Missionary Survey As An Aid To Intelligent Co-Operation In Foreign Missions - Roland Allen; Thomas Cochrane

If that table could be filled up it would show at a glance what class of the people was reached most easily and fully, and whether any were unduly neglected.

Then, in many station areas there are divergencies of race and religion, and it is important to know how far the mission is reaching each of these. In some areas, for instance, large numbers of converts are made from the pagan population whilst a Moslem population in the area is practically untouched; in some nearly all the converts are made from one caste out of many. That is no reason for adverse criticism of the mission: it may be, and often is, a reason for striking harder at the point on which the work is now most successful; but it is a fact which throws great light on the nature of the work done and upon the character of the Church which is rising in the area, and therefore cannot be ignored. We append then a table to reveal this:—

We cannot possibly supply the table complete for all areas in the world. We suggest that such a table kept up to date would reveal not only facts useful to illustrate the progress of the Christian faith, but also to show the progress of aggressive non-Christian religions such as Mohammedanism.

Then we want to know what is the emphasis put on different forms of missionary work, evangelistic, medical, educational. Here we come to a difficulty. Medical missionaries, thank God, do evangelistic work, and so do educational missionaries, and one day we shall learn that the evangelistic missionary, technically so called, is doing a most important educational work, and often truly medical, healing work. The division is a technical one and missionary-hearted men begin to resent it; they are all evangelic in their work, if not technically evangelistic, and the division seems unreal, unnatural, untrue. It would be a sad day for our missions if medical and educational missionaries ceased to be at heart evangelists, and were content to leave evangelistic work to others. Nevertheless, the technical distinction is a real one and must be expressed. Some men express their evangelistic fervour naturally and providentially in medical form, others in scholastic, others in teaching, preaching, and organising of the converts and the hearers. But how shall we divide them? The best plan seems to be to put each man into that category in which he spends most of his time, and in cases of doubt to use fractions, e.g. a doctor may be as keen an evangelist and may preach and strive to convert his patients as eagerly as his colleague who is called an evangelistic missionary. An evangelistic missionary is perhaps a doctor by training or experience, and heals the sick as eagerly as his colleague who is called a medical missionary. Each is unwilling to be catalogued in one column only. He feels, and feels rightly, that that single figure belies the facts. The evangelistic missionary may be the only doctor in the whole area who really understands the use of western drugs and implements, the doctor may be the only evangelist in the whole area who really knows how to preach the Gospel in language which the people can understand. Clearly, in such cases the only possible thing to do is to use a fraction, though the inner truth might be more easily expressed by figures which represented that one man as two or three.

The table then is as follows:—

[Footnote 1: All funds derived from foreigners except Government grants.]

[Footnote 2: Including fees and contributions.]

It will be observed that this table is designed, like all the others, to serve primarily one single purpose. Since that purpose is to show the relative weight thrown by the mission and the Christians into different forms of evangelistic expression, all missionaries, all native workers, all funds mainly occupied in each form are lumped together. There is no need at this stage to distinguish doctors from nurses, or Bible-women from pastors or priests.