CHAPTER XXVI - NEW MISSIONS AND THE RESULTS OF HALF A CENTUUY'S WORK

Summary

Not only as professor of Evangelistic Theology, but as superintendent or, so far as Presbyterian parity allowed, director of the Foreign Missions of his Church, Dr. Duff had the care of all the churches till the day of his death. None the less was he the adviser, referee, and fellow-helper of the other missionary agencies of Great Britain and America. His third of a century's experience of India, what he had learned in his careful tour of inspection in Africa, his personal study of both Europe and America, were henceforth all concentrated on one point—the consolidation and extension of the Missions. For this end he ever sought to perfect the internal organization of his own Church, which he had created at what an expenditure of splendid toil we have told. During the two years 1865 and 1866, the records of his office and of the General Assembly, and the newspapers of the day, show that he held conferences with the ministers, office-bearers and collectors of each congregation and presbytery over a large part of Scotland, informing, stimulating and often filling them with an enthusiasm like his own. Nothing was too humble, nothing too wearisome for one already sixty years of age, if only the great cause could be advanced. To him a conference meant not a quiet talk but a burning exposition. As in 1866 the ordinary home income reached an annual average of £16,000, and the fees and grants-in-aid united with the subscriptions of Christian people abroad to double that, he felt that the time had come for new missions.