Chapter XXVIII: Appendix: (page 254)

In the month of September, 1794, a paper was published in the _Evangelical Magazine_, urging the formation of a mission to the heathen on the broadest possible basis. The writer of that paper was the Rev. David Bogue, D.D., of Gosport, Hampshire, and two months after its appearance a conference, attended by representatives from several Evangelical bodies, was held to take action in the matter. The result was an address to ministers and members of various churches, and the appointment of a committee to diffuse information upon the subject. Thereafter, and in September, 1795, a large and influential meeting, extending over three days, at which the Rev. Dr. Harris preached from Mark xv: 16, and the Rev. J. Burder and the Rev. Rowland Hill and many others took part. At that meeting the society was formed, and it was resolved, with reference to its agents and their converts, “That it should be entirely left with those whom God might call into the fellowship of His Son among them, to assume for themselves such a form of church government as to them shall appear most agreeable to the Word of God.”

The Rev. David Bogue, D.D., has therefore well been styled “the father and founder” of the institution.

--------------