Let us now sum up our inquiry thus far.

+------------------------------------------------------

-+-----+
Work to be Done:  Non-Christian Population.              |     |
+-------------------------------------------------------+---

--+
Untouched, Unoccupied Villages.                         |     |
+-------------------------------------------------------+---

--+
Foreign Force Compared with Work to be Done.            |     |
+-------------------------------------------------------+---

--+
Native Force Compared with Work to be Done.                   |
+-------------------------------------------------------+---

--+
Christian Constituency.                             |     |
+-------------------------------------------------------+---

--+
Communicants.                                       |     |
+-------------------------------------------------------+---

--+
Paid Workers.                                       |     |
+-------------------------------------------------------+---

--+
Unpaid Voluntary Workers.                           |     |
+-------------------------------------------------------+---

--+

If these tables were kept over a series of years, the progress of the force in relation to the work to be done would be most interestingly revealed.

But in estimating the Christian force in the district we need to know more than its number; we need to know so much of its character as statistical tables can show.

One Christian to every 129 heathen may mean much or little.  It might mean that the day when the Christian force would be the controlling force in the area was close at hand.  That would depend largely upon the capacity of the Christians, their education, their zeal.  The tables which we now suggest are designed to reveal, so far as tables can reveal, the truth in these matters.

We begin then with the proportion of communicants in the Christian constituency.  If we take the last table and, instead of considering the proportion of the communicants to the non-Christian population, consider the proportion of communicants to the Christian constituency, we gain a very different view.  We gain then an idea of the character of the Christians.  Instead of an idea of the size of the force at work we receive an impression of the quality of the force.  Even one who lays little stress on the value and necessity of sacraments would not deny that he would expect more from a Church of 1000 in which 500 were communicants than he would from a Church of 1000 of which only 100 were communicants.  He might deny that his expectation was based upon any faith in the virtue of sacraments, but he would acknowledge the fact that in our experience the Church which possesses large numbers of communicants is generally stronger than the Church which possesses a small number.  The comparison of the number of communicants in relation to the number of the total Christian constituency does properly produce an impression of the strength of the Christian body.