Excerpt from A Century of Protestant Missions in China (1807-1907) Being the Centenary Conference Historical Volume The original idea of this Volume was set forth by Dr. Arthur H. Smith in a paper in the Chinese Recorder of August, 1905, entitled "A Centennial History of Protestant Missions in China." As he was the person originally expected to do the work, his remarks will be of interest. They were as follow: - "The General Committee in charge of the arrangements for the Conference of 1907 are planning for the compilation of a compendious summary of the work of all the societies working in the Empire. It was at first proposed to commit this task to a single individual, but when the matter was discussed in a special meeting held May 22nd, 1905, the utter impracticability of the undertaking was recognized. There is no single individual, whatever his acquaintance with China, who could survey the whole immense field with so minute and comprehensive a vision as to be able to present it as a coordinated and harmonious whole. Were there no other difficulty the limitation of time would be a fatal bar to success. Under these circumstances it was unanimously voted to attempt the task by an entirely different process. The Committee is communicating with the home management of all the different societies concerned, and is asking each one to arrange for the preparation of a succinct summary of its own individual work in China; all the manuscripts to be sent to Shanghai to be edited, and eventually published in a volume (or volumes), which will then become a complete, an authentic, and a permanently valuable history of Protestant missions in China for a century." In accordance with this idea, circulars were sent to all the Home authorities asking for succinct historical summaries. At first these were to be limited to 4,000 words each, but this was modified in a subsequent circular to an average limit of 4,000 words, the older Societies being given more space, and the others warned that their matter might have to be editorially curtailed. On January 23rd, 1906, I was appointed to the post of Editorial Secretary of the volume. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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