t before their converts as a status of honour,
and offer them encouragements of various kinds to induce them to become
self-supporting as soon as possible. At home, if we ask concerning the
progress of the native Church, they often answer us by telling us the
numbers of these self-supporting churches.

What then is meant by a self-supporting Church? We might naturally
suppose that a self-supporting Church was a Church which was independent
of external support; we might suppose that it could maintain itself
without any assistance from mission funds; we might suppose that, when a
Church became self-supporting, the mission, so far as finance was
concerned, could withdraw and move to some fresh place. That is
sometimes the case, but very rarely. We know, for instance, a case where
fourteen Christians in a small town provided their own chapel and its
furnishing and upkeep, and all subsidiary expenses without any
assistance. They had no paid ministers and therefore no salaries to
pay. They were from the very beginning entirely self-supporting, and the
missionary could, and did, leave them and go to others who needed him
more. But in this case there was no mission compound, no elaborate
system of mission education, and no mission fund from which the chapel
could be built and a pastor provided, before the converts were ready to
provide these things for themselves.

Most commonly the mission does all these things, and then self-support
does not necessarily imply independence of foreign support. We have met
native Christians who assured us in one breath that they were members of
a self-supporting Church and that their Church did not receive its fair
share of mission funds. Self-support does not necessarily mean
independence of external pecuniary aid.

What then does the status of a self-supporting Church imply? Nothing
certain, but just what the society, or the missionary, chooses. Take a
case. In a newly opened outstation the converts subscribed $5 Mexican, a
head, per annum. The missionary in charge of the district estimated that
$500 per annum would pay the rent and upkeep of the chapel, and the
salary of the pastor. Therefore he calculated that when the membership
of the chapel reached 100, the congregation would be self-supporting.
But if a school were founded and fees paid, then the day of self-support
would be very far off.

Hence it is obvious that self-support is an arbitrary standard fixed on
no certain grounds; and