As I was sitting in my study one day pondering upon these things, the absurdity of the situation came over me all at once. "Here we are gathering money to send our sons and daughters to the distant parts of the earth, but we are doing absolutely nothing for scores of families that are almost within the sound of our church-bell. We feel some responsibility for the millions of people of other lands whom we have never seen, and never shall see, but we have not felt very much responsibility for those who are separated from us by only a few miles. We are anxious to give the gospel to the colored people, the Chinese, and to those of alien races; but we have felt no such anxiety for those of our own race who are not so very far away. There are many families and hundreds of people within five or six miles of our church that are practically without the gospel, as truly as are the Chinese or the South Sea Islanders. We have made no systematic effort to interest them in these things. We have given them no reason to believe that we are drawn out toward them with Christlike motives. Surely there must be something wrong in our calculations." Then I heard the Master say, "These ye ought to have done, and not to have left the other undone." And then came the vision of "The Larger Parish." I saw the church reaching out its hand and touching tenderly but effectively all the people in the surrounding country. I saw the church feeling some responsibility for every family, and counting them all as within the bounds of its parish. I saw every family in all that wide region as tributary to the church. I saw the church making systematic plans to carry the gospel to all these outlying neighborhoods. I began to think of all those people as my parishioners as truly as were those who lived near the church and were members of it. And so the vision dawned upon me of the Larger Parish. In my own mind I annexed all the surrounding country and began to make plans for the evangelization and helping of all the people who dwelt therein. So under the stimulus of foreign missions the vision came of the work that should be done and could be done nearer home. And it may be well to add that since the work of the Larger Parish began, the contributions to foreign missions have more than doubled. There are those all over this wide territory who knew little and cared less about missions three years ago, but who now are eager to make some contribution to the support of the missionary in China, half of whose salary our Church is pledged to provide. And so the vision came, from above as all good visions do, but it came while walking in the pathway of duty, in the unfolding of a larger experience. He who follows the dawning light will see the vision. IV HOW THE VISION BECAME A REALITY