ladies, of whom four are qualified medical practitioners. Thus there are only 32 ministers of Christ free to give themselves exclusively to evangelistic labour in a province containing 20 millions of souls. It is easy to talk of 20 millions; but who can realise what that vast number implies? One million is a large number! "If you had a million shillings to count one by one, and did it as fast as you could for ten hours a day, it would take a fortnight; and the million shillings would weigh nearly five tons, or be a heavy load for a railway truck." But here we have not shillings but precious souls; and not one million but twenty millions of souls, who must live for ever, either in happiness or woe—and who can estimate the value of one soul? So priceless is the treasure that heaven and earth in all their material splendour are not to be compared to it. What then is the value of a thousand souls?—of a thousand thousand?—nay of twenty times a thousand thousand? Such is the population of this single province—six times that of Scotland; and the great mass of them are still "without hope, without God, and in the world."
DIAGRAM OF RELATIVE AREAS. Chih-li has 38 Missionaries. Great Britain, 35,000 Ministers. Scotland alone, 3845 Ministers. |
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Scotland has its bibles, its psalm books, and its catechisms; its Sunday school teachers, its elders, its tract distributors; its city missionaries, and its bible-women; and besides these there are some thousands of Christian ministers, and yet there is not one labourer too many. Chih-li, with six times Scotland's population, has 32 ministers and 23 other workers!
HU-PEH; area 69,479 square miles, population 2012 millions.
The last of the seven provinces to which we have alluded is Hu-peh, which exceeds in extent one-third of France, while its population may be 2012 millions. Twenty-three[1] missionaries, residing in five stations (including two medical missionaries, one colporteur, and one single lady) are trying to dissipate
- ↑ Excluding two, in Fan-ch'eng and Sha-shï, who work in Ho-nan and Hu-nan.
