| | | -- ------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | _____________|_______________|_________|________________|____________ From this we should learn briefly, and as a starting-point, the proportion of the self-supporting churches, and that might help us to understand the progress made towards self-support as it is understood in the district, and enable us to compare it with that of other districts.
But this by itself would not be of any great value in assisting us to understand what progress had been made towards the establishment of a Church which could stand alone, if the station with its foreign staff were withdrawn.

No Church which does not advance can stand, and the mere attainment of this arbitrary standard does not necessarily prove capacity to advance or to stand.

The effort to attain it sometimes leads the converts to concentrate their attention upon themselves.

They set self-support before their eyes as an end to be attained for their own sake.

It has consequently sometimes happened that native churches, established on this self-supporting basis, have become self-absorbed, self-seeking.