Page:China's spiritual need and claims.djvu/26

12 whose dark and Christless lives, if not speedily enlightened, must end in dark and Christless deaths, and—after death the judgment! Two hundred and fifty millions! an army whose numbers no finite mind can fully grasp. The number is inconceivable—the view is appalling!

Among so vast a population the number of deaths continually occurring is necessarily very great. At a very moderate computation it cannot be under 22,800 per diem, or nearly 1,000 per hour. That we may better realise what these figures represent, let us compare them with the populations of some of our well-known English towns:—

None of these towns are small ones, yet the daily mortality in China would almost blot out the largest of them, and 10$1/4$ days the whole! Think of it! Let the reader realise it if he can, for the thought is overwhelming. And can the Christians of England sit still with folded arms while these multitudes are perishing—perishing for lack of knowledge—for lack of that knowledge which England possesses so richly, which has made England what England is, and has made us what we are? What does the teach us? Is it not that if one sheep out of a hundred be lost, we are to leave the ninety and nine and seek that one? But here the proportions are almost. reversed, and we stay at home with the one sheep, and take no heed to the ninety and nine perishing ones! Christian brethren, think of the imperative command of our great and, "Go, go ye, into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature;" think of the millions upon millions of poor benighted China to whom no loving follower of the self-renouncing  has "brought good tidings of good," or "published salvation," and weigh well the fearful words: "If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain; If thou sayest. Behold, we knew it not; doth not He that pondereth the heart consider it? and He that keepeth thy soul, doth not He know it? and shall not He render to every man according to his works?"