We need to know what facts must be taken into consideration before any mission, evangelistic, educational, or medical, is planted in any place, what facts decide the question whether work is begun, or reinforcements sent, to this place rather than to that.

It is not enough to be assured that there is a need.

There is need everywhere.
We cannot supply all need; but we can have some settled and clear judgment what facts ought to weigh with us, what information we must possess before we can decide properly whether the claim of this place is more urgent than the claim of that.

We ought to have same basis of comparison.

The mere appeal of an earnest and devoted man, the mere clamour of a body of men, the mere insistence of a persevering man, is not sufficient to guide us aright.