PREACHING VS. EDUCATION

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Dec 23, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 49.

PREACHING VS. EDUCATION.

A PAMPHLET has just been issued in England which seems to be causing some further sensation in missionary circles. It is entitled, "A Few Facts about Foreign Missions," and is from the pen of a minister of the Church of Scotland, for years residing in India. He conclusively shows the failure of "missions" which expect to obtain spiritual results from intellectual work. He gives the figures of a church which has, of late years, given itself almost entirely to secular educational work in South India, with the following results: In the year 1869 there were 546 native Christians; in 1879 there were 419, and in 1888 there were only 343.

These figures are not of new converts, but of the whole native Christian body in connection with the church.—Bombay Guardian.