History of the American Foreign Missions to the Oriental Churches

This book features the most important missions of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to the Oriental Churches. The missions may be regarded as seven or eight in number; considering the Palestine and Syria missions as really but one, and the several Armenian missions as also one. The history of the Syria mission, in its connection with the American Board, covers a period of fifty-one years; that of the Nestorian, thirty-seven; that of the Greek mission, forty-three; of the Assyrian (as a separate mission), ten; of the Armenian mission, forty; and of the Bulgarian, twelve. The mission to the Jews, extending through thirty years, was so intimately connected with these, as to demand a place in the series; while the facts scattered through half a century, illustrating the influence exerted on the Mohammedans, were such as to require a separate embodiment. Missions were for: converting lost men, organizing them into churches, giving these churches a competent native ministry, conducting them to the stage of independence and (in most cases) of self-propagation.

Rufus Anderson (1796-1880) was an American minister who spent several decades organizing overseas missions. He worked at the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) as an assistant while studying at Andover. In 1822 he applied to go to India but was asked to remain at headquarters and later appointed assistant secretary. In 1832 he was given total responsibility for overseas work as a Secretary of the ABCFM. In this capacity, he corresponded with missionaries from around the world. He traveled in Latin America (1819, 1823-1824), the Mediterranean and Near East (1828-1829, 1843-1844), India, Ceylon, Syria, and Turkey (1854-1855), and Hawaii (1863).