umber
of communicants (or full members) in the district, and (_b_) the number
of Christian Churches organised, but not self-supporting. By an
organised Church we understand a body of Christians in any place who
hold regular religious services, and may send delegates to any council
which may exist for the whole station district.

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Communicants.|Proportion of |Organised|Proportion of |Remarks
|Communicants |Churches.|Organised |and
|connected with | |Churches |Conclusions.
|Self-supporting| |Self-supporting.|
|Churches. | | |
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| | | |
_____________|_______________|_________|________________|____________

From this we should learn briefly, and as a starting-point, the
proportion of the self-supporting churches, and that might help us to
understand the progress made towards self-support as it is understood in
the district, and enable us to compare it with that of other districts.
But this by itself would not be of any great value in assisting us to
understand what progress had been made towards the establishment of a
Church which could stand alone, if the station with its foreign staff
were withdrawn. No Church which does not advance can stand, and the mere
attainment of this arbitrary standard does not necessarily prove
capacity to advance or to stand. The effort to attain it sometimes leads
the converts to concentrate their attention upon themselves. They set
self-support before their eyes as an end to be attained for their own
sake. It has consequently sometimes happened that native churches,
established on this self-supporting basis, have become self-absorbed,
self-seeking. They have so looked on their own things that they have
tended to lose sight of the things of others. They have become, like
many little Christian communities at home, so entangled in the effort to
maintain their own dignity, their own services, their own progress in
outward prosperity, that they have forgotten the real purpose of their
existence, and, instead of becoming centres of light and attraction and
active zeal for the spread of the gospel, have degenerated into
self-contained units indulging a self-satisfied pride in the glorious
position to wh