ace in the province until we have a
view of the work in the province treated as a unity.

In provinces, large cities and towns, which are not reckoned as part of
any mission station district, have to be taken into account. These large
cities, capitals of provinces, countries, or empires, need special
consideration, and must often be surveyed separately. They are centres
in which many societies have their head-quarters, and many missionaries
live, yet the work done in them is not always so impressive or
extensive as the numbers of missionaries might suggest: occasionally the
missionaries are all congregated in one quarter of the city, and large
portions are practically untouched. In them, too, are sometimes large
city congregations, self-supporting indeed and self-governing, but
sucking into themselves all the more vigorous elements of the Christian
community and employing them within a somewhat narrow circle. The
problem of the evangelisation of these cities is a very serious one.

We suggest that these great cities might be treated either as one
district or as several, and that they ought to be surveyed
systematically by a body representative of all the missions in each
city. If a proper survey were made and the facts tabulated, the
statistical tables would be similar to those for the station district,
and we could use them to complete a survey of the work done in the
province treated as a unity.

But to view the work in the province as a unity we do not need all the
detail of the station districts, indeed we should only find the
multiplication of detail confusing. To gain a general view of work in a
large area such as a province or a small country we must first of all
select those features which are common to all the parts and vitally
important. We venture to suggest that the important features to be
represented are five. (1) The work to be done in the whole area. (2) The
strength of the whole force at work in relation to the work to be done.
(3) The extent to which emphasis is laid on various forms of work. (4)
The extent to which different classes, races, and religions in the area
are reached. (5) The extent to which the Church has attained to
self-support.

1. If the mission stations and their allotted districts covered the
whole country, we should need to do no more than add together the
returns obtained from the station statistics which we have already drawn
up. But in most countries there are large unoccupie