Missionary Survey As An Aid To Intelligent Co-Operation In Foreign Missions by Roland Allen
page 45 of 155 (29%)
page 45 of 155 (29%)
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certainly not heathen; the heathen deny them. Consequently they cannot
properly be counted with the heathen by any surveyor who wishes to present the facts. For these reasons we have been compelled to adopt a very wide expression, and the expression used by the China Continuation Committee seemed to be sufficiently elastic to serve our purpose. Nevertheless, to avoid error as far as possible, when we institute comparisons between Christian and non-Christian population, we introduce side by side with the total Christian Constituency the total Communicants (or Full Members), which is a valuable check. Take then an example. The figures here given are obviously not the figures of a station area; they are figures for a province; but they serve to illustrate the point. We cannot fill up the area table; we can only supply figures for the population. ---------------------------------------- Population. : Total : Total Non- : Christians. : Christians. ---------------------------------------- 32,571,000 : 534,238 : 2,036,762 ---------------------------------------- Now, here of the 534,238 Christians 500,655 are Roman Catholics, the Protestants numbering 33,583. The Roman Catholics in this area began work about 300 years earlier than the Protestants. Are we to eliminate them? Are all these 33,583 Protestants more worthy of the name of Christian |
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