Origin and Growth

The Rev. H. Venn will be known in any future records of the Church of England as the man who was the great agent in developing missions, directed specially to the heathen, and above all, evangelical missions in connection with the National Church; and who made them a force in England and the world. The product of any man's life is the union of two factors—the occasion and the man. If the occasion has not come, the man will drift into some other work. If there is not the man for the occasion, the opportunity will be lost for want of some one to rise and seize it. It is strange to see that though the Christian Church of the Reformation freely recognised the duty of preaching the Gospel to every creature—as the Collects for Good Friday in the Salisbury Missal had recognised it before—it was hardly attempted, except by such measures—for example, the coercion of the Cingalese by the Dutch—as few would now venture to defend. Dr. Watts's Hymns are still the strains that stir us most to missionary effort, and coming from a poet's heart, though he was singularly careless of his literary reputation, probably long will be. But they did not stir his contemporary Nonconformists into action, though his verses for children were most likely moulding the coming generation.