'For the Norfolk Island people have come to see how wise was the Primate's original plan, and now they much desire to connect themselves more closely with the Mission. 'Mr. and Mrs. Nobbs desire their son Edwin, who was two years at the Governor's at Sydney, and is now eighteen and a half years old, to be given wholly to us.... So said Simon Young of his boy Fisher, and so did three others. All spoke simply, and without excitement, but with deep feeling. I thought it right to say that they should remain at Norfolk Island at present, that we all might prove them whether they were indeed bent upon this work, that we might be able to trust that God had indeed called them. To the lads I said, "This is a disappointment, I know, but it is good for you to have to bear trials. You must take time to count the cost. It is no light thing to be called to the work of a teacher among the heathen. In giving up your present wish to go immediately, you are obeying your parents and others older than yourselves, and your cheerful obedience to them is the best evidence that you wish to act upon a sense of duty, and not only from impulse; but don't think I wish to discourage you. I thank Him who has put the good desire into your hearts. Prove yourselves now by special prayer and meditation." 'Then came the happy, blessed service, the whole population present, every confirmed person communicating, my voice trembling at the Fifth Commandment and the end of the Prayer for the Church Militant, my heart very full and thankful. I preached to them extempore, as one can preach to no other congregation, from the lesson, "JESUS gone to be the guest of a man that is a sinner," the consequences that would result in us from His vouchsafing to tabernacle among us, and, as displayed in the Parable of the Pounds, the use of God's gifts of health, influence, means; then, specifying the use of God's highest gifts of children to be trained to His glory, quoting 1 Samuel i. 27, 28, "lent to the Lord," I spoke with an earnestness that felt strange to me at the time. 'Simon Young said afterwards: "My wife could not consent months ago to Fisher's going away, but she has told me now that she consents. She can't withhold him with the thought of holy Hannah in her mind." And I felt as if I might apply (though not in the first sense) the prophecy "Instead of thy fathers, thou shalt have children." 'To add to all, Mr. Nobbs said: "I have quite altered my mind about the Melanesian school, I quite see that I was mistaken;" and the people are considering how to connect themselves closely with us.