"Educational and Medical Missionary Work."
"Our denominational school work has been inaugurated since the General Conference was organized. There are now in operation 495 schools, with an enrolment of 10,982 students, under the care and instruction of 716 teachers." One little sanitarium has increased to fifty-two, besides treatment rooms and hygienic restaurants a multitude. The president referred to the effectual, yet simple and logical, plan of organization, to the great changes and rapid advance in our publishing work, especially in three of our great publishing houses, in moving from the city to the country, and giving more decided attention to the publication of the message. Several of our union conferences, we were reminded, were larger than our General Conference less than thirty years ago. The departments of the General Conference—Publishing, Educational, Sabbath-school, and Religious Liberty, to which will soon be added a medical department—were briefly considered. A striking comparison was made between the home field and foreign lands. The following excerpts from the address will be of interest: "In no part of the great harvest-field have such large results been produced from the expenditure of labor and means as in the new, unworked mission fields. In the home land, with a membership of over sixty thousand, with more than seven hundred ministers, with a tithe of over half a million dollars, with organized conferences equipped with printing-houses, schools, sanitariums, and church buildings, our net gain in membership for 1904 was 845. This is a gain of 1.54 per cent. with an expenditure of $574.53 for every member added. "In all the fields outside of the North American union conferences, having a membership of less than 15,000, with only 240 ministers, with a local tithe of about $155,000 and contributions and appropriations amounting to $170,000, with few schools, few church buildings, and but few other facilities of any kind, there was a net gain in membership during 1904 of 1,974. This is a gain of 13.61 per cent., and represents an expenditure of $165.14 for each member added. "Moreover, the records testify to the willingness of our people in the foreign lands to support the cause with their means. The average tithe per Sabbath-keeper in the North American union conferences for 1904 was $8.68, the average for 1904 in foreign union conferences was $9.29, and in all the foreign mission fields it was $4.17. The average for all the Sabbath-keepers outside of the United States was $7.79,—only sixty-eight cents less than the average in America." "There surely must be a different, a more equal and consistent, distribution of laborers and means. Who can tell why seven hundred and twenty of our ministers should be located in America among one-twentieth of the world's population, while only two hundred and forty of our ministers are sent forth to work for the other nineteen twentieths? What good reason can be given for spending annually $536,302.76 tithes among 75,000,000, and only $155,516.57 among 1,400,000,000 of the world's perishing?" Earnest suggestion was made to state conferences to divide tithe and laborers with foreign fields. Tender and fitting remembrance was made of those who had fallen in the ranks, twenty-nine in all of ministers, missionaries, and missionaries' wives; but only four in the last two years were among those who were sent to "regions beyond" by the Mission Board. One of them, Dr. Maude Miller, who recently fell at her post in Honan, China, sends back a sweet, brave, beautiful farewell message to cheer others on to the glorious conflict. Important suggestions were made to the conference, among which are advance steps in unentered fields, doing more for the development of the Gospel ministry, caring for aged and infirm ministers, their widows and orphans, and the extension of the term of the General Conference from a biennial term to a quadrennial term, which has since been adopted. It was a strong, thrilling address.