I then sailed from Sydney to Victoria, and addressed the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in session at Melbourne. The work was easily set agoing there, and willing workers fully and rapidly organized it through Congregations and Sabbath Schools.
Under medical advice, I next sailed for New Zealand in the S.S. _Hero_, Captain Logan. A large number of fast men and gamblers were on board, returning from the Melbourne Races, and their language was extremely profane. Having prayed over it, I said on the second day at the dinner table,—
“Gentlemen, will you bear with me a moment? I am sure no man at this table wishes to wound the feelings of another or to give needless pain.”
Every eye stared at me, and there was a general cry as to what I meant. I continued,—
“Gentlemen, we are to be fellow-passengers for a week or more. Now I am cut and wounded to my very heart to hear you cursing the name of my Heavenly Father, and taking in vain the name of my blessed Saviour. It is God in whom we live and move, it is Jesus who died to save us, and I would rather ten times over you would wound and abuse me, which no gentleman here would think of doing, than profanely use those Holy Names so dear to me.”
There was a painful silence, and most faces grew crimson, some with rage, some perhaps with shame. At last a banker, who was there, a man dying of consumption, replied with a profane oath and with wrathful words. Keeping perfectly calm, in sorrow and pity, I replied, looking him kindly in the face,—
“Dear Sir, you and I are strangers. But I have pitied you very tenderly, ever since I came on board, for your heavy trouble and hacking cough. You ought to be the last to curse that blessed Name, as you may soon have to appear in His presence. I return, however, no railing word. If the Saviour was as dear to your heart as He is to mine, you would better understand me.”
Little else was said during the remainder of that meal. But an hour later Captain Logan sent for me to his room, and said,—
“Sir, I too am a Christian. I would not give my quiet hour in the Cabin with this Bible for all the pleasures that the world can afford. You did your duty to-day amongst these profane men. But leave them and their consciences now in the hands of God, and take no further notice during the voyage.”
I never heard another oath on board that ship. The banker met me in New Zealand and warmly invited me to his house!
My health greatly improved during the voyage, but I was sorely perplexed about this new undertaking. A sum of £2,800 must be raised, else the vessel could not sail free for the New Hebrides. I trembled, in my reduced state, at the task that seemed laid upon me again. One night, after long praying, I fell into a deep sleep in my Cabin, and God granted me a Heavenly Dream or Vision which greatly comforted me, explain it how you will. Sweetest music, praising God, arrested me and came nearer and nearer. I gazed towards it approaching, and seemed to behold hosts of shining beings bursting into view. The brilliancy came pouring all from one centre, and that was ablaze with insufferable brightness. Blinded with excess of light, my eyes seemed yet to behold in fair outline the form of the glorified Jesus; but as I lifted them to gaze on His face, the joy deepened into pain, my hand rose instinctively to shade my eyes, I cried with ecstasy, the music passed farther and farther away, and I started up hearing a Voice saying, in marvellous power and sweetness, “Who art thou, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain.” At this some will only smile. But to me it was a great and abiding consolation. And I kept repeating to myself, “He is Lord, and they all are ministering Spirits; if He cheers me thus in His own work, I take courage, I know I shall succeed.”