PREFATORY NOTE TO THE SEVENTH EDITION.
In the year 1865 I was led to write the pamphlet "China's Spiritual Need and Claims," showing the urgent necessity there was for some further effort for the evangelization of China. Its circulation was blessed by God, and much interest in China was awakened. A number of persons were led to devote themselves to Mission work there; some who joined the China Inland Mission, and some who are members of other Missions, point to that book as having determined their course.
A second edition was published in 1866; a third in 1868; and a fourth in 1872; but for a number of years it was out of print, and friends often urged its reissue. A revised and enlarged edition, with many illustrations and diagrams, was published in June, 1884. It was hoped that in its improved form it might be more widely blessed than before, in promoting interest in Missionary work in China. That fifth edition of 5000 copies being exhausted, a sixth edition, also of 5000 copies, substantially the same, only a few typographical corrections have been inserted, was issued the same year. The present edition of 10,000 is a simple reprint of the sixth, with the addition of Appendix B.
The Conspectus of Protestant Missions for March, 1884, which forms pages 40, 41 will be found to bring into one focus a great amount of valuable information. It shows the population of every province, the number of Protestant Missionaries in them, with the stations they occupy, and the number of workers at each station; the Societies to which the workers belong, the date of each Society's commencing work in China; and the total number of married men, single men and single women engaged in the work. The number of British, American, and Continental Societies represented in China, and the number of Missionaries connected with each in China, as a whole, and in each station in particular, together with other useful
