“Ever, with warmest love, “Your loving Sister, “MAGGIE WHITECROSS PATON.”
“Wanted a Steam Auxiliary.”—Commissioned Home to Britain.—English Presbyterian Synod.—United Presbyterian Synod.—The “Veto” from the Sydney Board.—Dr. J. Hood Wilson.—The Free Church Assembly.—Neutrality of Foreign Mission Committee.—The Church of Scotland.—At Holyrood and Alva House.—The Irish Presbyterian Assembly.—The Pan-Presbyterian Council.—My “Plan of Campaign.”— Old Ireland’s Response.—Operations in Scotland.—Seventy Letters in a Day.—Beautiful Type of Merchant.—My First 100 at Dundee.—Peculiar Gifts and Offerings.—Approach to London.—Mildmay’s Open Door.—Largest Single Donation.—Personal Memories of London.—Garden-Party at Mr. Spurgeon’s.—The Hon. Ion Keith-Falconer.—Three New Missionaries.—“Restitution-Money.”—The Farewell at Mildmay.—Welcome to Victoria.—The Dream of my Life.—The New Mission Ship Delayed.—Welcome back to Aniwa.—Parting Testimony.—Fare-thee-well.
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 £6,000, without which this great undertaking could not be faced.
At Suez, I forwarded a copy of my commissions from Victoria, from South Australia, and from the Islands Synod, to the Clerks of the various Church Courts, accompanied by a note specifying my home-address, and expressing the hope that an opportunity would be given me of pleading this special cause on behalf of our New Hebrides Mission. On reaching my brother’s residence in Glasgow, I found to my deep amazement that replies awaited me from all the Churches, except our own,—_i.e._, the Free Church, which I call our own, as having taken over our South Seas Mission when it entered into Union with the Reformed Presbyterian Church, to which I originally belonged, though now I was supported by the Church of Victoria. This fact pained me. It is noted here. An explanation will come in due course.
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. Again, however, another indication of a rift somewhere, unknown to me, was consciously or otherwise given, when both the Moderator and Professor Graham, in addressing the Deputies and referring to their Churches and speeches individually, conspicuously omitted all reference to the New Hebrides and the special proposal which I had brought before them. Again I made a note, and my wonder deepened.