The Commission (19th Century)

“The Board of Foreign Missions of the Southern Baptist Convention, have become convinced from experience, that the issue of a small monthly sheet is demanded.” (Vol. 1, No. 1)

The Commission (TC) was the FMB/IMB’s longest-running periodical, published with interruptions from 1849 to 1861 and then for an unbroken period of 70 years beginning in 1938.  In its first incarnation, it was a 4-page broadsheet newspaper containing “general business” of the FMB and its relations with state and associational conventions, in addition to communications from missionaries and digests of poetry and geographical information on China and Africa.  From 1856-1861 it expanded into a longer journal format and occasionally styled itself the "Southern Baptist Missionary Magazine."  Its publication was halted by the Civil War.  In 1938 it relaunched as a magazine and ran until 2008.

The primary editors from 1849-1861 were FMB Corresponding Secretary James B. Taylor and co-Secretary Abram M. Poindexter, along with James L. Reynolds, Henry K. Ellyson, Edward Kingsford, and Basil Manly, Jr. 

For the 20th-century magazine, see The Commission.