We have now dealt with the survey of the station and of the province or small country, but the final end of missionary work is the attainment of a world-wide purpose.  The Gospel is for the whole world, not for a fragment of it, however big.  Missionary work cannot properly be carried on in any place except by means and methods designed with a view to the whole, and missions can never be properly presented to us at home so long as we are taught to fix our eyes on small areas; because the great characteristic of missions is their vastness.  This is what is so uplifting and ennobling in the work.  Every little piece of mission work ought to be directed on principles capable of bearing the weight of the whole.  We ought to be able to say, “The whole world can be converted by these means and on these principles which we are here employing in this little village”.  If the methods and the principles are so narrow that we can build no great world-wide structure on them, we can take little more interest in them than we do in the petty politics of some little parish at home.

We have then yet to demand that we shall be able to put every little station into its proper place in this larger whole, and to see how its principles and methods are illumined by the vision of the whole, being established with the design of accomplishing the whole task.  We turn then now to this larger view of mission work.  The tables which we have drawn for a province or small country would enable us to compare the work in each area with another such area in the larger whole, and to judge whether we were unduly neglecting any; where the Church was strongest and where it was least established; where it was more capable and where it was less capable of taking over that work which rightly belongs to it, of extending its own boundaries, and of maintaining its own life.  We should not send hasty missions here or there because some interesting political event attracts the eyes of men to this or that particular country, but on definite missionary principles, acting on a clear and reasonable understanding of the missionary situation in the world.

The commission of Christ is world-wide, the claim of Christ is world-wide, the work of Christ, the Spirit of Christ are all-embracing; and the work which missionaries do in His name should be all-embracing to.  We should conduct all our work, and plan all our work, at home and abroad, with our eyes fixed on the final goal, which is for us, so long as we are on this earth, coterminous only with the limits of the habitable globe.  We cannot be content to approach even the largest areas as though our action was limited by them.  All our policy in every part should be part of a policy designed for the whole.  If it is not designed to accomplish the whole it is not adequate for any part.

How then could we gain a vision of the whole, a whole composed of such vast and diverse parts?  Obviously we must have for every country in which any missionary work is carried on some common returns, either those which we venture to suggest or others which some abler minds might suggest; but that they must be common to all, and fundamental in character, is obvious; and they must be reduced to proportions on a common basis, or comparison and combination will be impossible; and they must be as few as possible in order to avoid confusion.