Yet my path was far from clear, notwithstanding my Gideon’s fleece referred to already. To lose time in going home to do work that others ought to do, while I still heard the wail of the perishing Heathen on the Islands, could scarcely be my duty. Amidst overwhelming perplexity, and finding no light from any human counsel, I took a step, to which only once before in all my chequered career I have felt constrained. Some will mock when they read it, but others will perhaps more profoundly say: “To whomsoever this faith is given, let him obey it.” After many prayers, and wrestlings, and tears, I went alone before the Lord, and, on my knees, cast lots with a solemn appeal to God, and the answer came, “Go home!” In my heart, I sincerely believe that on both these occasions the Lord condescended to decide for me the path of duty, otherwise unknown; and I believe it the more truly now, in view of the after-come of thirty years of service to Christ that flowed out of the steps then deliberately and devoutly taken. In this, and in many other matters, I am no law to others, though I obeyed my then highest light. Nor can I refrain from adding that, for the very reasons indicated above, I regard so-called “lotteries” and “raffles” as a mockery of God, and little if at all short of blasphemy. “Ye cannot drink at the Lord’s Table, and at the table of devils.” I sailed for London in the _Kosciusko_, an Aberdeen clipper, on 16th May, 1863. Captain Stewart made the voyage most enjoyable to all. The son of my old friend Bishop Selwyn and I conducted alternately a Presbyterian and an Anglican Service. We passed through a memorable thunder-burst in rounding the Cape. Our good ship was perilously struck by lightning. The men on deck were thrown violently down. The copper on the bulwarks was twisted and melted—a specimen of which the Captain gave me and I still retain. When the ball of fire struck the ship, those of us sitting on chairs, screwed to the floor around the Cabin table, felt as if she were plunging to the bottom. When she sprang aloft again, a military man and a medical officer were thrown heavily into the back passage between the Cabins, the screws that held their seats having snapped asunder. I, in grasping the table, got my leg severely bruised, being jammed betwixt the seat and the table, and had to be carried to my berth. All the men were attended to, and quickly recovered consciousness; and immediately the good Captain, an elder of the Church, came to me, and said,— “Lead us in prayer, and let us thank the Lord for this most merciful deliverance; the ship is not on fire, and no one is seriously injured!”