CHAPTER VIII.
ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE AND LIFU.
1857-1859.

IT seems to me that the years between 1856 and 1861 were the very brightest of Coleridge Patteson's life. He had left all for Christ's sake and the Gospel's, and was reaping the blessing in its freshness. His struggles with his defects had been successful, the more so because he was so full of occupation that the old besetting trouble, self-contemplation, had been expelled for lack of opportunity; and he had become far more simple, since humility was ceasing to be a conscious effort.

There is a light-heartedness about his letters like that of the old Eton times. Something might have been owing to the impulse of health, which was due to the tropical heat. Most probably this heat was what exhausted his constitution so early, but at first it was a delightful stimulus, and gave him exemption from all those discomforts with which cold had affected him at home. This exhilaration bore him over the many trials of close contact with uncivilised human nature so completely that his friends never even guessed at his natural fastidiousness. That which might have been selfish in this fastidiousness was conquered, though the refinement remained. Even to the last, in his most solitary hours, this personal neatness never relaxed, but the victory over disgust was a real triumph over self, which no doubt was an element of happiness.

While the Bishop continued to go on the voyages with him, he had companionship, guidance, and comparatively no responsibility, while his success, that supreme joy, was wonderfully unalloyed, and he felt his own especial gifts coming constantly into play. His love for his scholars was one continual well of delight, and really seemed to be an absolute gift, enabling him to win them over, and compensating for what he had left, even while he did not cease to love his home with deep tenderness.

Another pair of New Zealand friends had to be absent for a time. Archdeacon Abraham's arm was so severely injured by an accident with a horse, that the effects were far more serious than those of a common fracture. The disaster took place in Patteson's presence. ' I shall never forget,' writes his friend, 'his gentleness and consideration as he first laid me down in a room and then went to tell my wife.'

It was found necessary to have recourse to English advice; the Archdeacon and Mrs. Abraham went home, and were never again residents at Auckland.

A letter to Mr. Justice Coleridge was written in the interval between the voyages:--

'Auckland: June 12, 1857.

'My dear Uncle,--You will not give me credit for being a good correspondent, I fear; but the truth is that I seldom find time to do more than write long chatty letters to my dear father and sisters, occasionally to Thorverton, and to Miss Neill and one or two others to cheer them in their sickness and weariness. Any news from afar may be a real relaxation.

'For myself I need only say that I find these dear people most attractive and winning, that it is no effort to love them, that they display all natural gifts in a remarkable way--good temper, affection, gentleness, obedience, gratitude, &c., occasionally real self-restraint. Dear Hirika's last words to me at San Cristoval were, " Oh, I do love you so," and his conduct showed it. He is a bright handsome lad, clever but inaccurate, of most sweet disposition. In matters of personal cleanliness, healthy appearance, &c., the change in seven months was that of a lad wholly savage becoming neat, tidy in dress, and of gentlemanly appearance. In some ways he was my pet of the whole party, though I have equally bright hopes of Grariri, a sturdy, honest fellow with the best temper I almost ever found among lads of sixteen anywhere, and Kerearua is the most painstaking fellow of the lot; and a boy whose distinguishing features it would be hard to describe; but he may be summed up as a very good boy, and certainly a most loveable one. Sumaro and Kimarua older and less interesting.

'I printed short catechisms, a translation of the Lord's Prayer, Creed, General Confession, two or three other of the Common Prayer prayers, and one or two short missionary prayers in the dialect of both islands; but I can only speak at all fluently the language of San Cristoval.

'Of the Nengone people I could say much more. The two young women (married) and the two young unmarried men had been under Mr. Nihill's instruction two or three years, baptized, and were regular communicants while at the College. Simeona was baptized on the same day as his infant son, after he had been with us five months. He and the other four were confirmed at the College chapel, and he afterwards received the Holy Communion with the rest.

'Kowine, a lad of seventeen, is not baptized, though well instructed. We were not wholly satisfied about him. Of the knowledge of them all I can speak with the utmost confidence. They know more a great deal than most candidates for confirmation in a well-regulated English parish. It was delightful to work with them. We wrote Bible history, which has reached about fifty sheets in MS. in small handwriting, bringing the history to the time of Joshua; very many questions and answers, and translated ninety pages of the Prayer Book, including Services for Infant and Adult Baptism, Catechism, Burial Service, &c.

'It is most interesting work, though not easy, and much of it will no doubt be altered when we come to know the language thoroughly well. This island of Nengone (called also Maro and Britannia Island) contains about 6,500 inhabitants, of whom some profess Christianity, while the remainder are still fighting and eating one another, though accessible to white people.

'We hope to have time to see something of the heathen population, though the London Mission Society having re-occupied the island, we do not regularly visit it with the intention of establishing ourselves. . . . The language is confined to that island. I call it language, not dialect, for it is, I believe, really distinct from any others we have or have heard of, very soft, like Italian, and capable of expressing accurately minute shades of meaning. Causative forms, &c., remind us of the oriental structure, one peculiarity (that of the chief's dialect, or almost language, running parallel to that of common life) I think I have before mentioned.

'In about a month I suppose we shall be off again for three or four months, and we long to get hold of pupils from the Banks Archipelago, Santa Cruz, Espiritu Santo, in which no ground is broken at present. . We visited them last year, but did not get any pupils; lovely islands, very populous, and the natives very bright, intelligent-looking. But how I long to see again some of my own dear boys, I do so think of them! It may be that two or three of them may come again to us, and then we may perhaps hope that they may learn enough to be really useful to their own people. . . . Dear uncle, I should indeed rejoice much to see my dear dear father and sisters and Jem and all of you if it came in the way of one's business, but I think, so long as I am well, that the peculiar nature of this work must require the constant presence of one personally known to, and not only officially connected with, the natives. While I feel very strongly that in many ways intercourse occasionally resumed with the home clergy must be very useful to us, yet if you can understand that there is no one to take one's place, you see how very unlikely it must be that I can move from this hemisphere. I say "if you can understand," for it does seem sad that one should really be in such a position that one's presence should be of any consequence; but, till it please God that the Bishop shall receive other men for this Mission, there is no other teacher for these lads, and so we must rub on and do the best we can. Of course I should be most thankful, most happy if, during his lifetime, I once more found myself at home, but I don't think much nor speculate about it, and I am very happy, as I am well and hearty. You won't suspect me of any lessening of strong affection for all that savours of home. I think that I know every face in Alfington and in Feniton, and very many in Ottery as of old; I believe I think of all with increasing affection, but while I wonder at it, I must also confess that I can and do live happy day after day without enjoying the sight of those dear faces.

'Always your affectionate and grateful nephew,

' J. C. PATTESON.'

As soon as the 'Southern Cross' had carried Bishop Harper back to Lyttelton, the Melanesian voyage was recommenced, this time with a valuable assistant in Mr. Benjamin Dudley. Mrs. Selwyn was again dropped at Norfolk Island, and five young Pitcairners were taken on board to serve as a boat's crew, and also to receive instruction.

This was a more extensive voyage than the first, as more time could be spent on it, but there is less full description, as there was less time for writing; and besides, these coral islands are much alike.

Futuma was the first new island visited:--

'The canoes did not venture to come off to us, so we went ashore in the boat, Bishop and I wading ankle-deep to the beach. Forty or fifty natives under a deep overhanging rock, crouching around a fire, plenty of lads and boys, no women. Some Tanna men in the group, with their faces painted red and black, hair (as you know) elaborately frizzled and dressed with coral lime. The Futuma people speak a different language from those of Anaiteum, and the Tanna people speak a third (having, moreover, four dialects of their own). These three islands are all in sight of each other. Tanna has an active volcano, now smoking away, and is like a hot-bed, wonderfully fertile. People estimate its population at 10,000, though it is not very large,--about thirty miles long. At Futuma, the process by which these coral islands have been upheaved is well seen. The volcanic rocks are lying under the coral, which has been gradually thrust upwards by them. As the coral emerged, the animal went on building under water, continually working lower and lower down upon and over the volcanic formation, as this heaved in its upward course the coral formation out of the sea.'

Erromango was occupied by the Scottish Mission, and Mr. Grordon was then living there in peace and apparent security, when a visit was paid to him, and Patteson gathered some leaves in Dillon's Bay, the spot where John Williams met his death sixteen years before, not, as now was understood, because he was personally disliked, but because he was unconsciously interfering with a solemnity that was going on upon the beach.

At Fate Isle, the people were said to be among the wildest in those seas. When the 'Royal Sovereign' was wrecked, they had killed the whole crew, nineteen in number, eaten ten at once, and sent the other nine as presents to their friends. Very few appeared, but there was a good 'opening' exchange of presents.

A great number of small islets he around Fate, forming part of the cluster of the New Hebrides, The Bishop had been at most of them before, and with a boat's crew of three Pitcairners and one English sailor, starting early and spending all day in the boat, he and Patteson touched at eleven in three days, and established the first steps to communication by obtaining 127 names of persons present, and making gifts. These little volcanic coral isles were all much alike, and nothing remarkable occurred but the obtaining two lads from Mai, named Petere and Laure, for a ten months' visit. Poor fellows, they were very sea-sick at first, and begged to go home again, but soon became very happy, and this connection with Petere had important consequences in the end. These lads spoke a language approaching Maori, whereas the Fate tongue prevailed in the other isles.

At Mallicolo, on August 20, a horrible sight presented itself to the eyes of the two explorers when they walked inland with about eighteen most obliging and courteous natives--an open space with four hollowed trunks of trees surrounding two stones, the trees carved into the shape of grotesque human heads, and among them, a sort of temple, made of sloping bamboos and pandanus leaves meeting at the top, from whence hung a dead man, with his face painted in stripes of red and yellow, procured, it was thought, from the pollen of flowers. There was not enough comprehension of the language to make out the meaning of all this.

Ambrym, the next island, was more than usually lovely, and was destined to receive many more visits. The women made their approach crawling, some with babies on their backs. Whitsuntide, where the casks had to be filled with water, showed a great number of large, resolute-looking men, whose air demanded caution; ' but,' says the journal, ' practice makes perfect, and we get the habit of landing among strangers, the knack of managing with signs and gesticulations, and the feeling of ease and confidence which engenders confidence and good-will in the others. Quarrels usually arise from both parties being afraid and suspicious of each other.'

Leper's Isle owes its unpleasant name to its medicinal springs. It is a particularly beautiful place, containing a population of good promise. Three landings were made there, and at the fourth place Patteson jumped ashore on a rock and spent some time in calming the fears of a party of natives who had been frightened in their canoe by the boat under sail overtaking them. ' They fingered bows and arrows, but only from nervousness,' he says. However, they seem to have suspected the visitors of designs on their load of fine taro, and it was some time before the owner would come out and resume it. On all these isles the plan could as yet only be to learn names and write them down, so as to enquire for acquaintance next time, either make presents, or barter them for provisions, discover the class of language, and invite scholars for another time.

So at Star Island three or four natives said, 'In ten moons you two come back; very good, then we go with you.' 'I think,' Patteson tells his sisters, 'you would have liked to have seen me, standing on a rock, with .my two supporters, two fine young men, who will I trust go with us next time, my arms round their necks, and a fine background of some thirty or forty dark figures with bows and arrows, &c,, and two or three little rogues, perched on a point of rock above me, just within reach, asking for fish-hooks.' He says it in all simplicity, but the picture presupposes some strength of mind in the sisters who were to appreciate it.

Few natives appeared at Espiritu Santo, and the vessel passed on to Oanuta or Cherry Island, where the Bishop had never been, and where a race of dull, good-natured giants was found. The chief was a noble-looking man with an aquiline nose, and seemed to have them well under command, and some of the younger men, who had limbs which might have been a model for a sculptor, could have lifted an ordinary-sized Englishman as easily as a child. They were unluckily already acquainted with whalers, whom they thought the right sort of fellows, since they brought tobacco and spirits, did not interfere with native habits, nor talk of learning, for which the giants saw no need. The national complexion here was of a lighter yellow, the costume a tattooed chest, the language akin to Maori; and it was the same at Tikopia, where four chiefs, one principal one immensely fat, received their visitors seated on a mat in the centre of a wide circle formed by natives, the innermost seated, the others looking over them. These, too, were accustomed to whalers, and when they found that pigs and yams in exchange for spirits and tobacco were not the object, they were indifferent. They seemed to despise fish-hooks, and it was plain that they had even obtained muskets from the whalers, for there were six in the chiefs house, and one was fired, not maliciously but out of display. The Bishop told them his object, and they understood his language, but were uninterested. The fat chief regaled the two guests with a cocoa-nut apiece, and then seemed anxious to be rid of them.

The Banks Islands, as usual, were much more hopeful, Santa Maria coming first. Canoes came round the vessel, and the honesty of the race showed itself, for one little boy, who had had a fish-hook given him, wished to exchange it for calico, and having "forgotten to restore the hook at the moment, swam back with it as soon as he remembered it. There was a landing, and the usual friendly intercourse, but just as the boat had put off, a single arrow was suddenly shot out of the bush, and fell about ten yards short. It was curious that the Spanish discoverers had precisely the same experience. It was supposed to be an act of individual mischief or fun, and the place obtained the appropriate name of Cock Sparrow Point.

It was not possible to get into the one landing-place in the wall round Mota's sugar-loaf, but there was an exchange of civilities with the Saddle-ites, and in Vanua Lava, the largest member of the group, a beautiful harbour was discovered, which the Bishop named Port Patteson, after the Judge.

The Santa Cruz group was visited again on the 23rd of September. Nothing remarkable occurred; indeed, Pat-teson's journal does not mention these places, but that of the Bishop speaks of a first landing at Nukapu, and an exchange of names with the old chief Acenana; and the next day of going to the main island, where swarms of natives swam out, with cries of Told, toki, and planks before them to float through the surf. About 250 assembled at the landing place, as before, chiefly eager for traffic. The Volcano Isle was also touched at, but the language of the few inhabitants was incomprehensible. The mountain was smoking, and red-hot cinders falling as before on the steep side. It was tempting to climb it and investigate what probably no white man had yet seen, but it was decided to be more prudent to abstain.

Some events of the visit to Bauro are related in the following letter to the young cousin whose Confirmation day had been notified to him in time to be thought of in his prayers:--

'Off San Cristoval: October 5, 1857.

'My dearest Pena,--It was in a heathen land, among a heathen people, that I passed the Sunday--a day most memorable in your life--on which I trust you received for the first time the blessed Sacrament of our Saviour's Body and Blood.

'My darling-, as I knelt in the chiefs house, upon the mat which was also my bed--the only Christian in that large and beautiful island--my prayers were, I hope, offered earnestly that the full blessedness of that heavenly Union with the Lord Jesus Christ, and in Him with the Father and the Holy Ghost, might rest upon you for ever. I had reckoned upon being on board that Sunday, when the Holy Eucharist was administered on board our vessel; but as we reached Mwaata, our well-known village at San Cristoval, on Saturday, we both agreed that I had better go ashore while the vessel went away, to return for me on Monday. My day was now passed strangely enough, my first Sunday in a land where no Sunday is known.

'It was about 3 P.M. on Saturday when I landed, and it was an effort to have to talk incessantly till dark. Then the chief Iri went with me to his house. It is only one oblong room, with a bamboo screen running halfway across it about half-way down the room. It is only made of bamboo at the sides, and leaves for the roof. Yams and other vegetables were placed along the sides. There is no floor, but one or two grass mats are placed on the ground to sleep on. Iri and his wife, and an orphan girl about fourteen or fifteen, I suppose, slept on the other side of the screen; and two lads, called Grariri and Parenga, slept on my side of it. I can't say I slept at all, for the-rats were so very many, coming in through the bamboo on every side, and making such a noise I could not sleep, though tired. They were running all about me.

'Well, at daylight I sent Gariri to fetch some water, and shaved and washed, to the great admiration of Iri and the ladies, and of others also, who crowded together at the hole which serves for door and windows. I lay down in my clothes, all but my coat, but I took a razor and some soap ashore.

'Sunday was spent in going about to different neighbouring settlements, and climbing the coral rocks was hard work, the thermometer at sea being 85° in the cool cabin, as the Bishop told me to-day.

'Of course many people were at work in the yam grounds, several of which I saw; but I found considerable parties at the different villages, and had, on the whole, satisfactory conversations with them. They listened and asked questions, and I told them as well as I could the simplest truths of Christianity.

'I had a part of a yam and drank four cocoa-nuts during the day, besides eating some mixture of yam, taro, and cocoa-nut all pounded together.

'People offered me food and nuts everywhere. Walked back with a boy called Tahi for my guide, and stopped at several plantations, and talked with the people.

'Sat out in the cool evening on the beach at Mwaata, after much talk in a chiefs house called Tarua; people came round me on the beach, and again I talked with them (a sort of half-preaching, half-conversing these talks were), till Iri said we must go to bed. Slept a little that night.

'I can truly say that you were in my head all day. After my evening prayers, when I thought of you--for it was about 9 P.M. = 10.10 A.M. with you, and you were on your way to church--I thought of you, kneeling between your dear mamrna and grandmamma, and dear grandpapa administering to his three beloved ones the Bread of Life, .and I was very happy as I thought of it, for I trust, through the mercy of God, and the merits of our Lord, that we shall be by Him raised at the Last Day to dwell with Him for ever. But indeed I must not write to you how very unworthy I felt to belong to that little company.

'This morning about eleven the vessel's boat came off for me, with the Bishop. I had arranged about some lads coming oil with us, and it ended in seven joining our party. Only one of our old scholars has come again: he is that dear boy Gfariri, whose name you will remember.

'Now I have had a good change of shirts, etc., and feel clean and comfortable, though I think a good night's rest will do me no harm. I have written to you the first minute that I had time. What a blessed, happy day it must have been for you, and I am sure they thought of you at Feniton.

' Your loving cousin,

'J. C. P.'

This strange Sunday was spent in conversation with different sets of natives, and that some distinct ideas were conveyed was plain from what old Iri was overheard saying to a man who was asking him whether he had not a guest who spoke Bauro: ' Yes,' said Iri, adding that ' he said men were not like dogs, or pigs, or birds, or fishes, because these cannot speak or think. They all die, and no one knows anything more about them, but he says we shall not die like that, but rise up again.'

On Monday, the 7th of October, Grera was revisited, and Toto, a last year's scholar, came forth with his welcome in a canoe; but it was rather a mixed success, for the danger of the vessel on her previous visit was a warning against bringing her into the harbour, where there was no safe anchorage, and this disappointed the people. Thirteen, indeed, slept on board, and the next morning sixty canoes surrounded the vessel, and some hundred and sixty came on deck at once; but they brought only one pig and a few yams, and refused to fetch more, saying it was too far--a considerable inconvenience, considering the necessity of providing the Melanesian passengers with vegetable food. The whole nine slept in the inner cabin, Orariri on Patte-son's sofa,' feet to feet, the others on the floor like herrings in a barrel.'

The great island of New Caledonia was next visited. The Bishop had been there before, and Basset, one of the chiefs, lamented that he had been so long absent, and pleaded hard to have an English missionary placed in his part of the country. It was very sad to have no means of complying with the entreaty, and the Bishop offered him a passage to Auckland, there to speak for himself. He would have come, but that it was the season for planting his vams; but he hoped to follow, and in the meantime sent a little orphan named Kanambat to be brought up at Auckland. The little fellow was pleased enough with the ship at first, but when his countrymen who had been visiting there left her, he jumped overboard and was swimming like a duck after them, when, at a sign from the Bishop, one of the Pitcairners leapt after him, and speedily brought him back. He soon grew very happy and full of play and fun, and was well off in being away from home, for the French were occupying the island, and poor Basset shortly after was sent a prisoner to Tahiti for refusing to receive a Koman Catholic priest.

Nengone were reached on October 23, and most of the old scholars were ready with a warm welcome; but Mr. Creagh,the London missionary, had taken Wadrokala away with him on an expedition, and of the others, only Kowine was ready to return, though the two married couples were going on well, and one previous scholar of the Bishop's and four new ones presented themselves as willing to go. Urgent letters from the neighbouring isle of Lifu entreated the Bishop to come thither,- and, with a splendid supply of yams, the ' Southern Cross' again set sail, and arrived on the 26th. This island had entirely abandoned heathenism, under the guidance of the Samoans. The people felt that they had come to the end of the stock of teaching of these good men, and entreated for an Englishman from the Bishop, and thus, here was the third island in this one voyage begging for a shepherd, and only one English priest had been found to offer himself to that multitude of heathen!

The only thing that could be done was to take John Cho, a former St. John's scholar, to receive instruction to fit him for a teacher, and with him came his young wife Naranadune, and their babe, whom the Bishop had just baptized in the coral-lime chapel, with three other children.

The next few days were spent in great anxiety for Wailumai, a youth from Grera, who was taken ill immediately after dinner with a most distressing difficulty of breathing. He proved to have a piece of sugar cane in his throat, which made every breath agony, and worked a small ulcer in the throat. All through the worst Patte-son held him in his arms, with his hand on his chest: several times he seemed gone, and ammonia and sal volatile barely revived him. His first words after he was partially relieved were, ' I am Bishop! I am Patihana!' meaning that he exchanged names with them, the strongest possible proof of affection in Melanesian eyes. He still seemed at the point of death, and they made him say, 'God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost! Jesus Christ, Son of God.' At last a favourable change took place, but he continued so ill for several days that his two attendants never did more than he down in their clothes; nor was it till the third day that he at length coughed up the piece of cane that had caused the mischief. He still required so much care that Patteson did not go on shore at Norfolk Island when the five Pitcairners were exchanged for Mrs. Selwyn.

On November 15 Auckland harbour was again reached after this signally prosperous voyage. It is thus summed up in a letter written two days later:--

'November 17, 1857: St. John's College.

'My dear Miss Neill,--Thanks for your 21. 2s. and more thanks still for your prayers and constant interest in this part of the world. After nearly seventeen weeks at sea, we returned safely on Sunday morning the 15th, with thirty-three Melanesians, gathered from nine islands and speaking eight languages. Plenty of work for me: I can teach tolerably in three, and have a smattering of one or two more.

'One is the wife of a young man, John Cho, an old scholar baptized. His half-brother is chief of Lifu Isle, a man of great influence. The London Mission (Independents) are leaving all their islands unprovided with missionaries, and these people having been much more frequently visited by the Bishop than by the "John Williams," turn to him for help. By and by I will explain all this: at present no time.

' We visited sixty-six islands and landed eighty-one times, wading, swimming, &c.; all most friendly and delightful; only two arrows shot at us, and only one went near--so much for savages. I wonder what people ought to call sandal-wood traders and slave-masters if they call my Melanesians savages.

'You will hear accounts of the voyage from Fanny. I have a long journal going to my father, but I can't make time to write at length any more. I am up before five and not in bed before eleven, and you know I must be lazy sometimes. It does me good. Oh! how great a trial sickness would be to me! In my health now all seems easy. Were I circumstanced like you, how much I should no doubt repine and murmur. God has given me hitherto a most merciful share of blessings, and my dear father's cordial approbation of and consent to my proceedings is among the greatest. . . .

'The anniversary of my dear mother's death comes round in ten days. That is my polar star (humanly speaking), and whensoever it pleases God to take my dear dear father to his rest, how blessed to think of their waiting for us, if it be His merciful will to bring me too to dwell before Him with them for ever.

'I must end, for I am very busy. The weather is cold, and my room full of lads and young men. If I was not watching like a cat they would be standing about in all sorts of places and catching cold.

'I send you in a box, a box made by Pitcairners of Pitcairn woods.

'Ever your loving old pupil,

'J. C. PATTESON.'

The little New Caledonian remained at Taurarua with the Bishop, and as there was no woman at St. John's to take the charge of Cho's wife, she was necessarily sent to Mrs. Kissling's school for Maori girls, while her husband pursued his studies at St. John's.

Patteson often gave his services at the Maori village of Orakei, where there was to be a central native school managed by Pirimona (Philemon), a well-trained man, a candidate for Holy Orders.

'However, this did not satisfy his countrymen. As if I had not enough to do, old Wi comes with a request from the folks at Orakei that I would be their "minita," and take the management of the concern. Rather rich, is it not? I said, of course, that I was minita for the islanders. " Oh, let the Bishop take another man for that, you are the minister for us." He is, you know, wonderfully tatooed, and a great object of curiosity to the boys!

Before many days had passed, there had occurred the first case of that fatal tetanus, which became only too well known to those concerned in the Mission. Of course, all weapons were taken from the scholars; but one of the San Cristoval boys, named Tohehammai, fetched one of his own arrows out of Mr. Dudley's room to exchange with an English lad for a shirt, and as he was at play, carrying the arrow in his left hand behind his back and throwing a stick like a spear with the other, he sharply pricked his right arm, within the elbow, against the point of the arrow; but thinking nothing of the hurt, and knowing that the weapons were forbidden playthings, he said nothing for twelve days, but then complained of stiffness in the arm. Two doctors happened to be at the college that day; one thought it rheumatism, the other mentioned the Avord tetanus, but for three days more the arm was merely stiff, it was hung in a sling, and the boy went about as usual, until, on the fifteenth day, spasmodic twitchings in the arm came on.

Liniment of chloroform was rubbed in, and the boy was kept under chloroform, but in vain; the next day his whole body was perfectly rigid, with occasional convulsions. About 4 p.m. his throat had become contracted, and the endeavour to give him nourishment brought on convulsive attacks. The Bishop came at 8. p.m., and after another attempt at giving him food, which produced a further spasm, he was lying quietly when Patteson felt his pulse stop.

'"He is dying!" the Bishop said. '"Father, into Thy hands we commend his spirit." '

Patteson's ' Amen' came from his heart. The poor fellow made no sound as he lay with his frame rigid, his back arched so that an arm could be thrust under it. He was gone in that moment, unbaptized. Patteson writes:--

'I had much conflict with myself about it. He hud talked once with me in a very hopeful way, but during his illness I could not obtain from him any distinct profession of faith, anything to make me feel pretty sure that some conviction of the truth of what he he hd been taught, and not mere learning by rote, was the occasion of his saying what he did say. I did wish much that I might talk again with the Bishop about it, but his death took us by surprise. I pray God that all my omission and neglect of duty may be repaired, and that his very imperfect and unconscious yearnings after the truth may be accepted for Christ's sake.'

The arrow was reported to have been poisoned, but by the time the cause of the injury had been discovered it had been thrown awa}^ and could not be recovered for examination. Indeed, lockjaw seems to be so prevalent in the equatorial climates, and the natives so peculiarly liable to it, that poison did not seem needful to account for the catastrophe.

Altogether, these lads were exotics in New Zealand, and exceedingly fragile. In the very height of summer they had to wear corduroy trousers, blue serge shirts, red woollen comforters, and blue Scotch caps, and the more delicate a thick woollen jersey in addition; and with all these precautions they were continually catching cold, or getting disordered, and then the Bauro and Grera set could only support such treatment as young children generally need. The Loyalty Islanders were much tougher and stronger and easier to treat, but they too showed that the climate of Auckland was a hard trial to their constitutions.

On the last day of March came tidings of the sudden death of the much-beloved and honoured Dr. James Coleridge of Thorverton.

'It is a great shock,' says the letter written the same day; ' not that I feel unhappy exactly, nor low, but that many many memories are revived and keep freshening on my mind. . . . And since I left England his warm, loving, almost too fond letters have bound me very closely to him, and sorely I shall miss the sight of his handwriting; though he may be nearer to me now than before, and his love for me is doubtless even more pure and fervent.

'I confess I had thought sometimes that if it pleased God to take you first, the consciousness that he would be with you was a great comfort to me--not that any man is worth much then. God must be all in all. But yet he of all men was the one who would have been a real comfort to you, and even more so to others.' To his cousin he writes:--

'Wednesday in Passion Week, 1858: St. John's College.

'My dearest Sophy,--Your letter with the deep black border was the first that I opened, with trembling hand, thinking: " Is it dear dear Uncle gone to his eternal rest; or dear Aunty? not that dear child, may God grant; for that would somehow seem to all most bitter of all--less, so to speak, reasonable and natural." And he is really gone; that dear, loving, courageous, warm-hearted servant of Christ; the desire of our eyes taken away with a stroke. I read your letter wondering that I was not upset, knelt down and said the two prayers in the Burial Service, and then came the tears; for the memory of him rose up very vividly before me, and his deep love for me and the notes of comfort and encouragement he used to write were very fresh in my mind. I looked at the print of him, the one he sent out to me, with " your loving old Uncle " in pencil on it. I have all his letters: when making a regular clearance some months ago, I could not tear up his, although dangerous ones for me to read unless used as a stimulant to become what he thought me. His " Jacob" sermon in his own handwriting, I have by me. But more than all, the memory of his holy life, and his example as a minister of Christ, have been left behind for us as a sweet, undying fragrance; his manner in the sick-room--I see him now, and hear that soft, steady, clear voice repeating verses over my dear mother's death-bed; his kindly, loving ways to his poor people; his voice and look in the pulpit, never to be forgotten. I knew I should never see him again in this world. May God of His mercy take me to be with him hereafter.

'Thank you, dear Sophy, for writing to me; every word about him is precious, from his last letter to me: --

'"You will believe how sweet it is to me every month now to give the Holy Eucharist to my three dear ones."

'"All complaints of old men must be serious."

'I wish I had more time to write, but I am too busy in the midst of school, and printing Scripture histories and private prayers, and translations in Nengone, Bauro, Lifu; and as all my time out of school is spent in working in the printing office, I really have not a minute unoccupied. With one exception, I have scarcely ever taken an hour's walk for some six weeks. A large proportion of the printing is actually set up by my own fingers; but now one Nengone lad, the flower of my flock, can help me much--a young man about seventeen or eighteen, of whom I hope very much--Malo, baptized by the name of Harper, an excellent young man, and a great comfort to me. He was setting up in type a part of the little book of private prayers I am now printing for them. I had just pointed out to him the translation of what would be in English--"It is good that a man as he lies down to sleep should remember that that night he may hear the summons of the Angel of God; so then let him think of his death, and remember the words of St. Paul: 'Awake, thou that sleepest,'" etc.; when in came the man whom the Archdeacon left in charge here with my letters. " I hope, sir, there is no bad news for you;" and my eye lighted on the deep black border of your envelope.

'To-morrow, if I live, I enter upon my thirty-second year--a solemn warning I have received to-day, as another year is passing from me. May some portion of his spirit rest on me to bless my poor attempt to do what he did so devotedly for more than forty years: his duty as a soldier and servant of his Lord and Master, into whose joy he has no doubt now entered.

"Easter Day.--What an Easter for him! and doubtless we all who will by and by, as the world rolls round, receive the Holy Eucharist shall be in some way united to him as well as to all departed saints--members of His Mystical Body.

'April 12. --Bishop came out yesterday afternoon from Auckland. After baptisms at 5, and evening service at 7, sat till past 11 settling plans: thus, God willing, start this day fortnight to return the boys--this will occupy about two months; as we come back from the far north, he will drop one at Lifu, one of the Loyalty Islands, with large population; he will go on to New Zealand, stay perhaps six weeks in New Zealand, or it may be two months; so that with the time occupied by his voyage from Lifu to New Zealand, 1,000 miles and back, he will be away from Lifu about two and a half or three months. Then, picking me up (say about September 12), we go on at once to the whole number of our islands, spending three months or so among them, getting back to New Zealand about the end of November. So that I shall be in Melanesia, D.V., from the beginning of May to the end of November. I shall be able to write once more before we start--letters which you will get by the June mail from Sydney--and of course I shall send letters by the Bishop when he leaves me at Lifu. But I shall not be able to hear again from England till the Bishop comes to pick me up in September. Never mind. I shall have plenty to do; and I can think of those dear ones at home, and of you all, in Clod's keeping, with perfect comfort. The Lifu people are in a more critical state than any others just now, otherwise I should probably stop at San Cristoval. A few years ago they were very wild--cannibals of course; but they are now building chapels, and thirsting for the living waters. What a privilege and responsibility to go to them as Christ's minister, to a people longing for the glad tidings of the Grospel of Peace. Samoan teachers have been for a good many years among them.

'I cannot write now to dearest Aunty or Pena.

'May God bless you and abundantly comfort yoii. . . . I think I see his dear face. I see him always.

'Your loving cousin,

'J. C. PATTESON.'

Clio's wife had arrived in a cart at the College when her baby was a day old, so rapid is recovery with mothers in those climates. ' I saw the baby,' observes the journal, £ quite strong, not dark,--but I don't care for them till they can talk; on the contrary, I think them a great bore, especially in wooden houses, where a child with good lungs may easily succeed in keeping all the inhabitants awake.'

'April 12.--Settled that I stop at Lifu in the interval between the two voyages. I think Lifu wants me more than any other island just now. Some 15,000 or 20,000 stretching out their hands to God. The London Mission (Independent) sent Samoan teachers long ago, but no missionary, even after frequent applications. At last they applied personally to the Bishop, he being well known to them of old. I can't go for good, because I have of course to visit all these islands; but I shall try to spend all the time that I am not at sea or with boys in New Zealand, perhaps three months yearly, with them, till they can be provided with a regular clergyman.

'So I shall have no letters from you till the return of the vessel to pick me up in September. But be sure you think of me as very happy and well cared for, though, I am glad to say, not a white man on the island; lots of work, but I shall take much exercise and see most of the inhabitants. The island is large, not so large as Bauro, but still large.

'You will say all that is kind to all relations, Buckerell, etc. Thank the dear old vicar for the spurs, and tell him that I had a battle royal the other day with a colonial steed, which backed into the bush, and kicked, and played the fool amazingly, till I considerably astonished him into a gallop, in the direction I wanted to go, by a vigorous application of the said spurs.

'God bless and keep you all.

'Your loving

'J. C. PATTESON.'

A few days later he writes:--

'The "Southern Cross," returning to Lifu, will bring my letters; but unless a stray whaler comes to Lifu while J am there, on its way to Sydney, that will be the only exchange of letters. I am afraid this will be an increase of the trial of separation to you all, but it is not sent until you have learnt to do pretty well without me, and you will be comforted by knowing that this island of Lifu, with many inhabitants, is in a very critical state; that ·what it most wants is a missionary, and that as far as I am concerned, all the people will be very anxious to do all they can for me. I take a filter and some tea. We shall have yams, taro, cocoa-nuts, occasionally a bit of turtle, a fowl, or a bit of pork. So, you see, I shall live like an alderman; I mean, if I am to go to every part of the island, heathen and all. Perhaps 20,000 people, scattered over many miles. I say heathen and all, because only a very small number of the people now refuse to admit the new teaching. Samoans have been for some time on the island, and though, I dare say, their teaching has been very imperfect and only perhaps ten or fifteen people are baptized, they have chapels, and are far advanced beyond any of the islands except Nengone and Toke, always excepting Anaiteum. Hence it is thought the leaven may work quietly in the Solomon Islands without me, but that at Lifu they really require guidance. So now I have a parochial charge for three months of an island about twenty-five miles long and some sixteen or eighteen broad.

'I feel that my letters, after so long an absence, may contain much to make me anxious, so that I shall not look with unmixed pleasure to my return to my great packet; yet I feel much less anxiety than you might imagine; I know well that you are in God's keeping, and that is enough.'

After just touching at Nengone early in May the ' Southern Cross' went on to Lifu, and on landing, the Bishop and Mr. Patteson found a number of people ready to receive them, and to conduct them to the village, where the chief and a great number of people were drawn up in a half-circle to receive them. The young chief, Angadho-hua, bowed and touched his hat, and taking Coley's hand, held it, and whispered, ' We will always live together.'

'By and by we will talk about it,' was the answer; and they were taken to a new house, belonging- to one of the Samoans, built of lath plastered and thatch, with one large room and a lesser one at each of its angles. There the Bishop and Mr. Patteson sat on a chest, and seventy or eighty men squatted on mats, John Cho and the native teacher foremost. There was a five minutes' pause. Lifu was not yet familiar to Coley, who spoke it less well than he had spoken German, and John Cho said to him: ' Shall I tell them what you have said to me formerly?'

He then explained that Mr. Patteson could only offer them a visit of three or four months, and would then have the charge of lads from ' dark isles.'

Silence again; then Angadhohua asked: ' Cannot you stop always?'

'There are many difficulties which you cannot understand, which prevent me. Would you like me to shut the door which God has opened to so many dark lands?'

'No, no; but why not have the summer school here as well as the winter?'

'Because it does the lads good to see New Zealand,, and because the Bishop, who knows better than I do, thinks it right.'

'And cannot we have a missionary?'

However, they were forced to content themselves with all that could be granted to them, and it was further explained that Mr. Patteson would not supersede the native teachers, nor assume the direction of the Sunday services, only keep a school which any one might join . Who liked. This was felt to be only right in good faith to the London Mission, in order not to 'make dire confusion if they should be able to fill up the gap before the Church could.

After sleeping in the house, Patteson produced the books that had been printed for them at St. John's.

'Would that you could have seen their delight! About two pages, indifferently printed, was all they had hitherto. Now they saw thirty-two clearly printed 8vo. pages of Bible History, sixteen of prayers, rubrics, &c., eight of questions and answers. " You see," said I cunningly; "that we don't forget you during these months that I can't live among you." '

They began reading at once, and crying, ' Excellent, exactly right, the very thing.'

It was thought good that some one from Lifu should ioin the Mission party and testify to their work, and on the invitation, the chief Angadhohua, a bright youth of seventeen, volunteered to go. It was an iinexampled thing that a chief should be permitted by his people to leave them, there was a public meeting about it, and a good deal of excitement, but it ended in Cho, as spokesman, coming forward with tears in his eyes, saying, ' Yes, it is right he should go, but bring him back soon. What shall we do? '

Patteson laid his hand on the young chief's shoulder, answering, 'God can guard him by sea as on land, and with His blessing we will bring him back safe to you. Let some of the chiefs go with him to protect him. I will watch over him, but you may choose whom you will to accompany him.'

So five chiefs were selected as a body-guard for the young Angadhohua, who was prince of all the isle, but on an insecure tenure, for the French, in New Caledonia, were showing a manifest inclination to annex the Loyalty group.

The heavily loaded boat had a perilous strife with the surf before the ship was reached, and it was a very rough passage to Anaiteum, where some goods had to be left for Mr. Inglis, and he asked that four Fate visitors might be taken home. This was done, and Mr. Grordon was visited at Erromango on the way, and found well and prosperous.

At Mai, the reception of Petere and Laure was ecstatic. There was a crowd on shore to meet them, and on the two miles' walk to the village parties met, hugged, and wept over them. At the village Mr. Patteson addressed the people for ten minutes, and Petere made an animated exposition of what he had learnt, and his speeches evidently had great effect. His younger brother and two little boys all came in his stead, and would form part of the winter school at Lifu.

The Espiritu Santo boy, the dunce of the party, was set down at home, and the Banks Islanders were again found pleasant, honest, and courteous, thinking, as it appeared afterwards, that the white men were the departed spirits of deceased friends. A walk inland at Vanua Lava disclosed pretty villages nestling under banyan trees, one of them provided with a guest-chamber for visitors from other islands. Two boys, Sarawia and another, came away to be scholars at Lifu, as well as his masters in the language, of which he as yet scarcely knew anything, but which he afterwards found the most serviceable of all these various dialects.

The 26th of May brought the vessel to Bauro, where poor old Iri was told of the death of his son, and had a long talk with Mr. Patteson, beginning with, ' Do you think I shall see him again?' It was a talk worth having, though it was purchased by spending a night in the house with the rats.

It seemed as though the time were come for calling on the Baurese to cease to be passive, and sixty or seventy men and women having come together, Mr. Patteson told them that he did not mean to go on merely taking their boys to return them with heaps of fish-hooks and knives, but that, unless they cared for good teaching, to make them good and happy here and hereafter, he should not come like a trader or a whaler. That their sons should go backwards and forwards and learn, but to teach at home; and that they ought to build a holy house, where they might meet to pray to God and learn His will.

Much of this was evidently distasteful, though they agreed to build a room.

'I think,' he writes, ' that the trial stage of the work has arrived. This has less to attract outwardly than the first beginning of all, and as here they must take a definite part, they (the great majority who are not yet disposed to decide for good) are made manifest, and the difficulty of displacing evil customs is more apparent.'

In fact, these amiable, docile Baurese seemed to have little manliness or resolution of character, and Sumaro, a scholar of 1857, was especially disappointing, for he pretended to wish to come and learn at Lifu, but only in order to get a passage to Gera, where he deserted, and was well lectured for his deceit.

The Gera people were much more warlike and turbulent, and seemed to have more substance in them, though less apt at learning. Patteson spent the night on shore at Perua, a subsidiary islet in the bay, sleeping in a kind of shed, upon two boards, more comfortably than was usual on these occasions. Showing confidence was one great point, and the want of safe anchorage in the bay was much regretted, because the people could not understand why the vessel would not come in, and thought it betokened mistrust. Many lads wished to join the scholars, but of those who were chosen, two were forced violently overboard by their friends, and only two eventually remained, making a total of twelve pupils for the winter school at Lifu, with five languages between them --seven with the addition of the Nengone and Lifu scholars.

'You see,' writes Patteson on June 10, on the voyage, 'that our difficulty is in training and organising nations, raising them from heathenism to the life, morally and socially, of a Christian. This is what I find so hard. The communication of religious truth by word of mouth is but a small part of the work. The real difficulty is to do for them what parents do for their children, assist them to--nay, almost force upon them--the practical application of Christian doctrine. This descends to the smallest matters, washing, scrubbing, sweeping, all actions of personal cleanliness, introducing method and order, habits of industry, regularity, giving just notions of exchange, barter, trade, management of criminals, division of labour. To do all this and yet not interfere with the offices of the chief, and to be the model and pattern of it, who is sufficient for it?'

On June 16, Mr. Patteson was landed at Lifu, for his residence there, with the five chiefs, his twelve boys, and was hospitably welcomed to the large new house by the Samoan. He and four boys slept in one of the corner rooms, the other eight lads in another, the Rarotongan teacher, Tutoo, and his wife in a third. The central room was parlour, school, and hall, and as it had four unglazed windows, and two doors opposite to each other, and the trade-wind always blowing, the state of affairs after daylight was much like that which prevailed in England when King Alfred invented lanterns, while in the latter end of June the days were, of course, as short as they could be on the tropic of Capricorn, so that Patteson got up in the dark at 5-30 in the morning.

At 7 the people around dropped in for prayers, which he thought it better not to conduct till his position was more defined. Then came breakfast upon yams cooked by being placed in a pit lined with heated stones, with earth heaped over the top. Mr. and Mrs. Tutoo, with their white guest, sat at the scrap of a table, 'which, with a small stool, was the only thing on four legs in the place, except an occasional visitor in the shape of a pig.' Then followed school. Two hundred Lifu people came, and it was necessary to hold it in the chapel. One o'clock, dinner on yams, and very rarely on pig or a fowl, baked or rather done by the same process; and in the afternoon some reading and slate work with the twelvo Melaoesians, and likewise some special instruction to a few of the more promising Lifuites. At 6.30, another meal of yams, but this time Patteson had recourse to his private store of biscuit; and the evening was spent in talk, till bedtime at 9 or 9.30. It was a thorough sharing the native life; but after a few more experiments, it was found that English strength could not be kept up on an exclusive diet of yams, and the Loyalty Isles are not fertile. They are nothing but rugged coral, in an early stage of development; great ridges, upheaved, bare and broken, and here and there with pits that have become filled with soil enough to grow yams and cocoa-nuts.

The yams--except those for five of the lads, whose maintenance some of the inhabitants had undertaken--were matter of purchase, and formed the means of instruction in the rules of lawful exchange. A fixed weight of yams were to constitute prepayment for a pair of trousers, a piece of calico, a blanket, tomahawk, or the like, and all this was agreed to, Cho being a great assistance in explaining and dealing with his people. But it proved very difficult to keep them up to bringing a sufficient supply, and as they had a full share of the universal spirit of higgling, the commissariat was a very harassing and troublesome business, and as to the boys, it was evident that the experiment was not successful. Going to New Zealand was seeing the world. Horses, cows, sheep, a town, soldiers, &c., were to be seen there, whereas Lifu offered little that they could not see at home, and schooling without novelty was tedious. Indeed, the sight of civilised life, the being taken to church, the kindness of the friends around the College, were no slight engines in their education; but the Lifu people were not advanced enough to serve as an example--except that they had renounced the more horrible of their heathen habits. They were in that unsettled state which is peculiarly trying in the conversion of nations, when the old authoritative customs have been overthrown, and the Christian rules not established.

It was a good sign that the respect for the chief was not diminished. One evening an English sailor (for there turned out to be three whites on the island) who was employed in the sandal-wood trade was in the house conversing with Tutoo, when Angadhohua interrupted him, and he--in ignorance of the youth's rank--pushed him aside out of the way. The excitement was great. A few years previously the offender would have been killed on the spot, and as it was, it was only after apology and explanation of his ignorance that he was allowed to go free; but an escort was sent with him to a place twenty miles off lest any one should endeavour to avenge the insult, not knowing it had been forgiven.

Many of the customs of these Loyalty Isles are very unhealthy, and the almost exclusive vegetable diet produced a low habit of body, that showed itself in all manner of scrofulous diseases, especially tumours, under which the sufferer wasted and died. Much of Patteson's time was taken up by applications from these poor creatures, who fancied him sure to heal them, and had hardly the power, certainly not the will, to follow his advice.

Nor had he any authority. He only felt himself therw on sufferance till the promised deputation should come from Rarotonga from the London Mission, to decide whether the island should be reserved by them, or yielded to the Church. Meantime he says on Sunday:--

'Tutoo has had a pretty hard day's work of it, poor fellow, and he is anything but strong. At 9.30 we all went to the chapel, which began by a hymn sung as roughly as possible, but having rather a fine effect from the fact of some 400 or 500 voices all singing in unison. Then a long extemporary prayer, then another hymn, then a sermon nearly an hour long. It ought not to have taken more than a quarter of an hour, but it was delivered very slowly, with endless repetitions, otherwise there was some order and arrangement about it. Another hymn brought the service to an end about 11. But his work was not done; school instantly succeeded in the same building, and though seven native teachers were working their classes, the burthen of it fell on him. School was concluded with a short extemporary prayer. At three, service again--hymn, prayer, another long sermon, hymn, and at last we were out of chapel, there being no more school.'

'To be sure,' is the entry on another Sunday, ' little thought I of old that Sunday after Sunday I should frequent an Independent chapel. As for extemporary prayer not being a form, that is absurd. These poor fellows just repeat their small stock of words over and over again, and but that they are evidently in earnest, it would seem shockingly irreverent sometimes. Most extravagant expressions! Tutoo is a very simple, humble-minded man, and I like him much. He would feel the help and blessing of a Prayer-book, poor fellow, to be a guide to him; but even the Lord's Prayer is never heard among them.'

So careful was Mr. Patteson not to offend the men who had first worked on these islands, that on one Sunday when Tutoo was ill, he merely gave a skeleton of a sermon to John Cho to preach. On the 27th of July, however, the deputation arrived in the 'John Williams'--two ministers, and Mr. Creagh on his way back to Nengone, and the upshot of the conference on board, after a dinner in the house of Apollo, the native teacher, was that as they had no missionary for Lifu, they made no objection to Mr. Patteson working there at present, and that if in another year they received no reinforcement from home, they would take into consideration the making over their teachers to him. ' My position is thus far less anomalous, my responsibility much increased. God will, I pray and trust, strengthen me to help the people and build them up in the faith of Christ.'

'August 2.--Yesterday I preached my two first Lifu sermons; rather nervous, but I knew I had command of the language enough to explain my meaning, and I thought over the plan of my sermons and selected texts. Fancy your worthy son stuck up in a pulpit, without any mark of the clergyman save white tie and black coat, commencing service with a hymn, then reading the second chapter of St. Matthew, quite new to them, then a prayer, extemporary, but practically working in, I hope, the principle and much of the actual language of the Prayer-book--i.e. Confession, prayer for pardon, expression of belief and praise--then another hymn, the sermon about forty minutes. Text: "I am the Way," &c. Afternoon: "Thy Word is a lantern unto my feet."

'You can easily understand how it was simple work to point out that a man lost his way by his sin, and was sent out from dwelling with God; the recovery of the way by which we may again return to Paradise is practically the one great event which the whole Bible is concerned in teaching. The subject admitted of any amount of illustration and any amount of reference to the great facts of Scripture history, and everything converges to the Person of Christ. I wish them to see clearly the great points--first, God's infinite love, and the great facts by which He has manifested His Love from the very first, till the coming of Christ exhibited most clearly the infinite wisdom and love by which man's return to Paradise has been effected.

'Significant is that one word to the thief on the Cross "Paradise." The way open again; the guardian angel no longer standing with flaming sword in the entrance; admission to the Tree of Life.'

'The services were much shorter than usual, chiefly because I don't stammer and bungle, and take half an hour to read twenty verses of the Bible, and also because I discarded all the endless repetitions and unmeaning phrases, which took up half the time of their unmeaning harangues. About an hour sufficed for the morning-service; the evening one might have been a little longer. I feel quite at my ease while preaching, and John told me it was all very clear; but the prayers--oh! I did long for one of our Common Prayer-books.'

One effect of the Independent system began to reveal itself strongly. How could definite doctrines be instilled into the converts by teachers with hardly any books, and no formula to commit to memory? What was the faith these good Samoans knew and taught?

'No doctrinal belief exists among them,' writes Patte-son, in the third month of his stay. ' A man for years has been associated with those who are called "the people that seek Baptism." He comes to me:--

'J. G. P. 'Who instituted baptism?

'A. Jesus.

' J. G. P. And He sent His Apostles to baptize in the Name of Whom?

'Dead silence.

'"Why do you wish to be baptized?"

'"To live."

'"All that Jesus has done for us, and given to us, and taught us, is for that object. What is the particular benefit we receive in baptism?" 'No conception.' Such is their state.

'I would not hesitate if I thought there were any implicit recognition of the doctrine of the Trinity; but I can't baptize people morally good who don't know the Name into which they are to be baptized, who can't tell me that Jesus is God and man. There is a lad who soon must die of consumption, whom I now daily examine. He has not a notion 'of any truth revealed from above, and to be embraced and believed as truth upon the authority of God's Word. A kind of vague morality is the substitute for the Creed of the Apostles. What am I to do? I did speak out for three days consecutively pretty well, but I am alone, and only here for four months, and yet, I fear, I am expecting too much from them, and that I ought to be content with something much less as the (so to speak) qualifications; but surely they ought to repent and believe. To say the word, " I believe," without a notion of what they believe, surely that won't do. They must be taught, and then baptized, according to our Lord's command, suited for adults.'

Constant private teaching to individuals was going on, and the 250 copies of the Lifu primer were dispersed where some thousands were wanted, and Mr. Patteson wrote a little book of sixteen pages, containing the statement of the outlines of the faith, and of Scripture history; but this could not be dispersed till it had been printed in New Zealand.

And in the meantime a fresh element of perplexity was arising. The French had been for some time past occupying New Caledonia, and a bishop had been sent thither about the same time as Bishop Selwyn had gone to New Zealand; but though an earnest and hardworking man, he had never made much progress. He had the misfortune of being connected in the people's minds with French war ships and aggression, and, moreover, the South Sea race seem to have a peculiar distaste for the Roman Catholic branch of the Church, for which it is not easy to account.

The Loyalty Isles, as lying so near to New Caledonia, were tempting to the French Empire, and the Bishop at the same time felt it his duty to attempt their conversion.

Some priests had been placed at the north end of the island for about six months past, but the first communication was a letter on July 6, complaining, partly in French, partly in English, that since Mr. Patteson's arrival, the people had been making threatening reports. Now Mr. Patteson had from the first warned them against showing any unkindness to the French priests, and he wrote a letter of explanation, and arranged to go and hold a conference. On the way, while supping- with the English sailor, at the village where he was to sleep, he heard a noise, and found the Frenchman, Pere Montrouzier, had arrived. He was apparently about forty; intelligent, very experienced in mission work, and conversant with the habits and customs of French and English in the colonies; moreover, with plenty of firmness in putting forward his cause. He seems to have been supported by the State in a manner unusual with French missions.

'I had one point only that I was determined to press (Patteson says), namely, liberty to the people to follow any form of religion they might choose to adopt. I knew that they and I were completely in his power, yet that my line was to assume that we were now about to arrange our plans for the future independently of any interference from the civil power.

'He let me see that he knew he could force upon the Lifu people whatever he pleased, the French Government having promised him any number of soldiers he may send for to take possession, if necessary, of the island. They have 1,000 men in New Caledonia, steamers and frigates of war; and he told me plainly that this island and Nengone are considered as natural appendages of New Caledonia, and practically French possessions already, so that, of course, to attempt doing more than secure for the people a religious liberty is out of the question. He promised me that if the people behaved properly to him and his people, he would not send for the soldiers, nor would he do anything to interfere with the existing state of the island.

'He will not himself remain here long, being commissioned, in consequence of his fourteen years' experience, to prepare the way for the French mission here. He told me that twenty missionaries are coming out for this group, about seven or eight of whom will be placed on Lifu, others on Nengone, &c.; that the French Government is determined to support them; that the Commandant of Nimia in New Caledonia had sent word to him that anv number of men should be sent to him at an instant's notice, in a war steamer, to do what he might wish in Lifu, but that honestly he would do nothing to compel the people here to embrace Romanism; but that if necessary he would use force to establish the missionaries in houses in different parts of the island, if the chiefs refused to sell them parcels of land, for instance, one acre. The captain of the " Iris," an English frigate, called on him on Monday, and sent me a letter by him, making it quite clear that the French will meet with no opposition from the English Government. He too knew this, and of course knew his power; but he behaved, I must say, well, and if he is really sincere about the liberty of religion question, I must be satisfied with the result of our talk. I was much tired. We slept together on a kind of bed in an unfurnished house, where I was so cold that I could not sleep; besides, my head ached much; so my night was not a very pleasant one. In the morning we resumed our talk, but the business was over really. The question that we 'had discussed the evening before was brought to an issue, however, by his requiring from John Cho, who was with us, permission to buy about an acre of land in his territory. John was much staggered at this. It looked to him like a surrender of his rights. I told him, at great length, why I thought he must consent; but finally it was settled, that as John is not the real chief, I should act as interpreter for the Frenchmen; and send him from Mu an answer to a letter which he addresses to me, but which is, in fact, intended for the chief.

'It is, I suppose, true, that civilised nations do not acknowledge the right of a chief to prevent any one of his subjects from selling a plot of his land to a foreigner unless they may be at war with that particular nation.

'He said that France would not allow a savage chief to say "My custom in this respect is different from yours;" and again, "This is not a taking possession. It is merely requiring the right to put up a cottage for which I pay the just price." He told me plainly, if the chiefs did not allow him to do so, he would send for soldiers and put it up by force; but not use the soldiers for any other purpose. Of course I shall relate all this to Angadhohua at Mu, and make them consent.

'He told me that at New Caledonia they had reserved inalienably one-tenth of the land for the natives, that the rest would be sold to French colonists of the poor class, no one possessing more than ten acres; that 5,000 convicts would be sent there, and the ticket-of-leave system adopted, and that he thought the worst and most incorrigible characters would be sent to Lifu. Poor John! But I can't help him; he must make such terms as he can, for he and his people are wholly in their power.

'Our talk being ended, I found a great circle of men assembled on the outside with a pile of yams as usual in the centre for me. I was glad to see a small pile also for the Frenchman. I made my speech in his. presence, but he knows not Lifu. " Be kind to the French, give them food and lodging. This is a duty which you are bound to pay to all men; but if they try to persuade you to change the teaching which you have received, don't listen to them. Who taught you to leave off war and evil habits, to build chapels, to pray? Remember that. Trust the teachers who have taught you the Word of God."

'This was the kind of thing I said. Then off we set --two miles of loose sand at a rattling pace, as I wanted to shake off some 200 people who were crowding about me. Then turning to the west, climbed some coral rocks very quickly, and found myself with only half my own attendants, and no strangers. Sat down, drank a cocoa-nut, and waited a long time for John, who can't walk well, and then quietly went on the remaining eight or nine miles to Zebedee's place, a Samoan. teacher. They were very attentive, and gave me some supper. They had a bed, which was, of course, given up to me in spite of opposition. They regard a missionary as something superhuman almost. Sometimes I can't make them eat and drink with me; they think it would be presumptuous. Large meeting1 of people in the afternoon, and again the following morning, to whom I said much what I had already said at We. Then fifteen miles over to Apollo's place on the west coast, a grand bay, with perfectly calm water, delicious in the winter months. Comfortable quarters; Apollo a cleverish, free-spoken fellow.

'I went, on the same afternoon, two miles of very bad road to visit the French priest, who is living here. More talk and of a very friendly nature. He has been eighteen months at San Cristoval, but knows not the language; at "Woodlark Island, New Caledonia, &c. We talked in French and English. He knows English fairly, but preferred to talk French. This day's work was nineteen miles.

Slept at Apollo's. Next morning went a little way in canoes and walked six miles to Toma's place; meeting held, speech as usual, present of yams, pig, &c. Walked back the six miles, started in double canoe for Gaicha, the other side of the bay: wind fold, some difficulty in getting ashore. Walked by the bad path to Apollo's and slept there again; Frenchman came in during the evening. Next day, Friday, meeting in the chapel. Walked twenty miles back to We, where I am now writing. Went the twenty miles with no socks; feet sore and shoes worn to pieces, cutting off leather as I came along. Nothing but broken bottles equals jagged coral. Paths went so that you never take three steps in the same direction, and every minute trip against logs, coral hidden by long leaves, arid weeds trailing over the path. Often for half a mile you jump from one bit of coral to another. No shoes can stand it, and I was tired, I assure you. Indeed, for the last two days, if I stopped for a minute to drink a nut, my legs were so stiff that they did not get into play for five minutes or so.

'July 16th.--The captain of the "Iris" frigate passing Lifu dropped me a line which satisfied me that the French will meet with no impediment from the English Government in the prosecution of their plans out here. Well, this makes one's own path just as easy, because all these things, great and small, are ordered for us; but yet I grieve to think that we might be occupying these groups with missionaries. Even ten good men would do for a few years; and is it unreasonable to think that ten men might be found willing to engage in such a happy work in such a beautiful part of the world--no yellow fever, no snakes, &c. I think of the Banks Islands, Vanua Lava, with its harbour and streams, and abundance of food, and with eight or nine small islands round it, speaking the same language, few dialectic differences of consequence, as I believe.

' Even one good man might introduce religion here as we have received it, pure and undefiled. Oh! that there were men who could believe this, and come out unconditionally, placing themselves in the Bishop's hands unreservedly. He must know the wants and circumstances of the islands far better than they can, and therefore no man ought to stipulate as to his location, &c. Did the early teachers do so? Did Titus ever think of saying to St. Paul, " Mind I must be an elder, or bishop, or whatever he was, of Crete? '* Just as if that frame of mind was compatible with a real desire to do what little one can by God's help to bring the heathen to a knowledge of Christ.

' At this moment, one man for the Banks group and another for Mai and the neighbouring islands would be invaluable. If anything occurs to make me leave these Loyalty Islands as my residence during a part of the year, I am off to Banks, or Mai, or Solomon Isles. But what arn I? In many respects not so well qualified for the work as many men who yet, perhaps, have had a less complete education. I know nothing of mechanics, and can't teach common things; I am not apt to teach anything, I fear, having so long deferred to learn the art of teaching, but of course exposing one's own shortcomings is easy enough. How to get the right sort of men? First qualification is common-sense, guided, of course, by religious principle. Some aptitude for languages, but that is of so little consequence that I would almost say no one was sufficient by itself as a qualification. Of course the mission work tends immensely to improve all earnest men; the eccentricities and superfluities disappear by degrees as the necessary work approves itself to the affection and intellect.'

The French question resulted in a reply in Angacl-hohua's name, that the people should be permitted to sell ground where the mission required it; and that in the one place specified about which there was contention, the land should be ceded as a gift from the chiefs. ' This,' observes Mr. Patteson, ' is the first negotiation which has been thrust upon me. I more than suspect I have made considerable blunders.'

By the 13th of August, he had to walk over the coral jags for another consultation with Pere Montrouzier, whose negotiation with Cho had resulted in thorough misunderstanding, each thinking the other was deceiving him, and not dealing according to promise to Mr. Patteson. The Pere had, in his fourteen years' experience, imbibed a great distrust of the natives, and thought Mr. Patteson placed too much confidence in them, while the latter thought him inclined to err the other way; however, matters were accommodated, at heavy cost to poor Coley's feet. A second pair of shoes were entirely cut to pieces, and he could not put any on the next day, his feet were so blistered.

The troubles were not ended, for when the ground was granted, there followed a stipulation that the chiefs should not hinder the men from working at the building; and when the men would not work, the chiefs were suspected of preventing it, and a note from Pere Montrouzier greatly wounded Patteson's feelings by calling John Cho faux et artificieux.

However, after another note, he retracted this, and a day or two after came the twenty miles over the coral to make a visit to the English clergyman. ' There is much to like in him: a gentleman, thoroughly well informed, anxious of course to discuss controversial points, and uncommonly well suited for that kind of work, he puts his case well and clearly, and, of course, it is easy to make their system appear most admirably adapted for carrying out all the different duties of a Church, as it is consistent in all, or nearly all, particulars, given the one or two leading points on which all depend. The Church of England here is very much in the position of any one of those other bodies, Wesleyan, Independent, or Presbyterian; and though we have a Bishop at the head --of what, however? Of one individual clergyman! Oh, that we had now a good working force--twenty or thirty men with some stuff in them; and there are plenty if they would only come. Meanwhile, France sends plenty of men; steamers bring them houses, cows for themselves and as presents for natives--supports the missionary in every way. New Caledonia is handy for the central school, everything almost that can be requisite. Never mind; work on, one small life is a mighty trifling thing considered with reference to those great schemes overruled by God to bring out of them great ultimate good, no doubt.'

There was an interchange of books between the French and English priest. Pere Montrouzier lent, and finally gave, Martinet's '·Solution de Grands Pro-blemes,' which Patteson calls ' a very interesting book, with a great deal of dry humour about it, not unlike Newman's more recent publications. " It is," he (Montrouzier) says, " thought very highly of in France." He is a well-read man, I should imagine, in his line; and that is pretty extensive, for he is a really scientific naturalist, something of a geologist, a good botanist, besides having a good acquaintance with ecclesiastical literature.'

There was the more time for recreation with the Pere's French books, and the serious work of translating St. Mark's Grospel and part of the Litany into Lifu, as the inhabitants were all called off from school in the middle of August ' by a whale being washed ashore over a barrier reef--not far from me. All the adjacent population turned out in grass kilts, with knives and tomahawks to hack off chunks of flesh to be eaten, and of blubber to be boiled into oil; and in the meantime the neighbourhood was by no means agreeable to anyone possessing a nose.'

Meanwhile Sarawia, the best of the Banks pupils, had a swelling on the knee, and required care and treatment, but soon got better. Medical knowledge, as usual, Patteson felt one of the great needs of missionary life. Cases of consumption and scrofula were often brought to him, and terrible abscesses, under which the whole body wasted away. ' Poor people!' he writes, ' a consumptive hospital looms in the far perspective of my mind; a necessary accompaniment, I feel now, of the church and the school in early times. I wish I could contrive some remedy for the dry food, everything being placed between leaves and being baked on the ground, losing all the gravy; and when you get a chicken it is a collection of dry strings. If I could manage boiling; but there is nothing like a bit of iron for fire-place on the island, and to keep up the wood fire in the bush under the saucepan is hard work. I must commence a more practical study than hitherto of " Robinson Crusoe," and the " Swiss Family." Why does no missionary put down hints on the subject? My three months here will teach me more than anything that has happened to me, and I dare say I shall get together the things I want most when next I set forth from New Zealand. ... I find it a good plan to look on from short periods to short periods, and always ask, what next? And at last it brings one to the real answer:--Work as hard as you can, and that rest which lacks no ingredient of perfect enjoyment and peace will come at last.'

Among the needs he discovered was this:--'By the bye, good cheap Bible prints would be very useful; large, so as to be seen by a large class, illustrating just the leading ideas. Schnorr's Bible prints by Rose and Bingen are something of the kind that I mean, something quite rude will do. Twenty-four subjects, comprising nothing either conventional or symbolical, would be an endless treasure for teachers; the intervening history would be filled up and illustrated by smaller pictures, but these would be pegs on which to hang the great events these lads ought to know. Each should be at least twenty-four inches by ten.

' Try to remember, in the choice of any other picture books for them, that anything that introduces European customs is no use yet. Pictures of animals are the best things. One or two of a railway, a great bridge, a view of the Thames with steamers rushing up and down, would all do; but all our habits of social life are so strange that they don't interest them yet.

' When I next reach Auckland, I suppose my eyes will rejoice at seeing your dear old likenesses. When we build our permanent central school-house at Kohimarama, I shall try to get a little snuggery, and then furnish it with a few things comfortably; I shall then invest in a chest of drawers, as I dare say my clothes are getting tired of living in boxes since March 1855.

' I can hardly tell you how much I regret not knowing something about the treatment of simple surgical cases. If when with W------I had studied the practical--bled, drawn teeth, mixed medicines, rolled legs perpetually, it would have been worth something. Surely I might have foreseen all this! I really don't know how to find the time or the opportunity for learning. How true it is that men require to be trained for their particular work! I am now just in a position to know what to learn were I once more in England. Spend one day with old Fry (mason), another with John Venn (carpenter), and two every week at the Exeter hospital, and not look on and see others work--there's the mischief, do it oneself. Make a chair, a table, a box; fit everything; help in every part of making and furnishing a house, that is, a cottage. Do enough of every part to be able to do the whole. Begin by felling a tree; saw it into planks, nix the lime, see the right proportion of sand, &c., know how to choose a good lot of timber, fit handles for tools, &c.

' Many trades need not be attempted; but every missionary ought to be a carpenter, a mason, something of a butcher, and a good deal of a cook. Suppose yourself without a servant, and nothing for dinner to-morrow but some potatoes in the barn, and a fowl running about in the yard. That's the kind of thing for a young fellow going into a new country to imagine to himself. If a little knowledge of glazing could be added, it would be a grand thing, just enough to fit in panes to window-frames, which last, of course, he ought to make himself. Much of this cannot be done for you. I can buy window-frames in Auckland, and glass; but I can't carry a man a thousand miles in my pocket to put that glass into these frames; and if it is done in New Zealand, ten to one it gets broken on the voyage; whereas, glass by itself will pack well. Besides, a pane gets broken, and then I am in a nice fix. To know how to tinker a bit Is a good thing; else your only saucepan or tea-kettle may be lying by you useless for months. In fact, if 1 had known all this before, I should be just ten times as useful as I am now. If anyone you know thinks of emigrating or becoming a missionary, just let him remember this.'

To these humble requisites, it appears that a missionary ought on occasion to be able to add those of a prime minister and lawgiver. Angadhohua, a bright, clever lad, only too easily led, was to be instructed in the duties of a chief; Mr. Patteson scrupulously trying in vain to make him understand that he was a person of far more consideration and responsibility than his white visitor would be in his own country. The point was to-bring the Christian faith into connection with life and government. ' Much talk have I had with John in order that we may try to put before them the true grounds on which they ought to embrace Christianity,' writes Mr. Patteson, when about to visit a heathen district which had shown an inclination to abandon their old customs, 'and also the consequences to which they pledge themselves by the profession of a religion requiring purity, regularity, industry, &c., but I have little doubt that our visit now will result in the nominal profession of Christianity by many heathen. Angadhohua, John, and I go together, and Isaka, a Samoan teacher who has been a good deal among them. I shall make an arrangement for taking one of their leading men to New Zealand with me, that he may get some notion of what is meant by undertaking to become a Christian. It is in many respects a great benefit to be driven back iipon the very first origin of a Christian society; one sees more than ever the necessity of what our Lord has provided, a living organised community into which the baptized convert being introduced falls into his place, as it were, naturally; sees around him everything at all times to remind him that he is a regenerate man, that all things are become new. A man in apostolic times had the lessons of the Apostles and disciples practically illustrated in the life of those with whom he associated. The church was an. expression of the verbal teaching committed to its ministers. How clearly the beauty of this comes out when one is forced to feel the horrible blank occasioned by the absence of the living teacher, influencing, moulding, building up each individual professor of Christianity by a process always going on, though oftentimes unconsciously to him on whom it operates.

'But how is the social life to be fashioned here in Lifu according to the rule of Christ? There is no organised body exemplifying in daily actions the teaching of the Bible. A man goes to chapel and hears something most vague and unmeaning. He has never been taught to grasp anything distinctly--to represent any truth to his mind as a settled resting-place for his faith. Who is to teach him? What does he see around him to make him imperceptibly acquire new habits in conformity with the Bible? Is the Christian community distinguished by any habits of social order and intercourse different from non-Christians?

'True, they don't fight and eat one another now, but beyond that are they elevated as men? The same dirt, the same houses, the same idle vicious habits; in most cases no sense of decency, or but very little. Where is the expression of the Scriptural life? Is it not a most lamentable state of things? And whence has it arisen? From not connecting Christian teaching in church with the improvement in social life in the hut and village, which is the necessary corollary and complement of such teaching.

'By God's grace, I trust that some little simple books in Lifu will soon be in their houses, which may be useful. It is even a cause for thankfulness that in a few days (for the "Southern Cross" ought to be here in a week with 500 more copies) some 600 or more copies, in large type, of the Lord's Prayer, Creed, and Ten Commandments will be in circulation; but they won't use them yet. They won't be taught to learn them by heart, and be questioned upon them; yet they may follow by and by. Hope on is the rule. Give them the Bible, is the cry; but you must give them the forms of faith and prayer which Christendom has accepted, to guide them; and oh! that we were so united that we could baptize them into a real living exemplification, and expression--an embodiment of Christian truth, walking, sleeping, eating and drinking before their eyes. Christ Himself was that on earth, and His Church ought to be now. These men saw, to accept His teaching was to bind themselves to a certain course of life which was exhibited before their own eyes. Hence, multitudes approved His teaching, but would not accept it--would not profess it, because they saw what was involved in that profession. But now men don't count the cost; they forget that " If any man come to Me" is followed by " Which of you intending to build a tower," &c. Hence the great and exceeding difficulty in these latter days when Christianity is popular!'

In this state of things it was impossible to baptize adults till they had come to a much clearer understanding of what a Christian ought to do and to believe; and therefore Coley's only christenings in Lifu were of a few dying children, whom he named after his brother and sisters, as he baptized them with water, brought in cocoa-nut shells, having taught himself to say by heart his own translation of the baptismal form.

He wrote the following letter towards the end of his

stay:--

'September 6, 1858: Lifu, Loyalty Islands.

'My dear Miss Neill,--The delay of four or five days in the arrival of the "Southern Cross" gives me a chance of writing you a line. The Bishop dropped me here this day three months, and told me to look out for him on September 1. As New Zealand is 1,000 miles off, and he can't command winds and waves, of course I allow him a wide margin; and I begged him not to hurry over my important business in New Zealand in order to keep his appointment exactly. But his wont is to be very punctual. I have here twelve lads from the north-west islands: from seven islands, speaking six languages. The plan of bringing them to a winter school in some tropical isle is now being tried. The only difficulty here is that Lifu is so large and populous; and just now (what with French priests on it, and the most misty vague kind of teaching from Independents the only thing to oppose to the complete machinery of the Romish system) demands so much time, that it is difficult to do justice to one's lads from the distant lands that are living with one here. The Bishop had an exaggerated notion of the population here. I imagine it to be somewhere about 8,000. The language is not very hard, but has quite enough difficulty to make it more than a plaything: the people in that state when they venerate a missionary --a very dangerous state; I do my best to turn the reverence into the right channel and towards its proper object.

'You will see by the last Melanesian report of which I desired a copy to be sent to you, that our work is very rapidly increasing; that openings are being made in all directions; and that had we men of trust, we could occupy them at once. As it is, we keep up a communication with some seventy-four islands, waiting, if it may be, that men may be sent, trying to educate picked men to be teachers; but I am not very sanguine about that. At all events, the first flush of savage customs, &c., is being, I trust, removed, so that for some other body of Christians, if not the Church of England, the door may be laid open.

'Of course, the interest of the work is becoming more and more absorbing; so that, much as there is indeed going on in. your world to distract and grieve one, it comes to me so weakened by time and distance that I don't sympathise as I ought with those who are suffering so dreadfully from the Indian Mutiny, or the commercial failure, or the great excitement and agitation of the country. You can understand how this can be, perhaps; for my actual present work leaves me small leisure for reflecting, and for placing myself in the position of others at a distance; and when I have a moment's time surely it is right that I should be in heart at Feniton, with those dear ones, and especially my dear dear father, of whom I have not heard for five months, so that I am very anxious as to what account of him the "Southern Cross" may bring, and try to prepare myself for news of increased illness, &c.

'You, I imagine, my dear Miss Neill, are not much changed to those who see you day by day; but I should find you much weaker in body than Avhen I saw you last, and yet it did not seem then as if you had much strength to lose: I don't hear of any sudden changes, or any forms pf illness; the gradual exhausting process is going on, but accompanied, I fear, with even greater active pain than of old; your sufferings are indeed very severe and very protracted, a great lesson to us all. Yet you have much, even speaking only of worldly comfort, which makes your position a much happier one than that of the poor suffering souls whom I see here. Their house is one round room, a log burning in the centre, no chimney, the room full of smoke, common receptacle of men, women, boys, girls, pigs, and fowls. In the corner a dying woman or child. No water in the island that is fresh, a few holes in the coral where water accumulates, more or less brackish; no cleanliness, no quiet, no cool fresh air, hot smoky atmosphere, no proper food, a dry bit of yam, and no knowledge of a life to come: such is the picture of the invalided or dying South Sea Islander. All dying children under years of discretion I baptize, and all the infants brought to the chapel by parents who themselves are seeking baptism; but I have not baptized any adults yet, they must be examined and taught for some time, for the Samoan and Rarotongan teachers sent by the Independent missionaries are very imperfectly instructed and quite incapable of conveying definite teaching to them.

'I don't see, humanly speaking, how this island is to be kept from becoming purely Roman Catholic. They have a large staff of men, and are backed up by the presence of a complete government establishment in New Caledonia, only two or three days distant, while what have we? Four months a year of the time, partially otherwise occupied by Melanesian schools, of one missionary, and while here these four months, I have my lads from many islands to teach, so that I can't lay myself out to learn this one language, &c. I am writing this on September 16. "Southern Cross " not yet come, and my lads very anxious; I confess I should like to see it, not only (as you will believe) because all my stores are gone. I have not a morsel of biscuit or grain of sugar left, and am reduced to native fare, which does not suit my English constitution for very long. Yams and taro, and a fowl now and then, will be my food until the ship comes. Hitherto I have had coffee and biscuits in addition.

'My very kind love to Mrs. S ----, and many thanks for the letters, which I much enjoy.

'Your very affectionate old pupil,

'J. C. P.'

The whole of September passed without the arrival of the ' Southern Cross.' The fact was that after Mr. Pat-teson had been left at Lifu, the vessel when entering Port-au-France, New Caledonia, had come upon a coral reef, and the damage done to her sheathing was so serious that though she returned to Auckland from that trip, she could not sail again without fresh coppering; and as copper had to be brought from Sydney for the purpose, there was considerable delay before she could set forth again, so that it was not till the last day of September that she gladdened Patteson's eyes, and brought the long-desired tidings from home.

This voyage was necessarily short, as there were appointments to be kept by the Bishop in New Zealand in November, and all that could be aimed at was the touching at the more familiar islands for fresh instalments of scholars. The grand comet of 1858 was one feature of this expedition --which resulted in bringing home forty-seven Melanesians, so that with the crew, there were sixty-three souls on board during the homeward voyage!

'As you may suppose, the little "Southern Cross" is cram full, but the Bishop's excellent arrangements in the construction of the vessel for securing ventilation, preserve us from harm by God's blessing. Every day a thorough cleaning and sweeping goes on, and frequent washing, and as all beds turn up like the flap of a table, and some thirty lads sleep on the floor on mats and "blankets, by 7 A.M. all traces of the night arrangements have vanished. The cabin looks and feels airy; meals go on regularly; the boys living chiefly on yams, puddings, and cocoa-nuts, and plenty of excellent biscuit. We laid in so many cocoa-nuts that they have daily one apiece, a great treat to them. A vessel of this size, unless arranged with special.reference to such objects, could not carry safely so large a party, but we have nothing on board to create, conceal, or accumulate dir,; no hold, no storeroom, no place where a mixed mess of spilt flour, and sugar, and treacle, and old rotten potatoes, and cocoa-nut parings and bits of candle, can all be washed together into a dark foul hold; hence the whole ship, fore and aft, is sweet and clean. Stores are kept in zinc lockers puttied down, and in cedar boxes lined with zinc. We of course distribute them ourselves; a hired steward would be fatal, because you can't get a servant to see the importance of care in such details.'

Mr. Patteson always, in the most careful manner, paid respect both to the chief's person and his dicta. He declined more than once to give directions which he said ought to issue from the chief, although on one of these occasions he was asked by the chief himself. He foresaw clearly the evils that might follow if the people's respect for recognised authority were weakened, instead of being, as it might be, turned to useful account. And so he always accorded to John Cho, and to other persons of rank when they were with us in the Mission school, just such respect as they were accustomed to receive at the hands of their own people. For instance, he would always use to a moderate extent the chief's language in addressing John Cho or any other of the Loyalty chiefs; and it being a rule of theirs that no one in the presence of the chiefs should ever presume to sit down higher than the chiefs, he would always make a point of attending to it as regarded himself; and once or twice when, on shore in the islands, the chief had chosen to squat down on the ground among the people, he would jocularly leave the seat that had been provided for him, and place himself by the chief's side on the ground. All this was keenly" appreciated as significant, but alas! the Loyalty Islanders were not long to remain under his charge.

The ensuing letter was written to Sir John Taylor Coleridge, after learning the tidings of his retirement from the Bench in the packet of intelligence brought by the vessel: --

'November 10, 1858: Lat. 31° 29' S.; Long. 171° 12' E.

'My dear Uncle John,--I see by the papers that you-have actually resigned, and keep your connection with the judges only as a Privy Councillor. I am of course on my own account heartily glad that you will be near my dear father for so many months of the year, and you are very little likely to miss your old occupation much, with your study at Heath's Court, so I shall often think of you in summer sitting out on the lawn, by John's Pinus cxcelsis, and in winter in your armchair by the fire, and no doubt you will often find your way over to Feniton. And then you have a glorious church! . . . Oh! I do long for a venerable building and for the sound of ancient chants and psalms. At times, the Sunday is specially a day on which my mind will go back to the old country, but never with any wish to return. I have never experienced that desire, and think nothing but absolute inability to help on a Melanesian or a Maori will ever make a change in that respect. I feel as certain as I can be of anything that I should not be half as happy in England as I am in New Zealand, or in Lifu, in the Banks or Solomon Islands, &c. I like the life and the people, everything about it and them. . . .

'Coppering the schooner caused delay, so that he (the Bishop) could give but two months instead of three to the Island voyage, for he starts on November 25 for a three months' Confirmation tour (1,000 miles) among the New Zealanderp, which will bring him to Wellington by March 1, for the commencement of the first synod. Consequently we have only revisited some of our seventy and odd islands, but we have no less than forty-seven Melanesians from twelve islands on board, of whom three are young married women, while two are babies.

'This makes our whole number on board sixty, viz., four Pitcairners, forty-seven Melanesians -f selves + crew = sixty-three, a number too great for so small a vessel, but for the excellent plan adopted by the Bishop in the internal arrangement of the vessel when she was built, and the scrupulous attention to cleanliness in every place fore and aft. As it is, we are not only healthy but comfortable, able to have all meals regularly, school, prayers, just as if we had but twenty on board. Nevertheless, I think, if you could drop suddenly on our lower deck at 9 P.M. and visit unbeknown to us the two cabins, you would be rather surprised at the number of the sleepers--twelve in our after-cabin, and forty-five in the larger one, which occupies two-thirds of the vessel.

'Of course we make no invasion upon the quarters forward of the four men before the mast--common seamen, and take good care that master and mate shall have proper accommodation.

'One gets so used to this sort of thing that I sleep just as well as I used to do in my own room at home, and by 6.30 or 7 A.M. all vestiges of anything connected with sleeping arrangements have vanished, and the cabins look like what they are,--large and roomy. We have, you know, no separate cabins filled with bunks, &c., abominations specially contrived to conceal dirt and prevent ventilation. Light calico curtains answer all purposes of dividing off a cabin into compartments, but we agree to live together, and no one has found it unpleasant as yet. We turn a part of our cabin into a gunaikhon at night for the three women and two babies by means of a canvas screen. Bishop looks after them, washes the babies, tends the women when sick, &c., while I, by virtue of being a bachelor, shirk all the trouble. One of these women is now coming for the second time to the college; her name is Carry. Margaret Cho is on her second visit, and Hrarore is the young bride of Kapua, now coming for his third time, and baptized last year.

'We wish to make both husbands and wives capable of imparting better notions to their people.

'We have, I think, a very nice set on board. . . .

'I think everything points to Vanua Lava, the principal island of the Banks group, becoming our centre of operations, i.e., that it would be the place where winter school would be carried on with natives from many islands, from Solomon Islands group to the north-west, and Santa Cruz group to north, New Hebrides to south and Loyalty Islands south-west, and also the depot among the islands, a splendid harbour, safe both from trade and hurricane winds, plenty of water, abundantly supplied with provisions, being indeed like a hot-house, with its hot springs constantly sending up clouds of vapour on the high hills, a population wholly uninjured by intercourse with traders and whalers, it being certain that our vessel was the first at all events that has ever been seen by the eyes of any member of this generation on the islands; I could prove this to you easily if I had time.

'They are most simple, gentle and docile, unwarlike, not cannibals, I verily believe as good a specimen of the natural fallen man as can be met with, wholly naked, yet with no sense of shame in consequence; timid, yet soon learning to confide in one; intelligent, and gleaming with plenty of spirit and fun. As the island, though 440 miles north of the Loyalty Isles, is not to leeward of them, it would only take us about eight days more to run down, and a week more to return to it from New Zealand, than would be the case if we had our winter school on one of the Loyalty Islands. So I hope now we may get a missionary for Lifu, and so I may be free to spend all my time, when not in New Zealand, at Vanua Lava. Temperature in winter something under 80° in the shade, being in lat. 13° 45' 5". The only thing against Vanua Lava is the fact that elephantiasis abounds among the natives, and they say that the mortality is very considerable there, so it might not be desirable to bring many lads to it from other islands; but the neighbouring islands of Mota and Valua, and Uvaparapara are in sight and are certainly healthy, and our buildings are not so substantial as to cause much difficulty in shifting our quarters if necessary. The language is very hard, but when it is one's business to learn a thing, it is done after a while as a matter of course.

'We have quite made up our mind that New Zealand itself is the right place for the head-quarters of the Mission. True, the voyage is long, and lads can only be kept there five or six months of the year, but the advantages of a tolerably settled state of society are so great, and the opportunities of showing the Melanesians the working of an English system are so many, that I think now with the Bishop that New Zealand should be the place for the summer school in preference to any other. I did not think so at one time, and was inclined to advocate the plan of never bringing the lads out of the tropics, but I think now that there are so many good reasons for bringing the lads to New Zealand that we must hope to keep them by good food and clothing safe from colds and coughs. Norfolk Island would have been in some ways a very good place, but there is no hope now of our being settled there. . . .

'I can hardly have quite the same control over lads broiight to an island itself wholly uncivilised as I can have over them in New Zealand, but as a rule, Melanesians are very tractable. Certainly I would sooner have my present school to manage, forty-five of all ages from nine to perhaps twenty-seven or eight, from twelve or thirteen islands, speaking at least eight languages, than half the number of English boys, up to all sorts of mischief. . . .

'Thank you, dear uncle, for the Xavier; a little portable book is very nice for taking on board ship, and I dare say I may read some of his letters in sight of many a heathen island. . . .

'Good-bye, my dear Uncle.

'Your affectionate and grateful nephew,

'J. C. PATTESON.'

'Savages are all Fridays, if you know how to treat them' is a saying of Patteson's in one of his letters, and a true one. In truth, there was no word that he so entirely repudiated as this of savage, and the courtesy and untutored dignity of many of his native friends fully justified his view, since it was sure to be called forth by his own conduct towards them.

The chiefs, having a great idea of their own importance, and being used to be treated like something sacred, and never opposed, were the most difficult people to deal with, and in the present voyage there was a time of great anxiety respecting a young chief named Aroana, from the great isle of Malanta. He fell into an agony of nervous excitement lest he should never see his island again, an attack of temporary insanity came on, and he was so strong that Mr. Patteson could not hold him down without the help of the Bishop and another, and it was necessary to tie him down, as he attempted to injure himself. He soon recovered, and the cooler latitudes had a beneficial effect on him, but there was reason to fear that in Malanta the restraint might be regarded as an outrage on the person of a chief.

The voyage safely ended on the night of the 16th of November. Here is part of a letter to Mr. Edward Coleridge, written immediately after reading the letters that had been waiting in Auckland:--

'My father writes:--" My tutor says that there must be a Melanesian Bishop soon, and that you will be the man," a sentence which amused me not a little.

'The plan is that the Bishop should gradually take more and more time for the islands, as he transfers to the General Synod all deeds, documents, everything for which he was corporation sole, and as he passes over to various other Bishops portions of New Zealand. Finally, retaining only the north part of the northern island, to take the Melanesian Bishopric.

'I urged this plan upon him very strongly one day, when somewhere about lat. 12° S. (I fancy) he pressed me to talk freely about the matter. I said: "One condition only I think should be present to your mind, viz., that you must not give up the native population in New Zealand," and to this he assented.

'If, dear tutor, you really were not in joke, just try to find some good man who would come and place himself under the Bishop's direction unreservedly, and in fact be to him much what I am + the ability and earnestness, &c. Seriously, I am not at all fitted to do anything but work under a good man. Of course, should I survive the Bishop, and no other man come out, why it is better that the ensign should assume the command than to give up the struggle altogether. But this of course is pure speculation. The Bishop is hearty, and, I pray God, may be Bishop of Melanesia for twenty years to come, and by that time there will be many more competent men than I ever shall be to succeed him, to say nothing of possible casualties, climate, &c.

'Good-bye, my dear Uncle; kind love to all.

'Your loving nephew and pupil,

'J. C. PATTESON.'

The three women and the two babies were disposed of in separate houses, but their husbands, with thirty-nine other Melanesians, four Norfolk Islanders, two printers, Mr. Dudley and Mr. Patteson, made up the dinner-party every day in the hall of St. John's College. 'Not a little happy I feel at the head of my board, with two rows of merry, happy-looking Melanesians on either side of me!'

The coughs, colds, and feverish attacks of these scholars were the only drawback; the slightest chill made them droop; and it was a subject of joy to have any day the full number in hall, instead of one or two lying ill in their tutor's own bed-chamber.

On the 29th of December came the exceeding joy of the arrival of the Judge and Mrs. Martin, almost straight from Feniton, ready to talk untiringly of everyone there. On the New Year's day of 1859 there was a joyful thanksgiving service at Taurarua for their safe return, at which all the best Church people near were present, and when John Clio made his first Communion.

On the 20th these much-loved friends came to make a long stay at the College, and the recollections they preserved of that time have thus been recorded by Lady Martin. It will be remembered that she had parted from him during the year of waiting and irregular employment:--

'We were away from New Zealand nearly three years. We had heard at Feniton dear Coley's first happy letters telling of his voyages to the islands in 1856-7, letters all aglow with enthusiasm about these places and people. One phrase I well remember, his kindly regret expressed for those whose lot is not cast among the Melanesian islands. On our return we went to live for some months at St. John's College, where Mr. Patteson was then settled with a large party of scholars.

'We soon found that a great change had passed over our dear friend. His whole mind was absorbed in his work. He was always ready, indeed, to listen to anything there was to tell about his dear father; but about our foreign travels, his favourite pictures, the scenes of which we had heard so much from him, he would listen for a few minutes, but was sure in a little while to have worked round to Melanesia in general, or to his boys in particular, or to some discussion with my husband on the structure of their many languages and dialects. It was then that Bishop Abraham said that when the two came to their ninth meaning of a particle, he used to go to sleep.

'There were a very fine intelligent set of young men from the Loyalty Islands, some sleepy, lazy ones from Mai, some fierce, wild-looking lads from the Solomon Islands who had long slits in their ears and bone horns stuck in their frizzly hair. Mr. Patteson could communicate with all more or less easily, and his readily delicate hearing enabled him to distinguish accurately sounds which others could not catch--wonderful mp and piv and mbw which he was trying to get hold of for practical purposes.

'He was in comfortable quarters, in one long low room, with a sunny aspect. It looked fit for a student, with books all about, and pictures, and photos of loved friends and places on the walls, but he had no mind to enjoy it alone. There was sure to be some sick lad there, wrapped up in his best rugs, in the warmest nook by the fire. He had morning and afternoon school daily in the large schoolroom, Mr. Dudley and Mr Lask assisting him. School-keeping, in its ordinary sense, was a drudgery to him, and very distasteful. He had none of that bright lively way and readiness in catechising which made some so successful in managing a large class of pupils at once, but every person in the place loved to come to the evening classes in his own room, where, in their own language, he opened to them the Scriptures and spoke to them of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. It was in those private classes that he exercised such wonderful influence; his musical voice, his holy face, his gentle manner, all helping doubtless to impress and draw even the dullest. Long after this he told me once how after these evening classes, one by one, some young fellow or small boy would come back with a gentle tap at the door, "I want to talk to you," and then and there the heart would be laid open, and counsel asked of the beloved teacher.

'It was very pleasant to see him among his boys. They all used to go off for a walk on Saturday with him, sometimes to town, and he as full of fun with them as if they had been a party of Eton boys. He had none of the conventional talk, so fatal to all true influence, about degraded heathen. They were brethren, ignorant indeed, but capable of acquiring the highest wisdom. It was a joke among some of us, that when asked the meaning of a Nengone term of endearment he answered naively, " Oh, it means old fellow." He brought his fresh, happy, kindly feelings towards English lads and young men into constant play among Melanesians, and so they loved and trusted him.'

I think that exclusiveness of interest which Lady Martin describes, and which his own family felt, and which is apt to grow upon missionaries, as indeed on every one who is very earnestly engaged in any work, diminished as he became more familiar with his work, and had a mind more at liberty for thought.

Mr. Dudley thus describes the same period: --'It was during- the summers of 1857-8 and 1858-9 that the Loyalty Islanders mustered in such numbers at St. John's College, as it was supposed that they, at least Lifu would be left in the hands of the Church of England. Mr. Patteson worked very hard these years at translations, and there was an immense enthusiasm about printing, the Lifuites and Nengonese striving each to get the most in their own language.

'Never shall I forget the evening service during those 3'ears held in the College chapel, consisting of one or two prayers in Bauro, Gera, and other languages, and the rest in Nengonese, occasionally changing to Lifu, when Mr. Patteson used to expound the passage of Scripture that had been translated in school during the day. Usually the Loyalty Islanders would take notes of the sermon while it went on, but now and then it was simply impossible, for although his knowledge of Nengonese at that time, as compared with what it was afterwards, was very limited, and his vocabulary a small one from which to choose his expressions, he would sometimes speak with such intense earnestness and show himself so thoroughly en rapport with the most intelligent of his hearers, that they were compelled to drop their papers and pencils, and simply to to listen. I remember one evening in particular. For some little time past the conduct of the men, especially the married men, had not been at all satisfactory. The married couples had the upper house, and John Cho, Simeona, and Kapua had obtained a draught-board, and had regularly given themselves up to draught-playing, night and day, neglecting all the household duties they were expected to perform, to the great annoyance of their wives, who had to carry the water, and do their husbands' work in other ways as well their own. This became soon known to Mr. Patteson, and without saying anything directly to the men, he took one evening as his subject in chapel those words of our Lord, "If thy hand or thy foot offend thee," &c., and spoke as you know he did sometimes speak, and evidently was entirely carried out of himself, using the Nengonese with a freedom which showed him to be thinking in it as he went on, and with a face only to be described as "the face of an angel." "We all sat spellbound. John Cho, Simeona, and the other walked quietly away, without saying a word, and in a day or two afterwards I learnt from John that he had lain awake that night thinking over the matter, that fear had come upon him, lest he might be tempted again, and jumping up instantly, he had taken the draught-board from the place where he had left it and had cast it into the embers of their fire.

'Many and many a time was I the recipient of his thoughts, walking with him up and down the lawn in front of the cottage buildings of an evening, when he would try to talk himself clear. You may imagine what a willing listener I was, whatever he chose to talk upon, and he often spoke very freely to me, I being for a long time his only resident white companion. It was not long before I felt I knew his father well, and reverenced him deeply. He never was tired of talking of his home, and of former days at Eton and Oxford, and then while travelling on the Continent. Often and often during those early voyages have I stood or sat by his side on the deck of the " Southern Cross," as in the evening, after prayers, he stood there for hours, dressed in his clerical attire, all but the grey tweed cap, one hand holding the shrouds, and looking out to windward like a man who sees afar off all the scenes he was describing.'

Thinking over those times since, one understands better far than one did at the time the reality of the sacrifice he had made in devoting himself for life to a work so far away from those he loved best on earth.

The Bishop of Wellington, for to that see Archdeacon Abraham had been consecrated while in England, arrived early in March, and made a short stay at the College, during which he confirmed eleven and baptized one of Patte-son's flock. Mrs. Abraham and her little boy remained at the College, while her husband went on to prepare for her at Wellington, and thu3 there was much to make the summer a very pleasant one, only chequered by frequent anxieties about the health -of the pupils, as repeated experiments made it apparent that the climate of St. John's was too cold for them. Another anxiety was respecting Lifu for the London Missionary Society, had, after all, undertaken to supply two missionaries from England, and it was a most doubtful and delicate question whether the wishes of the natives or the established principle of noninterference with pre-occupied ground, ought to have most weight. The Primate was so occupied by New Zealand affairs that he wrote to Mr. Patteson to decide it himself and he could but wait to be guided by circumstances on the spot.

To Mr. Edward Coleridge he writes on the 18th of March:--

'I have many and delightful talks with Mr. Martin on our languages. We see already how strong an infusion of Polynesian elements exists in the Melanesian islands. With the language of four groups we are fairly acquainted now, besides some of the distinguishing dialects, which differ very much from one another; nevertheless, I think that by-and-by we shall connect them all if we live; but as some dialects may have dropped out altogether, we may want a few links in the chain to demonstrate the connection fully to people at a distance. It is a great refreshment to me to work out these matters, and the Judge kindly looked up the best books that exist in all the Polynesian languages, so that we can found our induction upon a comparison of all the dialects now from the Solomon Islands to the Marquesas, with the exception of the Santa Cruz archipelago. We have been there two or three times, but the people are so very numerous and noisy, that we never have had a chance as yet of getting into a quiet talk (by signs, &c.) with any of the people.

'Still, as we know some Polynesian inhabitants of a neighbouring isle who have large sea canoes, and go to Santa Cruz, we may soon get one of them to go with us, and so have an interpreter, get a lad or two, and learn the language.

'We are sadly in want of men; yet we cannot write to ask persons to come out for this work who may be indisposed, when they arrive in New Zealand, to carry out the particular system on which the Bishop proceeds. Any man who would come out and consent to spend a summer at the Melanesian school in New Zealand in order to learn his work, and would give up any preconceived notions of his own about the way to conduct missionary work that might militate against the Bishop's plan--such a man would be, of course, the very person we want; but we must try to make people understand that half-educated men will not do for this work. Men sent out as clergymen to the mission-field who would not have been thought fit to receive Holy Orders at home, are not at all the men we want. It is not at all probable that such men would really understand the natives, love them, and live with them; but they would be great dons, keeping the natives at a distance, assuming that they could have little in common, &c.--ideas wholly destructive of success in missionary, or in any work. That pride of race which prompts a white man to regard coloured people as inferior to himself, is strongly ingrained in most men's minds, and must be wholly eradicated before they will ever win the hearts, and thus the souls of the heathen.

'What a preachment, as usual, about Melanesia! . . .

'Your loving old Pupil and Nephew,

'J. C. PATTESON.'

Next follows a retrospective letter:--

'April 1, 1859: St. John's College.

'My dearest Father,--Thirty-two years old to-day! Well, it is a solemn thing to think that one has so many days and months and 3rears to account for. Looking back, I see how fearfully I wasted opportunities which I enjoyed, of which, I fancy, I should now avail myself gladly; but I don't know that I fancy what is true, for my work now, though there is plenty of it, is desultory, and I dare say hard application, continuously kept up, would be as irksome to me as ever.

'It seems very strange to me that I never found any pleasure in classical studies formerly. Now, the study of the languages for its own sake even is so attractive to rue that I should enjoy working out the exact and delicate powers of Grreek particles, &c.; but I never cared for it till it was too late, and the whole thing was drudgery tn me. I had no appreciation, again, of Historians, or historians; only thought Thucydides difficult and Herodotus prosy (!!), and Tacitus dull, and Livy apparently easy and really very hard. So, again, with the poets; and most of all I found no interest (fancy!) in Plato and Aristotle. They were presented to me as merely school books; not as the great etfort of the cultivated heathen mind to solve the riddle of man's being; and I, in those days, never thought of comparing the heathen and Christian ethics, and the great writers had no charm for me.

'Then my French. If I had really taken any pains with old Tarver in old days--and it was your special wish that I should do so--how useful it would be to me now; whereas, though I get on after a sort, I don't speak at all as I ought to do, and might have learnt to do. It is sad to look back upon all the neglected opportunities; and it is not only that I have not got nearly (so to speak) a quantity of useful materials for one's work in the present time, but that I find it very hard to shake off desultory habits. I suppose all persons have to make reflections of this kind, more or less sad; but, somehow, I feel it very keenly now: for certainly I did waste time sadly; and it so happens that I have just had "Tom Brown's Schooldays" lent me, and that I spent some time in reading it on this particular day, and, of course, my Eton life rose up before me. What a useful book that is! A real gain for a young person to have such a book. That is very much the kind of thing that would really help a boy--manly, true, and plain.

'I hear from Sydney by last mail that the Bishop is really desirous to revive the long dormant Board of Missions. He means to propose to send a priest and a deacon to every island ready for them, and to provide for them--if in en are forthcoming, and funds. Of this latter I have not much doubt. . . .

' April 24--I have to get ready for three English full services to-morrow, besides Melanesian ditto.--So goodbye, my dearest Father,

'Your loving and dutiful Son,

'J. C. PATTESON.'

Sir John Patteson might well say, in a letter of this summer, to Bishop Selwyn:--

'As to my dear boy Coley, I am more and more thankful every day that I agreed to his wishes; and in whatever situation he may be placed, feel confident that his heart will be in his work, and that he will do God service. He will be contented to work under any one who may be appointed Bishop of Melanesia (or any other title), or to be the Bishop himself. If I judge truly, he has no ambitious views, and only desires that he may be made as useful as his powers enable him to be, whether in a high or subordinate situation.'

Nothing could be more true than this. There was a general sense of the probability that Mr. Patteson must be the first Missionary Bishop; but he continued to work on at the immediate business, always keeping the schemes and designs which necessarily rose in his mind ready to be subjected to the control of whomsoever might be set over him. The coli had set in severely enough to make it needful to carry off his ' party of coughing, shivering Melanesians' before Easter, and the ' Southern Cross' sailed on the 18th. Patteson took with him a good store of coffee, sugar, and biscuits, being uncertain whether he should or should not again remain at Lifu.

In the outward voyage he only landed his pupils there, and then went on to the Banks Islands, where Sarawia was returned at Vanua Lava, and after Mr. Patteson had spent a pleasant day among the natives, Mota was visited next after.

'May 24.--On Monday, at 3 P.M., we sailed from Port Patteson across to Mota. Here I landed among 7 50 people and the boat returned to the vessel. She was to keep up to windward during the night and call for me the next morning. I walked with my large following, from the teach, up a short steep path, to the village, near to which, indeed only 200 yards off, is another considerable village The soil is excellent; the houses good--built round the open space which answers to the green in our villages, and mighty banyan trees spreading their lofty and wide-branching arms above and .around them. The side walls of these houses are not more than two feet high, made only of bamboos lashed by cocoa-nut fibre, or wattled together, and the long sloping roofs nearly touch ground but within they are tolerably clean and quite dry. The moon was in the first quarter, and the scene was striking as I sat out in the open space with some 200 people crowding round me--men, women and children; fires in front where yams were roasting; the dark brown forms glancing 3 to and fro in the flickering light; the moon's rays quivering down through the vast trees, and the native hollow drum beating at intervals to summon the people to the monthly feast on the morrow. I slept comfortably on a mat in a cottage with many other persons in it. Much talk I had with a large concourse outside, and again in this cottage, on Christianity; and all were quiet when I knelt down as usual and said my evening prayers. Up at 5.30 A.M., and walked up a part of the Sugar Loaf peak, from which the island derives its English name, and found a small clear stream, flowing, through a rocky bed, back to the village, where were some 300 people assembled; sat some time with them, then went to the beach, where the boat soon came for me.

'After this there was a good deal of bad weather; but all the lads were restored to their islands, including Aroana,. the young Malanta chief, who had begun by a fit of frenzy, but had since behaved well; and who left his English friends with a promise to do all in his power to tame his people and cure them of cannibalism.'

Then came some foul winds and hot exhausting weather.

'I have done little more than read Stanley's "Sinai and Palestine," and Helps's "Spanish America," two excellent books and most delightful to me. The characters in the Spanish conquest of Mexico and America generally; the whole question of the treatment of natives; and that nobleman, Las Casas--are more intelligible to me than to most persons probably. The circumstances of my present life enable me to realise it to a greater extent.

'Then I have been dipping into a little ethnology; yesterday a little Plato; but it is almost too hot for anything that requires a working head-piece. You know I take holiday time this voyage when we are in open water and no land near, and it is great relaxation to me.'

A pretty severe gale of wind followed, a sharp test of Patteson's seamanship.

'Then came one day of calm, when we all got our clothes dry, and the deck and rigging looked like an old clothes' shop. Then we got a fairish breeze; but we can get nothing in moderation. Very soon it blew up into a strong breeze, and here we are lying to with a very heavy sea. Landsmen would call it mountainous, I suppose. I am tired, for I have had an anxious time; and we have had but one quiet night for an age, and then I slept from 9.30 P.M. to 7.30 A.M. continuously.

'It may be that this is very good training for me. Indeed it must give me more coolness and confidence. I felt pleased as well as thankful when we made the exact point of Nengone that I had calculated upon, and at the exact time.'

On the 20th of June, Auckland harbour was safely attained; but the coming back without scholars did not make much of holiday time for their master, who was ready to give help to other clergymen whenever it might be needed, though, in fact, this desultory occupation always tried him most.

On the 25th of July he says:--

'I have had a sixty miles' walk since I wrote last; some part of it over wild country. I lost my way once or twice and got into some swamps, but I had my little pocket-compass.

'My first day was eighteen miles in pouring rain; no road, in your sense of the word; but a good warm room and tea at the end. Next day on the move all day, by land and water, seeing settlers scattered about. Third day, Sunday, services at two different places. Fourth day, walk of some twenty-seven miles through unknown regions baptizing children at different places; and reaching, after divers adventures, a very hospitable resting-place at 8 p.m. in the dark. Next day an easy walk into Auckland and Taurarua. Yesterday, Sunday, very wet day. Man-of-war gig came down for me at 9.15 A.M., took the service on board; 11 A.M. St. Paul's service; afternoon, hospital, a mile or so off; 6 P.M. St. Paul's evening service; 8.30, arrived at Taurarua dripping.'

The same letter replies to one from home: --

'I thank you, my dear father, for writing so fully about yourself, and especially, for seeing and stating so plainly your full conviction that I ought not to think of returning to England. It would, as you say, humanly speaking, interfere most seriously with the prospects of the Mission. Some dear friends write to me differently, but they don't quite understand, as you have taken pains to do, what our position is out here; and they don't see that my absence would involve great probable injury to the whole work.

'It is curious how few there are who know anything of New Zealand and Melanesia!

'Of course it is useless to speculate on the future, but I see nothing at all to make it likely that I shall ever revisit England. I can't very well conceive any such state of things as would make it a duty to gratify my constant inclination. And, my dear father, I don't scruple to say (for you will understand me) that I am happier here than I should be in England, where, even though I were absent only a few months, I should bear about with me the constant weight of knowing that Melanesia was not provided for. And, strange as it may seem, this has quite ceased to be a trial to me. The effort of subduing the longing desire to see you is no longer a great one: I feel that I am cheerful and bright, and light-hearted, and that I have really everything to make a man thankful and contented.

'And if you could see the thankful look of the Bishop, when he is again assured that there is no item of regret or desire to call me home on your part, you would feel, I know, that colonial work does require, especially, an unconditional unreserved surrender of a man to whatever he may find to do.'

But while admiring the noble spirit in which the son held fast his post, and the father forebore to unsettle him there, let not their example he used in the unkind and io-norant popular cry against the occasional return of colonial Bishops. For, be it remembered, that dire necessity was not drawing Coleridge Patteson to demand pecuniary assistance round all the platforms of English towns. The Eton, and the Australian and New Zealand Associations, supplemented by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and his own family, relieved him from the need of having to maintain his Mission by such means. All these letters are occupied with the arrangements for raising means for removing the Melanesian College to a less bleak situation, and it is impossible to read them without feeling what a difference it made to have a father who did not view giving to God's work as robbing his family.

On the 13th of August, Patteson was on board, preparing for the voyage; very cold, and eager for the tropics. The parting voice in his farewell letter is: ' I think I see more fully that work, by the power of God's Spirit, is the condition of us all in this world; tiny and insignificant as the greatest work of the greatest men is, in itself, yet the one talent is to be used.'

It was meant to be a farewell letter, but another followed in the leisure, while waiting for the Bishop to embark, with some strong (not to say fiery) opinions on the stern side of duty:--

'I feel anxious to try to make some of the motives intelligible, upon which we colonial folk act sometimes. First. I think that we get a stronger sense of the necessity for dispensing with that kind of courtesy and good nature which sometimes interferes with duty than people do in England.

'So a man placed as I am (for example) really cannot oftentimes avoid letting it be seen that work must come first; and, by degrees, one sympathises less than one possibly should do with drones and idlers in the hive, and feels it wrong to assent to a scheme which lets a real work suffer for the sake of acquiescing in a conventional recognition of comfort, claims of society, &c.

'Would the general of an army say to his officers, "Pray, gentlemen, don't dirty your boots or fatigue your horses to succour the inhabitants of a distant village"? Or a captain to his mates and middies: " Don't turn out, don't go aloft. It is a thing hard, and you might get wet"?

'And the difference between us and people at home sometimes is, that we don't see why a clergyman is not as much bound as an officer in the army or navy to do what he is pledged of his own act to do; and that at home the " parsonage and pony-carriage;' delusion practically makes men forget this. I forget it as much as any man, and should very likely never have seen the mistake but for my coming to New Zealand; and it is one of the great blessings we enjoy.

'There is a mighty work to be done. God employs human agents, and the Bible tells us what are the rules and conditions of their efficiency.

'"Oh! but, poor man, he has a sickly wife!" Yes, but, " it remaineth that those who have wives be as they that have none."

'True, but the case of a large family? " Whosoever loveth child more than me," &c.

' Second. The fact that we live almost without servants makes us more independent, and also makes us acquainted with the secrets of each other's housekeeping, &c. All that artificial intercourse which depends a good deal upon a well-fitted servants' hall does not find place here. More, simple and more plain and homely in speech and act is our life in the colonies--e.g., you meet me carrying six or seven loaves from town to the college. " Oh, I knew that the Bishop had to meet some persons there to-day, and I felt nearly sure there would be no breakfast then." Of course an English person thinks, " Why didn't he send the bread?" To which I answer, " Who was there to send?."

'I don't mean that I particularly like turning myself into a miller one day and a butcher the next; but that doing it as a matter of course, where there is no one else to do it, one does sometimes think it unreasonable to say, as has been said to the Bishop:--" Two thousand pounds a year you want for your Mission work! " " Yes," said the Bishop, 'c and not too much for sailing over ten thousand miles, and for educating, clothing, and feeding some forty young men!"

'I mean that conventional notions in England are preventing people from really doing half what they might do for the good of the needy.

'I don't know how this might be said to be a theory tending to revolutionise society; but I think I do know that there is a kind of religious common sense which comes in to guide people in such matters. Only, I do not think it right to admit that plea for not doing more in the way of almsgiving which is founded upon the assumption that first of all a certain position in society must be kept up, which involves certain expenditure.

'A barrister is living comfortably on 800 l a year, or a clergyman in his living of 400 l. The professional income of the one increases, and a fatter living is given to the other, or some money is left them. What do they do? Instantly start a carriage, another servant, put the jack-of-all-trades into a livery, turn the buttons into a flunkey, and the village girl into a ladies' maid! Is this really right? They were well enough before. Why not use the surplus for some better purpose?

'I imagine that we, the clergy, are chiefly to blame, for not only not protesting against, but most contentedly acquiescing in such a state of things. You ask now for something really demanding a sacrifice. "I can't afford it." "What, not to rescue that village from starvation? not to enable that good man to preach the Gospel to people only accessible by means of such an outlay on his vessel, &c.? Give up your carriage, your opera box; don't have so many grand balls, &c." Oh no! it is all a corban to the genius of society.

'Now, is this Scriptural or not, my dear father? I don't mean that any individual is justified in dictating to his neighbour, still less in condemning him. But are not these the general principles of religion and morality in the Bible? There are duties to society: but a good man will take serious counsel as to what they are, and how far they may be militating against higher and holier claims.

'August 24.--Why I wrote all this, my dearest father, I hardly know, only I feel sure that unless men at home can, by taking real pains to think about it, realise the peculiar circumstances of colonial life, they will never understand any one of us.

'I have written Fan a note in which I said something about my few effects if I should die.

'One thing I should like to say to you, not as venturing to do more than let you be in full possession of my own mind on the matter. Should I die before you die, would it be wrong for me to say, " Make the Melanesian Mission my heir "?

'It may be according to the view which generally obtains that the other three should then divide my share. But now I would take what may seem the hard view of which I have been writing, and say, " They have enough to maintain them happily and comfortably." The Mission Avork without such a bequest will be much endangered. I feel sure that they would wish it to be so, for, of course, you know that this large sum of which you write will be, if I survive you, regarded simply as a bequest to the Mission in which I have a life interest, and the interest of which, in the main, would be spent on the Mission..

'But I only say plainly, without any reserve, what I have thought about it; not for one moment putting up my opinion against yours, of course, in case you take a contrary view.

'We sail, I hope, to-morrow, but the Bishop is more busy than ever.

'Again, my dearest Father,

'Your loving and dutiful Son,

'J. C. PATTESON.'

The history of this voyage was, as usual, given in a long letter for the Feniton fireside; but there was a parallel journal alt-o, kept for the Bishop of Wellington, which is more condensed, and, therefore, better for quotation.

The manner in which the interest in, and connection with all English friends and relations was kept up is difficult to convey, though it was a very loveable part of the character. Little comments of condolence or congratulation, and messages of loving remembrance to persons mentioned by playful names, would only be troublesome to the reader; but it must be taken for granted that every reply to a home packet was full of these evidences that the black children on a thousand isles had by no means driven the cousins and friends of youth from a heart that was enlarged to have tenderness for all.

'Lat. 9° 29' S.; Long. 163° S.E. " Southern Cross:" October 9, 1859.

'My dear Bishop,--We are on our way from Uleawa to the Santa Cruz group, having visited the Loyalty Islands, Southern New Hebrides, Banks Island (2), and Solomon Islands.

'The Bishop so planned the voyage as to run down the wind quickly to the Solomon Islands, and do the real work coming home; not, as usual, beating up in the open water between the Santa Cruz archipelago, Banks Islands and New Hebrides to the east, and New Caledonia to the west. We are thus able to visit Vanua Lava on the way out and home also; and as we meant to make the Banks Islands the great point this voyage, that was, of course, great gain.

'We touched at Norfolk Island. . . . Going on to Nengone we found everybody away at the distant yam grounds, and could not wait to see them.

'At Lifu, the first thing that shocked us was John's appearance: one of those fatal glandular swellings has already produced a great change in him. He looked sallow and weak, and I fear ut sit vitalis. He spoke to me very calmly about his illness, which he thinks is unto death, and I did not contradict him.

'We had much private talk together. He is a fine fellow and, I believe, a sincere Christian man. Then came the applications to us not to desert them, and letters enumerating all the villages of Lifu almost without exception, and entreating us to suffer them to be connected with us, and we had to answer that already two missionaries from the L. M. S. are on their way from Sydney to Lifu, and that it would do harm to have two rival systems on the island. They acquiesced but not heartily, and it was a sad affair altogether, all parties unhappy and dissatisfied, and yet unable to solve the difficulty. Then came a talk with Angadhohua, John's half-brother, the real chief. The poor lad feels now what a terrible thing it will be for him and his people if they should lose John. Nothing can be nicer than his way of talking: "I know you don't think me firm enough, and that I am easily led by others. What am I to do if John dies? We all respect him. He has been taught so much, and people all listen to him." I gave him the best advice that I could and longed to be able to do something for him and his people. It was, however, a comfort to leave with them St. Mark, Scripture books, &c.

'We called at Tanna, to see poor Mr. Paton, who lost his wife last April. He is living on there quite alone, and has already lived down the first angry opposition of some of the people, and the unkind treatment that he received from men and women alike who mocked him because of his wife's death, &c. He has had much fever and looked very ill, but his heart was in his work; and the Bishop said he seemed to be one of the weak things which God hath chosen. I know he made me feel pretty well ashamed of myself.

'Next day we spent a few hours with Mr. and Mrs. Gordon at Erromango. He has a small house on the high table-land overlooking Dillon's Bay, and certainly is exposed to winds which may, for aught I know, rival those of Wellington notoriety. The situation is, however, far preferable in the summer to that on the beach, which is seldom free from malaria and ague.

'Then we sailed to the great bay of Pango, landed at Fate a fellow who had come to the Bishop in New Zealand for a passage, and in the afternoon sailed away through "the Pool" (the landlocked space between Mallicolo and Espiritu Santo to the west; Aspee, Ambrym, Whitsuntide, Aurora to the east), where for eighty miles the water is always smooth, the wind always steady, the scenery always lovely, and where, on this occasion, the volcano was bright.

'Being nearly becalmed to the south-east of Leper's Isle, the Bishop gave me the choice of a visit to Whitsuntide or Leper's Island. I voted for the latter, and delighted we were to renew an acquaintance made two years ago, and not since kept up, with these specially nice people. We were recognised at once, but we have a very small vocabulary.

'The sea was running heavily into the bay, but it is sand there and not much rock on the beach, and we had a jolly swim ashore. Then we bought a few yams, which the surf did not permit us to get to the boat, and had a very pleasant visit; for, as we sat among them, words came into one's head, or were caught from their mouth, and at the end of twenty minutes we were getting on a little. The old chief took me by the hand and led me aside to the spot where the ladies were assembled, and divining no doubt that I was a bachelor, politely offered me his daughter, and his protection, &c., if I would live among them.

'I missed seeing the Bishop knocked clean over by the breakers as he was swimming off to the boat; I was still talking to the people, with my back to the sea, and only saw him. staggering to his feet again. Thinking to myself that if he was knocked over, I had better look out, I awaited a "smooth" and swam out comfortably.

'The next morning (Sunday) at ten, we dropped anchor in Port Patteson, the harbour which you know the Bishop would call after my father. The first person who came off to us was Sarawia, my old Lifu pupil, from this island! Then came a good many men. I told them there would be no going ashore and no trading till the next day. Palemana, your friend Matawathki, &c., were at church, all dressed and well-behaved. What nice orderly people they are, to be sure!

'The next day we bought lots of yams, and gave away seeds and fruit-trees, or rather planted them; and looked for a place for a station, and fixed at last on the rising-ground which forms the east side of the harbour, and the Bishop, arming himself with an axe, led a party to clear the bush, which was very thick. They made a fair path through in one afternoon to the top, and a healthy place might be found now with little trouble to return to at night from the schools, &c. in the village below, and so shirk the malaria.

'But the next day, as I had anticipated, rather changed his intentions as to the principal station being formed at Vanua Lava. We landed at Sugar Loaf Island, and with something of pride I showed off to him the beauties of the villages where I slept in May last--the dry soil, the spring of water, the wondrous fertility, the large and remarkably intelligent, well-looking population, the great banyan tree, twenty-seven paces round--and at once he said, "This is such a place as I have seen nowhere else for our purpose."

'The Bishop had seen this island before I was with him, during one of the "Border Maid's" voyages, and knew the people, of course, but had not happened to have walked in shore at all, and so the exceeding beauty and fitness of the island for a Mission station had not become so apparent to him. We know of no place where there seems to be such an unusual combination of everything that can be desired, humanly speaking, for such an institution. So that is settled (D.V.) that next winter I should be here, if alive and well; and that the Banks Islands should be regarded as the central point of the Mission.

'Such boys! Bright-eyed, merry fellows, many really handsome; of that reddish yellow tinge of colour which betokens affinity with Polynesian races, as their language also testifies. The majority of the people were pleasing in their appearance and manner. Well, all this was very hopeful, and we went off very happy, taking Eumau, the boy who first met us at Port Patteson when we found it-out, and old Wompas (who was with me at Lifu), and another from Mota, to see the Northern Islands.

'I think our work is more likely now to revolve upon a fixed centre--Sugar Loaf Island in the Banks group--that we shall make the occupation of the group the first ohject, and do all with reference to that as the necessary part of the work to be attended to first. In the choice of scholars, e.g., we have considered whether we should not limit our selection to such as might pass the next winter with me at Sugar Loaf Island, and so that the vessel need not run down to leeward of it. Solomon Islands are the extreme verge. In the East Island, where there would be ,merely a question of nothing or something, we may take very young men who would perhaps not be easy to keep out of harm at Sugar Loaf, because there will be no difficulty about returning them to their homes. .....

'November 11th.--We found in the Santa Cruz group that the news of Captain Front's and his two men's death in Vanikoro, and (as we suppose) the news of the "Cordelia" having been at that island to inquire into the matter, had made the people anxious, uneasy, noisy, and rather rude. That poor man went to make a station at Vanikoro in the usual way, taking- three poor New Caledonian women with him. The Vanikoro people killed the three English and took away the women.

'"We did not land at Sta. Cruz, but we had a more pleasant intercourse than heretofore with thirty or forty canoes' crews.

'Timelin Island we ascertained to be identical with Nukapu, an old familiar place whose latitude we had not ascertained correctly before. The small reef (Polynesian) islands did not give us so good a reception as last year. though there was no unfriendliness. The news about Vanikoro had made them suspicious of visits from white men. But they will be all right by next time. ....

'We saw a pleasant party at Bligh Island, brought away one young man from that island, and two lads belonging to a neighbouring small island called Eowa. The next day we watered on the north side of Vanua Lava, and in the evening went across to Santa Maria. Here we landed on the next day among two hundred or more people, shy and noisy. We bought a few yams, and I detected some young fellows stealing from our little heap I would not overlook this, but the noticing it made them

more suspicious that we meant to hurt them. As the

Bishop and I, after some twenty minutes, turned to rejoin the boat, the whole crowd bolted like a shot right and left into the bush. Evidently they must have had some trading crew tire a parting shot in mere wantonness at them from their boat. I expected some arrows to be shot at us; but they did not shoot any.

'The same evening (Saturday) we stood across the passage with a brisk breeze, and took up our party, consisting of five and including Sarawia and four others anciently noted as promising in appearance. ....

'We reached Mota (Sugar Loaf Island) in time to leave me for a night's visit to the people. I had time before the boat called next day at noon to see five or six of their villages. People quite accustomed to expect me--all most friendly, apparently pleased to be told that I would stop with them in the winter. Seven scholars joined us here. ....

'At Mai, I slept in the house of Petere and Laure. Things are promising. It is quite ready for a missionary. We brought away Moto, Pepeu, and the two young boys who were with me at Lifu, and very many wished to come.

'Thence we had a very long passage to Lifu. John Cho is, I am thankful to say, very much better. The two men from the London Missionary Society are on the island. . . The Lifu people tell me that in the north of the island many are accepting the teaching of the two French priests. William Martin Tahia and Chakham, a principal chief and old scholar, are with us.

'At Nengone, Wadrokala, George Simeona, and Harper Malo have come away for good. . . . We number thirty-nine Melanesians. . . . This is a long letter which will try your patience.

'Always, my dear Bishop,

'Affectionately yours,

'J. C. PATTESON.'

Another long letter was written during this voyage to Mr. Edward Coleridge, a great portion of it on the expediency of the islands being taken under British protection, also much respecting the Church of New Zealand, which is scarcely relevant to the immediate subject, and only at the end is there anything more personal: --

'The last accounts of my father were unusually good, but I well know what news may be awaiting our return from a voyage whether long or short, and I try to be ready for any news; yet I suppose that I cannot at all realize what it would be. It makes some difference when the idea of meeting again in this world has been relinquished for now four and a half years, yet it is all very well to wait or think about it! I was not so upset by dear Uncle James's death as I should no doubt have been had I enjoyed the prospect of frequently seeing him. Somehow, when all ideas of time and space are annihilated by death, one must think about such separations in a religious way: for separations in any other sense to us here, from people in England, have already taken place. I must except, however, the loving wise letters, and the power of realising more clearly perhaps the occupations of those still in the body--their accustomed places and duties; though I suppose we can tell quite enough about all this in the case of those who have died in the true faith of Christ to know, at all events, that we are brought and united to them whenever we think or do anything religiously. I often think that this is well brought out in the "Heir of Redclyffe "--the loss of " the bright outside," the life and energy and vigour, and all the companionable and sociable qualities, contrasted with the power of thinking oneself into the inner spiritual relations that exist between the worlds visible and invisible.

'All this effort is much diminished in our case. There is no very great present loss; at least, it is not so sensibly felt by a great deal as it would be if we missed some one with whom we lived up to the time of his death. It is much easier to think of them as they are than it could be in the case of persons who remember so vividly what they so lately were; and this is why, I suppose, the news of Uncle James's death seemed to affect me so much less than I should have expected, and it may be so again: certain it is that I loved him dearly, and that I miss his letters very much indeed; but I think that the point I felt most about him was the sad affliction to his family, and the great loss to my dear father, who had of late seen more than ever of him.'

From the home letter I only quote from the reflections so regularly inspired by the anniversary of the 28th of November.

After lamenting that it was difficult to realise those scenes in his mother's illness which he and his brother only knew from narration, Patteson adds:--

'The memory of those days would perhaps have been more precious to me if I had witnessed more with my own eyes. And yet of course it really mattered nothing at all, because the lesson of her life does not depend on an acquaintance with a few days of it; and what I saw when I was there I never have forgotten, and hope that I never may forget.

'And indeed I feel now with regard to you, my dear Father, that I have not learned to know you better while I was with you than I do now. I think that in some ways I enter more almost into your mind and thought, or that I fancy I do so: just as the present possession of anything so often prevents our really taking pains to learn all about it. We rest content with the superficial knowledge of that which is most easily perceived and recognised in it. ...

'I think I know from your letters, and from the fact of my absence from you making me think more about you, as much about you as those present. I very much enjoy a letter from Joan, which gives me a kind of tableau vivant of you all. That helps me to realize the home life; so do the photographs, they help in the same way. But your letters, and the fact that I think so much about them, and about you, are my real helps.'

The voyage ended on the 7th of December. It was the last made under the guidance of the Bishop of New Zealand, and, alas! the last return of the first 'Southern Cross.'