Visit to the Plantations

Visit to the Plantations "Whereas We are credibly Informed, That in many of Our Plantations, Colonies and Factories beyond the Seas, belonging to Our Kingdom of England, the Provision for Ministers is very mean, and many others of Our Said Plantations, Colonies and Factories are wholly Destitute and Unprovided of a Maintenance for Ministers, and the Public Worship of God; and for lack of Support and Maintenance for such, many of our Loving Subjects do want the Administration of God's Word and Sacraments, and seem to be abandoned to Atheism and Infidelity . . ."

In such royal, rolling phrases, King William III gave his gracious assent to the founding in 1701 of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, the Church of England's oldest missionary organization. The plantations, colonies and factories mentioned were largely the King's American colonies, which until the Revolution were the S.P.G.'s principal mission field. Besides standard ecclesiastical works, e.g., Patrick Smith's Preservative against Quakerism and The Faith and Practice of a Church of England Man, missionaries carried with them local helps such as Bishop Wilson's Essay Towards the Instruction of the Indians.

Last week, Anglican Bishop Noel Baring Hudson of Newcastle arrived in Manhattan to see how the plantations, colonies and factories beyond the seas were doing for themselves. With him, in commemoration of the S.P.G.'s 250th anniversary, he carried a copy of the society's original charter. In a tour of ten Episcopal dioceses, Bishop Hudson will bring greetings from the S.P.G. to the Protestant Episcopal Church of the U.S., which during World War II contributed $553,000 to Church of England missions.

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