First Sentence

"IT is proper that I enter upon my subject by showing, in the first place, how the unevangelized world has of late been providentially opened to Christian missions; secondly, how Christendom, meanwhile, has been in a process of unconscious preparation for evangelizing it; and, thirdly, the consequent development, in the Evangelical Church, of a missionary spirit, and of missionary organizations, with the avowed expectation and purpose - for the first time since the apostolic age - of laboring for the conversion of the whole heathen world."