The Call to Service
The Call to Service
The events that followed are landmarks for the American missions movement.[8] Several men from Andover College—Samuel Mills, James Richards, Luther Rice, Samuel Nott, Gordon Hall, Samuel Newell, and Adoniram Judson—formed a missionary fraternity with the goal to represent Christ and the Congregational churches on the foreign mission field. These men prompted the general Association of Congregational Churches to form the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions on June 28, 1810.[9] The first meeting of that board was held on September 5, 1810. Dr. Samuel Worcester was appointed corresponding secretary.
The first action taken by the board was to determine whether there would be a relationship between the American mission board and that of the London Missionary Society. The London Missionary Society had already sent Mr. William Carey as its first missionary abroad, and it was enlisting others to join Carey in India or to extend the mission endeavor to other nations. The American Board hoped to elicit cooperation and financial support from their brethren in England, and consequently selected Judson to travel to London to accomplish this task of communication. Judson’s mission to London met with limited success. While the London Society was not willing to offer assistance to the American Board, it was willing to enlist four men—Judson, Newell, Nott, and Gordon—into the work of the London Society.
This arrangement was not acceptable to the American Board, and on September 18, 1811, the Board voted to advise the four men in question “not to place themselves at present under the direction of the London Missionary Society, but to wait the further intimations of Providence relative to our means of furnishing them with the requisite support in the proposed foreign mission.”[10] This appeal subsequently charted the direction for the American missions movement: American missionaries were to be supported by American churches. As a result, the American Board ordained Newell, Judson, Nott, Hall, and Rice for the gospel ministry as missionaries to Asia on Thursday, February 6, 1812. On February 19, 1812, Adoniram and Ann Judson and Samuel and Harriet Newell embarked from Plymouth in the brig Caravan bound for Calcutta. The Notts, Halls, and Luther Rice embarked at a later date from Philadelphia on the Harmony. The Caravan arrived in Calcutta on June 17, 1812, and the Harmony arrived on July 8, 1812. The American foreign missionary movement had begun.