It is not, we are told, the business of the Foreign Mission to preach the Gospel in every village of a defined area nor to make itself responsible for such preaching directly: it should give to converts in every country the highest and best and fullest teaching of Christian civilisation, in order that by so doing it may show to all the people of the country an example, by which they may be attracted and influenced.

If we take the widest expression of such mission activity we find that to estimate the true value of such work we should be compelled to survey not only the mission and its activities but the social, moral, material, and spiritual state of the people among whom the mission was planted, and seek for signs of a change which we could trace with some certainty to the influence of the mission.

That would be a stupendous and most intricate undertaking.

Where innumerable forces are at work such as are implied in the impact of western civilisation upon the peoples of the East, or of Africa, it would be extremely difficult to state the exact impression made by the mission, even if we could survey the whole state of the people at regular and definite periods.

We do not for a moment doubt that all Christian missions do exercise an influence of this wide and far-reaching character, and from time to time we can see results which clearly spring from it, but we cannot think it wise to set out this vague influence as the primary purpose of a mission.