The fundamental problem that every religious conversion process grapples with – at all times and in all areas – is that of finding a linguistic medium, as a suitable means of facilitating an easy communication with pagans. Undoubtedly, to overcome this otherwise almost insuperable language barrier, the use of native tongues seems to be crucial.

In contrast to his fellow-countryman Boniface, Willibrord did not leave any correspondence or other writings. As a matter of fact, the only thing known to us is a small private note, consisting of a few lines. This note was written when he was seventy years old and is part of the liturgical calendar which he carried with him on his missionary travels. Here Willibrord, speaking about himself in the third person, mentions two events from his eventful life: first, that he came across the sea to the Frankish Kingdom in 690, secondly, that he was consecrated bishop by Pope Sergius in Rome five years later. These are the only things he says about himself.

The northernmost region of North Sulawesi, Minahasa, is one of the most Christian provinces of Eastern Indonesia. About ninety per cent of its total population of approximately one million is Protestant. The upland province capital of Tomohon and the city of Manado – the capital of North Sulawesi – are important centres for Christian education. On Sundays, the sound of bells of the white cathedral-style churches can be heard in almost every Minahasan town. Travellers who venture out to the beach villages on the Sangihe-Talaud islands north of Manado experience the same Protestant features of this part of the eastern archipelago.

The British phase of Hong Kong’s history started when Hong Kong was ceded to Britain on 20 January 1841. The negotiations were carried out by Captain Charles Elliott for the British and the commissioner Ch’i-shan for the Chinese. A small British contingent landed at what came to be known as Possession Point on the northwest of Hong Kong island on 25 January and drank the health of Queen Victoria; on the following day they signalled the taking of possession by hoisting the union flag. Hong Kong had been suggested as a possible British acquisition only on 11 January, when other more acceptable islands, such as Chusan off the northern coast, had been vetoed by the Chinese. Hong Kong was mainly known to sea captains as it had been used as a rendezvous for opium ships for a number of years, but most other people in the area had very little idea about its appearance, population, or potential as a colony.

Reflecting trends in international scholarship, recent explanations of the rise of Dutch missionary activity and thought in the period around 1800 tend to draw on a revised image of the Dutch eighteenth century as a period of Enlightenment. This revised image is based on the twofold claim that there was an Enlightenment in the Netherlands and that this Enlightenment was Christian or Protestant in character. At the turn of the eighteenth century, it is maintained, the strong influence of revivalism and pietism led to widespread missionary fervour, and this newly-found enthusiasm was able to bear fruit because it was spread through the private societies and social activism developed during, and characteristic of, the Dutch Enlightenment. Thus in recent accounts the positive connotations of the Enlightenment and the emancipatory significance of the new missionary enterprises have been strongly emphasised.

In the early years of the modern missionary movement there were many influences which turned minds towards support for the general principle and practice of reliance on ‘native agency’. Strategies of conversion such as those of the London Missionary Society and the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions at work in the Pacific, which aimed at kings or other influential local leaders, at least implicitly allotted important roles to the leadership and example of highly-placed converts. Awareness of the scale of the missionary task in densely-populated regions, contrasted with the limits of the western missionary input, pointed to the need for delegation as quickly as possible. The Serampore missionaries, Alexander Duff and Charles Gutzlaff, all travelled early down that road. Financial crisis – manifested either locally as Dr John Philip found in South Africa, or centrally as when the Church Missionary Society decided in the early 1840s to withdraw from the West Indies - prompted inevitable questions about the possibilities for deployment of local agents, who were far cheaper than Europeans.

Introduction

In Palestine, Syria, the provinces of Asia Minor, Armenia, Georgia, and Persia, though Mohammedan countries, there are many thousands of Jews, and many thousands of Christians, at least in name. But the whole mingled population is in a state of deplorable ignorance and degradation, – destitute of the means of divine knowledge, and bewildered with vain imaginations and strong delusions.

Introduction

In 1866, the Dutch missionary Jan Nannes Wiersma decided it was necessary to teach the Muslim heads in the place where he was working about the life of the prophet Muhammad - rather a peculiar thing for a messenger of Christianity to do. The Board of the Nederlandsch Zendelinggenootschap [Dutch Missionary Society; DMS], who had sent him, therefore reprimanded him. Wiersma, however, defended himself by stating that if the chiefs knew more about what Islam really was, they would have reached a higher level of intellectual development, and they would be closer to conversion to Christianity. This opinion was not uncommon among adherents of the so called Modern Theology or Modernism.

As I look back upon life it seems one glorious adventure. From early boyhood days of camping in what we loved to think of as the ‘wild West’, to shooting elephant and tiger in the jungles of my own mission station in India, and on into that bigger and greater hunt for men, life has seemed one long adventure.

As a reslut of forced Christianization, the motherland threatens to alienate the indigenous population of our colonies from herself.’ With this slogan a combination of left-wing political parties entered the elections for the Dutch Parliament in June 1913. This combination won the elections and in the end it was the liberal Cort van der Linden who was commissioned to form a government. The then governor-general of what was called the Dutch East Indies, the Christian statesman A. W. F. Idenburg (1861-1935), consequently considered relinquishing his post, now that a government would be formed of a political colour different from his own. On the advice of the leader of his party, the Dutch politician, journalist, and church leader Abraham Kuyper, however, he decided that his decision to stay or to resign would depend on the possibilities of co-operation with the new minister of colonial affairs. But he had no illusions about the opinion of the European press in Indonesia. ‘Against me,’ he wrote in a letter to the outgoing minister of colonial affairs, J. H. de Waal Malefijt (1852-1931), a fellow party member, ‘a devilish howling has burst out in some of the papers. They all agree that I must go.’

In 1835 the missionaries of the London Missionary Society (LMS) were ordered by the Merina government in Antananarivo to leave Madagascar, only twenty-seven years after their mission had been established. In 1837 the first Malagasy Christian was killed because of her faith. The era of persecution against the internationally isolated Malagasy Christian community began in 1835 and continued sporadically until 1861 with the death of Queen Ranavalona I, whose reign had seen the introduction of anti-Christian legislation. Estimates of the number of Christians who died as a result of refusing to denounce their faith vary between 50 and 200. The numbers who died indirectly due to suffering imprisonment, a poison ordeal, or exile are estimated at between 1,500 and 3,000. However the church which emerged from the era of suppression was said to have been numerically between four and ten times stronger than in 1835, with between three and twelve thousand members and adherents. European missions returned in 1862. From the beginning, the martyr story proved to be a popular subject for missionary publications.

The importance of women’s contribution to foreign missionary work has now been well established, with a range of studies, particularly from Canada, America, and Britain, exploring the topic from both religious and feminist perspectives. The role of Irishwomen, however, has neither been researched in any depth nor recorded outside denominational histories in which they are discussed, if at all, only marginally, and only in relation to their supportive contribution to the wider mission of the Church. The motivations, aspirations, experiences, and achievements of the hundreds of women who left Ireland to do God’s work in India, China, Africa, or Egypt are yet to be explored. My intention in this paper is to discuss their work and the ways in which they have been represented in the context of socio-economic developments in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Ireland, to determine how the interaction of class, gender, and religion helped shape their missionary endeavours.

Palembang, 17 April 2603. I am here together with sister Catherinia, sister Timothée, sister Paulie, sister Rumolda and sister Theresetta. The others live in the camp of Bengkoelen. We are all happy and healthy. There is plenty of work. We help the women and the children. Life is always beautiful and worthwhile, but especially the present time is praiseworthy. There are so many causes for gratitude, if one manages to keep considering things in a transcendental way. We have no information about the sisters on Java. Yours sincerely, Sister Laurentia, women’s camp, Palembang.

In May 1955, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey Fisher, visited Fort Hall in Kenya’s Kikuyu native reserve. The colonial government had declared a state of emergency nearly three years before in response to a secret and violent Kikuyu anti-colonial movement which it knew as Mau Mau. In the ensuing guerrilla war several thousand were killed, almost all of them Africans, and some eighty thousand Kikuyu were held in detention camps.