Not in Vain Sharing What His Eyes had seen

Not in vain had Luther Rice sailed back to his native land to tell the story of what his eyes had seen in the needy countries of the Orient. In May, 1814, a second history-making assembly had been held in the United States similar to the eventful gathering in Bradford in June, 1810.

From Massachusetts to Georgia the Baptist ministers had rallied their forces in conference at Philadelphia and had there organized the second foreign missionary society of America, known originally as the Triennial Convention, later as the American Baptist Foreign Missionary Society.

The new mission board not only guaranteed support for Mr. and Mrs. Judson, but held out the hope that some glad day other missionaries would be sent to labor beside them. Perhaps in some wonderful future the Baptist denomination of America might accept from the hands of its pioneer missionaries the whole country of Burma to develop for the great King, just as formerly the governments of Europe received from the claims of their pioneer discoverers whole territories in North America to develop for the sovereigns at whose will they had gone across the Atlantic.

Ethel Daniel Hubbard, Ann of Ava (Roger Williams Heritage Archives, 1913), 101–102.