These large cities, capitals of provinces, countries, or empires, need special consideration, and must often be surveyed separately.

They are centres in which many societies have their head-quarters, and many missionaries live, yet the work done in them is not always so impressive or extensive as the numbers of missionaries might suggest: occasionally the missionaries are all congregated in one quarter of the city, and large portions are practically untouched.

In them, too, are sometimes large city congregations, self-supporting indeed and self-governing, but sucking into themselves all the more vigorous elements of the Christian community and employing them within a somewhat narrow circle.

The problem of the evangelisation of these cities is a very serious one.
We suggest that these great cities might be treated either as one district or as several, and that they ought to be surveyed systematically by a body representative of all the missions in each city.

If a proper survey were made and the facts tabulated, the statistical tables would be similar to those for the station district, and we could use them to complete a survey of the work done in the province treated as a unity.
But to view the work in the province as a unity we do not need all the detail of the station districts, indeed we should only find the multiplication of detail confusing.