But the excitement over the Organ and Hymn question was too intense for me; the debate threatened to degenerate into a wrangle, and the marvellous way in which a stick or an umbrella was flourished occasionally by an impulsive speaker, to give action to his eloquence, was not a little suggestive of blows and broken heads. All ended quietly, however, and the decision, though not final, gave hope of an early settlement, which will secure alike the liberty and the peace of the Church. A trip to the South Seas, and a revelation of how God used the Harmonium and the Hymn, as wings on which the Gospel was borne into the homes and hearts of Cannibals, would have opened the eyes of many dear fathers and brethren, as it had opened mine! No one was once more opposed, especially to instrumental music in the worship of God, than I had been; but the Lord who made us, and who knows the nature He has given us, had long ago taught me otherwise. I addressed the Assembly at ’Derry and also the Council at Belfast. The memory of seeing all those great and learned and famous men—for many of the leaders were literally such—so deeply interested in the work of God, and particularly in the Evangelizing of the Heathen World and bringing thereto the knowledge of Jesus, was to me, so long exiled from all such influences, one of the great inspirations of my life. I listened with humble thankfulness, and blessed the Lord who had brought me to sit at their feet. On the rising of the Council, I entered upon a tour of six weeks among the Presbyterian Congregations and Sabbath Schools of Ireland. It had often been said to me, after my addresses in the Assemblies and elsewhere,— “How do you ever expect to raise £6,000? It can never be accomplished, unless you call upon the rich individually, and get their larger subscriptions. Our ordinary Church people have more than enough to do with themselves. Trade is dull,” etc. I explained to them, and also announced publicly, that in all similar efforts I had never called on or solicited any one privately, and that I would not do so now. I would make my appeal, but leave everything else to be settled betwixt the individual conscience and the Saviour,—I gladly receiving whatsoever was given or sent, acknowledging it by letter, and duly forwarding it to my own Church in Victoria. Again and again did generous souls offer to go with me, introduce me, and give me opportunity of soliciting subscriptions; but I steadily refused,—going, indeed, wherever an occasion was afforded me of telling my story and setting forth the claims of the Mission, but asking no one personally for anything, having fixed my soul in the conviction that one part of the work was laid upon me, but that the other lay betwixt the Master and His servants exclusively. “On what then do you really rely, looking at it from a business point of view?”—they would somewhat appealingly ask me.