We next present the agency by whose labors these thousands have been drawn into the fellowship of our Christian faith. That agency, too, in its surprising growth and adaptation to meet the great demand, will be seen to be as marked a work of the Holy Spirit as is the ingathering of the multitude whom they are leading to Christ.
Agency. | Number. |
Foreign and Anglo-Indian missionaries | 84 |
Wives of missionaries | 75 |
Native members of Conference | 90 |
Native preachers not in Conference | 462 |
Local preachers | 362 |
Exhorters | 668 |
Bible readers and colporteurs | 498 |
Pastor teachers, about | 400 |
School teachers, about | 450 |
Lady missionaries, W. F. M. S. | 48 |
Female teachers, 273, and Bible women, 250 | 523 |
Total | 3,660 |
It is worthy of note here, as illustrating the devotion of these foreign missionaries to their work, that the records show that of the party of six who, with their wives, reached India in August, 1859, three of them are still at their work. Brother Downey and Judd died, and Brother Baume returned home; but Brothers Parker, Waugh, and Thoburn are in the field to-day. The record of the next party which came on the Sea King in March, 1861, and another in January, 1862, are equally encouraging. Brother Brown died, and Brothers Thomas and Hicks returned, but Brothers Johnson, Messmore, Jackson, Mansell, Scott, and Wilson, are still at the work. And yet, further, the next company, who arrived in India in 1863, can claim a share in this honorable mention, adding the ladies who still survive, and Brother Knowles, who joined us in 1858, and Brother Humphrey, now returning, and we have an aggregate, out of the twenty-five originally appointed, of fifteen still at work in India; that is, thirty-one years after the arrival of the third party, sixty per cent of the three companies