for you to spare me to come away than for me to come away.  You must think, like David, “I will not offer unto the Lord my God of that which doth cost me nothing.”  If you willingly give Him what you prize most, however worthless the gift may be, He will prize it for the willingness with which it is given.  If it had been of my own choosing that I came away, I should often blame myself for having made a selfish choice in not taking harder and more irksome work nearer home, but it came to me without choosing.  I can only be thankful that God has been so good to me.’

Well might the Bishop write to the father, ’I thank you in my heart for Joe’s promise.’

How exactly his own spirit, in simple, unconscious self-abnegation and thorough devotion to the work.  How it chimes in with this, written on the self-same morning to the Bishop of Lichfield:-

’St. Matthias Day, 6.45 A.M., 1869.

My dear Bishop,—­You do not doubt that I think continually of you, yet I like you to have a line from me to-day.  We are just going into Chapel, altering our usual service to-day that we may receive the Holy Communion with special remembrance of my Consecration and special prayer for a blessing on the Mission.  There is much to be thankful for indeed, much also that may well make the retrospect of the last eight years a somewhat sad and painful one as far as I am myself concerned.  It does seem wonderful that good on the whole is done.  But everything is wonderful and full of mystery....

’It is rather mean of me, I fear, to get out of nearly all troubles by being here.  Yet it seems to me very clear that the special work of the Mission is carried on more conveniently (one doesn’t like to say more successfully) here, and my presence or absence is of no consequence when general questions are under discussion....

’Your very affectionate

‘J.  C. Patteson.’

The same mail brought a letter to Miss Mackenzie, with much valuable matter on Mission work:-

’February 26, 1869.

’Dear Miss Mackenzie,—­I have just read your letter to me of April 1867, which I acknowledged, rather than answered, long ago.

’I can’t answer it as it deserves to be answered now.  I think I have already written about thirty-five letters to go by this mail, and my usual work seldom leaves me a spare hour.

’But I am truly thankful for the hopes that seem to show themselves through the mists, in places where all Christian men must feel so strong an interest.  I do hope to hear that the new Bishopric may soon be founded, on which Mr. Robertson and you and others have so set your hearts.  That good man!  I often think of him, and hope soon to send him, through you, £10 from our Melanesian offertory.

’You know we have, thank God, thirty-nine baptized Melanesians here, of whom fifteen are communicants, and one, George Sarawia, a clergyman.  He was ordained on December 20.