He was born in Jaffna, Sri Lanka to American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions missionary parents: Rev.
Marshall Danworth Sanders (1822-1872), the first president of Jaffna College and his first wife Georgiana Knight (d. 1868), daughter of Rev.
Two of his brothers were also ABCFM missionaries: William Henry Sanders (1856-1947) Benguella in Angola and Charles Sylvester (1854-1906) in Anitab, Turkey.
[citation needed] In 1905 he resigned the deanship and became the secretary of the Congregational Sunday School and Publishing Society at Boston, Mass.
[citation needed] In 1914 he resigned the presidency and became Director of Missionary Preparation for the Foreign Missions Conference of North America until 1927 when he retired.