’"Well.”

’"Last night—­no, the night before I received the Lord’s Supper, I saw a man standing there, a tanum liana (a man of rank, or authority).  He said Your breath is bad, I will give you a new breath.’”

’"Yes.”

’"I thought it meant, I will give you a new life.  I thought it must be Jesus.”

’He was weak, but not wandering.  “Yes, better to die here with a bright heart than to live in my old home with a dark one.”

’January 28th.—­The nine young Christians were baptized on Sunday evening; a very touching and solemn service it was, very full of comfort.  It may be that now, in full swing of work, I am too sanguine, but I try to be sober-minded, thankful, and hopeful.  I try, I say—­it is not easy.

’God bless you, my dear Cousin, and as I pray for you, so I know you pray for us.

’Your affectionate Cousin,

‘J.  C. Patteson.’

A long letter to James Patteson, which was begun a few days later, goes into the man’s retrospect of the boy’s career:—­

’March 3rd.—­I think often of your boys.  Jack, in two or three years, will be old enough for school, and I suppose it must make you anxious sometimes.  I look back on my early days, and see so much, so very much to regret and grieve over, such loss of opportunities, idleness, &c., that I think much of the way to make lessons attractive to boys and girls.  I think a good deal may be done simply by the lessons being given by the persons the children love most, and hence (where it can be done) the mother first, and the father too (if he can) are the best people.  They know the ways of the child, they can take it at the right times.  Of course, at first it is the memory, not the reasoning power, that must be brought into exercise.  Young children must learn by heart, learn miles which they can’t understand, or understand but very imperfectly.  I think I forget this sometimes, and talk to my young Melanesians as I should to older persons.  But I feel almost sure that children can follow a simple, lively account of the meaning and reasons of things much more than one is apt to fancy.  And I don’t know how anything can be really learnt that is not understood.  A great secret of success here is an easy and accurate use of illustration—­parabolic teaching.

’Every day of my life I groan over the sad loss I daily experience in not having been grounded properly in Latin and Greek.  I have gone on with my education in these things more than many persons, but I can never be a good scholar; I don’t know what I would not give to have been well taught as a boy.  And then at Eton, any little taste one might have had for languages, &c., was never called out.