A summary of the missions of the Northern Presbyterian Church in Korea shows that she is solely responsible for six million seven hundred thousand people and in carrying out this work she has one embryo theological seminary, one college, three academies, three hundred thirty-nine primary schools for girls and boys, and here we are speaking rather of teachers and scholars than of buildings and equipment.
They have 619 self-supporting churches, carrying on meetings in 767 places, have enrolled 15,079 communicants, of whom 3,421 were admitted last year, giving a total of adherents of 59,787. (The others, making about eighty thousand, belong to the other Presbyterian Church.) The Southern Presbyterian Church has six hospitals and asks for two more at once and an immediate reinforcement of missionaries.
As has been said, all the different missions of the Presbyterians working in Korea form one united native church of Jesus and work in every way as one mission, having a Council of Missions meeting annually. With the consent of the governing bodies of these missions an advance was made in 1907, when a Presbytery was organized to take oversight of all the Presbyterian churches and was constituted with Dr. S. A. Moffett in the chair at the city of Pyeng Yang on the seventeenth of September, 1907. He writes, “The Presbytery had as its representatives elders from thirty-six fully organized churches, at least two other churches with elders not being represented. The Presbytery then elected its officers and as its first work began the examination of the seven men who had finished the theological course of five years and proceeded to their ordination. At the night meeting, in a very impressive service, the seven men were ordained. The Presbytery consisted, after the ordination, of these men, of thirty-two foreign missionaries and forty Korean ministers and elders. It has ecclesiastical jurisdiction over a church with 17,890 communicants, 21,482 catechumens, 38 fully organized churches, 984 churches not fully organized, adherents numbering 69,098, and day schools 402 with 8,611 pupils. This church contributed last year for all purposes $47,113.50.”
The ordained men were appointed as pastors or copastors over groups of churches except two, one of whom was called by the Central Church of Pyeng Yang, and one was sent as a missionary to Quel Part, the whole church to provide the money to send with him one or more helpers. Thus the infant church, needing sorely more helpers at home, sends its first foreign missionary abroad.
The Methodist Church has centered its work for North Pyeng An in the city of Yeng Byen and has divided it into six circuits. The territory is about three hundred miles long by one hundred fifty wide and has a population of about eight hundred thousand, and of these at least three hundred thousand are the Methodist allotment.
There are at the present time 551 members with 405 seekers. They have nine primary schools with 185 pupils and for the care of all this work only one man and his wife have been assigned.
The whole allotment, then, according to division of territory, of the Methodist mission in Korea is about three million people to be reached. There are several hospitals and dispensaries but not enough. The Methodist Churches North and South have united along educational lines in establishing the Biblical Institute of Korea for theological instruction. The Northern Church unites with the Presbyterian in Pyeng Yang in college and academic work, and it has established a college at Seoul and has a large number of primary schools that center in a normal institute meeting annually at the capital.
In the development of her evangelistic work there are 23,455 members and probationers, 16,158 seekers and 113 schools with 4,267 pupils.
The Southern Methodist mission have already been frequently referred to but their work at Song Do and Won Son has not yet been mentioned, because it has been the desire to speak of the work of all denominations as far as possible together, to show the force and the strength of the whole church of Christ in these sections where more than one mission was at work. But, as has already been said, the Southern Methodists have a compact piece of territory, triangular in shape, with Song Do, Seoul and Won Son at each apex, and Seoul being the only place where they have work with other missions, Won Son and Song Do have not yet been mentioned.
Song Do was the objective point of this mission at the start and there they contemplate having their largest plant. There are two married men and one single man for evangelistic work and two clergymen, one of whom is a Korean gentleman educated in America, for their educational institutions, and two doctors and three single ladies. They intend to make this city the seat of large educational institutions for girls and boys. They have in Song Do at present in their advanced school one hundred and fifty students. At Won Son, the most northeasterly point of their territory, they have two evangelistic workers, one educational, one medical worker and three single ladies. They have here one city church with a large number of country churches, a day school for boys, a boarding school for girls and a dispensary. The last statistics of the mission show 181 organizations with 89 churches or chapels, and 4,998 members, who gave last year $2,380.26.