Missionary Survey As An Aid To Intelligent Co-Operation In Foreign Missions by Roland Allen
page 46 of 155 (29%)
page 46 of 155 (29%)
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than some of the Roman Catholics? Or shall we eliminate some of the
33,583? If so, how many, and on what grounds? Is not the denial of the Name to those who claim to be servants of Christ absurd? Are there not enough non-Christians to be converted? Suppose the Roman Catholic figures to be an estimate. Is it not plain that in dealing with considerable areas estimates may be useful though faulty? How little difference in the work to be done does an error in that estimate make? Knock off or add on 50,000 and is the work to be done seriously affected? It is true that in some calculations an error of that magnitude might mislead us somewhat, but hardly enough to vitiate our whole view of the situation, especially if we carefully check our conclusions by the results of other tables given later. At the first glance these figures produce the impression that very little has been done. In the beginning, and that was many years ago, there were over 32 million non-Christians; there are over 32 million to-day. But let us look at proportions and see what a different impression is produced. ----------------------------------------------------------- Population. : Total : Total Non- : Proportion : Christians. : Christians. : of Christians to : : : Non-Christians. ----------------------------------------------------------- 32,571,000 : 534,238 : 32,036,762 : 1 to 60 ----------------------------------------------------------- One Christian to every sixty non-Christians gives us a totally different impression. We begin to feel that if only the Christians awoke to their |
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