Even when the tidings came in the brief uncircumstantial telegram, there were none of those who loved and revered him who did not feel that such was the death he always looked for, and that he had willingly given his life.  There was peace in the thought even while hearts trembled with dread of hearing of accompanying horrors; and when the full story arrived, showing how far more painless his death had been than had he lived on to suffer from his broken health, and how wonderfully the unconscious heathen had marked him with emblems so sacred in our eyes, there was thankfulness and joy even to the bereaved at home.

The sweet calm smile preached peace to the mourners who had lost his guiding spirit, but they could not look on it long.  The next morning, St. Matthew’s Day, the body of John Coleridge Patteson was committed to the waters of the Pacific, his ‘son after the faith,’ Joseph Atkin, reading the Burial Service.

Mr. Atkin afterwards wrote to his mother.  He had written to his father the day before; but the substance of his letter has been given in the narrative:—­

’September 21, 1871.

’My dear Mother,—­We have had a terrible loss, such a blow that we cannot at all realise it.  Our Bishop is dead; killed by the natives at Nukapu yesterday.  We got the body, and buried it this morning.  He was alone on shore, and none of us saw it done.  We were attacked in the boat too, and Stephen so badly wounded that I am afraid there is small hope of his recovery.  John and I have arrow wounds, but not severe.  Our poor boys seem quite awe-stricken.  Captain Jacobs is very much cut up.  Brooke, although not at all well, has quite devoted himself to the wounded, and so has less time to think about it all.

’It would only be selfish to wish him back.  He has gone to his rest, dying, as he lived, in his Master’s service.

It seems a shocking way to die; but I can say from experience that it is far more to hear of than to suffer.  In whatever way so peaceful a life as his is ended, his end is peace.  There was no sign of fear or pain on his face—­just the look that he used to have when asleep, patient and a little wearied.  “What a stroke his death will be to hundreds!” What his Mission will do without him, God only knows Who has taken him away.  His ways are not as our ways.  Seeing people taken away, when, as we think, they are almost necessary to do God’s work on earth, makes one think that we often think and talk too much about Christian work.  What God requires is Christian men.  He does not need the work, only gives it to form or perfect the character of the men whom He sends to do it.

’Stephen is in great pain at times to-night; one of the arrows seems to have entered his lungs, and it is broken in, too deep to be got out.  John is wounded in the right shoulder, I in the left.  We are both maimed for the time; but, if it were not for the fear of poison, the wounds would not be worth noticing.  I do not expect any bad consequences, but they are possible.  What would make me cling to life more than anything else is the thought of you at home; but if it be God’s will that I am to die, I know He will enable you to bear it, and bring good for you out of it.