“But isn’t the ground already occupied? How many missionary societies are already operating in and around Canton? Why add one more?” I have no statistics at hand, and speaking thus from general knowledge alone I must keep far within the truth; but I am surely safe in saying that of competent missionaries, either Chinese or foreign, there are not in the provinces of South China one to 100,000 people; I know that I am safe in saying that, in the districts from which our Chinese come there is not more than one to 350,000. I risk nothing, I think, in affirming that Central Africa has to-day more missionaries in proportion to its population than these districts of China to which I have referred. Certainly many a helper might be added before any society now on the ground could possibly find itself jostled by neighbors.
Besides, we should have our own special methods and our own special field, growing naturally out of the relationship between the mission here and the mission there; such that while we should largely enter into the labors of brethren who have preceded us; using the books that they have prepared; availing ourselves of various conveniences that they have contrived, we should in turn supplement and extend their work and multiply their joys. We should be then, not as competitors, but as co-workers—one in spirit and mutually helpful.
“But wouldn’t it cost too much?” Too much for what? Too much for the souls that would be saved? More that these souls are worth? Not one of our readers thinks this. But _this_ is the question: Would it not cost too much for our treasury to bear, loaded as it already is with such heavy responsibilities? I reply that it would not be very costly. Two American missionaries, a little property in Hong Kong, a rented chapel here and there in the larger villages and the small stipends of the Chinese evangelists; this would be all. It would not call for a larger sum unless, in the good providence and by the dear Spirit of God, it came to be, by virtue of its own success, a _large work_; and then contributions would flow in for it, so that by means of it the treasury would be enriched rather than depleted. I seldom prophesy; but I will venture to say this, that when the American Missionary Association has once taken hold of this work, and adopted as one of its mottoes: “China for Christ,” it will take but a brief period—a very few years—to give it such a place in all our hearts that we would sooner think of cutting off our right hands than of relaxing our grasp on that land as ours to be won for Christ.