The society deserves such help from our Churches; its history, its sphere of usefulness, the spirit in which it is managed, the rich prosperity which the Lord has granted to its labours, all appeal in its name.  The field deserves and needs it.  How little has been accomplished of the holy purpose which Missions have in view.  Compared with the millions unevangelized, the converts gained are numerically nothing.  Indeed, the sphere of our labour has continued ever to grow wider, and every answer of God’s providence to the Church’s gifts and prayers and self-denial has been to extend its power to be useful and give it much more to do.

And does not the Lord claim from us this larger service?  He has shown the need of the heathen world more clearly, and made the argument for instructing it unanswerable.

We have prospects for the future to which the gains of the past are poor.  With our skilled agencies, all shaped by experience, with plans well-tried, with our versions and our literatures in every tongue, with China opened widely in answer to prayer, with India deeply moved, with Africa free, with Polynesia raised and civilized, with Madagascar purified by fire—­what tokens have we of manifest blessing, of approval, and of divine help!  The old systems have fallen, or are paralysed, or are trembling with fear; and the young life of the world is drawing towards freedom and truth.  Our results are incomplete; they are but an earnest of successes yet to be gathered; and the full reward will be reaped more truly as the years go by.  But how noble that reward will be!

A pleasant custom prevails in India which will illustrate our position.  At all the military stations of the Empire, the troops are summoned to parade in the early morning by the firing of a gun.  The night may still be dark; the restless sleeper may fancy it will yet be long.  But suddenly amid the stillness loud and clear booms out the morning gun.  The stars are still shining, and the landscape is wrapped in gloom.  But the dawn is near; and soon every eye is open, every foot astir, and the busy, waking life of men again begins.  The fleecy clouds that hang on the eastern horizon grow ruddy with gold; and the arrowy light shoots its bright rays athwart the clear blue sky.  The dust and foulness which the night has hidden stand revealed.  But in the forests and hills the pulses of nature beat fresh and full; the leopard and the tiger slink away; the gay flowers open; the birds flit to and fro, and with woodland music welcome the rising day.  In the city all forms of life quicken into active exercise.  The trader sits ready on his stall; the judge is on the bench; the physician allays pain; the mother tends her child.  The claims of human duty come again into full force; benevolence is active; suffering and disappointment, forgotten in sleep, press with new weight on weary hearts.  What a mighty change one hour has made!