and the sensation was increased by their apparent truthfulness and
reality. Tanna was the scene of the first event, and a series was to
follow in succeeding numbers. The _Curacoa_ was pictured lying at anchor
off the shore having the _Dayspring_ astern. The Tannese warriors were
being blown to pieces by shot and shell, and lay in heaps on the bloody
coast. And the Missionaries were represented as safe in the lee of the
Man-of-war, directing the onslaught, and gloating over the carnage.

Without a question being asked or a doubt suggested, without a voice
being raised in fierce denial that such men as these Missionaries were
known to be could be guilty of such conduct,--men who had jeoparded
their lives for years on end rather than hurt one hair on a Native's
head,--a cry of execration, loud and deep, and even savage, arose from
the Press, and was apparently joined in by the Church itself. The common
witticism about the "Gospel and Gunpowder" headed hundreds of bitter and
scoffing articles in the journals; and, as we afterwards learned, the
shocking news had been telegraphed to Britain and America, losing
nothing in force by the way, and, while filling friends of Missions with
dismay, was dished up day after day with every imaginable enhancement of
horror for the readers of the secular and infidel Press. As I stepped
ashore at Sydney I found myself probably the best-abused man in all
Australia, and the very name of the New Hebrides Mission stinking in the
nostrils of the people.

The gage of battle had been thrown and fell at my feet. Without one
moment's delay I lifted it in the name of my Lord and of my maligned
brethren. That evening my reply was in the hands of the editor, denying
that such battles ever took place, retailing the actual facts of which I
had been myself an eyewitness, and intimating legal prosecution unless
the most ample and unequivocal withdrawal and apology were at once
published. The Newspaper printed my rejoinder, and made satisfactory
amends for having been imposed upon and deceived. I waited upon the
Commodore and appealed for his help in redressing this terrible injury
to our Mission. He informed me that he had already called his officers
to account, but that all denied any connection with the articles or the
picture. He had little doubt, all the same, that some one on board was
the prompter, who gloried in the evil that was being done to the cause
of Christ. He offered every possible assistan