First of Missionary Duties.—Maré and Noumea.—The French in the Pacific.—The _Curaçoa_ Affair.—The “Gospel and Gunpowder” Cry.—The Missionaries on their Defence.—The Mission Synod’s Report.—The Shelling of the Tannese Villages.—Public Meeting and Presbytery.—Fighting at Bay.—Federal Union in Missions.—A Fiery Furnace at Geelong.—Results of Australian Tour.—New Hebrides Mission Adopted by Colonies. We went down to the Islands with the _Dayspring_ in 1865. The full story of the years that had passed was laid before my Missionary brethren at their Annual Synod. They resolved that permanent arrangements must now be made for the Vessel’s support, and that I must return to the Colonies and see these matured. This, meantime, appeared to all of them the most clamant of all Missionary duties,—their very lives, and the existence of the Mission itself, depending thereon. The Lord seemed to leave me no alternative; and, with great reluctance, my back was again turned away from the Islands. The _Dayspring_, doing duty among the Loyalty Islands, left me, along with my dear wife, on Maré, there to await an opportunity of getting to New Caledonia, and thence to Sydney. Detained there for some time, we saw the noble work done by Messrs. Jones and Creagh, of the London Missionary Society, all being cruelly undone by the tyranny and Popery of the French. One day, in an inland walk, Mrs. Paton and I came on a large Conventicle in the bush. They were teaching each other, and reading the Scriptures which the Missionaries had translated into their own language, and which the French had forbidden them to use. They cried to God for deliverance from their oppressors! Missionaries were prohibited from teaching the Gospel to the Natives without the permission of France; their books were suppressed, and they themselves placed under military guard on the island of Lifu. Even when, by Britain’s protest, the Missionaries were allowed to resume their work, the French language was alone to be used by them; and some, like Rev. J Jones (as far down as 1888), were marched on board a Man-of-war, at half an hour’s notice, and, without crime laid to their charge, forbidden ever to return to the Islands. While, on the other hand, the French Popish Missionaries were everywhere fostered and protected, presenting to the Natives as many objects of idolatry as their own, and following, as is the custom of the Romish Church in those Seas, in the wake of every Protestant Mission, to pollute and to destroy.