1868 WILLIAM TAYLOR. The Election of Grace. Methodist Work, Inscribed by Taylor.

A rather rare work by pioneering Methodist missionary and missiologist, William Taylor [1821-1902]. Converted in 1841 at a Methodist Episcopal camp meeting, he was then appointed a Methodist missionary to California (1849), where he ministered without salary to Native Americans and Chinese immigrants, and to the sick and the poor. His Seaman’s Bethel mission complex in San Francisco burned down in 1856, forcing him to preach and write to repay loans. The first of seventeen books, Seven Years’ Street Preaching in San Francisco (1856), sold over 20,000 copies during its first year. Taylor’s experiences as an entrepreneurial missionary on the frontier became paradigmatic for the concepts he later called “Pauline missions.” Seeking to raise funds, Taylor visited Australia and New Zealand (1863-1866) and then South Africa (March to October 1866) where his evangelistic campaigns among the black African population were revolutionary. In South India from 1870 to 1875, he ignored mission comity