ass figures, and we
have there a known, or estimated, area and population, to use as a basis
for calculation of proportions and comparison, and we are aiming at
placing each mission in a larger whole and trying to see what part each
takes in the performance of a great work which is world wide in its
scope. If the missions then which decline a territorial basis for their
work would fill up those tables which reveal the nature of their work
and the force engaged in it we should be able to advance to the next
stage. This is what we meant when at an earlier stage we remarked that
we had drawn our tables to serve a definite purpose, but that we had not
ignored the case of the man whose idea of the purpose of a mission
differed from our own.

CHAPTER X.

SURVEY OF THE WORK IN A PROVINCE.

In few parts of the world is a mission station really an isolated unit.
In most of the countries to which we go there are many stations of many
different missions, all aiming more or less definitely at the
establishment of a native Church, whatever their conception of the
Church may be. In the vast majority of cases these stations have some
relationship to one another. The definition of districts for the mission
stations is commonly recognised, and in planning new work directors of
missions frequently allow themselves to be influenced, in some way and
in some degree, by the position of existing mission stations. There are
also in some parts of the world bodies composed of leading members of
many of the missions that work in the country, who meet to consider the
progress of the Christian faith in the province or the country as a
whole, and deliberately plan their work with some consideration of the
position and character of the work done by the others. Now in all this
there is a manifest approach to the idea that mission work in the
country or province is a common work, and that the various missions
engaged in it are not antagonists, but allies. It is certainly true that
we are far from having reached the stage of a common direction and a
real unification of work Rivalry and antagonism are still rampant, but
the recognition of the fact that we must consider the position and
character of other missions in directing our own is a most important
advance; and it implies that we ought, in some measure at least, to be
able to express the work of any mission station in relation to all the
mission work done in the province or country, and t