This description was written many years ago. To-day the missionary historian rejoices to record that there are companies of Chinese hungry for the news of salvation. In many instances the largest auditoriums in great cities have proved too small for the throngs which pressed to attend evangelistic meetings.
The Berlin Society has a staff of thirty-six missionaries in fifteen main stations. Its baptized Christians number about ten thousand.
The contribution of German Lutherans to mission work in China is not to be reckoned altogether by figures. Here as elsewhere the Germans have thoroughly studied the native languages, and have devoted much time to the writing of grammars and dictionaries and the making of translations so that the foundation might be well laid. Their labors have been a benefit to other missionary societies as well as to their own.
The _Danish Lutherans_ have a mission in Manchuria which was begun in 1895. Two stations are in the south and one at Harbin. There are forty-two men and women at work and the number of baptized Christians is nearly one thousand.
The missionaries appointed at the opening of the work in China visited on their way the United States and roused interest in many churches of the United Danish Evangelical Lutheran Synod, which now aids in the China work of the Fatherland Society.
The _Norwegian Missionary Society_ has six stations in the Hunan Province, in which there are fifteen hundred church members and one thousand catechumens.
The _Norwegian Lutheran China Mission_ works in Northern Hupeh with twenty-nine missionaries and has won about eight hundred and fifty Christians.
The _Swedish Mission in China_, founded in 1887, labors in connection with the China Inland Mission, a large and successful inter-denominational mission, which has more than twenty thousand communicants. To this work other Swedish societies contribute.
[Sidenote: A Pioneer.] The founding of the Swedish Mission in China was due to the influence of a visit from Lars Skrefsrud, one of the founders of the Home Mission to the Santals in India. His burning enthusiasm for the cause of missions influenced _Erik Folke_ to become in 1887 a pioneer in China. He studied the Chinese language in the school of the China Inland Mission and then arranged for the founding of an independent Swedish Mission, which should, however, work in connection with the China Inland Mission. Mr. Folke’s fearful experiences during the Boxer uprising so affected his health that it was necessary that he should return to Sweden where he serves as president of the Home Committee.