to enter upon fields outside the British dominions. The S.P.G. work at the end of the eighteenth century was, as far as can be gathered, strictly confined to British “plantations.” If it had gone beyond, it was to a very limited extent. The feeling of the founders of the C.M.S. in 1799 was that they had a call to the World. In those early days, Simeon was like the navigator of old who said, “It can be done, and we are the people to do it.”
The growth of the C.M.S. is illustrated by such facts as the following. Twenty years ago, the Society had just emerged from a period of grave difficulty and anxiety. Funds had failed, and missionaries eager for the work had been kept back two years running, but friends had responded to the needs of the crisis, and by the middle of 1881 the Society was once more borne forward upon a rising tide of interest, sympathy and prayer. God was raising up able and devoted men for His service abroad, and was inclining the hearts of His people to provide the means for sending them out. Never once has there been pause or check in the continuous progress. In May 1881, the C.M.S. missionaries numbered 264; in May 1901, they numbered 906, and seventy more have just sailed or are about to sail. This great interest is partly due to the employment of women missionaries, and partly to the larger number of lay missionaries, including
