It does not need that I should inform the Reader of the preceding pages that this wreck was, in all the circumstances, one of the bitterest sorrows of my life. I am not ashamed, considering my views of its spiritual value as the Handmaid of the Gospel in completing Christ’s Mission on the New Hebrides, to confess that I showed as much emotion, though in a different way, when I heard the sorrowful news, as did the Christian Natives at Lenukel, when they rolled themselves in anguish on the sands, and set up a deathwail as if they had lost their dearest friend. It requires very little imagination to realize the scene, as the news was borne from Isle to Isle, and to hear one long, deep, and heart-breaking cry resounding throughout the New Hebrides—“Alas for the Gospel Ship! Alas for our dear little _Dayspring_! Alas for the white-winged Herald of the Cross!” For one, though firmly believing that her loss was a great blow to all the higher interests of our Mission, I was able to say: “The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away:”—but yet, God forgive me, it was very hard to add: “Blessed be the Name of the Lord.” But never, in my deepest soul, did I for a moment doubt that in His hands all must be well. Whatever trials have befallen me in my Earthly Pilgrimage, I have never had the trial of doubting that perhaps, after all, Jesus had made some mistake. No! my blessed Lord Jesus makes no mistakes! When we see all His meaning, we shall then understand, what now we can only trustfully believe, that all is well—best for us, best for the cause most dear to us, best for the good of others and the glory of God. Still, my tears would flow when I thought of the dear little _Dayspring_, the fruit of ten years of prayers and toils, the gift of God’s people throughout the world to our beloved Mission, tumbled from that reef and lying at the bottom of the Sea. And I felt comforted to think that He, who wept with the mourning Sisters at the grave of Lazarus, did not rebuke their tears, but soothed them by weeping with them—“Jesus wept.”