p. 10 | Interesting Chinese Statistics by W. C. Hankins

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 14, 1916

Interesting Chinese Statistics

By W. C. Hankins

W. C. HANKINS

In making up our report for the past year, we were much interested in some of the statistics, for they were evidence to us that the Lord has set his hand to make a short work in the earth. The year 1915 was our tenth year of mission work in the province of Fukien. During the years 1914 and 1915 we trebled our membership. Each year we gained as many members as we had had at the end of the previous eight years, 1905-1913.

The financial gains were also of interest. In 1914 our Sabbath schools donated $88.75, but in 1915 they gave $210.54, being considerably more than twice as much as was given the year previous. In 1914 the total offerings to missions amounted to only $118.62, while in 1915 they were $521.21, or more than four times the previous amount. In 1914 the total receipts from the field, not counting foreign tithe, rents, exchange, etc., amounted to $1,501.95, while in 1915 they came to $2,968.26, or nearly one third of the amount required for running the station.

In one place we have a boys’ school, with an enrolment of more than one hundred students, all of whom pay their own board, and pay such good tuition that the whole school is run at a very slight loss. This school has already furnished us about thirty church members, so we consider this slight loss as being well made up.

Our literature work is almost self-supporting. Our colporteurs work on a commission without any salary, and some of them are making better wages than some of our older evangelists. One man made nearly thirty dollars one month, and did not work more than half the time, as he attended a general meeting that was in progress. This was very good wages indeed for this country.

While the statistics here given may not seem large to our people in the homeland, yet when we consider that ten years ago there was only one baptized church member in the whole province, it seems very encouraging to us. The fact that these poor people, with an average salary of about one tenth that earned by the ordinary wage earner in the United States, have given an average of seven cents gold each a week in donations alone, besides a tithe of their earnings, may cause some of the more favored in the homeland to pause and consider whether they are giving as much in proportion to their blessings as are some of these poor Chinese people who have been so recently rescued from heathenism.

Amoy.