Page:The Chinese Empire. A General & Missionary Survey.djvu/437

Rh To learn at first hand some of the real conditions and prospects of missionary work in Eastern Mongolia was partly the reason for my tramp. I found that Roman Catholic Missions are operating at Pakou, T'atzekou, Hata, and away to the north at Maoshantung. How many converts they have I do not know, but their plan of insisting on the baptism of whole families, and not of individual members of families, tends to swell their numbers much more quickly than is the case in Protestant Missions.

At Pakou, T'atzekou, and other smaller places, Protestant Missions are at Avork, but Hata, large and busy centre as it is, yet waits its first Protestant missionary and street chapel. K'ulukou is without a Christian representative, whether Roman Catholic or Protestant, but that is a defect likely to be remedied ere long by the Irish Presbyterian Mission from Hsinmin Fu. At Chaoyang and Chinchow good work is being done, and the converts are not few. But the great bulk of the districts lies untouched. And the most of the people are absolutely ignorant of the elementary principles of the Christian faith.

The Christian Church in China has no greater or more difficult problem to face than this problem of how best to accomplish the evangelisation of Mongolia, and to overthrow Lamaism and its attendant superstitions.