Anderson, Rufus. The Work of Missions to be Progressive. A Sermon on the Present Crisis in the Missionary Operations of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Boston: Crocker & Brewster, 1840. First Edition. [12138]
Removed, no wrapper, 7 x 4 1/4 inches, 22 [1] pages. Good. Pamphlet.
The text is Exodus 14:15, "And the Lord said unto Moses, - Speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward."
The crisis, as perceived by Rev. Anderson, is that due to a lack of funds, the ABCFM may need to curtail its mission work around the world.
"To come at once to the point - The times, just now, are dark among us. There is light hanging over the future. There is light, too, abroad - in Syria, in Ceylon, in India, in the Sandwich Islands, and on the other side of the Rocky Mountains. But here, in what we have fondly regarded as the Goshen of the world, the shadows thicken around us, and portend evil to all our institutions which depend on mere benevolence. For a number of years, no general revival of religion has blest our churches, and of late God, in mercy, and perhaps in judgment too, has laid his hand upon a portion of the wealth of the churches and taken it away; until it has come to pass, that the sending forth of a few missionaries has not been so much a matter of faith as it now is, since the embarkation of the first company, nearly thirty years ago." - p. 4.
Rufus Anderson (1796-1880), American Congregational minister, born at North Yarmouth, Maine. Mr. Anderson graduated at Bowdoin College (1818), and at Andover theological seminary (1822), being ordained as a minister in 1826. He served as assistant secretary (1824-32) and secretary (1832-1866) of the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions. He lectured on foreign missions at Andover, and visited missions all over the world, including those in the Mediterranean, in India, and in the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii.)
