for a presiding elder's district. In a number of cases movements of this kind have actually occurred, under my own supervision, and nothing that I have witnessed in India has so encouraged me to believe that all India can yet be evangelized by simple men of God, raised up from among the sons of India, as the success achieved in this way. If no other reason existed for the outward extension of the work than this one peculiarity, the system introduced by Dr. Butler would in a large measure account for it.
But reasons of this kind will weigh less with the thoughtful reader than the fact that our people have been providentially led in extending the sphere of their labors, not only into regions immediately adjoining our first field, but to all parts of the empire. With the extension of the vast railway system of India thirty years ago, small colonies of Europeans and Eurasians were gathered into settlements at distances varying from one hundred to one hundred and fifty miles, for the most part along the leading lines of railway. These settlers were almost exclusively connected with the railways, and were, of course, Christians, in the general sense of that word, and were known as Christians to the people among whom they lived. Most of them were deprived of the ordinary privileges of the sanctuary, and, as always happens in such cases, very many began rapidly to forget their religious obligations when thus cut off from their early associations. In the providence of God, our missionaries were led to preach, not only to these people, but to other English-speaking people living in the larger cities, many of whom were in government service, while others were engaged in such kinds of private business as India affords. When the word was preached among these people God blessed it in a peculiar manner, and in a short time companies of believers were gathered together in a number of large cities, and from these centers the work spread, in the course of a few years, throughout the length and breadth of the empire.
During the first year or two no very definite plan was adopted
