LITMIR.BIZ

      THE CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY'S MISSION HOUSE, SALISBURY SQUARE.

      Of the men who helped to found the Church Missionary Society the first place must be given to Charles Simeon. He was not at "The Castle and Falcon" meeting, but it was he who, at the gathering of the Eclectic Society in March of the same year, when missionary plans were again under discussion, urged immediate action. "There is not a moment to be lost," he said; "we have been dreaming these four years, while all Europe is awake." The precise old bachelor, fellow of his college at Cambridge, and incumbent of Holy Trinity Church in that town, was not a person easily daunted by obstacles. As an Evangelical he had had to face the most strenuous opposition in his own parish. But he had been deeply stirred by plans and hopes for missionary work in India; he was the friend and mentor of Henry Martyn. He was able in time to wield at Cambridge an influence which the late Bishop Christopher Wordsworth compared to that of Newman at Oxford. Later generations somehow came to think of him as something other than a Churchman; but they were quite wrong. A careful scrutiny of Simeon's works, letters, and diaries will show that he was consistently loyal to his Church and her formularies. Of his influence upon foreign missions it is difficult to speak in exaggeration; but one or two illustrations may serve to show its extent. Henry Martyn was the first Englishman who offered to go out under the Church Missionary Society. But Simeon was especially anxious about India, and so Martyn went there as "Chaplain." His brief work in Persia, the example of his singularly beautiful character, and the swift end of so promising a career, still influence the minds of young and old. And the influence of Martyn, is, in a sense, the influence of Simeon. Less popularly known than Henry Martyn, but in some respects of wider power, were the others of the famous "Five Chaplains" who went out to India, the fruits of Simeon's zeal for that land. These men left an indelible mark upon the English in India during their time, and did much to prepare the way of the missionary. Thus Claudius Buchanan helped more than any other man to create the public opinion which opened India to missionaries, and led to the consecration of the first bishop for all India, the Bishop of Calcutta. Thomas Thomason was the father of James Thomason, who, as Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Provinces, ruled (and taught others to rule) in the fear of God, and with the warmest sympathy for missionary enterprise. Through him, when the Punjab was annexed in 1849, it felt the influence which had flowed from the rooms of Charles Simeon at Cambridge.