than to suffer pollution and live on in disgrace!

CHAPTER LXXVI.
THE FINGER-POSTS OF GOD.

I HAD often said that I would not again leave my beloved work on the
Islands unless compelled to do so either by the breakdown of health, or
by the loss of our Mission Ship and my services being required to assist
in providing another. Very strange, that in this one season both of
these events befell us! During the hurricanes, from January to April
1873, when the _Dayspring_ was wrecked, we lost a darling child by
death, my dear wife had a protracted illness, and I was brought very low
with severe rheumatic fever. I was reduced so far that I could not
speak, and was reported as dying. The Captain of a vessel, having seen
me, called at Tanna, and spoke of me as in all probability dead by that
time. Our unfailing and ever-beloved friends and fellow-Missionaries,
Mr. and Mrs. Watt, at once started from Kwamera, in their open boat, and
rowed and sailed thirty miles to visit us. But a few days before they
arrived I had fallen into a long and sound sleep, out of which, when I
awoke, consciousness had again returned to me. I had got the turn; there
was no further relapse; but when I did regain a little strength, my
weakness was so great that I had to travel about on crutches for many a
day.

In the circumstances of our baby Lena's death, every form of
heartrending tenderness seemed to meet. On Friday, 28th March, at 3 A.M.
she came from God, and seemed to both of us the Angel-child of all our
flock. Alas, on Saturday I was seized with sciatica, so dreadful and
agonizing, that I had to be borne to my bed, and could not stir a limb
any more than if my back had been broken. My dear wife struggled to
attend to the baby, with such help as Native girls could give; and I
directed the Teachers about the Services in Church next Sunday, the
first time as yet that I had been unable to appear and lead them. From
the beds where we lay, my wife and I could hear each other's voices, and
tried to console one another in our sorrowful and helpless state. On
Tuesday, 1st April, the child was bright and vigorous; but the mother's
strength had been overtaxed, and she fell back, fainting in her bed,
when helping to dress the baby. Next morning, to our dismay, there were
symptoms of wheezing and feverishness in the little darling. All due
measures were at once taken to check these; and Williag, an experienced
Native, now having charge, kept everything