But this end is not simply a point in the far distant future; it is a condition, or state of the Church in the district, into which it must be growing.

Then the growth of the native Church is more important than the growth of the mission, and all things should be directed primarily to that end, so that as the native Church waxed the mission should wane, and thus the end should be reached naturally and easily and not by a catastrophe.

If that is the end, then the survey of the station and its district cannot fail to take the form of an inquiry how far progress in this direction has been made.
Since our ideas of missionary work are wrapped up with the establishment of mission stations and consequently with the purchase of land and buildings, since we rely almost wholly upon paid workers for the prosecution of the work, since we employ most expensive methods of propaganda, such as the establishment of great medical and educational institutions, since our societies at home are almost wholly absorbed in the effort to procure funds to pay for all these things, it is not surprising that money takes a supremely important position in our thought of all missionary work.

Consequently, when we think of the growth of the native Church in power to carry on the work which we have begun we naturally think first of self-support.
Self-support is now one of the most common missionary catchwords.

We hear it on every platform at home; we hear it in the mouths of large numbers of our converts abroad.