Dr. Steel had chartered the _Paragon_, a new three-masted schooner, built at Balmain, Sydney, to come down with our provisions, letters, etc.; and the owners had given a written agreement that if we could purchase her within a year we would get her for £3,000. She proved in every way a suitable vessel, and it became abundantly manifest that in the interests of our Mission her services ought to be permanently secured.
I had often said that I would not again leave my beloved work on the Islands, unless compelled to do so either by the breakdown of health, or by the loss of our Mission Ship and my services being required to assist in providing another. Very strange, that in this one season both of these events befell us. During the hurricanes, from January to April, 1873, when the _Dayspring_ was wrecked, we lost a darling child by death, my dear wife had a protracted illness, and I was brought very low with severe rheumatic fever. I was reduced so far that I could not speak, and was reported as dying. The Captain of a vessel, having seen me, called at Tanna, and spoke of me as in all probability dead by that time. Our unfailing and ever-beloved friends and fellow Missionaries, Mr. and Mrs. Watt, at once started from Kwamera, Tanna, in their open boat and rowed and sailed thirty miles to visit us. But a few days before they arrived I had fallen into a long and sound sleep, out of which, when I awoke, consciousness had again returned to me. I had got the turn; there was no further relapse; but when I did regain a little strength, my weakness was so great that I had to travel about on crutches for many a day.
Being ordered to seek health by change and by higher medical aid, and if possible in the cooler air of New Zealand, we took the first opportunity and arrived at Sydney, anxious to start the new movement to secure the _Paragon_ there, and then to go on to the Sister Colony. Being scarcely able to walk without the crutches, we called privately a preliminary meeting of friends for consultation and advice. The conditions were laid before them and discussed. The Insurance Company had paid £2,000 on the first _Dayspring_. Of that sum £1,000 had been spent on chartering and maintaining the _Paragon_; so that we required an additional £2,000 to purchase her, besides a large sum for alterations and equipment for the Mission. The late Mr. Learmouth looked across to Mr. Goodlet, and said,—
“If you’ll join me, we will at once secure this vessel for the Missionaries, that God’s work may not suffer from the wreck of the _Dayspring_.”
Those two servants of God, excellent Elders of the Presbyterian Church, consulted together, and the vessel was purchased next day. How I did praise God, and pray Him to bless them and theirs! The late Dr. Fullarton, our dear friend, said to them,—“But what guarantee do you ask from the Missionaries for your money?”
Mr. Learmouth’s noble reply was, and the other heartily re-echoed it,—“God’s work is our guarantee! From them we will ask none. What guarantee have they to give us, except their faith in God? That guarantee is ours already.”
I answered,—“You take God and His work for your guarantee. Rest assured that He will soon repay you, and you will lose nothing by this noble service.”
Having secured St. Andrew’s Church for a public meeting, I advertised it in all the papers. Ministers, Sabbath School Teachers, and other friends came in great numbers. The scheme was fairly launched, and Collecting Cards largely distributed. Some of our fellow-Missionaries thought that the Colonial Churches should now do all these things voluntarily, without our personal efforts. But in every great emergency some one must take action and show the way, else golden opportunities are apt to slip. Committees carried everything out into detail, and all worked for the fund with great goodwill.