Excerpt from A Concise History of Missions The history Of missions is the history of the extension of Christianity. It is thus a depart ment of general church history; and cannot be fully understood except as its relations to other departments are kept in mind. The progress of the Church has been by no means uniform. There have been periods of special missionary activity, others in which doctrinal statement, ecclesiastical organization, the consolidation and strengthening of church life, have absorbed attention. Each, however, has had its influence on all the others, and the work as a whole has a unity which can only be realized as one takes a survey of the whole field. Such a survey it is the purpose of this book to give. There is no detailed statement of different epochs or of the various phases Of mission work. The aim is rather to indicate the general char acter of the epochs, show the mutual relation and influence of the phases, and thus make it some what easier to place correctly the details as we come across them elsewhere. To use the phrase of one who has himself done much to help in the general knowledge of missions, Mr. John R. Mott, it lays the rails that connect the remoter sections and make passage from one to another possible. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.