should be presented to us not simply as ends to be attained, but in
their relation to one another and in their relation to the final end
which the directors of our missions have clearly before their eyes.

Now it is just at this point that we fail to attain satisfaction. All
societies publish reports and statistics, but the reports and statistics
do not provide us with any clear and intelligible account of progress
towards any definite end. They seem rather designed to attract and to
appeal to our sympathy than to satisfy our intelligence. They set before
us all kinds of work unrelated, indefinite, changeable, and changing
from year to year, as though the compilers selected from the letters of
missionaries any striking statements which they thought would attract
support in themselves and by themselves. No goal is set before us, and
the progress towards that goal steadily traced from year to year; still
less is the relation between the different methods and means employed to
attain each subordinate objective expressed so that we can see, not
only what progress each is making towards its own immediate end, but
what is the effective value of all together towards the attainment of a
final end to which they all contribute.

But would not the definition of one great end or purpose hinder us? Are
not all the great ends which we set before ourselves indefinite enough
to include a host of different and mutually separate and even
occasionally incompatible subsidiary objects, aims, and methods? Would
not the rigid definition of the aim of our foreign missions, by
excluding a great many legitimate aims and methods, weaken and beggar
our missions, which are strong in proportion as they admit all sorts of
different aims and methods? There are men who speak and act as if they
thought so, and in consequence welcome as a proper part of the
missionary programme all Christian, social, and political activities.