China Mission, Baptist Missionary Society

China Mission, Baptist Missionary Society – Enthusiasm for missionary activity in China ballooned after the Treaty of Nanking in August 1842. Now that foreigners could reside in five “treaty ports” in China, the call went out among the various missionary societies to send missionaries. The General Baptist Missionary Society decided to establish a mission in China in March 1843. The BMS, however, was slow to enter the enterprise, given the state of its indebtedness from its other missionary ventures. It was not until 1859 that the BMS, urged by Edward Steane, then secretary of the Baptist Union, resolved to open a China mission, led by Charles Hall and Hendrik Kloekers. See Brian Stanley, The History of the Baptist Missionary Society 1792–1992 (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1992), 175-178.