Luther Rice is as synonymous with modern Baptist missions as William Carey and Adoniram Judson, but Rice more of a missionary for missions than an actual foreign or home missionary. He was a man obsessed with the need of missionaries to preach the gospel to the heathen, and as a representative of that need he cris-crossed America preaching from Baptist pulpits, raising awareness and raising moneys. Primarily through his effort, from 1813 to 1832 seventy-two missionaries began serving the Lord overseas, and three years later the number had grown to one hundred twelve.
I am not sure when the following letter was written, but it gives a summary of Brother Rice’s work.
“Since the date of my letter of the 19th of June, 1816, I have travelled 6,000 miles–in populous and in dreary portions of country–through wildernesses and over rivers–across mountains and valleys–in heat and cold-by day and by night–in weariness, and painfulness, and fastings, and loneliness; but not a moment has been lost for want of health; no painful calamity has fallen to my lot; no peril has closed upon me; nor has fear been permitted to prey on my spirits; nor ever inquietude to disturb my peace. Indeed, constantly has the favorable countenance of society towards the great object of the mission animated my hopes, while thousands of condescending personal attentions and benefits to myself and the cause, have awakened emotions, which it is alike impossible to conceal, or to find terms sufficiently delicate and expressive to declare; and the fact, that although so large a portion of the whole time has been unavoidably taken up in passing from place to place, I have, besides many other aids and liberalities, received for the missionary project, in cash and subscriptions, more than $4,000, which could not fail to created a confidence of success in the general concern, which nothing but a reverse, most unlikely to occur, can possibly destroy.”