DUFF MISSIONARY LECTURES. Jtut !tries. PRINTRD BY MORRISON AND GIBB, FOR T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH. LONDON, HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO. DUBLIN, ROBERTSON AND CO. NEW YORK,. SCRIBNER AND \VELFORD. MEDIJEVAL MISSIONS. BY THOMAS SMITH, D.D., EDINBURGH. EDINBURGH: T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET. 188 o. TO The Right Honourable LORD PoLWARTH, The Rev. Wn,LIAM LINDSAY ALEXANDER, D.D., WILLIAM PIRIE DUFF, Esq., The Rev. ROBERT GORDON, The Rev. JOHN MARSHALL LANG, D.D., HUGH M'LEOD MATHESON, Esq., DUNCAN MACNEILL, Esq., The Rev. ANDREW THOMSOK, D.D.,- Trustees of the ' Duff Mis8ionary Lectureship ; ' AND TO HENRY Ton, Esq., W.S., Agent/or the Trust,- THESE LECTURES ARE RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED. PREFACE. HE DUFF MrssIONARY LECTURESHIP has been T instituted under the provisions of the will of the late Dr. Alexander Duff. In arranging for its founda­ tion, his son has complied with the dying instructions of his father, deviating from these instructions only to the extent of designating the lectureship by his father's name,-a deviation which, I venture to think, will be universally approved. In terms of a trust-deed executed by Mr. Duff, a course of lectures, not fewer than six in number, 'On some department of Foreign Missions or cognate subjects,' is to be delivered once in every four years, each lecturer to give only one course. They are to be delivered in Edinburgh and repeated in Glasgow, or delivered in Glasgow and repeated in Edinburgh, or delivered and repeated in such other places as the trustees may direct. The lectures are then to be published, and copies are to be presented to certain libraries in this country, continental Europe, America, India, Africa, and Australia. The trustees are men belonging to different denominations, and the lecturer Vlll Preface. is to be ' a minister, professor, or godly layman of any Evangelical Church.' In the introduction to the first lecture I have sufficiently explained the circumstances in/ which I was appointed as the first holder of the lectureship, as having been long associated with Dr. Duff in mission­ work in Bengal, and afterwards in the home-manage­ ment of the missions of the Free Church of Scotland. While I venture to entertain a humble hope that the present volume may communicate to its readers a considerable portion of information, and may stimulate their interest in the great work of missions, I desire that it may be regarded also as a tribute to the memory of one for whom, during forty years of uninterrupted friendship and constant intercourse, I cherished feelings of tenderest affection, while I shared with the universal church the sentiment of admiration of his gifts and veneration of his graces. I have not thought it necessary to make frequent references to the sources from which I have derived my information. These have been numerous,-English, French, German, Latin, and Greek, - and I have endeavoured to make honest use of them. Without enumerating them, I should state that, next to the general church - historians, Baronius, Schrockh, and N eander, I have been specially indebted to Mr. Maclear (History of Missions in the Middle Ages, London, 18 6 0) both for direct information and for Preface. references to original authorities. Besides making several quotations from his pages, I have occasionally followed his narrative with little alteration. I should also acknowledge my obligations to Ebrard (Die Iro­ Schottische Missionskirche), to Hue (Missions in China, Tartary, and Thibet), and to Germann (Die Kirche der Thomas-Christen). The composition of these lectures has been laborious; but it has been a labour of love, and of ever-growing interPst in the subject. My prayer is that their perusal may be not less productive of interest in, and love to, the cause which they are designed to promote. T. S. EDINBURGH, lst May 1880. M E D I .iE VAL.--- M I SS I 0 N S. LECTURE I. AM somewhat painfully aware that I owe my I appointment to this lectureship, not to an,y special qualifications that I possess for discharging the im­ portant duties devolving on the lecturer, but rather to the very special relation in which l stood for forty years towards the noble man whose name it bears, and the very close friendship which subsisted between us during that long time. The consciousness of this has made me very anxious, both about the choice of a subject, and about the treatment of it. I have been deeply concerned that the object might be in some degree promoted which lay so near the heart of my beloved friend, and to the furtherance of which so large a portion of his life and of his stupendous energies was devoted,-the object of exciting and keeping alive in the hearts of our people an intelligent interest in the spread all over the world of the know­ ledge of the glorious gospel of God's ,grace, and the direction of that interest into practical channels. After much consideration, I came to the conclusion A 2 Media:val Missions. that, with the blessing of God, this object might be in some measure effected by the delivering and subsequent publication, in terms of the deed by which the lecture­ ship has been instituted, of a short course of lectures of a historical or biographical character. It appeared to me that such a course-if not in itself preferable for the end in view to one which should bring forward more prominently and more formally the duty incum..: bent on all Christians, to labour and pray constantly and fervently that the gospel may be accepted by all the tribes of earth-was at all events preferable for me. I was satisfied that, if I attempted the produc­ tion of a course of lectures of the latter character, I should be able to do little more than introduce and repeat such hortatory matter as is familiar to all our people, but which it would require the sanctified genius and burning eloquence of him whose name is associated with the lectureship to render either in­ stru~tive or practically effective. I doubt not that many of my successors will choose such themes ; and such as may be led to do so have my hearty suffrage, by anticipation,-if that have any value,-to the pro­ priety of their choice, which, indeed, I should have made for myself, but for conscious incompetency to handle such a theme in a~y worthy manner. I am still more confident now than I was before the pre­ paration of the lectures .began, that in this matter my judgment was correct, and that a historical subject was LECT. I.] Introductory. 3 better, at all events for me, than any other that I could have attempted to handle. At the same time, I should like to state at the 01~tset that the great object which I have in view is to produce or deepen a conviction on the minds of my hearers of the greatness and grandeur of the mission work, - to show how intimately its prosecution by the church is bound up with the glory of her exalted Head,-how necessarily those whg are negligent of it cut themselves off from sympathy with the heart which beats in the human breast of that Lord who is at the right hand of the Majesty on high, expecting till His enemies be made His footstool. If in this object I fail, my failure is complete. The conclusion being reached, that the subject of the lectures· should be historical, it next became necessary' to select some period or some department of missionary history, to resolve to treat of the missions undertaken by some particular churches or societies, or of the missions conducted in some particular country or countries, or of those carried on, wheresoever and by whomsoever, in some particular period of time. Each of these methods appeared to have advantages and disadvantages peculiar to itself, as compared with the others. I need not detail the considerations which led me, on the whole, to giv~· the preference to the last, and to adopt a chronological, rather than either an ecclesiastical or a geographical division. This second step having been taken, it remained 4 Medi'ceval Missions. to decide upon the particular period whose missions should be reviewed. After no little deliberation I chose the long period which is commonly designated as the Middle Ages, and announced that the subject of the lectures was to be MEDIJEV AL MISSIONS. I was well aware that the subject is far too large to be exhaustively treated within the limits of so short a course of lectures; and I am, if possible, more abun­ dantly aware of this now than I was then. But I have a belief that the object of such a course of lectures as the present-and, indeed, of any course of lectures-should not be the exhaustive treatment of a subject, but rather the exciting of such anjnterest in it as may stimulate to further investigation, and the furnishing of hints and helps for the prosecution of such investigation. I was aware also, and am more abundantly aware now, that to carry out this design in any way not absolutely discreditable, would impose on me an amount of laborious research far greater than what might have sufficed for the adequate treatment of a non-historical theme, or for the adequate presenta­ tion of the missions of some other historical period. But the very fact that such laborious research is necessary, inasmuch as it is due to the circumstance that information regarding this particular period is uot very easily collected, suggested that the labour bestowed upon it would not be bestowed in vain.