be planned for
every mission. I am confident that they would add largely to the
efficiency of our missionary work and increase the interest of home
churches in their foreign work. But such visiting committees should be
willing to learn and should not come out with preconceived ideas of what
ought to be done, nor with bottled and labelled remedies for all the ills
of the mission. Some missions are sore today because of a visitation many
years ago, since it was not conceived in the spirit of highest wisdom and
teachableness.

2. The missions themselves also should be well organized for work. The
success of a mission will depend, in no small degree, upon the character
of its organization. In India, today, there is a great variety of
missionary organizations. They range from the almost purely autocratic
ones, established by Christians of the European Continent, to the
thoroughly democratic and largely autonomous ones of the American
Missions. German and Danish Missions are mostly controlled by the home
committees of their missionary societies. American Missions have a large
degree of autonomy in the conduct of their affairs. British Missions
divide equally with their home Society the right and privilege of
conducting their affairs. It is certainly not wise that a committee of
gentlemen thousands of miles distant from the mission field should
autocratically direct and control, even to matters of detail, the affairs
of their mission. The missionaries on the ground should not only have the
right to express their opinions, but should also have a voice in
conducting the affairs of the mission for whose furtherance they have
given their life, whose interests they dearly love and whose affairs they
are the most competent to understand.

Nor yet should a mission be entirely free from foreign guidance and
suggestion. Too much power given to a mission is as really a danger as too
little power. It is well for a mission that it should have the aid of men
who have large missionary interests under their guidance and who are in
full sympathy with home churches. The ideal mission is that which, on the
one hand, enjoys a large degree of autonomy in the conduct of its affairs,
and yet which, on the other hand, is wisely supported and strengthened by
the restraining influence, suggestion and even the occasional initiative
of a well-formed home committee.

The relation of the mission to its own members should always be firm and
its authorit