The Devotion of Life — Page 315
315 Missionaries. However, generally speaking the Missionaries have still not understood this. They think they are the foot soldiers of Ahmadiyyat and have to do all the tasks themselves. Yet one who has this understanding actually limits the tasks of the Movement. How many Missionaries can we keep for service of the faith? Currently, around seventy are active and their allowances are a huge burden on the Community, a large part of the ' chanda' has to be spent on them. However what is it that they do? If they were the only ones working, the progress of the Community would halt. Through them hardly three hundred people per year do Bai’at; the rest, who are estimated at ten to twelve thousand, are coming into Ahmadiyyat through the members of the Community. As far as debates are concerned, they will last only as long as the moral standards of the people of our country are not reformed. Discussions and debates have to be organised due to the moral weaknesses of the people. Our objective is not to make religious scholars for the purpose of discussions, on the contrary the objective of the religious scholars is that they should be like officers who should gather an army of people around them and make use of them. Or, be like a shepherd who has the responsibility of a herd and this task can also be done by a number of Missionaries in a fine manner. Until such time that our Missionaries do not comprehend this, our objective cannot be fulfilled. From the word ‘mubaligh’ (missionary) they connote one who addresses the outsiders; however, this is not the only