We proceed, then, on the assumption that the present population of the empire is 250 millions. How immense is this number! what mind can grasp it? We speak lightly of millions, and with very little realisation of what the vast numbers mean. If a railway train could go twelve hours without stopping to relieve the driver or to take in water, and were to travel during the twelve hours at the uniform rate of thirty miles an hour, it would make 360 miles a day. Seven years and a half of such travel, without a single day's intermission, would not accomplish one million miles; and had a tram commenced to travel at this rate on the first day of the Christian era, and continued every day since without intermission, each day completing its quota of 360 miles, it would not yet have nearly accomplished 250 millions of miles.
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DIAGRAM OF RELATIVE POPULATIONS.
China, 250,000,000. England and Wales, 25,968,000. Scotland, 3,735,000. |
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So inconceivably great a number is 250 millions, and yet this is the number of souls in China. Two hundred and fifty millions! Ten times the population of densely peopled England; or nearly sixty-seven times that of Scotland. Were the subjects of the court of Pekin marshalled in single file, allowing one yard between man and man, they would encircle the globe more than seven times at its equator. Were they to march past the spectator at the rate of thirty miles a day, they would move on and on, day after day, week after week, month after month; and over seventeen years and a quarter would elapse before the last individual passed by. Of this vast multitude, it is estimated that 22,000 are communicants in connection with Protestant missions in China. What portion of the seventeen years would it take for theni to pass by? Little more than half a day would suffice! Two days and a half would permit all the attendants on Christian worship in China to pass by, while seventeen years would be required by the heathen. Mournful and impressive fact—such is the proportion of those who are journeying heavenward to those
