In the view of the Volunteer Movement leaders, the entire Protestant missions enterprise seemed to be sagging in the last years of the nineteenth century. Harlan Beach wrote to Mott in 1896: "Sometimes it seems as if the missionary spirit of the churches had received a permanent setback. The panic is far enough in the background now to have lost its power. No immediate prospect of better times is to be seen. What then can be done?" Increasingly, the Movement's task was not only to recruit missionaries but also, through educational methods, to encourage financial support of the mission boards. There were far more recruits than positions to be filled but the SVM justified its continued recruiting activity on the grounds that a wider pool for the boards to select from would result in more highly qualified missionaries.