Beginnings and Progress in China
By J. N. Anderson
Extracts from Quadrennial Report IT is now seven years since the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists formally opened work in this empire in pursuance of action taken by that body at its biennial session, held in Battle Creek, Mich., 1901. Beginning with a small nucleus of three workers sent out by that conference with instructions to go to Hongkong, our force of workers has been augmented until to-day we number thirty-three adults and thirteen children. From our first entrance into the island of Hongkong, which, by the way, is not China, nor even a part of China, we have steadily advanced until at the present we are in five of the eighteen provinces of China proper, distributed in eight central stations, with which are connected nine outstations. As foreign workers we are supported by some thirty-five native evangelists, teachers, colporteurs, and other assistants. Including the Swatow dialect, which to the present is spoken by only one of our native preachers, we have entered upon six of the various languages of China, the most widely spoken, and the most representative, including probably not less than nine tenths of China's population. These languages are the Mandarin, the Shanghai, the Amoy, the Swatow, the Hakka, and the Canton. In all the five languages (barring the Shanghai, where our workers have been located but a short time), we now have foreign workers who have a good working knowledge of their language, and what is equally important,13there are native evangelists and teachers instructed in the truth, and of considerable training, prepared and ready to second our every effort in the endeavor to teach the people the message. When it is remembered that it takes from two to four years to acquire a good working knowledge of the Chinese language, it is very patent that this measure of success in the acquisition of the languages of this field, is no mean attainment, in view of the time we have been here. It will readily be seen that it is the key to the whole situation. Potentially, it gives us a possession of the entire field, in that it throws wide open the channel that is to carry a volume of trained workers to the masses of this race. We have at present six organized churches, with a membership of about seventy-five, exclusive of foreigners. Our Sabbath-schools number five, with an attendance of about one hundred fifty. We are operating three girls' schools, with an attendance of about one hundred. One of these is in part a boarding-school, and carries on work in the line of training teachers and Bible women. Three boys' schools are in operation, having an aggregate attendance of fifty or sixty. Four dispensaries are maintained from which healing and the word of truth are ministered. An increasing volume of literature is steadily being sent forth into the various parts of the field. New openings adjoining our central and outstations urge us forward beyond our ability to fill them. Commendable progress has been made in the few months since we installed the printing-press at Shanghai, and we are in a fair way to do effective work along this line.