Our dear little Mission Ship performed her third trip also with perfect safety, and with much satisfaction to all the Missionaries. Her new Captain, who had formerly been her first Officer, and who in his earlier days had sailed these same Seas in the _Southern Cross_, was a great favorite alike amongst the Missionaries and the Natives; thoroughly capable, firm yet gentle, deserving and commanding universal respect. The Ship had, as the result of experience, been in some matters overhauled and readjusted, to meet special requirements; and her fourth Voyage was entered upon with hope and joy. She was loaded with provisions for the Missionaries and their Families, with wood for the building of their Houses and Schools, and with whatsoever was most urgently required by them for three months to come. So that at every Station, on every Island, the eyes of our beloved Missionaries and their Converts were eagerly looking out across the Seas for the flag of the dear little _Dayspring_. Alas, they looked in vain! She struck on an uncharted reef, not far from New Caledonia,—a disaster against which no skill and no experience could guard, in those not yet thoroughly explored and ever-changeful Seas. Her Officers and Crew did everything that men could do to save her, and struggled on till all hope had perished. With sore hearts, they at last provisioned and manned the two boats, and committed themselves to the deep—agreeing on certain general lines of action, that, please God, they might again come together and be rescued. In a very short time, after they had withdrawn, a high wind and a heavy sea working together completed her destruction, and they beheld the dear little _Dayspring_ plunging head-foremost from the reef into the Sea, and disappearing, masts and all, within the hungry Ocean. The Captain’s boat ran to an island for safety, and was, ere long, picked up, and he and all his men safely returned to Australia. The other boat had a dreadful voyage. More than once she was overturned, and left them all struggling in the Sea. For fourteen days and nights, without almost any food, without any possibility of rest, bareheaded in a broiling sun, the poor fellows endured suffering and untold distress; till, at length, by a well-nigh miraculous Providence, they ran ashore on the coast of Queensland, and were saved. Blessed be God, though our dear little _Dayspring_, with all her belongings, her Library, her Mission Harmonium, Lord Kelvin’s magnificent Compass, and the books, the furnishings, and the food of our beloved Missionaries, lay sleeping in the Ocean’s bed—no father’s or mother’s heart was wrung with the memory of some precious Son buried with her there. We were all spared that agony, and we continue to praise God that the wreck of the _Dayspring_ cost not a single human life.