Note and Comment

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 15, 1910

Catholic and Protestant Missions

The following quotation from a German Catholic journal makes an interesting comparison between the activity of Protestants and Catholics in the mission fields:—

‘It has been computed that the 260,000,000 Catholics contribute about 20,000,000 marks ($5,000,000) annually for mission purposes, while the 160,000,000 Protestants contribute 80,000,000 marks ($20,000,000). This is an average of eight pfennigs for each Catholic, but more than six times that much for each Protestant. This greater degree of liberality on the part of the Protestants is to a large extent caused by the superior organization of the latter. Especially do the mission conferences and regular congregational mission festivals in common vogue among the Protestants do much to make the mission cause popular among them; and these auxiliaries could with advantage be adopted by the Catholic churches. The number of mission workers in the foreign fields of the Protestants is 45,622; on the Catholic side, 34,454. It is true that the Catholic Church reports no fewer than 30,414 mission stations, while the Protestants count only 3,790; but to counterbalance this the latter have 18,921 schools, with 867,400 pupils, while the Catholics have 17,834 schools with 790,880 pupils.