Sea Mission among three hundred islands, containing millions of people who are heathen still. All the objects desired through the entire range of the Society's interests and the Society's work, can with ease be secured by a vessel of our own, commanded by a truly missionary captain, officers, and crew. With considerations like these before them, the Directors were unanimous in resolving that another MISSIONARY SHIP should be provided without delay. They had clear evidence that the ship should be smaller than the last. They were urged also on every hand to keep the ship between the islands and Sydney, and to recall her to England only at long intervals. Accordingly, another vessel, the third bearing the name of the _John Williams_, has been launched, fitted out and despatched to the Islands. Amid the busy work of the past two years, no single matter has occupied a larger share of the Directors' attention and care than the building and equipment of this vessel. She is a beautiful barque of 186 tons register; she went to sea well equipped in every respect, and specially provided with certain fittings that will conduce to the comfort of the missionaries and their families. The Directors placed on board an excellent library, a large Atlas of the best maps, illustrative of the South Seas and the Australian colonies; also a quadrant and barometer for general use; and it only remained to supply the library with a set of the different Polynesian Scriptures. "Heaven speed the canvas gallantly unfurled, To furnish and accommodate a world. Soft airs and gentle heavings of the wave Attend the ship whose errand is to save, Which flies, obedient to her Lord's commands, A herald of God's love to pagan lands." [Illustration: THE "JOHN WILLIAMS."]