the attainment of a
final end to which they all contribute.

But would not the definition of one great end or purpose hinder us? Are
not all the great ends which we set before ourselves indefinite enough
to include a host of different and mutually separate and even
occasionally incompatible subsidiary objects, aims, and methods? Would
not the rigid definition of the aim of our foreign missions, by
excluding a great many legitimate aims and methods, weaken and beggar
our missions, which are strong in proportion as they admit all sorts of
different aims and methods? There are men who speak and act as if they
thought so, and in consequence welcome as a proper part of the
missionary programme all Christian, social, and political activities.
_Anything_, they think, which makes for the amelioration of life,
_everything_ which tends to enlighten and uplift the bodies, the souls,
and the minds of men, is a proper object for the missionary to pursue,
and the missionary should assist every movement towards a higher life in
the heathen community as well as in the Christian, and should introduce
every method and plan, industrial, social, or political, literary, or
artistic, which tends to ennoble the life of men. It may be so. It may
be true that the introduction of everything which tends to uplift and
enlighten is a proper object for missionary activity, but we venture to
argue not all at once, in the same place, nor even any one of them at
the whim of any missionary at any time, anywhere. Nor all in the same
order. There is a more and a less important. And we do urge that if we
are to take an intelligent part in foreign missions and to give those
missions intelligent support, we must know what is the more important
and what the less. We are told that the duty of the foreign mission is
to bring all nations into the obedience of Christ, and that "all the
nations" means all the people of all the nations, and all the
capacities, powers, and activities of all the people of all the nations,
individually and collectively, and that any work which tends to bring
any part of the collective action of any non-Christian people under the
direction of Christian principles is, therefore, the proper work of the
missionary, and that the most important is the particular social,
industrial, or political scheme which the missionary who is addressing
us believes to be the pressing need of the moment in his district.

So long as foreign missions are p