended the
mission from 1749 till 1798. According to Dr Carey, 40,000 had been
converted to Christianity during the last century through this
mission. Dr Claudius Buchanan reckons the number as high as 80,000!]

Of the East India Company's chaplains, Claudius Buchanan alone had
the courage to advocate in India the missionary cause; and his sermon
preached upon the subject in 1800, in Calcutta, was then generally
deemed a bold and daring step. Hindustan was closed by the East India
Company against the missionaries of the Christian Church. China, too,
seemed hermetically sealed against the gospel. The Jesuit mission had
failed. Christianity was proscribed by an imperial edict. Protestant
missions had not commenced. The language of the nation, like its
walls, seemed to forbid all access to the missionary. In Africa
there were but few missionaries, and these had lately arrived at the
Cape.[A] In the black midnight which brooded over that miserable land,
the cry of tortured slaves alone was heard. New Zealand, Australia,
and the scattered islands of the Southern Seas had not yet been
visited by one herald of the gospel. A solitary beacon gleaming on the