THE CHINESE.
Summary of Mission Work among the Chinese.
REV. WM. C. POND, SAN FRANCISCO.
At the annual meeting of the California Chinese Mission I was requested to append to the report then presented an account of the work of other missions. I venture to hope that that account will be of interest to the readers of the Missionary, and offer it as my contribution for this month. The facts were obtained not from printed reports, but by special inquiries.
The Presbyterian Mission reports four evening mission schools, one in each of the cities of San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento and San José, with an average attendance of 70, 60, 35 and 24 respectively. Four American missionaries, speaking the Chinese language, are employed, four Chinese preachers, and six other teachers. There is also, in San Francisco, a day school for boys and girls, with two teachers, one English and one Chinese, and an average attendance of twelve pupils. There are six preaching places, three in San Francisco, three in Oakland, two in Sacramento, and two in San José. Twenty religious services are held each week, with an attendance which varies from a very few to one hundred. Two Chinese churches have been organized, one in San Francisco and the other in Oakland. The former has 40 members, of whom two were received the past year. The latter has 29 members, of whom six were added the last year. The San Francisco church has been in existence many years, and has received to membership from its organization 103 persons. In connection with the Sacramento Mission, 21 Christian Chinese have been received to the Presbyterian Church of that city; fifteen are still members of the church, and of these, eight were received last year. In connection with the San José school there are seven Christian Chinese, members of the Presbyterian church of that city.
The Ladies’ Foreign Missionary Society of the Presbyterian church sustains in San Francisco a Home for Chinese women, which has now eleven inmates, who must, of course, be not only taught, but sheltered and boarded, and, often, protected from the brutes in human form who claim to be their owners.
The total number of laborers connected with the Presbyterian Mission is thus seen to be fifteen. The total average attendance at the schools, 212. The total number of church members, from the first, is 160, of whom 69 have been removed by dismissal to churches in China, by death, or by the dropping of their names from the roll. The total number who hear the gospel from the lips of the missionaries or native preachers cannot be estimated, but must run far up into the hundreds, if not into the thousands.
Of the Methodist Chinese Mission, Rev. Dr. Gibson, Superintendent, makes the following succinct and clear report:
“Five evening and day schools, with a total average attendance of 149; five Sunday-schools, with a total average attendance of 246; four preaching places, with a total average attendance of 170; public preaching, daily prayer meetings, praise meetings, class meeting and Bible class, weekly, 78 Chinese members and 10 probationers; baptisms last year—adults, 19; children, 3; cost of girls’ boarding-school, $1,900; cost of all other work, $7,600.