THE EARLY CONVERSION OF ISLANDERS, A WISE EXPEDIENT FOR PROPAGATING CHRISTIANITY. A SERMON PREACHED BEFORE THE INCORPORATED SOCIETY FOR THE PROPAGATIONS OF THE GOSPEL IN FOREIGN PARTS; AT THEIR ANNIVERSARY MEETING IN THE PARISH CHURCH OF ST. MARY-LE-BOW; ON FRIDAY THE 19th OF FEB. 17 13-14

London: Joseph Downing, 1714.. 55,[1]pp. plus two folding copper-engraved plans. Early 20th-century blue cloth, leather label. Light soiling. Internally clean, the folding plates fine. Very good. One of a series of sermons preached before the members of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, notable for its remarkable plates of a proposed college in Barbados. George Stanhope, Dean of Canterbury, lays forth the main purpose of the Society: "The very Being and Design of this Society tends to the more perfect Accomplishment of...converting our Traffick and Navigation, into Means of establishing the Christian Faith, among those yet barbarous People, with whom we deal abroad." The Society's missionaries focused their work on North America and the West Indies.

One instrument by which the Society produced "a large Increase of Knowledge in the Natives of those very Countries" was "by settling a College in one of these Plantations, which may nurse up, and send forth, Numbers of able and faithful Ministers to assist in this Blessed Work." The college of which Stanhope speaks is Codrington College in St. James Parish, Barbados. Still in operation today, Codrington College was founded after Christopher Codrington, Barbadian-born British soldier, plantation and slave owner, bibliophile, and colonial governor, bequeathed his estates to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. Construction began on the college the same year as the present publication, but it was not finished until 1745 due to economic depression, droughts, and other difficulties in the area. The most interesting aspect of the present work is the two folding copper- engraved plans showing the proposed floor plan and side views of the Codrington College building. The present-day central building resembles these plans, but the main building's appearance changed when it was gutted by fire in 1926. Still, this work and its illustrations offer valuable insight into church organization and missionary activities in the West Indies in the early 18th century. These illustrations are actually the earliest images of any institution of higher learning in the New World.

The Abstract of the proceedings of the organization follows Stanhope's sermon. It includes much on American missionary activities, including an account of missionary work among the Mohawk and other New York Native Americans. The Abstract also includes "a report on contributions, donations of books to the Library, missionaries in America, the building of churches, and the instruction of Indian and Negro slaves" - Nebenzahl. Scarce. SABIN 90218. ALDEN 714. BEINECKE LESSER ANTILLES COLLECTION 132. ESTC T4313. LATHROP HARPER 136:670. NEBENZAHL 10:181 (this copy).