MISSIONARY MURMURINGS

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 25, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 45.

MISSIONARY MURMURINGS.

THERE is only one Protestant missionary in the republic of Costa Rica.

ONLY 11,000,000 out of 250,000,000—the population of India—can read and write.

It is said that in France working people are frequently met who have never heard of the Bible.

THE capital of South India, Madras, with its population of 400,000, has 39,094 Christians.

THE Record of the Free Church of Scotland makes the statement that there are 47 Protestant Jewish missionary societies in the world, employing 377 missionaries among the Jews, and spending about a half million dollars annually. There is, therefore, about one missionary for every 17,000 Jews, inasmuch as their number is 6,500,000. It is said that 80,000 copies of Delitzsch's Hebrew New Testament have been distributed in Eastern Europe and Siberia, while of Salkinson's Hebrew New Testament two editions of 200,000 have appeared. It has been estimated that fully 100,000 Jews have, during the century, been brought into the Church of Christ.

THE Catholics have in China, according to Hugh P. McElrone, in the Independent of August 22, the following:—

The twenty-nine Vicariates Apostolic of China, each, with one exception, having a bishop, contain 390,000,000 inhabitants, 485,403 Catholics, 2,460 churches and chapels, 440 European missionaries, 303 native priests, 1,804 schools, 25,219 pupils, 34 seminaries, 666 seminarians. Besides these there are colleges, orphan asylums, homes for the aged, industrial schools, foundations of nuns and sisters, etc., concerning which the reports are very incomplete, merely saying that they are in proportion to the other figures. Mr. McElrone calls attention to the fact that these converts are not massed in certain localities, but are scattered in every province throughout the empire, and that nearly one-half the Catholic priests in China are natives.