s not one representative of the churches of
North America anywhere in the non-Christian world. The Buddhist world
and the Brahmin world were closed, and the millions of the Mohammedan
world were practically untouched. The vast regions of South America
and Africa were almost unknown. To-day there is an army of 24,000
missionaries, counting wives, or about 17,000 missionary families and
single missionaries scattered over all the continents, and in almost
every country of the world.

In North America the evidence of the growth of conviction regarding
foreign missions is seen in the following record of the Student
Volunteer Movement. In the report made by that Movement every four
years the following facts appear:

Number of Volunteers Sailed

1898-1902 780

1902-1906 1,000

1906-1910 1,286

In the year 1911 the total reached was 410, indicating the fact that
the goal of two thousand sailed volunteers for the quadrennium is not
an impossible number to expect to see go out before the next
convention in 1914.

[Illustration: Gifts for Foreign Missions 1891-1912]

=Money Devoted to Missions.=--One hundred years ago the total
contributions to the foreign missionary enterprise from all the
Christians of the world amounted to about $100,000 annually. To-day the
regular annual income is over $30,000,000, or three hundred times as
much per year as one hundred years ago. Great buildings are being
erected at a cost of millions of additional capital to house colleges
and hospitals and printing-presses and all other institutions necessary
for the propaganda. In 1911 these special contributions from North
America amounted to at least five millions of dollars. In all this vast
enterprise the cost of administration at the home base averages only
about 8 per cent. of the total of the regular receipts. The cost of all
other big business is much higher than this. There are perhaps some
cases where the efficiency of the mission Boards would be increased if
more money was spent on the cultivation of the home constituency.

=Translation of the Scriptures.=--The Bible is the missionary's book,
and translated into the language of the people is an indispensable aid
to his work. The Bible Societies on both sides of the Atlantic have
done and are doing a magnificent and enduring work the benefits of
which all the churches are reaping. In 1800 the