Page 65 - Malaysia by John Russel Denyes

RESULTS AND OUTLOOKS.

The first g'eneration in the life of a Christian
mission must of necessity be a time of small be-
ginning's. The heathen mind cannot
Statistics, readily comprehend that spiritual
life is a possibility. It takes years
for an Asiatic people to realize that Christianity
is not a system of forms and ceremonies, purer,
perhaps, but not essentially different from their
own forms of worship. And yet the church in
Malaysia does not come with empty hands as the
result of her short life of thirty-four years. At
the close of 1917 there were in the Methodist
Church of Malaysia 2 Bible Training Schools for
men and 2 for women ; 12 Epworth Leagues with
769 members ; 74 Sunday Schools with 375 teach-
ers and 5188 scholars. There are 15 boarding
schools enrolling 449 boarders, and 75 day schools
with 392 teachers, 1511 girls and 6839 boys. The
foreign staff numbered 36 men and 58 women
missionaries, and there were 108 local preachers
and 4754 members and probationers.
But these figures do not tell the whole story
of missionary effort. Thousands of Bibles, tracts,
Scripture-text pictures, and religious periodicals
have been placed in non-Christian homes. Thou-
sands of young men and young women have come
under the influence of our mission schools, and
while they are not as yet Christians, they have lost
faith in idolatry. A Christian sentiment has be-
gun to pervade public thought, and on every hand
are indications that the field is white already to
the harvest.

Policy for It is but natural that mission
Pagan Races, work should deal first with the
problems nearest at hand. Hence
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