Page 300 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

286.

Seamen's Friends Society joined the Board of Commissioners in

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financing the work of David Abeel as the requested chaplain.

Bridgman and Abeel left the United States buoyed by the

same spirit of optimism which had enveloped the Board of Commis­

sioners. American missions supported by the Board elsewhere

were prospering and now the Board looked to new opportunities

in China. William Strong, the official historian of the

American Board of Commissioners, commented that the Board in

1829 viewed China as an appealing land. Her huge size, the
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uncounted multitudes of her people, the antiquity of her civi­

lization, her need of an uplifting religion, all challenged
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the eager spirit of Christian conquest." As the massive size

of China and its overwhelming population had created images

of infinite markets in the minds of American merchants, like­

wise this picture of China stimulated the interest of mission­

minded Christians. In its instructions to missionaries des­

tined for China, the Board stressed the potential numbers of

converts in the Celestial Empire and the areas bordering it;

China's "mountains, plains, rivers, and canals, are seen to be

covered with people; while millions of the busy race are scat­

tered over the neighboring countries and islands." The Board

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Phillips, Protestunt Americc:1 and the Paqan World, pp.
173-74. Kenneth S. Latourette, A History of the Christian
Missions in China (New York, 1929), p. 217.
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strong, Story of the American Board, p. 108. Rev.
William E. Strong was Editorial Secretary of the American Board
of Commissioners in 1910, when he wrote this history.