obligation, and respond in love and faith, "Here am I, send me."

GREAT BRITAIN

The British members of the Commission communicated with seven of the leading Societies as to the motives which had led the men and women who had been accepted during the last two years to come forward. Three Societies were unable to give any information. Some details of 160 cases were given by the other four. Of these it is interesting to note that a considerable number dated their desire for missionary work to their early days. In one list more than half decided in the early stages of their career-" from boyhood's days; result of a sermon at school; desire from boyhood; received the command clearly when quite young; ever since ten; the time of my conversion; from schooldays; when fourteen I heard a missionary preach our annual sermon and I heard God's call; from earliest childhood my ambition was to give myself to missionary work; from early years I have hoped to be a missionary; from a child." The actual motives seem to fall under three heads: (1) obedience to Christ's command; (2) a sense of the need in the mission field; (3) a realisation of the great things Christ has done and a desire to make them known. Perhaps the women refer more frequently to their motive being a desire to obey Christ's command, but among the men in many cases there is evidently a profound sense that God has called and they have answered. Others seem more impressed with the great need of the non-Christian world, and, there being no good reason why they should not go, have offered for service. Some say that they "would need a call to stay at home"; "" cannot settle in this land when the need abroad is so great; " there are so many at home and so few abroad; a reasoned-out sense of the need." Others again, realising that Christ has done great things for them, are seized with a desire to pass on the good news-" an earnest desire to extend His Kingdom"; "a desire to

"

tell others what I myself have learnt; a desire to spend my life where it will count most."

IV. THE STUDENT VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT

As the Student Volunteer Movement upon both sides of the Atlantic has for its object the securing of candidates for the work of the regular Societies, and as the organisation has already assumed international proportions, it is essential that the work should have consideration in connection with this section of our Report. In Great Britain and upon the Continent the same movement is called "The Student Volunteer Missionary Union." Both in Europe and in America it is an interdenominational organisation of students, with the object of leading students in colleges, universities, and theological schools to volunteer for personal missionary service and to offer to the Missionary Society of their own denomination. As the movement began in America, we will first outline its present scope in that country.

THE MOVEMENT IN AMERICA

The Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions originated at the first international Conference of Christian college students, which was held at Mount Hermon, Mass., U.S.A., in 1886, at the invitation of the late Dwight L. Moody. Of the 250 delegates who attended, twenty-one had definitely decided to become foreign missionaries when the Conference opened. Before the Conference closed, one hundred of the delegates had put themselves on record as being "willing and desirous, God permitting, to become foreign missionaries."

The Student Volunteer Movement is in no sense a Missionary Board. It is simply a recruiting agency. Those who become student volunteers are expectedto go out as missionaries of the regular established missionary organisations of the Church to which they belong. It is unswervingly loyal to the Church, and

has received the endorsement of every leading Missionary Society in America.

Student volunteers are drawn from those who are or have been students in institutions of higher learning in the United States and Canada. Each student volunteer signs the "declaration" of the Movement, which is as follows:

"It is my purpose, if GOD permit, to become a foreign missionary."

The field for which the Student Volunteer Movement, as an agency of the Church, is held responsible, is the promotion of missionary life and activity in the 1000 institutions of higher learning in the United States and Canada, in which more than 250,000 students are matriculated.

It works among all denominations and all the institutions of higher learning. It is, therefore, interdenominational, intercollegiate, and international, and is thoroughly organised for the successful accomplishment of its work.

The student volunteers in an institution are organised into a volunteer band. The objects of the volunteer band are to deepen the missionary purpose and spiritual lives of the members, to secure other volunteers, and to promote mission study in the college. Connected with each Young Men's or Young Women's Christian Association in the college there is a missionary committee whose duty is to cultivate the missionary life of the institution. The educational department of the Movement, under the direction of the educational secretary, has to do with the conduct of the mission study classes in the colleges.

In order to be of greater service to all the Missionary Societies in helping them to secure the very best men and women to go as missionaries, a candidate secretary was appointed, in the fall of 1907; his work is to familiarise himself with the various posts on the mission field for which missionaries are needed, and to suggest men and women qualified for these places to the various missionary agencies. Almost every American Board

has been aided during the past year in finding properly qualified candidates.

The volunteers in cities which are large student centres, and, in some States, are organised into unions. The purpose of these unions is to promote the missionary interest in the different colleges represented in them. In the United States and Canada, there are held each year seven student conferences for men and five for women. At each one of these conferences special attention is given to developing the missionary life and activity among students. At these conferences missionary "institutes " are held to train the leaders of volunteer bands, of mission study classes, and other missionary activities of the institutions represented.

Once in four years an international convention is assembled. To this come students and professors from the leading institutions of higher learning in North. America. Five such conventions have been held. These conventions have been from the beginning powerful factors in developing the missionary life and activity among students, and in leading them to offer themselves for missionary service.

The Volunteer Movement has touched nearly, if not quite, 1000 institutions of higher learning in North America. Upon 800 of these institutions it has brought to bear one or more of its agencies with such constancy and thoroughness as to make an effective missionary impression. This includes nearly all of the American and Canadian colleges and theological seminaries of influence.

The number of students intending to become missionaries is over five times as great in the colleges, and fully twice as great in the theological seminaries, as was the case when the Volunteer Movement was inaugurated.

The Movement has on its records the names of 4377 volunteers who, prior to 31st December 1909, had reached the mission field, having been sent out as missionaries of more than fifty different Missionary Societies of the

United States and Canada. About one-third of the volunteers are women.

Including the regular denominational Societies under which nearly all of the volunteers have gone out, and also certain undenominational and special Societies, the number of different agencies under which volunteers are serving is very nearly one hundred. While the greatest proportion are engaged in evangelistic work, a large number have entered medical and educational missions, and every other phase of missionary activity is represented in the forms of service in which the volunteers are occupied. It is estimated that about 75 per cent. of these assign the Student Volunteer Movement as the determining cause of their entering foreign mission work.

The American student volunteers who have already sailed have gone to the following countries:

In addition to those who go abroad, thousands of young men and women in the colleges are, year by year, entering other callings with the missionary spirit.

As soon as the Movement entered the field, it inaugurated an educational missionary campaign which has become increasingly extensive and efficient. Few, if any, Christian students pass through college without