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"PROVINCIAL SURVEYS 447while the average contribution for the Christian Church inour mission is about a dollar-pel* annum from each memberof the Church. The amounts now contributed by theChinese Christians to the work of the Church are due not somuch to a lack of ability on their part as to the characterof the training which they have received.We believe that in all of our future work the ChineseChurch should as far as possible be established on a selfsupportingbasis from the very first.We cannot help feeling that, whether in churchesalready established or in those yet to be instituted, everyday of unnecessary dependence upon foreign funds is onlynnother day of arrested development.What we need today is not the establishment of nursinghomes for the missionary converts; but of self-respectingand self-supporting Christian churches. The newly established Church in China, as elsewhere, has no vital needswhich it is not able to meet out of its own resources, nomatter how limited those resources may be. When weimpose artificial needs upon the Church by supplying itwith costly equipments,it is natural that we who imposethose needs should be expected also to provide for their cost.Our principal concern should be, not to show how muchthe Christian Church should have, but rather how little itreally needs for the development of the highest and deepestlthings in the Christian life." The needs of the ChineseChurch will ultimately increase as the church develops tomeet those needs.In the case of churches now dependent upon the Mission,the whole membership should be made fully to realize thatthe entire population for which we have accepted responsibility has a claim upon us, and that we have no moral rightto bestow upon a favoured few gifts which were intended tobe shared among many.In the working out of its policy the Mission does notexpect in the future to make any very large investments ofmoney in church buildings. In opening up new preachingcentres where there is good prospect for the collecting of aChristian nucleus, mission funds will have to be used in therenting of a chapel or place of meeting. As soon as this

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