76 RELIGION, COLONISING AND TRADE
This had been beyond question the rule, though exceptions’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 missionaty
 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.