To the cultured heathen of old the Gospel was foolishness, and it is not less foolish to the uncultured heathen. The inspiring vision of a nation in a day is more poetic than factual. Neither the nation nor the individual is won in a day. Evangelism would be a simple process if it were only to say, as Philip said to Nathanael: “Come and see.” Nathanael, however, was not a bloodthirsty savage, but a pious Jew. It is certain that our duty does not end in merely announcing the Gospel to the heathen, and giving them the opportunity to hear, while we pass the word on to others; for this does not evangelize, nor accomplish anything else worth while. The watchword, lifted with battle-cry fervour, that appeals for the evangelization of the world in this generation, has inspired the zeal of many and has thereby done good service; but it is liable to look for geographical rather than moral results, and the policy of missions, if it respond to this exigent desire, becomes spectacular, the aim being to cover the utmost territory. New work is begun before the old is half done, with a consequent waste of the labour already expended. New stations are opened before the old are half manned for thorough work; and since only a thorough work can ever become self-sustaining and be left to take care of itself, it follows that this principle of forced extension defeats every other principle, and in the end defeats itself. I know eleven missionary societies working in West Africa, and in most of those societies there is need of a policy based upon reality versus romance. In most of them the missionaries agree that the stations are seriously undermanned. I know one mission station at least which has been opened for more than sixty-five continuous years, and missionaries are still there without the least likelihood of their moving on; for the simple reason that the station has been so undermanned in all these years that they have not yet trained a native ministry; whereas, if instead of making haste to open new stations they had concentrated their forces there in sufficient numbers to do a thorough work, they might have left it long ago to the care of the natives themselves, and the missionaries might have opened new fields, with the likelihood that those also would in a reasonable length of time be sufficiently evangelized to be left to themselves.