At all the other Stations in Victoria the outward comforts of the Natives are attended to, but Superintendents ought to be appointed, in every case, to care for their souls as well as their bodies. For strong drink and other vices are rapidly sweeping the Aborigines away; and Australia has but short time to atone for the cruelties of the past, and to snatch a few more jewels from amongst them for the Crown of Jesus our Lord. At my farewell meeting in Melbourne, Sir Henry Barkley presiding, I pleaded that the Colony should put forth greater efforts to give the Gospel to the Aborigines; I showed the idols which I had discovered amongst them; I read Nora’s letters, and, I may, without presumption, say, the “brute-in-human-shape” theory has been pretty effectually buried ever since. CHAPTER III. _TO SCOTLAND AND BACK._ Dr. Inglis on the Mission Crisis.—Casting Lots before the Lord.—Struck by Lightning.—A Peep at London.—A Heavenly Welcome.—The Moderator’s Chair.—Reformed Presbyterian Church and Free Church.— Tour through Scotland.—A Frosted Foot.—The Children’s Holy League.—Missionary Volunteers.—A God-provided Help-Mate.—Farewell to the Old Family Altar.—First Peep at the _Dayspring_.—The _Dayspring_ in a Dead-Lock.— Tokens of Deliverance.—The _John Williams_ and the _Dayspring_.—Australia’s Special Call. Each of my Australian Committees strongly urged my return to Scotland, chiefly to secure, if possible, more Missionaries for the New Hebrides. Dr. Inglis, just arrived from Britain, where he had the Aneityumese New Testament carried through the press, zealously enforced this appeal. “Before I left home,” he wrote back to the Church in Scotland, “I thought this would be inexpedient; but since I returned here, and have seen the sympathy, interest, and liberality displayed through the blessing of God on Mr. Paton’s instrumentality, and the altered aspect of the Mission, I feel that a crisis has been reached when a special effort must be made to procure more men, for which I had neither the time, nor had I the means to employ them, but which may now be appropriately done by Mr. Paton; and my prayer and hope are that he may be as successful in securing men at home as he has been in securing money in these Colonies.”