1807 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 communicants 1814 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 `` 1834 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 `` 1842 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 `` 1853 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350 `` 1857 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,000 `` 1865 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,000 `` 1876. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13,515 `` 1886 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28,000 communicants 1889 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37,287 `` 1893 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55,093 `` 1887 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80,682 `` 1903 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112,808 `` The number of Protestant missionaries is 2,950, of whom 1,233 are men, 868 are wives and 849 are single women. Of the whole number, 1,483 are from Great Britain, 1,117 from America and 350 from continental Europe. Other interesting statistics are 5,000,000 adherents, 2,500 stations and out- stations, 6,388 Chinese pastors and helpers, 1,819 day-schools and 170 higher institutions of learning, twenty-three mission presses with an annual Output Of 107,149,738 pages, thirty-two periodicals, 124 hospitals and dispensaries treating in a single year 1,700,452 patients; while the asylums for the orphaned and blind and deaf number thirty-two. It will thus be seen that Christian missions in China are being conducted upon a large scale. It would be difficult to overestimate the silent and yet mighty energy represented by such work, steadily continued through a long series of years, and representing the life labours of thousands of devoted men and women and an annual expenditure of hundreds of thousands of dollars. True, the number of Christians is small in comparison with the population of the Empire, but the gospel has been aptly compared to a seed. It is indeed small, but seeds generally are. Lodged in a crevice of a rock, a seed will thrust its thread-like roots into fissures so tiny that they are hardly noticeable. Yet in time they will rend the rock asunder and firmly hold a stately tree. Now the seed of the gospel has been fairly lodged in the Chinese Empire. It is a seed of indestructible vitality and irresistible transforming power. It has taken root, and it is destined to produce mighty changes. It was not without reason that Christianity was spoken of as a force that ``turned the world upside down,'' though it only does this where the world was wrong side up. It is significant that the word translated ``power'' in Romans 1:16, ``The gospel is the power of God,'' is in the Greek the word that we have anglicized in common speech as ``dynamite.'' We might, therefore, literally translate Paul's statement: ``The gospel is the dynamite of God.'' That dynamite has been placed under the crust of China's conservatism, and the extraordinary transformations that are taking place in China are, in part at least, the results of its tremendous explosive force.