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The pioneering English missionary William Carey had a dream: that in 1810 a World Missionary Conference would be held in which Christians would come together in unity around the common purpose of world evangelization.Exactly 100 years later, that dream became a reality. In 1910, an unprecedented gathering of 1200 representatives from missionary societies all over the world met in Edinburgh for the purpose of discussion, cooperation, and mobilization.The chairman of the conference, John R. Mott, had inspired the Student Volunteer Movement with the slogan, "The Evangelization of the World in This Generation. For those in Edinburgh, it almost seemed possible."

The 1910 World Missionary Conference was called to order on the evening of June 13 at the Assembly Hall of the United Free Church of Scotland, in the shadow of Edinburgh's famous castle. After an opening prayer, the president of the conference, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, read greetings from the Imperial German Colonial Office, from former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, and from King George V of England,the upright sovereign who only a month before had succeeded his dissolute father Edward VII to the British throne. After the last greeting, the delegates arose spontaneously to sing "God Save the King."

During the speeches that followed, Lord Burleigh voiced the hope that "a unity begun in the mission field may extend its influence, and react upon us at home and throughout the old civilizations." The archbishop of Canterbury expressed the opinion that some at that meeting "might not taste death till they see the Kingdom of God come with power." And the American missionary statesman Robert E. Speer challenged the delegates to remember that no one can follow Christ "without following Him to the uttermost parts of the earth" and urged them to believe that "living faith will make it possible for Him [Christ] to use us for the immediate conquest of the world."

For the next ten days, dramatic speeches were interspersed with wide-ranging debate. The conference took up eight separate subjects: the transport of the gospel to the whole non-Christian world, the church in the mission field, the place of education in national Christian life, the message of Christian missions in relation to non-Christian faiths, the preparation of missionaries, the home base of missions, missions and governments, and the promotion of Christian unity. For each new theme there was a full volume of published reports, drawing liberally from over 1000 extensive questionnaires that had been returned by missionaries.

Distinguished British, American, and European missionaries from around the globe led the discussions, which were often enlivened by recitations of missionary experience itself. The conference ended with the shared conviction that the gathering was too important simply to let slip away.

Discussions begun at Edinburgh in 1910 did in fact continue. Eventually they led to the establishment of the International Missionary Conference, and less directly to two organizations that eventually merged in 1948 to create the World Council of Churches. The missionary conference in Edinburgh was, therefore, the beginning of the 20th- century ecumenical movement.

It also represented the high tide of Western missionary expansion, which had gathered strength throughout the 19th century. In that century—when first Britain filled a vacuum of worldwide leadership and then the United States emerged as a great economic power and shaper of civilization—the proportion of the world's population associated with Christian churches increased more rapidly than at any time since the fourth century. Where less than a quarter of the world could be identified as Christian in 1800, almost 35 percent could be so numbered at the time of the Edinburgh Conference.

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