The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1894-10-12

BILE through the medium of the English
language. To those have lately been
added a schoolSfor nurses and three train
lngs chools for Bible women. AS hardly
less important to the future Christian
community should be mentioned the
beginnings OF training for kindergarten
work in several of our mission stations
AS centres OF intellectual and spiritual
life and power, who can estimate the
value of these institutions to the future
of our work? Already do we see results in
the growth of our mission churches in
Christian character as well as in num-
bers.
Wide as is the range of our educational
eff orts, from the kindergarten to the
Christian university, one department.,
in which we have made some small be-
glnnings-that of industrial education
yet remains to be developed. At present
IN some of the older missions every ad-
vance in our missionary work adds new
burdens to the mission treasury. Yet
there ulust be a limit somewhere to
what the churches at home can do and
that limit will fall far within the limit
of work needed in the foreign field,
Hence the Importance of industrial edu-
cation and in manual training, helping
our Christian communities to help them
selves and to carry on the work we have
begun. Through this broad work as
1850 AOA A1AAA Al yoAO lAlACSS vi LIS DcluS,
Christianity now commends itself to the
acceptance OF men of every race and
cline. Thus shall it be known by it's
works even as our Lord said "If ye be-
lieve not me, believe the works.
During the last ten years the mum Der
OF places where the gospel is regularly
preached has increased by rs per cent.
drom SIG to 1,4s9,) and the number OF Of
missionaries, by 81 per cent, (from 429
to SID while the advance in donations
including those from the Womans
Boards, has been only about 20 per cent,
(S3, SIS, $50 to 81, 251, 1902, on the average
of the preceding decade. This explains
the necessity for retrenchment and the
renewed cry of distress that comes up
from the mission fields. These things
ought not SO to be-. This simple state
ment ought to secure speedy relief.
The results of the work during the
twenty-nine years under review, as far
as mum bers can express results, may be
summed up briefly as follows: In the
missions now under the charge of this
Board, the number of regular preaching
places has increased from 236 to l ,429 of
missionaries from 221 to 571; of native
laborers of different grades from 500 to
2.S70; the.number from 418 in 1865 to
3,055 this year, and the total church
membership from 4,96S to 1851. This
increase is due largely to the various
agencies OF the WOman's Boards, the
Christian training of our higher insti-
buttons Of learning, and of better
trained and more numerous native
agency. In the educational department.
the number of high schools and colleges
for both sexes has increased more than
ninefold Us to 144). ,and the number of.
pupils from 422 to 7.841, more than
Gig hteen fold; while the total number
under instruction has increased from
6,s17 to so, 406. But these figures, en-
couraging as they are, give very mad
equate conception of ..the breadth ofsthe
changes in the moral and social life Of
the peoples among whom we labor, or Of
the opportunities given on every hand
for enlargement,e of the vantage gained
for yet greater and more rapid advances
through theinfuence of SO many Chris
tian homes. of so many churches as CEN
tiers of life and light, of Christian litera-
ture introducing through millions of
pages the best to thought and sentiment..of
the world mot the languages spoken by
more than a hundred millions of people.