“We must have you to address the Assembly on the evening devoted to Missions.” But the rest insisted that, to keep straight with the Board at Sydney, no formal approval should be given of my proposals. This I agreed to, on condition that the Committee did not publish the Sydney veto, but allowed it simply to lie on their table or in their minutes. Thus I had the pleasure and honour of addressing that great Assembly; and though no notice was taken of my proposals in any “finding” of the Court, yet many were thereby interested deeply in our work, and requests now poured in upon me from every quarter to occupy pulpits and receive collections for the new Ship. Still I had occasional trouble and misunderstanding through that veto during all my tour in Britain and Ireland. It prevented me particularly from getting access to the Free Church Foreign Missions Committee, or addressing them on one single occasion, though I pled hard to be allowed to do so and to explain my position. This I felt all the more keenly, as I laboured freely and for weeks, along with their noble Missionaries then at home on furlough, in addressing meetings in Glasgow, Aberdeen, Greenock, etc., chiefly for Sabbath Scholars, but from which I received no help directly in the matter of the Mission Ship. Doubtless they were trying to do their duty, and refusing to take either side; and that they thought they had succeeded appears from the following fact. When rumour reached Australia that my Mission home had been under God a great success, a letter came to them from their Committee’s agent in Sydney as to the “application” of the sum that had been raised by me, to which they replied,— “The Foreign Missions’ Committee of the Free Church of Scotland, in accordance with the action of the _Dayspring_ Committee at Sydney, have from the first abstained from assisting Mr. Paton in this movement, believing that the question is one entirely for the Australian Churches.” At the meeting in the Assembly Hall of the Church of Scotland, which, along with others, I was cordially invited to address, the good and noble Lord Polwarth occupied the chair. That was the beginning of a friendship in Christ which will last and deepen as long as we live. From that night he took the warmest personal interest, not only by generously contributing to my fund, but by organizing meetings at his own Mansion House, and introducing me to a wide circle of influential friends. Every member of his family took “shares” in the new Steam-Auxiliary Mission Ship, and by Collecting Cards and otherwise most liberally aided me; and that not at the start only, but to the day of my departure,—one of the last things put into my hand on leaving Britain being a most handsome donation from Lord and Lady Polwarth to our Mission Fund,—“a thankoffering to the Lord Jesus for precious health restored in answer to the prayer of faith.”