5. Summary

Altogether, therefore, Protestantism has (inclu ding those not ordained) 7,940 male and 4,010 unmarried female missionaries to the heathen, and raises at home about $20,000,000 annually for their support. To what extent the 614 male and 308 female missionary physicians are included in these figures can not be certainly determined on account of the inexactness of the statistics of many societies. A very essential aid is given to the different Evangelical missions of all denominations by a number of Bible and Tract Societies which, at their own expense, care for the printing and also to a certain extent for the distribution of translations of the Bible and other books (see Bible Societies).

Of the Tract Societies (q.v.), the principal are the London (1799) and the American Tract Society (1825) and the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge (1698). Worthy of mention beside these, among the thirty in the missionary fields, are the Christian Literature Society for India (1859) and the Society for the Promotion of Christian and General Knowledge among the Chinese (1887).

The ever-increasing need for mutual understanding has led to the institution of general missionary conferences, as well as those which were assembled by the united missionary organizations of a special territory (India, China, Japan, South Africa), as those called together by the missionary organizations of all Protestantism for general consultation.

* Since the majority of these societies carry on an extensive work among Roman Catholics in the West Indies and in Central and South America, and frequently do not clearly separate this work from the work among the heathen, it is possible to give only approximate data.

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The ecumenical conferences have now become a permanent institution; they are held every ten years and constitute not only a bond of fraternal unity among the often widely differing missionary bodies, but they also offer in their voluminous repoits very valuable material for the study of the theory and history of missions.