A CURIOUS PROBLEM.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 581, 29 April 1876, Page 3

A CURIOUS PROBLEM.

A correspondent supplies a Victorian paper with the following statistics, which are at least very curious :—" According to the most authentic and reliable statements, the total population of the globe is about 1,335,000,000; of these it is reckoned there are 185,000,000 in ihe Romish Church ; 85,000,000 in the Greek Church ; and 110,000,000 of various Protestant sects and parties, giving as the population of the so-called Christian world 380,000,000, and reckoning 5,000.000 Jews, there are left 950,000,000 of human beings who are unacquainted with the Bible, and who know nothing of the religion of Christ. Pagans, who have no religion, 100,000.000 ; Mahomedans, 150,000,000 ; and 650,000,000 devoted to the Asiatic religion. To send one missionary to each 5000 of the] heathen population it would require 19i. ! ,000 men. To give £IOO a year to each, the sum of £19,000,000 per annum would be necessary. Reckoning at the same rate, China alone, with her population of 400,0.0,0'0, would require 80,000 missionaries, who would cost £8,000,000 a year. There are now employed in the heathen world about. 350 ordained ministers, and 12,000 lay preachers, in all 15,500. During the Inst seventy-five years, it is estimated one million and a half have been converted from heathenism to Christianity ; or at the rate of two millions in one hundred years. But it must be borne in mind the heathen population, during the present century, has been increasing at the rate of 200,000,0C0 in one hundred years. Statisticians have recently calculated that the population of the globe is increasing, at the least, at the rate of 5,000,000 yearly, or 300,000.000 in sixty years. At what rate is the Christian Church multii plying her converts?"