es that are of more importance
than the organization, and the more Christ is lived and exemplified,
the more spiritual and lasting will be the result.

CHAPTER XXV

A FORWARD POLICY

Frontier medical missions--Their value as outposts--Ancient
Christianity in Central Asia--Kafiristan: a lost opportunity of
the Christian Church--Forcible conversion to Islam--Fields for
missionary enterprise beyond the North-West Frontier--The first
missionaries should be medical men--An example of the power of
a medical mission to overcome opposition--The need for branch
dispensaries--Scheme of advance--Needs.

Down the North-West Frontier is the long line of mission outposts:
Srinagar, Mardan, Peshawur, Karak, and Thal, in the Kohat district;
Bannu, Tank, Dera Ismail Khan, Dera Ghazi Khan, Quetta. All of these
comprise medical mission work as part of their activities. Several
have educational work as well. Yet we regard them as something more
than outposts: they are bases. The strength of the British military
stations on that frontier is far in excess of the requirements of
their immediate surroundings, because under conceivable conditions they
have to act as the bases of an army acting beyond them, or they might
have to stem the advance of an invading force. In a precisely similar
way we must regard our frontier missions, not merely in relation to
their environments, but as the means whereby we shall be able to go
forward and evangelize the yet unoccupied lands to the west and the
north. They should be sufficiently well equipped in both personnel
and material, so that when need arises they might be able to supply
the men and means for occupying mission stations farther on.

The countries of Central Asia to the west and north of India are a
challenge and a reproach to the Christian Church--a reproach because
in the early centuries of the Christian era the zeal of the first
missionaries carried the Gospel right across Turkestan and Tibet
to China, and Christian Churches flourished from Asia Minor to
Mongolia. Dr. Stein, in his recent work, "Buried Cities of Khotan,"
tells us how in those days there were fair towns and running streams
and orchards, where now is only a sandy, waterless waste. The rains
ceased, the water channels dried up, the people had to leave their
towns and villages, and the sand was blown in and covered houses and
trees and everything deep in its drifting dunes, where they