Perhaps my words were not too conciliatory. But excitement so blinded many friends, that I had to fight as if at bay, or get no hearing and no justice. The Presbytery hesitated, and closed without coming to any resolution. All the members of it showed me thereafter the same respect as ever before. It was gratifying to learn in due course that all the Churches supporting our Mission, after having independently investigated into the facts, justified the course adopted by us,—Nova Scotia alone excepted. Yet two of her own Missionaries had also to interpret for that Man-of-war, exactly as I had done, nor did I ever hear that any rebuke was administered to them. Feeling absolutely conscious that I had only done my Christian duty, I left all results in the hands of my Lord Jesus, and pressed forward in His blessed work.
More than one dear personal friend had to be sacrificed over this painful affair. A Presbyterian Minister, and a godly elder and his wife, all most excellent and well-beloved, at whose houses I had been received as a brother, intimated to me that owing to this case of the _Curaçoa_ their friendship and mine must entirely cease in this world. And it did cease; but my esteem never changed. I had learned not to think unkindly of friends, even when they manifestly misunderstood my actions. Nor would these things merit being recorded here, were it not that they may be at once a beacon and a guide. God’s people are still belied. And the multitude are still as ready as ever to cry, “Crucify! Crucify!”
The scheme for meeting the yearly cost of the _Dayspring_, that had already been tentatively set a-going, had now to be matured and permanently organized. In this my dear friend Dr. J. Dunsmore Lang, well acquainted with the resources of all the Churches, was our judicious counsellor. We proposed that Victoria should raise £500; New South Wales and New Zealand, £200 each; Tasmania, Queensland, and South Australia, £100 each, and £250 each from Novia Scotia and Scotland. Tasmania, South Australia, and Queensland fell a little short of their proportion; Sydney, Scotland, and Novia Scotia met their claims; and Victoria and New Zealand exceeded them, and made up for deficiency in others. This has ever since been done in great measure, though not exclusively, by the Sabbath Scholars of the Churches, through their _Dayspring_ “Mission-boxes.” In organizing and maturing this scheme, I visited and addressed almost every Presbyterian Congregation and Sabbath School in New South Wales and Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania; and Ministers and Superintendents, with scarcely an exception, came to be bound together in a true federal union in support of our Mission and our Ship.
For the first three years, when everything was new, the _Dayspring_ cost us about £1,400 per annum; but since then she has cost on an average little short of £2,000 over all. There has too often been a floating debt of £300 or more, which has given us great anxiety; but the Lord has sent what was required, and enabled us to keep her sailing with the Gospel and His servants amongst these Islands, free of any actual burden,—His own pure messenger of Good Tidings, unstained with the polluting and bloody associations of the foul-winged trading Ships!
Another fiery furnace awaited me on this tour, when I reached Geelong. One of the prominent Ministers refused to shake hands. An agent of the London Missionary Society had informed them “that the £3,000 paid for the _Dayspring_ had been thrown away, that the Vessel was useless, fitted only for carrying stores, and having no accommodation for passengers; and that on her second trip to the Islands our Missionaries had to wait and go down by the _John Williams_.” It was an abiding sorrow to me, that local misrepresentations gave the Societies an appearance of conflict, whereof the parent organizations knew nothing whatever. But, for all the interests at stake, facts _had_ to be made known. Several Congregations had resolved to withdraw from the support of our Mission; and several Ministers at Ballarat, and elsewhere, were by similar accounts prejudiced against us.