gard their
calling and the gratitude with which they enjoy their faith is clearly
attested by their offerings.

Perhaps nothing can render more satisfactory reply to those who charge the
native Christians with worldly motives than to show how far they deny
themselves in behalf of their faith. In other words the benevolence and
offerings of the native Christians may be taken as a fair test of their
sincerity and of their spiritual appreciation. It is a good test in any
land. I have said that they are very poor. A few years ago I investigated
carefully the economic conditions of the most prosperous and largest
village congregation of the Madura Mission. I discovered that five rupees
(that is $1.66) was the average monthly income of each family of that
congregation. And that meant only thirty-three cents a month for the
support of each member of a family! We have congregations whose income is
less than this. And yet, the Christians of that mission contributed over
two rupees (seventy-five cents) per church member as their offering for
1900. For all the Protestant Missions of South India the average offering
per church member during 1900 was one rupee and nine annas (fifty-two
cents). For South India this represented an aggregate sum of R 248,852
($85,000) or about seven and one-half per cent, of the total sum expended
in the missions during that year. An American can easily realize how much
this offering is as an absolute gift; but he cannot realize how much of
self-denial it means to that very poor people; nor how large an offering
it is as related to the best offerings of our home churches today. If our
American Christians contributed for the cause of Christ a percentage of
their income equal to that of the native Christians of India they would
quadruple their benevolence. And if, in relation to their income, the
Christians of India contribute four times as much as the Christians of
America, in relation to their real ability, after supplying the most
primitive needs of their bodies, they contribute a hundred times more than
do their brothers and sisters in this great land of luxury and abundance.
Who in America, today, in contributing to the cause of Christ, denies
himself a convenience or a comfort; yea more, who on that account fails to
meet the craving of bodily appetite? And yet there are many Christians in
India who suffer in both these respects in order that they may add the
widow's mite to the treasury of the Churc