I answered,—“I will tell my story; I will set forth the claims of the Lord Jesus on the people; I will expect the surplus collection, or a retiring collection, on Sabbaths; I will ask the whole collection, less expenses, at week night meetings; I will issue Collecting Cards for Sabbath Scholars; I will make known my Home-Address, to which everything may be forwarded, either from Congregations or from private donors; and I will go on, to my utmost strength, in the faith that the Lord will send me the £6,000 required. If He does not so send it, then I shall expect that He will send me grace to be reconciled to the disappointment, and I shall go back to my work without the Ship.” This, in substance, I had to repeat hundreds of times; and as often had I to witness the half-pitying or incredulous smile with which it was received, or to hear the blunt and emphatic retort,— “You’ll never succeed! Money cannot be got in that unbusiness-like way.” I generally added nothing further to such conversations; but a Voice, deep, sweet, and clear, kept sounding through my soul,—“The silver and the gold are Mine.” During the year 1884, as is well known, Ireland was the scene of many commotions and of great distress. Yet at the end of my little tour, amongst the Presbyterian people of the North principally, though not exclusively, a sum of more than £600 had been contributed to our Mission Fund. And there was not, so far as my knowledge went, one single large subscription; there were, of course, many bits of gold from those well-to-do, but the ordinary collection was made up of the shillings and pence of the masses of the people. Nor had I ever in all my travels a warmer response, nor ever mingled with any Ministers more earnestly devoted to their Congregations or more generally and deservedly beloved. No man, however dissevered from the party politics of the day, can see and live amongst the Irish of the North, without having forced on his soul the conviction that the Protestant faith and life, with its grit and backbone and self-dependence, has made them what they are. Romanism, on the other hand, with its blind faith and its peculiar type of life, has been at least _one_, if not the main, degrading influence amongst the Irish of the South and West, who are naturally a warm-hearted and generous and gifted people. And let Christian Churches, and our Statesmen who love Christ, remember—that no mere outward changes of Government or Order, however good and defensible in themselves, can ever heal the miseries of the people, without a change of Religion. Ireland needs the pure and true Gospel, proclaimed, taught, and received, in the South as it now is in the North; and no other gift, that Britain ever can bestow, will make up for the lack of Christ’s Evangel. Jesus holds the Key to all problems, in this as in every land.