The country work is divided into seven circuits and in both local and city work those whose assignment is educational or medical assist also. One of these city churches will accommodate about fifteen hundred. In the others about eight hundred to one thousand can be received.
The Methodists have two large city churches, one of which is the First Church of Pyeng Yang and the other the Drew-Appenzeller Memorial Church. They have four country circuits with a total membership of 4958 to which we must add 5308 seekers. They have 43 primary schools with 1405 pupils.
In medical work the Presbyterians in charge of the Caroline A. Ladd hospital and the Methodists have almost complete union, and the evangelistic opportunities of these hospitals and dispensaries can scarcely be overestimated. Thousands of patients are treated here every year. Mrs. R. S. Hall, M.D., Methodist, has charge of the Hall Memorial Hospital for women. Women’s work is carried on by the Methodists through their married ladies and four single lady missionaries, one of whom is a native Korean, educated in America and having received the degree of M.D. in an American university. These ladies are constantly engaged in giving Biblical and secular teaching both in the city and in the country districts.
In both the Presbyterian and Methodist missions one of the strongest features here as indeed all through Korea, is the system of training classes which are similar to a Bible Institute in America and range from those who are just learning to read to those who have studied their Bibles for years. In the Presbyterian Mission the class for 1907 from the country districts of Pyeng An, meeting in Pyeng Yang City, reached an enrolment of about 1000, the classes for the men of the city about 800 hundred, that for country women 560, that for city women 300. In addition to these classes which in the case of the men was mainly for leaders, 182 classes were held in central places in the country, the women missionaries having charge of ten with an enrolment of 685 men, making altogether 192 of these classes with an enrolment of 9650. We are sorry not to be able to give the figures of similar classes held by the Methodists. We thus have a complete system of Bible instruction which is illustrated by the following simple diagram.
The large spots at the end of the radii represent the country centers and to these the people from the little villages round, represented by the small dots, gather to the country classes, while the leaders from all these places, large and small, and many laymen, go up to Pyeng Yang once a year to the leaders’ Bible training classes.
In this station is the theological seminary for all the Presbyterian missions working in Korea. Here students carefully selected from all over the country are in regular attendance three months of each year, the rest of their time being spent in active evangelistic work. The instructors here are missionaries from all the stations and from each Presbyterian Mission, but those residing in Pyeng Yang do a greater portion of this work than others. A much more extended and complete union in educational work between Methodists and Presbyterians has been attained in Pyeng Yang than elsewhere. In the college and academic work of this section there has been a tentative union, but those engaged in this believe it will soon be a fixed arrangement. This educational work is under the especial charge of the Presbyterian missionaries assisted by other members of the station and by one of the Methodist missionaries. The growth during the last year, especially, has been very great.
Two single ladies have charge of the institutional work of the Presbyterians. There are girls’ schools and women’s Bible classes in both city and country districts.
A letter very recently received, February, 1908, giving a few reports from the country circuits, will show something of the present progress of missions there. Mr. Swallen, reporting for his itinerating work from October to December, 1907, says in substance, “During a trip in which I visited every point except one or two of the smallest ones I found the work exceedingly encouraging. Especially through the central west all the churches are growing rapidly. I made one visit to Pastor Seng’s, holding a circuit class—Bible—in the latter section attended by two hundred men and a leaders’ meeting with an attendance of nearly one hundred. The work of the circuit is so great that it has been divided and hereafter there will be two leaders’ meetings and two circuit classes. Last year the district supported eleven helpers at a cost of twelve hundred nyang each, thirteen nyang more than this sum being in the Treasurer’s hands at the end of the year. Since then two of the helpers have become pastors and are receiving thirty-six hundred nyang, but in addition to this the people propose to support ten helpers and have increased the salaries of all who are helpers of experience. Still more, they have given enough money to send a helper to the new mission field in the island of Quel Part, the mission field of Chu Chu. I feel strongly the need of instruction for the multitudes coming in. I preached every day and night but what is that when the need is so great and much of my preaching is special instruction at the commemoration of the Lord’s Supper. Even the helpers cannot spend much time in instruction; there are so many places to visit they can scarcely know all the people. There must be lay instruction and I feel very strongly that we must do something at once in the matter of teaching those who are to give it. At one class twenty of the leaders and deacons alone expressed their desire to study for a month in Pyeng Yang in preparation for this work. During the three months I have baptized 500 adults and 14 children and have received 799 catechumens. Thirty women’s classes have been arranged for aside from the circuits in charge of the two pastors, and during the first two weeks of the Korean New Year forty-four classes for men will be held in the district.” These classes are from a week to ten days’ duration. The same letter goes on to say that “Mr. Bernheisel during fifty-five days in the country travelled about 650 miles, visiting 43 groups of Christians.... There are now five helpers in this district. 164 adults were received in baptism and 277 catechumens. In October Mr. Lee baptized 57 adults in his Whang Chu circuit and found great advance in educational lines. There are now eleven boys’ schools and one academy, seven night schools and four schools for girls. The church in Whang Chu purchased for three thousand nyang a fine tiled building, formerly a Roman Catholic church to be used as their school.
“Early in November Mr. Moffett made his first visit to his Eastern circuit in company with the newly ordained Pastor Han, they together receiving in baptism 73 adults in three churches. In their district four classes for women had an aggregate attendance of 123.”