is no great difficulty in supplying about twenty out of the twenty-seven missionaries of the Society who are labouring in the South Seas.  But, besides supplying stores to their missionaries, the Society is carrying on most important evangelistic work in several small and isolated groups; as the Pearl Islands, the Penrhyns, the Ellice and Lagoon Islands, and in detached islands of the larger groups.  These isolated spots require to be visited regularly, for the protection of the people, the encouragement of the teachers, and for the supply of new men, medicines, and books.  The vessels that may be hired are not always available.  They are often far from suitable to the work; they are very deficient in that amount of comfort which on public duty the missionary brethren ought to enjoy.  Not seldom they wish to go where the missionary finds no work; to stay at some places when his work is finished; and to leave others when the work requires him to remain.  Besides, evangelistic work is growing on our hands; the native churches are strong; labourers are abundant; the groups lying to the north and west are more open than ever; and the Directors are called upon to look fairly in the face a large extension of the South Sea Mission among three hundred islands, containing millions of people who are heathen still.  All the objects desired through the entire range of the Society’s interests and the Society’s work, can with ease be secured by a vessel of our own, commanded by a truly missionary captain, officers, and crew.

With considerations like these before them, the Directors were unanimous in resolving that another missionary ship should be provided without delay.  They had clear evidence that the ship should be smaller than the last.  They were urged also on every hand to keep the ship between the islands and Sydney, and to recall her to England only at long intervals.  Accordingly, another vessel, the third bearing the name of the John Williams, has been launched, fitted out and despatched to the Islands.  Amid the busy work of the past two years, no single matter has occupied a larger share of the Directors’ attention and care than the building and equipment of this vessel.  She is a beautiful barque of 186 tons register; she went to sea well equipped in every respect, and specially provided with certain fittings that will conduce to the comfort of the missionaries and their families.  The Directors placed on board an excellent library, a large Atlas of the best maps, illustrative of the South Seas and the Australian colonies; also a quadrant and barometer for general use; and it only remained to supply the library with a set of the different Polynesian Scriptures.

   “Heaven speed the canvas gallantly unfurled,
    To furnish and accommodate a world. 
    Soft airs and gentle heavings of the wave
    Attend the ship whose errand is to save,
    Which flies, obedient to her Lord’s commands,
    A herald of God’s love to pagan lands.”