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'''Joseph Mullens''' (2 September 1820 – 10 July 1879) worked with the [[London Missionary Society]] (LMS) in India.<ref name="odnb">{{cite ODNB|id=19512|title=Mullens, Joseph (1820–1879)}}</ref><br />
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== Life ==<br />
Joseph Mullens, son of Richard Mullens, was born on 2 September 1820 in London. He studied at [[Coward College]], a [[dissenting academies|dissenting academy]] that trained people for [[Nonconformist (Protestantism)|nonconformist]] ministry, in 1837 and graduated from the [[University of London]], to which the college was affiliated, in 1841. He then undertook further study in [[Edinburgh]] with the intention of working for the LMS in India.<ref name="odnb"/><br />
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Mullens was ordained at [[Barbican Chapel]] as a [[Congregational church|Congregational]] minister in September 1843 and soon after sailed for India. He shared the journey with a Swiss missionary, [[Alphonse François Lacroix]], who was returning to [[Kolkata|Calcutta]] after taking leave, and joined Lacroix's mission at [[Bhowanipore|Bhawanipur]], near Calcutta. On 19 June 1845, Mullens married [[Hana Catherine Mullens|Hannah Catherine]], an evangelist daughter of Lacroix who spoke fluent [[Bengali language|Bengali]]. In the following year, Mullens became pastor at the church in Bhawanipur.<ref name="odnb"/><br />
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Probably a more gifted publicist than he was a missionary, Mullens did not restrict himself to promoting the interests and achievements of the LMS but rather did so for Protestant missionaries in general. This ecumenism was later evidenced in 1860 when he attended a conference of Protestant missionaries in Liverpool and pleaded with those present to set aside their doctrinal differences for the greater good of serving the cause of Christianity in India. His efforts in producing statistics relating to work done in India were significant to the fundraising abilities of missionary societies in Britain.<ref name="odnb"/><br />
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Mullens was secretary at that 1860 conference, having returned to England on leave in 1858 and previously been a significant figure in the similar conferences in India that began in 1855. He returned to India not long after his attendance at Liverpool and his wife, Hannah, died there on 21 November 1861. It was in that year that he was awarded an honorary degree of DD by [[Williams College, Massachusetts]].<ref name="odnb"/><br />
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Fropm 1865, Mullens was joint foreign secretary of the LMS. He undertook a tour of the society's missions in India and China during that year and the next, and in 1868, having been awarded a further honorary DD, this time from [[Edinburgh University]], he became the sole foreign secretary of the LMS. A tour of the United States and Canada followed in 1870 as he sought further to promote the activities of his society, then in 1873 he made a tour of LMS missionaries based in Madagascar.<ref name="odnb"/><br />
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Mullens' last significant trip was in 1879, when he began travelling to [[Lake Tanganyika]] with two inexperienced missionaries who were to replace the deceased incumbent there. He caught a cold and died on 10 July at [[Chakombe]], being buried at a mission run by the [[Church Missionary Society]] at [[Mpwapwa]] two days later.<ref name="odnb"/><br />
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== Publications ==<br />
Mullens studied Hinduism so that he was in a better position to counter the arguments of Indian people. From these studies, he was able to write works such as ''Vedantism, Brahmism and Christianity Examined and Compared'' (1852) and ''The Religious Aspects of Hindu Philosophy'' (1860), which enabled other missionaries to benefit from his learning.<ref name="odnb"/><br />
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Together with his wife, he prepared ''Brief Memorials of the Revd A. F. Lacroix'', which was published in 1862 after her death. He also wrote ''Twelve Months in Madagascar'', published in 1875 and based on his 1873 tour to that country.<ref name="odnb"/><br />
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== References ==<br />
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[[Category:1820 births]]<br />
[[Category:1879 deaths]]<br />
[[Category:Alumni of the University of London]]<br />
[[Category:19th-century Congregationalist ministers]]<br />
[[Category:English Congregationalist missionaries]]<br />
[[Category:Clergy from London]]<br />
[[Category:English religious writers]]<br />
[[Category:Congregationalist missionaries in India]]</div>74.62.185.8