Cnina’s Unreacked Millions A P LAN WHEREBY 300,000,000 COU LD HEAR THE GOSPEL S T O R Y
Rev. Alex. R. Saunders of CKina Inland Mission
Is it nothing to you that in China today there are three hundred million souls for whom Christ died as much as for you, who have not once heard the story of salvation? That this is so, notwithstanding the great missionary activities of the past forty years, is a clear indication that something-is wrong somewhere, and re-adjustment is urg ently called for. We think of three hundred million merely as a great mass of human beings; but God, who has numbered the very hairs of the head, takes note of individuals. Let us try to get a clear conception of what this means. If thi§ great multi tude were ranged in single file, each person three feet apart, they would form a procession that would encircle the globe at the equator six times; and if we would take up a position to see them march past, walking at the rate of three miles an hour and without any intermission for 24 hours in each day, six years would elapse before the last one in that vast throng passed us. The consideration of the evangeliza tion of a people so numerous, lest any one be tempted to think that Christ has imposed upon the Church an impossible task, demands that SOME FACTS BE KEPT IN MIND concerning enterprises of a more mundane character. The fact that commercial undertakings, equally great, are carried to a successful issue, when after a lapse of nearly two thou sand years, Christ’s great commission is not nearly within sight of accomplish ment, should bring the Church to its knees in shame. It is not yet fifteen
years since three great business con cerns began to push their trade into the interior of China, and to-day Sing er’s sewing machines; the Standard Oil Company’s products and the cigarettes of the British & American Tobacco Com pany, are appreciated and can he bought anywhere. Quite apart from the ordin ary expensive methods of advertising by pictorial posters, etc., the British & American Tobacco Co. spent five million dollars to introduce their cigarettes to the Chinese public by a free distribution all over the land, but it paid to do so. Surely, the children of this world are wiser in their generation than are the children of light. There is the danger just now that the gigantic efforts being made to finance the war, and other enterprises connected with it, may lead to the neglect of the greatest work, ever committed to the hands of men, but such failure would be both unreasonable and inexcusable. During the past three years, when Brit ain^ resources in men and money have been strained to the utmost, the nation’s commercial interests were duly safe guarded and the number of volunteers from China were officially limited that “ business as usual” might be main tained. It should be stated that the missipnary body have been second to none in a practical expression of patriot ism, and not a few have left their work in China to join the colours, to serve their country in some capacity or another;— lives also having been laid down in the righteous cause. Probably 150 sons of the China Inland Mission
Made with FlippingBook Annual report