Our loving God orders everything well. But for that Fund handed over by me to the Victorian Church, I know not what would have become of the New Hebrides Mission during the intervening years, since the crash of our Australian Banks and the consequent terrible financial depression. Thousands and tens of thousands of our people were literally ruined. Money could not be obtained, even for the ordinary and inevitable expenses of our Congregations. Ministers’ stipends were, on almost every hand, temporarily reduced. The Foreign Mission Committee’s income fell so terribly, that nearly everything was consumed in meeting the claims of the Mission to the Aborigines and to the Chinese. In 1895 the contributions to the _Dayspring Fund_ fell in Victoria from £500 to £200, and even that was raised with difficulty. In fact, but for our Fund, the salaries of several of the Missionaries and Native Teachers would of necessity have been cancelled, and our forces withdrawn from the field. God be praised, that calamity was averted! All our Army for Jesus have been maintained at their posts; nay, additional Pioneers have actually, despite these depressions, gone forth and pierced the Kingdom of Darkness here and there with shafts of Gospel light. On my return to Victoria all these schemes, and particularly the new proposals as to the _Dayspring_, were fully laid before the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church at Melbourne. Though the Ship was offered as a free gift to the Mission, and the additional £1,000 _per annum_ was now provided, without laying one farthing of financial burden on them or on any of the Churches concerned, yet our Victorian Church resolved to proceed with great deliberation, and to carry, if possible, the approval of all parties concerned. They entered into correspondence with each of the seven other Churches coöperating in the New Hebrides, and with each of the Missionaries on the Islands, and agreed to instruct the building of the Ship only if all, or a clear majority, cordially approved. More than ten years ago, all had sanctioned the raising of the money for a new and larger Steam Auxiliary Ship, and that sanction had never been withdrawn. But many things had happened since then; and it was at least brotherly and considerate, if not absolutely obligatory, to confer with them all ere proceeding further.