’My dear Principal,—­You won’t remember my name, and it is not likely that you can know anything about me, but I must write you a line and thank you for writing your two books (for I have but two) on “Studies on Poetry and Philosophy,” and “Religion and Culture.”

’The “Moral Dynamic " and the latter book are indeed the very books I have longed to see; books that one can put with confidence and satisfaction into the hands of men, young and old, in these stirring and dangerous times.

’Then it did me good to be recalled to old scenes and to dream of old faces.

’I was almost a freshman when you came up to keep your M.A. term; and as I knew some of the men you knew, you kindly, as I well remember, gave me the benefit of it.  As John Coleridge’s cousin and the acquaintance of John Keate, Cumin, Palmer, and dear James Eiddell, I came to know men whom otherwise I could not have known, and of these how many there still are that I have thought of and cared for ever since!

’You must have thought of Riddell, dear James Riddell, when you wrote the words in p. 76 of your book on “Religion and Culture”:  “We have known such.”  Yes, there was indeed about him a beauty of character that is very very rare.  Sellar is in the north somewhere, I think I have seen Essays by him on Lucretius.

’I think that he is Professor at some University.  I am ashamed to know so little about him.  Should you see him, pray remember me most kindly to him.  As year after year passes on, it is very pleasant to think there are men on the other side of the world that I can with a certainty count upon as friends.

’I find it difficult to read much of what is worth reading nowadays, and I have little taste for magazines, &c., I confess.

’But I know enough of what is working in men’s minds in Europe to be heartily thankful for such thoughtful wholesome teaching as yours.

’Indeed, you are doing a good work, and I pray God it may be abundantly blessed.

’I remain, my dear Friend,

’Very sincerely yours,

‘J.  C. Patteson.’

This is the last letter apparently finished and signed!

To the Bishop of Lichfield the long journal-letter says:—­

’Tenakulu (the volcano) was fine last night, but not so fine as on that night we saw it together.  But it was very solemn to look at it, and think how puny all man’s works are in comparison with this little volcano.  What is all the bombardment of Paris to those masses of fire and hundreds of tons of rock cast out into the sea?  “If He do but touch the hills, they shall smoke.”

’And now what will the next few days bring forth?  It may be God’s will that the opening for the Gospel may be given to us now.  Sometimes I feel as if I were almost too importunate in my longings for some beginning here; and I try not to be impatient, and to wait His good time, knowing that it will come when it is the fulness of time.  Then, again, I am tempted to think, “If not soon, if not now, the trading vessels will make it almost impossible, as men think, to obtain any opening here.”  But I am on the whole hopeful, though sometimes faint-hearted.