p. 16 | General Mission Notes

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 25, 1902

General Mission Notes

THROUGHOUT the annual report of the London Missionary Society the success of their medical missionary work in China is constantly emphasized. Dr. Fahmy, of Chiang Chiu, reports that the majority of those who eventually become church adherents in his district were favorably impressed while under treatment in the hospital, especially as indoor patients.

TWO members of the China Inland Mission staff were recently murdered in Chen-Chanfu, in the long-hostile province of Hunan. It is not thought that these murders are evidence of any general anti-foreign or anti-missionary movement. The directors of the mission at Shanghai believe the murders to be the result of an epidemic of cholera in the district, for which the foreigners have been held responsible. This is one of the most recently opened stations of the mission, work there having been begun just before the Boxer uprising. It was then temporarily abandoned, and the murdered men had only recently resumed work in that place.

FROM the annual survey of the mission work of the American Board we cull the following significant facts concerning the importance of entering China now: “It is the time for missionary societies to put forth their greatest efforts, to employ their best men, and to seize and effectually occupy strategic points in China. Money and men are wisely massed to meet an emergency like this. A year now is worth a score of years like those which have just gone. They will march the farthest and win the greatest victory who begin their march soonest, and put their best forces into the march.”

THE annual expenditures in the United States for various objects run on the following scale: foreign missions, $5,000,000; home missions, $12,000,000; church expenses, $125,000,000; dress, $250,000,000; jewelry, $450,000,000; tobacco, $600,000,000; liquor, $1,200,000,000.

IN Porto Rico the Methodists have seven missionaries, the Presbyterians four, and the Episcopalians three. Besides these, six other Protestant churches have representatives in this island.

DURING the ninety years of missionary operations of the American Board twenty missions have been planted, in which there are five hundred and twenty-four churches, with a membership of fifty-six thousand. They have sixteen collegiate institutions for both boys and girls, with about sixty-one thousand pupils enrolled in their mission schools. The missionaries are assisted by thirty-five hundred native pastors, preachers, teachers, and Bible readers, who are engaged in the work of education and evangelization.