It is perhaps cowardly to say that I am thankful that I am not a clergyman in England.  I am not the man even in a small parish to stand up and fight against so many many-headed monsters.  I should give in, and shirk the contest.  The more I pray that you may have strength to endure it.  I don’t think I was ever pugnacious in the way of controversy; and I am very very thankful to be out of it.’

Indeed, the tone of the references to Church matters at home had become increasingly cautious; and one long letter to Mrs. Martyn he actually tore up, lest it should do harm.  His feeling more and more was to wish for patience and forbearance, and to deprecate violent words or hasty actions—­looking from his hermit life upon all the present distress more as a phase of Church history that would develop into some form of good, and perhaps hardly sensible of the urgency of the struggle and defence.  For peace and shelter from the strife of tongues was surely one of the compensating blessings conferred on him.  But, as all his companions agree, he was never the same man again after his illness.  There was a lower level of spirits and of energy, a sensitiveness to annoyances, and an indisposition to active exertion, which distressed him.

His day began as early as ever, and was mapped out as before, for classes of all kinds, Hebrew and reading; but he seldom left his room, except for Chapel and meals, being unable to take much out-door exercise.  He did not see so much of his elder scholars as before, chiefly because the very large number of newer pupils made it necessary to employ them more constantly; but he never failed to give each of them some instruction for a short time every day, though with more effort, for indeed almost everything had become a burthen to him.  Mr. Codrington’s photograph taken at this time shows how much changed and aged he had become.  The quiet in which he now lived resulted in much letter-writing, taking up correspondences that had slumbered in more busy times, as his mind flew back to old friends:  though, indeed, the letters given in the preceding Memoir must not be taken by any means to represent the numbers he wrote.  When he speaks of sending thirty-five by one mail, perhaps only one or two have come into my hands; and of those only such portions are of course taken as illustrate his life, work, character, and opinions without trenching on the reserve due to survivors.  Thus multitudes of affectionate letters, participating in the joys and sorrows of his brother, his cousins and friends, can necessarily find no place here; though the idea of his character is hardly complete without direct evidence of the unbroken or more truly increasing sympathy he had with those whom he had not met for sixteen years, and his love for his brother’s wife and children whom he had never seen.

Soon after his return to Norfolk Island came a packet with a three months’ accumulation of home despatches.  He read and replied in his old conversational way, with occasionally a revelation of his deep inner self:—­