For some years there had been but a slight increase in the membership of the churches, either in the capital or the country; but there had been far fewer suspensions from fellowship than formerly, while the new members were of a more intelligent and satisfactory character. Up to the time of our second furlough in 1890, this may be said to have been the case; but to have gauged the results of the work, either in the capital or in the country, by the handful of new members gathered in yearly, or by their seemingly slow growth in grace, would have been to make a great mistake. For after all, the true test of mission work is not so much the statistics of church members or adherents, or even the size of the congregations and schools; but the kind and character of the men and women those churches turn out, and how they stand the wear and tear of life, and face its temptations. Our church members were the salt that kept the whole mass from utter corruption; the only lights in a wilderness of darkness. Through them, and by means of them, religious influences and religious truth were penetrating and permeating all classes of the community. But just as you cannot diffuse influence over a whole countryside, and have the same visible results as you might, had it been confined to one village, or focused on a single congregation, so our work suffered from its very success, suffered in intensity and depth from its wide extension. It also suffered somewhat from an overestimate of the past, and with the influences supposed to be at work. We are prone to compare the men of the present to their disadvantage with the men who lived, and worked, and even died for their faith in times of persecution in Madagascar and elsewhere. The estimate of the piety of these earlier times is contrasted with a piety which has not to face death, though it may have to face the more exacting tests of life and growth. In the view of these early and heroic witnesses for Christ, more has been expected of their countrymen than it was reasonable to expect at so early a stage in their religious history. Principle had to take the place of sentiment, and sincerity that of mere profession, before they could be called strong; but the power that makes for righteousness was at work among them, and had been from the first. Mysterious and indefinite in its operations, but obvious and mighty in its results.