Note 153 — IV. THE LOYALISTS.

The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was founded in 1701. A previous organization bearing a similar name had been founded during the period of the Commonwealth, especially for work among the aborigines in New England, and it is to this association that we owe that most interesting of missionary relics, Eliot’s Indian Bible. Great interest was taken in this by the celebrated Robert Boyle, and scholarships were endowed by Sir Leoline Jenkyns in Jesus College, Oxford, one condition of which was that the beneficiary should devote his life after taking his degree to missionary work in the plantations. The reports of Commissary Bray, who had been sent out to Maryland, of the spiritual destitution of the American colonies and of the difficulties under which the ministers of the Church of England labored, led to the organization and incorporation of the Society, which has been from that day to this an active agency in the spread of religion and knowledge in the colonies of Great Britain. Humphreys, Historical Account of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. Hawkins, Missions of the Church of England.