WANTED! A STEAM AUXILIARY.
IN December 1883 I brought a pressing and vital matter before the
General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria. It pertained to
the New Hebrides Mission, to the vastly increased requirements of the
Missionaries and their families there, and to the fact that the
_Dayspring_ was no longer capable of meeting the necessities of the
case,--thereby incurring loss of time, loss of property, and risk and
even loss of precious lives. The Missionaries on the spot had long felt
this, and had loudly and earnestly pled for a new and larger Vessel, or
a Vessel with Steam Auxiliary power, or some arrangement whereby the
work of God on these Islands might be overtaken, without unnecessary
exposure of life, and without the dreaded perils that accrue to a small
sailing Vessel such as the _Dayspring_ alike from deadly calms and from
treacherous gales.
The Victorian General Assembly, heartily at one with the Missionaries,
commissioned me to go home to Britain in 1884, making me at the same
time their Missionary delegate to the Pan-Presbyterian Council at
Belfast, and also their representative to the General Assemblies of the
several Presbyterian Churches in Great Britain and Ireland. And they
empowered and authorized me to lay our proposals about a new Steam
Auxiliary Mission Ship before all these Churches, and to ask and receive
from God's people whatever contributions they felt disposed to give
towards the sum of £6000, without which this great undertaking could not
be faced.
A few days after my arrival I was called upon to appear before the
Supreme Court of the English Presbyterian Church, then assembled at
Liverpool. While a hymn was being sung, I took my seat in the pulpit
under great depression. But light broke around, when my dear friend and
fellow-student, Dr. Oswald Dykes, came up from the body of the Church,
shook me warmly by the hand, whispered a few encouraging words in my
ear, and, returned to his seat. God helped me to tell my story, and the
audience were manifestly interested.
Next, by kind invitation, I visited and addressed the United
Presbyterian Synod of Scotland, assembled in Edinburgh. My reception
there was not only cordial,--it was enthusiastic. Though as a Church
they had no denominational interest in our Mission, the Moderator,
amidst the cheers of all the Ministers and Elders, recommended that I
should have free access to every Congregation and Sabbath School which I
found it possible to visit, and hoped that their generous-hearted people
would contribute freely to so needful and noble a cause. My soul rose in
praise; and I may here say, in passing, that every Minister of that
Church whom I wrote to or visited treated me in the same spirit
throughout all my tour.
Having been invited by Mr. Dickson, an Elder of the Free Church, to
address a midday meeting of children in the Free Assembly Hall, I was
able by all appearances, greatly to interest and impress them. At the
close, my dear and noble friend, Principal Cairns, warmly welcomed and
cheered me, and that counted for much amid all anxieties; for I had
learned that very day, at headquarters, that the Free Church authorities
were resolved, in view of a difference of opinion betwixt the
_Dayspring_ Board at Sydney and the Victorian Assembly as to the new
Steam Auxiliary, to hold themselves absolutely neutral.
Having letters from Andrew Scott, Esq., Carrugal, my very dear friend
and helper in Australia, to Dr. J. Hood Wilson, Barclay Free Church,
Edinburgh, I resolved to deliver them that evening; and I prayed the
Lord to open up all my path, as I was thus thrown solely on Him for
guidance and bereft of the aid of man. Dr. Wilson and his lady, neither
of whom I had ever seen before, received me as kindly as if I had been
an old friend. He read my letters of introduction, conversed with me as
to plans and wishes (chiefly through Mrs. Wilson, for he was suffering
from sore throat) and then he said with great warmth and kindliness:
"God has surely sent you here to-night! I feel myself unable to preach
to-morrow. Occupy my pulpit in the forenoon and address my Sabbath
School, and you shall have a collection for your Ship."
Thereafter, I was with equal kindness received by Mr. Balfour, having a
letter of introduction from his brother, and he offered me his pulpit
for the evening of that day. I lay down blessing and praising Him, the
Angel of whose Presence was thus going before me and opening up my way.
That Lord's Day I had great blessing and joy; there was an extraordinary
response financially to my appeals and my proposal was thus fairly
launched in the Metropolis of our Scottish Church life. I remembered an
old saying, Difficulties are made only to be vanquished. And I thought
in my deeper soul,--Thus our God throws us back upon Himself; and if
these £6000 ever come to me, to the Lord God alone, and not to man,
shall be all the glory!
On the Monday following, after a long conversation and every possible
explanation, Colonel Young, of the Free Church Foreign Missions
Committee, said, "We must have you to address the Assembly on the
evening devoted to Missions." Thus I had the pleasure and honor of
addressing that great Assembly; and though no notice was taken of my
proposals in any "finding" of the Court, yet many were thereby
interested deeply in our work, and requests now poured in upon me from
every quarter to occupy pulpits and receive collections for the new
Ship.
At the meeting in the Assembly Hall of the Church of Scotland, which
along with others, I was cordially invited to address, the good and
noble Lord Polwarth occupied the chair. That was the beginning of a
friendship in Christ which will last and deepen as long as we live. From
that night he took the warmest personal interest, not only by generously
contributing to my fund, but by organizing meetings at his own Mansion
House, and introducing me to a wide circle of influential friends.
Nor, whilst the pen leads on my mind to recall these Border memories,
must I fail to record how John Scott Dudgeon, Esq., Longnewton, a
greatly esteemed Elder of the Church went from town to town in all that
region, and from Minister to Minister, arranging for me a series of
happy meetings. I shared also the hospitality of his beautiful home, and
added himself and his much-beloved wife to the precious roll of those
who are dear for the Gospel's sake and for their own. Her Majesty's
Commissioner to the General Assembly for the year was that distinguished
Christian as well as nobleman, the Earl of Aberdeen. He graciously
invited me to meet the Countess and himself at ancient Holyrood. After
dinner he withdrew himself for a lengthened time from the general
company, and entered into a close and interested conversation about our
Mission, and especially about the threatened annexation of the New
Hebrides by the French.
There also I had the memorable pleasure of meeting, and for a long while
conversing with that truly noble and large-hearted lady, his mother, the
much-beloved Dowager-Countess well known for her life-long devotion to
so many schemes of Christian philanthropy. At her own home, Alva House,
she afterwards arranged meetings for me, as well as in Halls and
Churches in the immediately surrounding district; and her letters of
interest in the work, of sympathy, and of helpfulness, from time to time
received, were amongst the sustaining forces of my spiritual life.
When one sees men and women of noble rank thus consecrating themselves
in humble and faithful service to Jesus, there dawns upon the mind a
glimpse of what the prophet means, and of what the world will be like,
when it can be said regarding the Church of God on Earth,--"Kings have
become thy nursing fathers, and their Queens thy nursing mothers."