MILLS, SAMUEL
(21 April 1783, Torringford, CT-16 June 1818, at sea on a voyage from Liberia to the United States). Education: B.A., Williams College, 1809; B.D., Andover Seminary, 1812. Career: Agent for the Connecticut and Massachusetts Home Missionary Societies, 1812-12; 1814- 15; agent for the American Colonization Society, 1817-18.
Samuel Mills has been called "the father of foreign missionary work" in the United States. The statement may seem an exaggeration since Mills never served overseas himself as a missionary. But he was the chief instigator of the movement in New England that would eventually propel many ministers into foreign missions.
Mills had intended to become a farmer, but his life was changed by a revival meeting in 1798. For two years he was left with a profound sense of personal sinfulness, fearing that he would be damned to hell. Finally in 1801 his mother persuaded him to take joy in the glory of God, rather than be obsessed with his own limitations. Doing so, he felt at peace, and like so many Puritans before him, he later recognized that process of rejection and acceptance as a conversion experience.
Interested now in the ministry, Mills went to Williams, where he led a student revival in 1806. He was the leader of a group of pious students who were meeting one day when a rainstorm forced them to take shelter in a haystack. There they continued their meeting and determined to devote their lives to missionary work. The event was afterwards known as the haystack meeting. After graduation Mills went to Yale for a short time, where in 1809 he met a Hawaiian, Henry Obookiah*. Discouraged by the atmosphere at Yale, Mills went to Andover, taking Obookiah with him. Several of his friends from Williams joined him there, and they continued their discussion of mission work. Obookiah experienced a conversion while at Andover, lending further encouragement to the young men's aspirations.
In 1810 Mills joined with Adoniram Judson* and two other students to petition the Massachusetts General Conference to create a missionary society. The Conference responded by creating the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, soon to be an important agency in the missionary movement. Mills might have joined Judson on the first mission, but poor health kept him in the United States. He did however make two extensive missionary trips in the United States, going as far as Georgia and Louisiana, preaching and distributing Bibles.
Mills was not a notable preacher, but he was remarkable for his administrative ability and his dedication to the church. He is credited with being the chief founder of four institutions, including the American Bible Society and the United Foreign Missionary Society, as well as the American Board. Mills was particularly interested in the forgotten peoples of America and the world. He distributed Bibles in French to the Cajuns of Louisiana, showed an interest in the urban poor, helped create a school for black preachers, and worked on creating a region in Africa for American blacks who wanted to colonize.
He was noted for his open-mindedness in denominational matters, working with Baptists, Methodists, Moravians, and Quakers, in his religious enterprises. A friend recalled that "He could preach to a little group of slaves, and commend their rude psalmody, or he could suffer himself to be invested with a gown, as a military chaplain, to read the Church prayers at a pompous funeral." He crossed the Mississippi shortly after the Battle of New Orleans and distributed Bibles to wounded British soldiers. When Adoniram Judson* converted to the Baptist faith on the eve of his mission to Asia, to the dismay of most Congregationalists, Mills pointed out that like the divisions between Paul and Barnabas, the conversion could be the means of establishing two missions instead of one.
In 1817-18 Samuel Mills visited Africa under the auspices of the American Colonization Society in order to purchase land in a region that became Liberia. He died of a fever on the return voyage.
Bibliography
A: With Daniel Smith, A Correct View of That Part of the United States Which Lies West of the Allegheny Mountains, with Regard to Religion and Morals (Hartford, Conn., 1814); with John F. Schermerhorn, Report of a Missionary Tour through That Part of the United States Which Lies West of the Allegheny Mountains (Andover, 1815).
B: AAP 2, 566-72; DAB 13, 15-16; DARB, 312-13; NCAB 13, 187; NCE 9, 856; SH 7, 380; Gardiner Spring, Memoirs of the Rev. Samuel J. Mills (New York, 1820); Thomas C. Richards, Samuel J. Mills (Boston, 1906).
Samuel Mills has been called "the father of foreign missionary work" in the United States. The statement may seem an exaggeration since Mills never served overseas himself as a missionary. But he was the chief instigator of the movement in New England that would eventually propel many ministers into foreign missions.
Mills had intended to become a farmer, but his life was changed by a revival meeting in 1798. For two years he was left with a profound sense of personal sinfulness, fearing that he would be damned to hell. Finally in 1801 his mother persuaded him to take joy in the glory of God, rather than be obsessed with his own limitations. Doing so, he felt at peace, and like so many Puritans before him, he later recognized that process of rejection and acceptance as a conversion experience.
Interested now in the ministry, Mills went to Williams, where he led a student revival in 1806. He was the leader of a group of pious students who were meeting one day when a rainstorm forced them to take shelter in a haystack. There they continued their meeting and determined to devote their lives to missionary work. The event was afterwards known as the haystack meeting. After graduation Mills went to Yale for a short time, where in 1809 he met a Hawaiian, Henry Obookiah*. Discouraged by the atmosphere at Yale, Mills went to Andover, taking Obookiah with him. Several of his friends from Williams joined him there, and they continued their discussion of mission work. Obookiah experienced a conversion while at Andover, lending further encouragement to the young men's aspirations.
In 1810 Mills joined with Adoniram Judson* and two other students to petition the Massachusetts General Conference to create a missionary society. The Conference responded by creating the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, soon to be an important agency in the missionary movement. Mills might have joined Judson on the first mission, but poor health kept him in the United States. He did however make two extensive missionary trips in the United States, going as far as Georgia and Louisiana, preaching and distributing Bibles.
Mills was not a notable preacher, but he was remarkable for his administrative ability and his dedication to the church. He is credited with being the chief founder of four institutions, including the American Bible Society and the United Foreign Missionary Society, as well as the American Board. Mills was particularly interested in the forgotten peoples of America and the world. He distributed Bibles in French to the Cajuns of Louisiana, showed an interest in the urban poor, helped create a school for black preachers, and worked on creating a region in Africa for American blacks who wanted to colonize.
He was noted for his open-mindedness in denominational matters, working with Baptists, Methodists, Moravians, and Quakers, in his religious enterprises. A friend recalled that "He could preach to a little group of slaves, and commend their rude psalmody, or he could suffer himself to be invested with a gown, as a military chaplain, to read the Church prayers at a pompous funeral." He crossed the Mississippi shortly after the Battle of New Orleans and distributed Bibles to wounded British soldiers. When Adoniram Judson* converted to the Baptist faith on the eve of his mission to Asia, to the dismay of most Congregationalists, Mills pointed out that like the divisions between Paul and Barnabas, the conversion could be the means of establishing two missions instead of one.
In 1817-18 Samuel Mills visited Africa under the auspices of the American Colonization Society in order to purchase land in a region that became Liberia. He died of a fever on the return voyage.
Bibliography
A: With Daniel Smith, A Correct View of That Part of the United States Which Lies West of the Allegheny Mountains, with Regard to Religion and Morals (Hartford, Conn., 1814); with John F. Schermerhorn, Report of a Missionary Tour through That Part of the United States Which Lies West of the Allegheny Mountains (Andover, 1815).
B: AAP 2, 566-72; DAB 13, 15-16; DARB, 312-13; NCAB 13, 187; NCE 9, 856; SH 7, 380; Gardiner Spring, Memoirs of the Rev. Samuel J. Mills (New York, 1820); Thomas C. Richards, Samuel J. Mills (Boston, 1906).
