Ceylon was an island of bounty: coconuts, coffee, tea, rubber and sugar; tropical beaches, forest and highlands – it was the conquest prize of successive colonial powers, an important trade route and host to plantation industries of inequality.
This was a land that William Carey, BMS’ founder, longed to include in his mission vision.
In less than ten years after the founding of BMS, the mission work was expanding out of
India. Dutch rule in Ceylon had ended in 1796 and the British East India Company was gaining control. The first BMS missionaries to land on the shores of Ceylon (now the country of Sri Lanka) were James and Ann Chater in 1812. Located in the capital, Colombo, their aim was to establish a school and a thriving gospel church.
A valley of dry bones
Despite the great intentions and optimism of Chater, his church congregation was slow to increase beyond his own family. In 1813 Chater wrote,
Sinhalese women
"Our congregation is at present but small; but I entertain the most sanguine hopes that I shall live to see the day when our place of worship, which would contain about 200 hearers, will need much enlargement. At present Columbo is indeed a valley of dry bones; but unpromising as appearances now are, it is my prayer, my hope, my expectation, that a church will be formed in it, that will be a nursery for missionaries, who may go forth and preach, ‘Christ crucified’, not to Cingalese only, but to Candians also.
[Note: ‘Columbo’ refers to the Ceylon capital Colombo. ‘Cingalese’ (or Sinhalese) and ‘Candians’ were people groups in Ceylon.]
The following year it seemed that his hopes were beginning to see fulfilment: in 1814 a Mr Sierce was baptised and joined Chater in his mission work.
But the work was hard going: the local population seemed unresponsive to the gospel; recent colonial presence had forced many to think of Christianity solely as a social necessity; and many were reverting back to Buddhism. After 17 years, Chater returned to England, but tragically, like his wife seven years earlier, he died on the journey home.
Chater on a Sri Lankan stamp
A nursery for missionaries?
Following Chater was a series of BMS missionaries who were able to greatly expand the work of the schools, church planting and also the production of Christian literature in the local Sinhalese language.
Ebenezer Daniel (1830-44)
Daniel had been a student in Bristol with Chater before going on to pastor a church in Luton for 18 years. Hearing of Chater’s death, Daniel was challenged and inspired to continue the work in Ceylon. He and his wife and three daughters arrived in Ceylon in 1830 and set to work, reviving the village schools and starting a programme of regular evangelistic preaching in 107 villages around Colombo. After five years in Ceylon, Daniel’s wife left for England but, again, she tragically died on the journey home. Daniel continued the work in Ceylon, and by 1838 there were six churches with a combined membership of 135, and 17 schools with about 450 pupils.
Joseph Harris (1835-43) and CC Dawson (1841-50)
Harris started the work to reach people in the ancient capital of Kandy. Dawson joined Harris in Kandy to establish a printing press to produce Sinhalese tracts and school books.
Charles Carter (1853-81, 1888-91)
Carter was “a missionary of equal calibre to Daniel” (Stanley). He served in Kandy and produced Sinhalese translations of the Bible. Bishop Copleston of Colombo described Carter as ‘about the best Sinhalese scholar who has ever arisen from among European missionaries’: by 1862 he had completed a translation of the New Testament, and 14 years later he also finished the Old Testament translation. His Sinhalese Bible went on to completely replace the previous 1823 version.
Girls Boarding School, 1880
By the end of the 19th century, new mission stations had been pioneered, church membership had risen and hundreds of children, many from Buddhist families, were being taught in Baptist schools.
However, the mission work was to experience new set-backs: the BMS financial situation led to a reduction in the number of mission personnel; and in the 1880s Buddhism began to develop an active opposition to Christianity.
Baptist churches could not find pastors; there were few evangelists and fewer trained teachers; and Buddhist parents were beginning to withdraw their children from religious classes in the Christian schools.
Steps were taken at the beginning of the 20th century to increase BMS mission activity, but with the creation of national Baptist organisations BMS work changed focus and, since its formation in 1958, BMS has worked through the Sri Lanka Baptist Sangamaya (Union).
Buddha
Between 1812 and 1999 BMS sent over 100 missionaries to Ceylon/Sri Lanka. Although the cut-backs must have seemed to throw mission plans into turmoil at the time, in retrospect one BMS mission worker described it as
‘a blessing in disguise’: Chater’s prayer for missionaries to arise from within the national church was being answered!