76 RELIGION, COLONISING AND TRADE 
This had been beyond question the rule, though excep- 
tions’have been noted in the foregoing pages, and from 
the earlier part of the eighteenth century onwards the 
Motavians in particular gave a noble illustration of 
Protestant enthusiasm and capacity for missionary 
work. But before the century ended Protestant mis- 
sionaty societies began to multiply abundantly in 
Great Britain—the Baptist Missionary Society, the 
London Missionary Society, the Scottish Missionary 
Society, the Church Missionary Society, the Religious 
Tract Society, all between 1792 and 1800, and in 1804 
the British and Foreign Bible Society. These societies 
and others following went zealously to work. It 
seemed as though some pent up religious force had at 
long last been set free in England and Scotland, which 
was to carry the Gospel message to all the dark men 
and into all the dark places of the world.