Nothing retards progress like too much haste. The cause of the undermanned stations and the resultant crippled work is not, as many will say, that there are not enough missionaries, but that there are too many stations. The policy cannot make missionaries, but it does make stations, and a wise policy will adapt the number of stations to the number of missionaries, instead of so scattering the missionaries that not one of them can do a work that will remain. In the arithmetic of missions two men can do not only twice as much but ten times as much as one. The French Protestant Society, whose work on the Ogowé River in the Congo Français is without doubt the most successful work in all West Africa, have only two stations, but have ten missionaries at each station. Neither can it be said that the crippled force at work in most of the missions is due to the hostile climate, inasmuch as every year, and almost every month, the unexpected happens, and missionaries are obliged to lay down their work suddenly and go home. I reply that _elsewhere_ (as I have said before) it is the unexpected that happens, but in Africa it is the unexpected that we _expect_. We know the climate. It is one of the exigencies of the situation, and since the policy cannot change the climate, the climate ought to change the policy. A policy of true evangelism must aim to establish a self-sustaining church, that is, a church which is independent of foreign money, and which is manned with its own ministry; and this is a slow process. It involves a threefold work, that of preaching (not on Sunday only, but daily, probably itinerating) that of teaching (at least in Africa, where there are no native schools) and the higher training for the ministry. If any one of these departments is wanting, the work is not progressing towards a self-sustaining church, and the policy is so far defective. But here is work for several men, at least, at one mission station. To place them at several stations means that no thorough or progressive work can be done at any station. And as such scattering of forces is poor policy it is also poor economy. For a station is usually an extensive property, expensive to build and expensive to maintain. The unnecessary multiplying of stations is extravagance. In our Presbyterian mission these considerations are being fully realized, and the present policy evinces a determination to do thorough work in the field already occupied rather than to enlarge our territory at the expense of crippling the established work. We have learned by our failures as well as by our successes.