to, William Bludger had been taken on board, and I was surrounded by the
kind faces of my benefactors, including the bishop's consort. My
apologies for my somewhat sudden and unceremonious intrusion were cut
short by the arrival of tea and a slight collation suitable for an
invalid. In an hour I was walking the quarter-deck with the bishop in
command of the William Wilberforce, armed steam yacht, of North Shields,
fitted out for the purposes of the Salvation Navy. From the worthy
prelate in command of the William Wilberforce, I learned much concerning
his own past career and the nature of his enterprise, as I directed the
navigation of the vessel through the shoals and reefs which lay about the
harbour of the island.

The bishop (a purely brevet title) would refresh his memory, now and
then, from a penny biography of himself with which he was provided, and
the following, in brief, is a record of his life and adventures:--

Thomas Sloggins (that was his name), from his earliest infancy, had been
possessed with a passion for _doing good to others_, a passion, alas! but
too rarely reciprocated. I pass over many affecting details of his
adventures as a ministering child: how he endeavoured to win his father
from tobacco by breaking his favourite pipes; how he strove to wean his
elder brother from cruel field-sports, by stuffing the joints of his
fishing-rod with gravel; with many other touching incidents.

Being almost entirely uneducated, young Sloggins, when he reached man's
estate, conceived that he would most benefit his fellow-creatures by
combining the professions of the pulpit and the press--by preaching on
Sundays and at odd times, while he acted as outdoor reporter to The Rowdy
Puritan on every lawful day. Being a man of great earnestness and
enterprise, he soon rose in the ranks of the Salvation Navy; and at one
time commanded an evangelical barge on the benighted canals of our
country. Finally, he made England almost too hot to hold him, by the
original forms of his benevolence, while, at the same time, he acquired
the utmost esteem and confidence of many wealthy philanthropists and
excellent, if impulsive, ladies. These good people provided him with
that well-equipped and armed steam yacht, the William Wilberforce, which
he manned with a crew of converted characters (they certainly looked as
if they must have needed a great deal of converting), and he had now for
months been cruising in the South Pacific