Title:  Missionary Survey As An Aid To Intelligent Co-Operation In Foreign Missions

Author:  Roland Allen

Release Date:  September 3, 2004 [EBook #13360]

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

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MISSIONARY SURVEY AS AN AID TO INTELLIGENT CO-OPERATION IN FOREIGN MISSIONS

BY

Roland Allen, M.A. 
Sometime S.P.G.  Missionary in North China
author of “Missionary methods, st. Paul’s or ours,” Etc.

AND

Thomas Cochrane, M.B., C.M. 
Late principal of union medical college, Peking, and Hon.  Secretary
of the LAYMEN’S movement, London missionary society

1920

PREFACE.

This book, written by Mr. Allen, bears both our names because we studied the material together, and settled what should be included and what excluded.  We discussed and disputed, and finally found ourselves in complete agreement.  We therefore decided to issue the book in our joint names, on the understanding that I should be allowed to disclaim the credit for writing it.  But the book would never have been written at all save for the inspiration and help of Mr. S.J.W.  Clark, who, in his travels in nearly every mission field, has brought an unusually acute mind, trained by a long business experience, to bear upon mission problems, and has done more hard thinking on the question of survey than any man we know.

Let anyone who doubts the need for survey study the present distribution of missionary forces.  He will find little evidence of any plan or method.  In one region of the world there are about four hundred and fifty missionaries to a population of three millions, while in another area with more than double the number of people, there are only about twenty missionaries.

After travelling in the latter region I asked one of the senior workers what in his opinion would be a large enough foreign staff, and he indicated quite a moderate addition to the existing force.  Suppose I had suggested a total of a hundred missionaries, he would have declared the number far too large.  Perhaps he was too modest in his demands.  Conditions in one area differ from those in another.  But such a wide difference in distribution and in demands makes the need of survey to ascertain facts and conditions absolutely imperative, especially when we remember that to the force of four hundred and fifty in the territory with the smaller population, missionaries will probably continue to be added and unevangelised regions will have to wait.