chosen field. Every object possessed a peculiar interest in our eyes, for we already regarded the land as, in one sense at least, our own. We were strangers, it is true, and among a strange people, but, like Abraham, by the anticipation of faith we looked upon the field as our own. Scarcely a dozen of the people would have confessed to any allegiance to us, however remote, in a religious or any other sense. A thousand obstacles confronted us, and we knew but too well that every inch of progress would be contested. We were none the less eager, however, to enter upon the task which God had set before us, and hastened on to Lucknow, where the pioneers of the Mission had already assembled, and were waiting to greet us.
We spent a week in Lucknow, during which the first annual meeting of our Mission was held, and here we were able to gain a clearer view of the field which had been chosen for us. Taking the Province of Oude, with the smaller Province of Rohilcund on the north, and the little mountain district of Kumaon, our field contained seventeen million inhabitants. It is not strange that we gave little thought to the limited territorial extent of our field, in the face of the immense population which confronted us. At that time this population amounted to almost half that of the United States, and as America had been more than all the world to us, it seemed as if we were going abroad to attempt the conquest of a new world.
As we took counsel together in reference to new mission stations, new schools, and other enterprises, and new plans for occupying all the region assigned us, it is not strange that our field seemed at times to assume imperial proportions. Even at that early time, some of us could not but feel as if we were about to lay the foundations of an empire. The only objection that was made, so far as I can now remember, to the field assigned us was that it was too large. It did not seem possible that we could occupy so much ground, and make anything like adequate provision for the exigencies which would be sure to arise in the progress of our work, nor did it seem to any one that the Church
