Rate of Progress

And not only is the progress made within the last fifty years considerable; one of the most encouraging features of the work is the steady and increasingly rapid rate of progress. At a Missionary Conference, held in London in March, 1884, Mr. Donald Matheson mentioned the following important facts: — In 1853 there were 350 native converts in China ,, 1863 2,000 ,, 1873 ,, ,, 8,000 „ 1883 „ ,, 22,000 ,,

It is thus unmistakably proved that the Chinese, who so much need the gospel, are amenable to its vivifying and sanctifying influences; making the call all the more imperative to carry this blessed gospel into every corner of that vast land. Grateful we should be, grateful we are, to Almighty God for the triumphs of the cross already won in China; but we must not forget that the work is only begun, and veiy feebly begun, as yet. Much remains to be done before God’s name is generally hallowed in China. Much, very much more must be accomplished before our Saviour’s command to preach the gospel to every creature is fulfilled there. If we wish to ascertain how far this command is being carried out, let us look a little more minutely at the present state and condition of this great empire; and darkness, thick darkness, will still be found to cover much of the land.

We will commence our survey with those provinces of China Proper in which “missionary effort has been longest put forth. In considering the adequacy of the present staff of missionaries to the work before them, it is necessary, for argument’s sake, to suppose them to occupy a definite sphere of labour. Their work is largely evangelistic, and not merely pastoral, and as many of them are assisted by a larger or smaller staff of native helpers, so their sphere may be supposed to be an extensive one. Lest we should be thought to underrate it, we will allow to each labourer 100,000 Chinese — men, women, and children — as his circle of influence; and this without considering the proportion of missionaries who, having newly arrived, have not yet acquired the language, or who from sickness, age, or infirmity, are able to accomplish less than when in their full vigour. To enable

Sphere of one Missionary.

the reader to realise the number of persons we suppose each missionary to reach, the following statistics are given as a standard of comparison. On this assumption, speaking in round numbers —

Bradford, containing 183,032 inhabitants, would have 2 men

,, I man

,, 2 men

3
5
4
2
2
Brighton

Bristol

Leeds

Liverpool

Manchester

Newcastle

Nottingham

Sheffield

Edinburgh

Glasgow

Such a comparison will make it sufficiently obvious that no missionary, even with the help of his native brethren, could adequately evangelize 100,000 individuals. A recent article in ‘■^The Regions Beyond’’’’ has so strikingly shewn the difficulty of reaching large numbers, that we quote the following paragraphs: —

“We must remember that human powers
are very limited, and that the most earnest
missionary can only reach a certain number
with his message. No men could preach more
frequently or to larger audiences than Messrs.
Moody and Sankey, the beloved and honoured
American evangelists now labouring in our
great metropolis. The halls in which they
preach hold about five thousand. The crowded
audiences which fill them strike the mind with
an overwhelming sense of the solemnity of
the task of proclaiming the word of life to such
a mass of human beings. Filled four times on
Sunday, and nine or ten times in the week
besides, sometimes with men, sometimes with
women, and sometimes with mixed audiences,
we may presume that in the course of each
fortnight’s mission to a given locality, the
evangelists preach and sing the gospel to
perhaps 25,000 diiferent individuals.

“They have already completed five such
missions in different parts of London, and hope
to hold ten more, if the Lord permit, before
they leave.

“Two halls are occupied alternately, the one
being taken down and re-erected while the
other is being used. No- time is lost between the
missions. The day after the work at Stratford
ends, that at New Cross begins, and so on.

“The strain on the evangelists of thirteen
such services, each lasting two hours on an
average, is very great indeed. Unless they
were men of iron constitution, in splendid
health and spirits, they could not stand it at
all; and, moreover, unless they were backed up
by abundant and efficient assistance, even their
tremendous energies could not accomplish a
tithe of what they do accomplish. The movement happily is thus backed up. Active and
competent helpers of one sort or other may
be reckoned by the hundred. Committee-men
and secretaries; choir leaders and choirs;
assistant preachers and Christian workers;
ladies and gentlemen; ministers and young
converts; all help to water the word and bring
in the sheaves, whilst money almost ad lihitutA
is freely forthcoming that the people may hear
the gospel. Architects, contractors, writers,

Moody and Sankey.
advertisers, bill distributors, &c., &c., also lend
their help, while thousands the world over are
praying for a blessing.

“Yet with all this stupendous amount of
united effort, and all this freely consecrated
wealth, with the unique and remarkable gifts
of the evangelists themselves, and the rich
blessing of God poured upon their labours,
what is the utmost the m.ovement can accomplish in the way of reaching the population of
the metropolis?

“Fifteen separate missions, in widely different
parts of London, will each affect say 25,000,
and the whole campaign consequently 375,000.
If it extend to sixteen separate missions, then
400,000 persons may hear the message of
salvation from these evangelists. This is the
utmost that can be hoped for as regards
numbers, and may justly be considered a
glorious result of the work of one year, the
rest of which must needs be more or less
devoted to rest.

“But 400,000 is not one-tenth part of the
population of London and its suburbs, which
is reckoned now at aboutjive millions.

“It would, therefore, take Messrs. Moody
and Sankey, and their fellow- workers of every
description, twelve years of such intense, arduous, unremitting, and united labour, to carry
the gospel to all the people living in London
and its suburbs, and it would cost moreover a
fabulous sum of money!

“Nor is that all! The inhabitants of London
are all nominal Christians to begin with; they
can all read; they all have the Bible, they all
have some knowledge, however defective, of its
contents. Mr. Moody can freely speak to them
of the love of God without stopping to explain
what love is, or that God is not a bit of painted
and gilded wood. He can allude to the good

Samaritan or the prodigal son without pausing
to tell the stories. He has only to put a
finishing touch as it were to a work already
more than half done. Other men laboured,
and he enters into their labours. Christian
mothers. Christian teachers, Christian friends.
Christian books and papers, Christian laws and
customs. Christian preachers and teachers, have
already enlightened the mind and awakened the
conscience, and prepared the way of the Lord
in the souls to which Mr. Moody preaches and
Mr. Sankey sings; and they will continue to
water the word when the evangelists are gone.
Give them, on the contrary, an audience as unprepared as the crowd that gathers in the
street of a Chinese town or an African market-place, and what would they accomplish by a
fortnight’s meetings?

“Nor is that all! Moody speaks and Sankey
sings to men and women in their own tongue
wherein they were born. What if they had
first to acquire, and then, with difficulty and
many a blunder, to use a foreign idiom? and
what, if that idiom, even when fully acquired,
contained no words expressive of such ideas as
goodness, holiness, love, peace, purity, heaven,
or even of His character, according to our
conception of the Divine being?

“If it would take the evangelists and all
their friends twelve years to evangelize London — and that giving only a fortnight’s meetings
to each section — how long would it take them
effectually to evangelize a similar population of
heathen Chinese or Africans?

“They could not do it effectually in the
term of their natural lives! And what if one
or two men had to attempt it without friend or
helper of any kind, and in spite of adverse
climate and bad health, and poverty and loneliness, and every conceivable discouragement?”

We will now resume our argument. There are, as is well known, eighteen provinces in China Proper. As we cannot expect all our readers to be familiar with their extent and position, we would venture to suggest their reference to the map of China, as they follow our remarks. It will be seen that six of the provinces are on the sea-border; and that of the remaining twelve, Hu-PEH is the most central. In these seven provinces, as we have mentioned, 91 Protestant missionaries were to be found from England, America, and Germany in 1865, when the China Inland Mission was formed. That number

The Kwang-tung Province.

gave an average of 13 labourers to each of the seven provinces. In March, 1884, however, the number was 355* (272 men and 83 women), nearly 51 missionaries to each province. This may seem at first sight a good and fairly adequate supply; but let us now look at them more particularly.